tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81963579580392571382024-03-21T14:31:59.067-07:00Why Christians Will Suffer Great Tribulation - Joe OrtizJoe Ortiz' WHY CHRISTIANS WILL SUFFER GREAT TRIBULATION blog. "Every word of God is pure. He is a shield unto them that put their trust in him. 6 Add thou not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar, (Proverbs 30:5-6)."
Through the cross, and the outpouring of power gifts from the Holy Spirit, God created "One New Man" in Christ. Believing Gentiles have been joined with the Commonwealth of Israel. We do not believe in replacement theology. Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.comBlogger177125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-29906831801828603402016-08-08T08:31:00.000-07:002016-08-11T07:34:59.570-07:00THERE ARE NO OTHER LIFE FORMS IN THE UNIVERSE EXCEPT HUMAN BEINGS! GOD CREATED MAN IN HIS IMAGE! ALL OTHER EXTRATERRESTRIAL ENTITIES ARE DEMONIC!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">DEMONICS</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: large;">As far as there being any other life form in the universe besides human beings, such as "extraterrestrials" from other planets, there are none! <br /><br />This increasing narrative that there exists other humanoids in the universe, who supposedly visited earth and have been guiding "humans" in an evolutionary journey, is sheer nonsense and scurrilous propaganda by Pharisaical cabbalists. All of God's creatures are formed in His own image! The image above is demonic, plain and simple!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">There is an obvious accelerating preoccupation with UFO's and extraterrestrials, especially in the last 10 to 15 years, speedingly out of control more so in the last couple of years. You can't turn on your TV set or turn on the Internet where were are not being inundated by this phenomenon and space cadet lore. Conspiracy experts claim all of this is a planned special event designed to usher in the most evil personage in history, and thereby culminating in the revelation of the antichrist.<br /><br />One of the most well known protagonists of this meme is Kevin Burn's<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d4d4d; font-size: large; line-height: 22.5px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Prometheus Entertainment</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d4d4d; font-size: large; line-height: 22.5px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #4d4d4d; font-size: large; line-height: 22.5px;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">com</span><span style="font-family: "roboto" , sans-serif;">pany, which produces the "Ancient Aliens" series for the History Channel and other cable networks. Basically, the series promote the hypothesis that Eric Van </span>Daniken<span style="font-family: "roboto" , sans-serif;"> presented in his book, "The Chariots of the Gods", over forty years ago, that mankind is a seed planted by extraterrestrials, and that UFO sightings are in reality the extraterrestrials visiting earth to see how their crop is growing. Obviously the main goal of this sordid underlying meme is that God is not the creator of mankind.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT0WDs_dwUHWJhndY6tlyc6bSuMpvaUkAus039CUf561m4kMXyXy3gIZ54YEuPDgiUgRESaq-nU4b8UNzY0wUPnN91cYHII0v6zuVLRL34JalyKPkdyaCSJEpHFKyWoh4RHGyBOiiuCgE/s1600/Alien.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT0WDs_dwUHWJhndY6tlyc6bSuMpvaUkAus039CUf561m4kMXyXy3gIZ54YEuPDgiUgRESaq-nU4b8UNzY0wUPnN91cYHII0v6zuVLRL34JalyKPkdyaCSJEpHFKyWoh4RHGyBOiiuCgE/s320/Alien.jpeg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">One of the most glaring proofs of this sinister agenda is the re-introduction of a myriad of so-called "extraterrestrial" images that have been recorded (or carved with precise diamond studded chisels by neanderthals) throughout history inside caves and mountains and gigantic granite rocks all over this world. Those ghoulish images of monsters and other anomalies have been taken to new heights by the clever and artistic minions who have invented electronic wizardry to produce these characters for the Hollywood elite propaganda machines. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimp_X9fk9IODJ1V4HyH8hj8jmYrRSGMKDQEJYpNYWdT85hk7HVJTv2LIO1EuOx5v-GXRn3P3z-SpxRRK6IFO3reoEl19S5EkJrXJ95S5wcj3ouS_HJH2KPsXueri-yqHyOUQnwofRpm30/s1600/Guido_Reni_031.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimp_X9fk9IODJ1V4HyH8hj8jmYrRSGMKDQEJYpNYWdT85hk7HVJTv2LIO1EuOx5v-GXRn3P3z-SpxRRK6IFO3reoEl19S5EkJrXJ95S5wcj3ouS_HJH2KPsXueri-yqHyOUQnwofRpm30/s320/Guido_Reni_031.jpg" width="214" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">There are many extraterrestrials out there, of two varieties; they are the good angels and the bad angels (or demons). While I can never say that I have seen an angel, the Bible makes mention of them in many scripture of individual entities who spoke to (and that were instantly recognized by) Abraham, Lot, Daniel, and other Bible characters. Their mention in scripture did not contain any negative portraits. They just appeared like any other men (to them), but they were known to be angels. We are also told in Hebrews 13:2, "<a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/3361.htm">Do not</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/1950.htm">neglect</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/5381.htm">to show hospitality to strangers,</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/1063.htm">for</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/1223.htm">by so doing</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/5100.htm">some people</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/3579.htm">have entertained</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/32.htm">angels</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/2990.htm"><span style="color: blue;">without knowing it.</span></a>" Obviously, God's good and faithful) messengers reside among us with good intentions. But those extraterrestrials that occupy the minds and times of most people, do not necessarily have the best of intentions.<br /><br />The good ones can appear and disappear as they have throughout history, and they apparently have not looked monstrous or ghoulish as media portray the bad angels. The good ones are God's messengers who guide and protect His children.The bad angels (Satan's family) are those who left their holy status to co-habitat with earthly woman, as we read in Jude 1:6, "And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day." Their offspring are the demonic entities we struggle with on a daily basis, those spoken of in Ephesians 6:12, "<a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/3754.htm">For</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/1473.htm">our</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/3823.htm">struggle</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/1510.htm">is</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/3756.htm">not</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/4314.htm">against</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/4561.htm">flesh</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/2532.htm">and</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/129.htm">blood,</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/235.htm">but</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/4314.htm">against</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/3588.htm">the</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/746.htm">rulers,</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/4314.htm">against</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/3588.htm">the</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/1849.htm">authorities,</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/4314.htm">against</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/3588.htm">the</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/2888.htm">powers</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/3588.htm">of</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/3778.htm">this world's</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/4655.htm">darkness,</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/4314.htm">and against</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/3588.htm">the</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/4152.htm">spiritual forces</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/4189.htm">of evil</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/1722.htm">in</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/3588.htm">the</a> <a href="http://biblehub.com/greek/2032.htm">heavenly realms.</a>"</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The good angels wo</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">uld obviously look just like us human beings because man was created and formed in the image of God. Bad angels were created beautiful at the outset; however, all that changed for them when they bolted Heaven to dwell and frolic among God's feminine species. Therefore, those we call the greys or other monster-looking hybrids out there (whom ancient alien theorists claim come from other planets or dimensions) can be nothing else but demons. Once they left their former estate, they must have lost all of their beauty because none of these so-called gods in history has presented Mayans and the rest of the human culture with beautiful beings; they all appear distorted from a human perspective, looking more like serpents and half-human and half animal anomalies.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br />Those sons (little gods) of Satan have been trying to create humanoids like God did in the beginning but they can't duplicate His creation. Satan (in competition with God) has been trying to duplicate the creative powers of God, but he keeps failing and falling on his pitchfork. This could be one of the reasons why all UFO kidnappings that have been recorded throughout history, report accounts where abductees were placed on a table and subjected to a myriad of tests, being probed and experimented on, by extracting semen and ovaries from their bodies in failed attempts to duplicate God's creation process. <br /><br />All of these extraterrestrial appearances to early cultures such as Mayans have presented themselves as gods from other planets who ostensibly created them (and all mankind), helping them build pyramids and ancient cities in Peru, etc and infused their cultures with wisdom and knowledge to achieve greatness in sciences and technologies that mankind did not discover until the last three hundred years. These gullible humans of yesteryear were not an advanced society (as posited by ancient alien theorists); but, rather were pawns of demonic chicanery, manipulation and downright subterfuge. But that's the biggest lie ever perpetrated on mankind, a diabolical lie; which is Satan's chief characteristic trait, he the father of lies ( see. </span><span style="font-size: large;">…43 Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you are unable to accept My message. 44You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out his desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, refusing to uphold the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, because he is a liar and the father of lies.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">As can be attested to by propaganda we see in the myriad of television programs (like the popular "Ancient Aliens" series on the History Channel), Satan has launched the most sophisticated plan in human history to confuse various native cultures throughout the world and build upon their theories that it was they that created mankind and not God. They have appeared as gods to those early cultures in the form of hybrid entities (the results of their failed experiments to create mankind as God did) but they have failed! Those demons used obvious technological abilities they possess to build (or help erect) large megaliths throughout the world (such as Stonehenge, Pyramid of Giza) et al, just as they have injected flying saucers into the narrative to scare and perplex mankind for centuries. These so-called (bad) extraterrestrials obviously have the same spaceship technology by God (although God's arsenal is far superior), which is not so far-fetched as we read in Ezekiel's wheel within a wheel analogy of what could be a flying saucer he is describing in Ezekiel 1:16. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">The pillar of fire described in the book of Ezekiel also suggests that may well be the case as we read about God possibly leading the Israelites on their journey in Exodus 13;21-22, "The Lord was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on the way, and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people." <br /><br />Does God drive a flying saucer? Who truly knows. One thing is for sure; He is not an extraterrestrial from another planet, as ancient alien theorists suggest.<br /><br />Those Satanic beings obviously have various powers to shape themselves into other worldly beings, which has forced them to continue their ruse that they are entities from other planets, to the exclusion that God is the creator of all things. Those demons left their former habitation and can no longer go back to their stellar angelic bodies that God created specifically for them. Therefore they will use whatever remaining powers to confuse mankind in an attempt for it to deny God and end up in the Lake of Fire that Satan and his minions are destined for.<br /><br />A Christian friend of mine told me that our universe is so vast that it is inconceivable that humans are the only living life form; he even said we should not deny the glory of God of having the ability to create such creatures as other life forms. I agree! But for what purpose? I asked him what would be the purpose to create another form of life besides the human beings He already created? If those so-called extraterrestrials are really from other planets, who created them and for what purpose? Would they not come under the same ruler ship of God, the one and only creator of life itself? Could our God have created them to tease us humans that He has other sheep out there, which has been posited by many theorists? God does not toy with His creation. Our journey is to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, not dwell on vicarious theories that do nothing worthwhile other than to uplift our respective egos.</span></div>
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No dear friends, those ghoulish entities that we saw in the movie, "Independence Day" are not from other planets, they are demons who are trying to drive a wedge between God and His creation. They have no power over us. Jesus Christ defeated them at the cross. Therefore, whether they will soon be returning and appearing in Nephilim form, or as Transhumanists, or as robots; fear not for they are mere demonic creatures that have no power over you and me!<br /><br />For more information about the author and his books, blogs and web sites, please click on <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=1GWFubrlDRNzsarAnets9HsgL11gYgqXkiPYUPsA4oU0&pli=1#"><span style="color: blue;">Joe Ortiz.</span></a></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-75927067606406656812016-07-04T06:30:00.001-07:002016-07-04T06:30:23.708-07:00A Baptist Perspective: Southern Baptist Heresy: Rapture and Premillennial Dispensationalism<a href="http://baptistperspective.brucegourley.com/2009/12/southern-baptist-heresy-rapture-and.html">A Baptist Perspective: Southern Baptist Heresy: Rapture and Premillennial Dispensationalism</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-71675996321060897252016-06-28T09:01:00.000-07:002016-06-28T09:01:53.889-07:00Spiritual Warfare is on the increase; can you discern its presence/<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (Matthew Henry gives us a good example of spiritual warfare in his commentary on Acts, Chapter 16)</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">16 Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. 17 This girl followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, "These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved." 18 She kept this up for many days. Finally Paul became so troubled that he turned around and said to the spirit, "In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!" At that moment the spirit left her. 19 When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities, (Acts 16:16-19)
Paul and his companions, though they were for some time buried in obscurity at Philippi, yet now begin to be taken notice of.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">I. <i id="yui-gen94" style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">A damsel that had a spirit of divination</i> caused them to be taken notice of, by proclaiming them to be the servants of God. Observe,</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">1. The account that is given of this damsel: She was <i id="yui-gen95" style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">pythonissa, possessed with</i> such <i id="yui-gen93" style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">a spirit</i> <i id="yui-gen67" style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">of divination</i> as that damsel was by whom the oracles of Apollo at Delphos were delivered; she was actuated by an evil spirit, that dictated ambiguous answers to those who consulted her, which served to gratify their vain desire of knowing things to come, but often deceived them. In those times of ignorance, infidelity, and idolatry, the devil, by the divine permission, thus led men captive at his will; and he could not have gained such adoration from them as he had, if he had not pretended to give oracles to them, for by both his usurpation is maintained as the god of this world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">This damsel <i id="yui-gen92" style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">brought her masters much gain by soothsaying;</i> many came to consult this witch for the discovery of robberies, the finding of things lost, and especially to be told their fortune, and none came but with the rewards of divination in their hands, according to the quality of the person and the importance of the case. Probably there were many that were thus kept for fortune-tellers, but, it should seem, this was more in repute than any of them; for, while others brought some gain, this <i style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">brought much gain to her masters,</i> being consulted more than any other.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">2. The testimony which this damsel gave to Paul and his companions: She <i style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">met them</i> in the street, as they were going to prayer, to the house of prayer, or rather to the work of prayer there, v. 16. They went thither publicly, everybody knew whither they were going, and what they were going to do. If what she did was likely to be any distraction to them, or a hindrance in their work, it is observable how subtle Satan is, that great tempter, in taking the opportunity to give us diversion when we are going about any religious exercises, to ruffle us and to put us out of temper when we need to be most composed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">When she met with them she followed them, crying, <i style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">"These men,</i> how contemptible soever they look and are looked upon, are great men, for they <i id="yui-gen69" style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">are the servants of the most high God,</i> and men that should be very welcome to us, for <i style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">they show unto us the way of salvation,</i> both the salvation that will be our happiness, and the way to it that will be our holiness.'</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Now, (1.) This witness is true; it is a comprehensive encomium on the faithful preachers of the gospel, and makes their feet beautiful, <a class="nowrap" href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Rom&c=10&v=15#s=1056015" style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; color: #39547f; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;">Romans 10:15</a>. Though they are <i style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">men subject to like</i> <i style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">passions as we are,</i>and <i style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">earthen vessels,</i> yet, [1.] "They are <i style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">the servants of the most high God;</i> they attend on him, are employed by him, and are devoted to his honour, as servants; they come to us on his errands, the message they bring is from him, and they serve the purposes and interest of his kingdom. The gods we Gentiles worship are inferior beings, therefore not gods, but these men belong to the supreme <i style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Numen, to the most high God,</i> who is over all men, over all gods, who made us all, and to whom we are all accountable. They are his servants, and therefore it is our duty to respect them, and harken to them for their Master's sake, and it is at our peril if we affront them.' [2.] "They <i id="yui-gen71" style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">show unto us the way of salvation.'</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Even the heathen had some notion of the miserable deplorable state of mankind, and their need of salvation, and it was what they made some enquiries after.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">"Now,' saith she, "these men are the men that show us what we have in vain sought for in our superstitious profitless application to our priests and oracles.' Note, God has, in the gospel of his Son, plainly shown us the way of salvation, has told us what we must do that we may be delivered from the misery to which by sin we have exposed ourselves.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">But, (2.) How came this testimony from the mouth of one that had a spirit of divination? Is Satan divided against himself? Will he cry up those whose business it is to pull him down? We may take it either, [1.] As extorted from this spirit of divination for the honour of the gospel by the power of God; as the devil was forced to say of Christ (<a class="nowrap" href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Mar&c=1&v=24#s=958024" style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; color: #39547f; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;">Mk. 1:24</a>): <i style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">I know thee who thou</i> <i id="yui-gen91" style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">art, the Holy One of God.</i></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The truth is sometimes magnified by the confession of its adversaries, in which they are witnesses against themselves. Christ would have this testimony of the damsel to rise up in judgment against those at Philippi who slighted and persecuted the apostles; though the gospel needed no such testimony, yet it shall serve to add to their commendation that the damsel whom they looked upon as an oracle in other things proclaimed the apostles God's servants. Or, [2.] As designed by the evil spirit, that subtle serpent, to the dishonour of the gospel; some think she designed hereby to gain credit to herself and her prophecies, and so to increase her master's profit by pretending to be in the interest of the apostles, who, she thought, had a growing reputation, or to curry favour with Paul, that he might not separate her and her familiar. Others think that Satan, who can transform himself into an angel of light, and can say anything to serve a turn, designed hereby to disgrace the apostles; as if these divines were of the same fraternity with their diviners, because they were witnessed to by them, and then the people might as well adhere to those they had been used to. Those that were most likely to receive the apostles' doctrine were such as were prejudiced against these spirits of divination, and therefore would, by this testimony, be prejudiced against the gospel; and, as for those who regarded these diviners, the devil thought himself sure of them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">II. Christ caused them to be taken notice of, by giving them power to cast the devil out of this damsel. She continued <i style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">many days</i> clamouring thus (v. 18); and, it should seem, Paul took no notice of her, not knowing but it might be ordered of God for the service of his cause, that she should thus witness concerning his ministers; but finding perhaps that it did them a prejudice, rather than any service, he soon silenced her, by casting the devil out of her.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">1. He was <i style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">grieved.</i> It troubled him to see the damsel made an instrument of Satan to deceive people, and to see the people imposed upon by her divinations. It was a disturbance to him to hear a sacred truth so profaned, and good words come out of such a wicked mouth with such and evil design. Perhaps they were spoken in an ironical bantering way, as ridiculing the apostles' pretensions, and mocking them, as when Christ's persecutors complimented him with <i style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">Hail, king of the Jews;</i> and then justly might Paul be grieved, as any good man's heart would be, to hear any good truth of God bawled out in the streets in a canting jeering way.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">2. He <i style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">commanded the evil spirit to</i> <i style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">come out of her. He turned</i> with a holy indignation, angry both at the flatteries and at the reproaches of <i id="yui-gen74" style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">the unclean spirit, and said, I command thee in the name of Jesus Christ to come</i> <i style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">out of her;</i> and by this he will show <i style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">that these men are the servants of the living God,</i> and are able to prove themselves so, without her testimony: her silence shall demonstrate it more than her speaking could do. Thus Paul shows <i style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">the way of salvation</i> indeed, that it is by breaking <i style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">the</i> <i id="yui-gen75" style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">power of Satan, and chaining him up, that he may not deceive the world</i> (<a class="nowrap" href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Rev&c=20&v=3#s=1187003" style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; color: #39547f; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;">Rev. 20:3</a>), and that this salvation is to be obtained <i id="yui-gen90" style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">in the name of Jesus Christ</i> only, as in his name the devil was now cast out and by no other. It was a great blessing to the country when Christ by a word cast the devil out of those in whom he frightened people and molested them <i style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">so that no man might</i> <i style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">pass by that way</i> (<a class="nowrap" href="http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Mat&c=8&v=28#s=937028" style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; color: #39547f; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: top; white-space: nowrap;">Mt. 8:28</a>); but it was a much greater kindness to the country when Paul now, in Christ's name, cast the devil out of one who deceived people and imposed upon their credulity. Power went along with the word of Christ, before which Satan could not stand, but was forced to quit his hold, and in this case it was a strong hold: <i id="yui-gen89" style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">He came out the same hour.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">III. The masters of the damsel that was dispossessed caused them to be taken notice of, by bringing them before the magistrates for doing it, and laying it to their charge as their crime. The preachers of the gospel would never have had an opportunity of speaking to the magistrates if they had not been brought before them as evil doers. Observe here,</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">1. That which provoked them was, that, the damsel being restored to herself, <i style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">her masters</i> <i id="yui-gen87" style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">saw that the hope of their gain was gone,</i> v. 19. See here what evil <i id="yui-gen88" style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">the love of money is the root</i> <i style="border: 0px solid rgb(0, 0, 0); box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: top;">of!</i> If the preaching of the gospel ruin the craft of the silversmiths (ch. 19:24), much more the craft of the soothsayers; and therefore here is a great outcry raised, when Satan's power to deceive is broken: the priests hated the gospel because it turned men from the blind service of dumb idols, and so the hope of their gains was gone. The power of Christ, which appeared in dispossessing the woman, and the great kindness done to her in delivering her out of Satan's hand, made no impression upon them when they apprehended that they should hereby lose money."</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-12645393549821162852016-06-24T21:42:00.000-07:002016-06-24T21:49:05.504-07:00Christian colleges and universities will no longer be allowed to require students attend chapel services or require them to profess a relationship with Jesus Christ. <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Democrats, LGBT activists’ sinister plan to crack down on Christian schools FILE -- If California Democrats have their way, Christian colleges and universities will no longer be allowed to require students attend chapel services or require them to profess a relationship with Jesus Christ.<br />
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Senate Bill 1146 would close a loophole that lawmakers say allows Christian universities to discriminate against students based on their gender identity, gender expression or sexual orientation.<br />
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“All students deserve to feel safe in institutions of higher education, regardless of whether they are public or private,” said Senator Ricardo Lara, the author of the legislation. “California has established strong protections for the LGBTQ community and private universities should not be able to use faith as an excuse to discriminate and avoid complying with state laws.”<br />
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The legislation has already passed the Senate and is expected to clear hurdles in the Assembly. Thus far, Lara has refused to compromise with the state’s Christian colleges and universities.<br />
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“No university should have a license to discriminate,” he said in a statement.<br />
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If the loophole is closed, it would only exempt schools that prepare students for pastoral ministry.<br />
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“It discriminates against religious colleges, said John Jackson, the president of William Jessup University. “If we don’t play ball with state — the state will attempt to drive us out of existence.”<br />
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The president of the Sacramento-based university called the proposed legislation chilling.<br />
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“The passage of this bill would destroy the foundation upon which this university was founded,” said Jackson. “Systematically discriminating against religious institutions and preventing student access and choice to Christian higher education is bad policy and will have a negative effect on the state of California.”<br />
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Lee Wilhite, vice president of university communications at Biola University, said they, too, have serious concerns with the bill.<br />
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“It functionally eliminates the religious liberty of all California faith-based universities,” he told me. “It really does infringe on how we carry out our mission.”<br />
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Like most Christian universities, Biola integrates the Bible through all of their courses — something they’ve been doing for more than 100 years.<br />
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If the loophole is closed, it could have a devastating impact on faith-based institutions.<br />
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“We would no longer be able to require a profession of faith for students,” Wichita said. “That’s something Biola requires of all incoming students.”<br />
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Schools would no longer be allowed to integrate faith throughout their teaching curriculum, he added.<br />
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Leaders at three universities I spoke to say that they would not be allowed to require mandatory chapel attendance or mandatory core units of Bible courses.<br />
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“The danger for Biola University is that it prevents us from carrying out our mission the way we have for 108 years,” Wichita said. “It would eliminate our ability to continue our mission. That’s why it has our attention.”<br />
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The legislation would also give students a right to sue if — for example -- they were offended by a prayer in a class.<br />
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Biola and William Jessup refute the notion that LGBT students are discriminated against on their campuses.<br />
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“We don’t tolerate harassment or bullying of any of our students,” Wilhite told me.<br />
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Many of the schools are working with the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities to urge Lara to amend his bill to include a religious exemption.<br />
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“If passed without amendments, the new law would also very likely disqualify students attending California Christian colleges and universities from eligibility for Cal Grants, a key state-level student aid program,” wrote Kurt Krueger, president of Concordia University Irvine.<br />
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“Sen. Lara wants to safeguard LGBT students. We want the same protection for all students, including members of the LGBT community. The bill calls for more transparency from schools about their beliefs and recourse for unfair treatment. We share his concerns about student safety, transparency and recourse. With every prospective student, we share who we are, we provide the framework for how we build community and do life together and we ask those who enroll to uphold our student standards of conduct. Right now the proposed bill would invite challenges to required chapel attendance and public and communal observation of Christian sacraments such as the Eucharist and baptisms, among other activities central to our identity.”<br />
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Several of the universities I contacted said they are going to respectfully stand their ground -- even if it means taking their case to the Supreme Court of the United States.<br />
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“We are not willing to change our policies,” Jackson said. “There is a very intentional attempt to marginalize those who don’t accept the notions of sexual orientation and gender identity as the government has framed them.”<br />
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And Jackson warned that what’s happening in California could happen in other parts of the country.<br />
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“Religious freedoms are in play in California,” Jackson told me. “Ultimately, I’m concerned that what begins in California rolls across the nation.” Posted by Shlomo Maccabee at 12:57:00 PM Email This BlogThis! Share to Twitter Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-75585210861396659722016-06-09T14:33:00.000-07:002016-06-09T14:33:31.312-07:00Do You Fear Death? If So, Do You Know Why?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The following is an excerpt from our book, "<i>Why Christians Will Suffer Great Tribulation</i>, which is the sequel to our first book </span><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">"</span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The End Times Passover</i><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">." This excerpt is actually part of the 12th and last chapter of this book, with a similar title from the first book, but we call it, "</span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;">God's End Times Passover</i><span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">." <br /><br />We don't want to confuse the reader, but this excerpt is probably the most important chapter from both books, because it deals with the subject of death and (especially) the topic of suffering, which most folks would rather avoid. The fear of suffering and death could very well be why the topic of the Rapture to Heaven is so popular. Most people perceive that this Rapture theory represents an escape not only from death but from all of the horrors we see spoken of in the Book of Revelations. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">People also call this escape "The Blessed Hope." Those pastors, teachers and evangelists who hold to this dogma are obviously more popular than those of us who have studied deeply into this topic and found the Rapture to Heaven theory wanting. None of us cares to experience tribulation (persecution) at the hands of anti-Christian forces, much less being on earth when God pours out his wrath on unrepentant sinners. The wise know the Bible tells us that we are not destined for wrath, but it also says (in Acts 14:22) that we "must through much tribulation enter the kingdom of God."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br />Do we fear persecution? Not just being denied our Christian rights, but great tribulation (such as being tossed into prison and being tortured) like those poor souls who experienced great tribulation during the Inquisition and the Great Crusades. Or does the thought of dying scare us more so? This excerpt answers this question!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Tribulation or Wrath?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">The biggest confusion the author has seen coming from the secret
escape from tribulation camps has been their inability to recognize the
difference between tribulation and wrath.
The man of lawlessness and his cohorts will <i>afflict</i> (Gr. <i>thlipsis</i>,
tribulations) and even kill many Christians, but God’s wrath is designed solely
for the unbelieving and unrepentant. The
wrath by the man of lawlessness is the <i>called out ones</i>’<i> </i>tribulation,
but God’s wrath is His vengeful punishment on the unrepentant, that wrath which
He will pour out on those who did not accept His gift of salvation:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">For God did
not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus
Christ</span></u></b><u><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">.</span></u><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">10 He died for us so that,
whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him, (1 Thessalonians
5:9, 10 NIV).[Bold and underline is by the author, solely for emphasis]<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">All of the scriptures mentioned so far in this chapter prove that
God is able to deliver His people from any calamity. He did so throughout the Bible as previously
mentioned with Daniel, Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego, Noah and so many
others. Why would anyone think that God
is not able to protect His chosen people while at the same time He is pouring
out His wrath on the unrepentant? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">Unfortunately, what many Christians are not prepared for, nor even
want to imagine, is what was spoken about in Matthew 24, where it states that
Christians will be persecuted, and even at the hands of relatives and other
loved ones. That’s the true horror, that
many of our so-called friends and loved ones (and maybe even fellow church
members) will abandon the faith and acquiesce to the pressures of the world and
literally sell out their souls to antichristian forces. Many in exchange even
for mere scraps of food and water, and to avoid any pain being inflicted on
them. The treachery by those who we once befriended, loved, trusted and
supported in all things, will, in a self preservation mode, betray their former
friends and relatives. “<i>The horror, the horror</i>,” is the appropriate and
descriptive phrase for this time, words which actor Marlon Brando uttered so
agonizingly in the movie, <i>Apocalypse Now</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">So, the truth remains that many, hundreds of thousands, maybe even
millions of Christians will be brought before the magistrates, kings, or
government officials that will comprise the authorities of the Beast state, to
face charges of treason and sedition for preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Many <i>called out ones</i> will be tortured and even killed for what will be
perceived as blasphemy against the world’s new ruling order, which will (by
then) have abolished the freedom of religion.
However, God said not to worry, He will provide His <i>called out ones</i>
with words to speak that cannot be dissuaded, words that will pierce the
hardest of hearts in order to bring great glory to God and to His Kingdom. These select Christians will become witnesses
(martyrs) as a result of being accused, judged and executed as enemies of the
state, at those diabolically controlled tribunals. Many in attendance at (or
who view through media) these trials, who do not believe in Christ, will be
moved by the power of the Holy Spirit. They will stirred by the testimonies of
these <i>called out ones</i> to also pick up their cross for Jesus, as they
themselves will witness those innocent soldiers of the cross being convicted of
no crime save their belief in Jesus Christ. Many will be moved by the power of
the Holy Spirit as they witness the diabolically induced injustice against the <i>called out ones. </i>They will repent and
hitherto will instantly convert to the Lord, also placing them in harm’s way.
Unfortunately, the Pre-Tribulation theory, that bespeaks Christians will be
secretly caught away to safety in heaven before God pours out His wrath, has
literally lulled millions into a false sense of security. When in fact, millions <i>will</i> suffer for
Christ’s sake and <i>will</i> be put to death at the hands of anti-christian
forces. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">No one wants to think about death or dying, primarily because no
one really knows what death truly entails.
Ecclesiastes states that when a person dies, they remember or know
nothing henceforth, until <i>The Resurrection</i>. There have been numerous
recorded accounts of out-of-body experiences by those who came close to
death. And in each of those cases, those
who came back have reported that after supposedly experiencing either a hellish
encounter or seeing a wonderful white light (or even seeing Jesus) or departed
family members, after being resuscitated back to life, have never reported or
could remember the pain of death or dying.
Who really knows what death is like until it is experienced? There must
be something about death that God knows needs not to be feared. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">Humans fear death for many reasons. Fear of leaving loved ones behind uncared
for, fear of leaving their earthly possessions to others, fear of not being
able to finish a work. However, as the Bible clearly states, the biggest fear
is in not knowing what death holds in store. The biblical reality is that we
have this fear because we don’t know true love, the love that one can only know
and experience from God. Those who don’t know the love of God have fear of
punishment, because there is punishment for sin, our daily sinful actions.
Those who know true love have experienced the forgiveness God provided when
Christ died on the cross to pay for our sins. If we have not accepted this
grace and forgiveness, we will always fear death because the only judgment for
those who do not accept this forgiveness is eternal punishment. In the book of
1 John <st1:time hour="16" minute="10" w:st="on">4:10</st1:time>-21, the author
clearly explains this profound truth:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">This is love: not that we
loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for
our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so
loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us
and his love is made complete in us. 13
We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his
Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify
that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the
Son of God, God lives in him and he in God.
16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love.
Whoever lives in love lives in
God, and God in Him. 17 In this way, <b><u>love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on
the Day of Judgment</u></b>, because in
this world we are like him.<b> </b>18
<b><u>There is no fear in love.</u> <u>But perfect love drives out fear, <i>because
fear has to do with punishment</i></u>. </b>The
one who fears is not made perfect in love.
19 We love because he first loved us.
20 If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is
a liar. For anyone who does not love his
brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother,
(1 John <st1:time hour="16" minute="10" w:st="on">4:10</st1:time>-21, NIV).
[Bold, italics and underline is by the author, solely for emphasis]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">Based on our understanding of this group of scriptures, an
important question begs to be asked. If Christians have already been caught up
to heaven for safety reasons, seven or three and a half years before Christ
returns to pour out His wrath on the unrepentant, why would John be giving
Christians a warning about love being complete among them so that they should
have confidence on the Day of Judgment?
If the <i>Christian Church</i> has
already been Raptured (before this great onslaught of tribulation), obviously
it has already made it to heaven and needs not fear death or judgment. The answer is that we fear death because fear
has to do with punishment. If the <i>Christian
Church</i> is already in heaven, God’s love for it is made complete and, at
this point in time, there is no punishment due to the church because living in
God is love and whoever lives in love lives in God and, if we live in God, we
need not have the want for confidence on the Day of Judgment. Therefore this
exhortation would not be necessary. However John does warn the <i>called out
ones </i>about this aspect, because the <i>ecclesia </i>will be here on earth
when Christ returns to pour out His wrath on the unrepentant. While many fear
this aspect, they fail to understand that experiencing martyrdom so others can
obtain salvation is the zenith of the human experience. Jesus Christ showed
mankind this great love, and conquered sin and Satan by giving His life so
others may live, and <i>called out ones</i>, during this most horrific period
in history, will also have an opportunity to be conquerors themselves:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life
for his friends, (John <st1:time hour="15" minute="13" w:st="on">15:13</st1:time>,
KJV).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqJOCEOaOh8mqoiiLHiggT3WrPfdkUMnaTbHk8J_7shTyEFPsd1azfkP8xOtistOu0jFueBYLrFOPTGXCnA48DHPp2MfYX8HuBGMdz_EIZfOH9FD3d7g2shZRJPxmjWyxViW9MmfAbTq8/s1600/litany_of_st._stephen_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqJOCEOaOh8mqoiiLHiggT3WrPfdkUMnaTbHk8J_7shTyEFPsd1azfkP8xOtistOu0jFueBYLrFOPTGXCnA48DHPp2MfYX8HuBGMdz_EIZfOH9FD3d7g2shZRJPxmjWyxViW9MmfAbTq8/s320/litany_of_st._stephen_02.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">Next to God’s (in the person of Jesus Christ) willingness to lay
down His life so others can live, there exists no greater example than the love
resident in martyr Stephen’s heart. One of the author’s all-time favorite Bible
chapters is Acts 7, because it paints a perfect picture and example of what he
believes Christians will be experiencing at the End Times. This chapter ends
with how Stephen’s soon-to-be assassins reacted to the words of his piercing
truth; and, his last dying wish as he succumbed to the stoning by those very
same people, was a prayer that God had to answer: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b><u><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">When they
heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him</span></u></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;">. 55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit,
looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right
hand of God. 56 "Look," he
said, "I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of
God." 57 At this they covered their
ears and, yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him, 58
dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their clothes
at the feet of a young man named Saul.
59 <b><u>While they were stoning
him, Stephen prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit</u>." </b>60<b>
<u>Then he fell on his knees and cried out, "Lord, do not hold this sin
against them."</u></b> <b><u>When he had said this, he fell asleep</u></b>,<b>
</b>(Acts 7:1-60, NIV). [Bold and underline is by the author, solely for
emphasis]<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">As mentioned in an earlier chapter, the author is convinced that
God answered Stephen’s last prayer, and thereby called out Paul (and possibly
many others) amongst this band of legalistic Jews, a man He converted and used
like no other man has been used by God to bring others to His Kingdom. The entire Chapter of Acts 7 shows us how
Stephen was not only the first, but one of the greatest martyrs in Bible history, but it also shows
us a profound role model and a perfect example of what Christians can truly
expect to experience immediately before the Lord’s return. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUpL9nIw6Vma1fer1IiCIFIU0T5gBzErVypaEEkytjcMsMwv_EPWRq4Xkg3fzpMlhfyM288afd4kcNSqG6q_7K6rKcZTIqQyYo_ulcrCFQGR9khCl7O8OCuA7nkdHbrjv3gSyg6ccaiEM/s1600/Persecuted.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUpL9nIw6Vma1fer1IiCIFIU0T5gBzErVypaEEkytjcMsMwv_EPWRq4Xkg3fzpMlhfyM288afd4kcNSqG6q_7K6rKcZTIqQyYo_ulcrCFQGR9khCl7O8OCuA7nkdHbrjv3gSyg6ccaiEM/s320/Persecuted.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">Like Stephen, God will use many <i>called out
ones</i> during the End Times to bring others to Christ. And the author
believes that many of those <i>called out ones</i> will be mere humble and
faith-believing servants of God, unknown by many, and not necessarily will
include renowned evangelists, pastors, Bible teachers, prophecy writers and
others who take so much pride in their knowledge of theology and seek worldly
acceptance as great religious leaders:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">But before all these, they
shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the
synagogues, and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my
name's sake.13 and it shall turn to you for a testimony. 14 <b><u>Settle it therefore in your hearts,
not to meditate before what ye shall answer</u></b>: 15<b> <u>For I will give
you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay
nor resist.</u></b> 16 And ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren,
and kinsfolks, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to
death. 17 And ye shall be hated of all
men for my name's sake. 18 <b><u>But
there shall not an hair of your head perish</u></b>. 19 In your patience
possess ye your souls, (Luke <st1:time hour="21" minute="12" w:st="on">21:12</st1:time>-19,
KJV). [Bold and underline by the author, solely for emphasis]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">Of course, none of us wants to think about death and dying, but
that’s what many Christians will truly experience in the End Times, especially
those who choose not to shrink back, those who hate their lives and will find
it, as opposed to those who love their lives and will lose them. [To grasp a
greater understanding of the phenomenon of dying for Christ, please read <a href="http://www.ccel.org/f/foxe/martyrs/home.html"><span style="color: blue;">Foxe's Book of Martyrs</span></a> after finishing this book] <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">It is interesting to note that the true beauty of Acts, Chapter 7,
is that the word Stephen (<i>stephanos</i>, in the Greek) is the very word used
for the ‘crown of life’ reward Jesus brings with Him upon His return, as
mentioned in Revelation 22:12. Nevertheless, as profound an example of what
true Christians can and should be prepared to experience during the End Times,
most humans (Christians, too) still have this inbuilt fear of death. The author
is not claiming that all Christians will experience martyrdom during this
period immediately before <i>The Second Advent</i>. However, the possibility of
persecution unto death is highly probable for many Christians. No one truly
knows if God has chosen us for this fate; but, individually, each and every
true believing Christian alive today is a strong candidate for martyrdom. Some
(or many) will have to face this possibility. Others may escape death before <i>The
Second Advent</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="StyleHeading3LatinGeorgia12pt">
<span style="font-size: large;">To Know and Feel the Love Of God<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText2" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">Scriptures abound that speak
of the love of God for His creation. Those who have experienced the
regenerative power of forgiveness can attest to the knowledge and feeling of
God’s love. Many a Christian who was once bogged down in the swamp of sin, who
openly welcomed the forgiveness of God, can attest to the wondrous feeling of
His love.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">The author believes Christ loves each and every one of us and does
not want us to suffer pain. This is so clear especially in the Book of John,
Chapter 17. While true faith is not
based on feeling, as we read this chapter, one can feel the special and
personal closeness and love Jesus has for each and every one of us, as He prays
to the Father for our protection during the End Times. Read this in its entirety, and feel His
tremendous love:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">After Jesus said this, he
looked toward heaven and prayed: "Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify
you. 2 For you granted him authority over
all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3 Now this is eternal life: that they may know
you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4 I have brought you glory on earth by
completing the work you gave me to do. 5
And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you
before the world began. 6 <b><u>I have revealed you to those whom you gave me
out of the world.</u></b> They were
yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. 7 Now they know that everything you have
given me comes from you. 8 <b><u>For I
gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from
you, and they believed that you sent me.</u></b> 9 I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those
you have given me, for they are yours.
10 All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. 11 I will remain in the world no longer, <b><u>but
they are still in the world</u></b>, and I am coming to you. Holy Father<b>, <u>protect them by the power
of your name</u></b>--the name you gave me--so that they may be one as we are
one. 12 While I was with them, I
protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to
destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled<b>. </b>13 "I am coming to
you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may
have the full measure of my joy within them.14 <b><u>I have given them your
word and the world has hated them</u></b>, for they are not of the world any
more than I am of the world. 15 <b><u>My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you
protect them from the evil one</u>. </b>16
They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17 Sanctify them by the truth; your word is
truth. 18 As you sent me into the world,
I have sent them into the world. 19 For
them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified. 20 My prayer is
not for them alone. <b><u>I pray also for those who will believe in me through
their message</u></b>, 21 that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are
in me and I am in you. May they also be
in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 I have given them the glory that you gave
me, that they may be one as we are one: 23 I in them and you in me. <b><u>May
they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and
have loved them even as you have loved me</u></b>. 24 "Father, I want those
you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you
have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.<b> </b>25
"Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and
they know that you have sent me. 26 I
have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that
the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them, (John
17:1-26, NIV). [Bold and underlines is by the author, solely for emphasis]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">The most important verse in this chapter, which is crucial to the
major premise of this book, is verse 15, which bears repeating. <b>“</b><i>My prayer is not that you take them out of
the world but that you protect them from the evil one</i><b>.” </b>If
there is any one scripture that confirms that there will be no secret
Pre-Tribulation escape to heaven before <i>The Second Advent</i>, it is this
one verse. Here, Jesus Christ Himself is
praying to God for Him <i>not</i> to take us out of this world, but to protect
us from the evil one. God is perfectly able to do this without removing us
anywhere. God is able to pour out His wrath on the unrepentant, and still
provide protection for all of His saints, as Peter so boldly states:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">For if God did not spare
angels, when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy
dungeons to be held for judgment; 5 if he did not spare the ancient world when
he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness,
and seven others; 6 if he condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning
them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the
ungodly; 7 and if he rescued Lot, a righteous man, who was distressed by the
filthy lives of lawless men 8 (for that righteous man, living among them day
after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and
heard) – 9<b> <u>if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men
from trials and to Hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while
continuing their punishment</u></b>, (2 Peter 2:4-9, NIV). [Bold and underline
is by the author, solely for emphasis]<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">Yes, my friends, God truly has an End Times Passover program. Many of the <i>called out ones</i> will be
persecuted and killed by the man of lawlessness and his demonic minions, and
maybe even by friends, neighbors and relatives; and, sadly, even by former
church members. Many will be alive when
the Lord <i>snatches</i> His <i>ecclesia</i> to meet and greet Him in the air,
to escort Him back to earth, where each <i>called out one</i> will actually see
Him pouring out His wrath upon the unrepentant.
Some of members of the <i>ecclesia</i> might still feel a little
squeamish about the possibility that they will be tortured or killed for
standing up for Him, while others will escape unscathed through His End Times
Passover. Regardless, when He does
return, whether we die a martyr’s death or remain alive upon His return, we
will finally be united forever with Jesus Christ, our Lord and our God; we will
be able to look Him in the face and hear Him say “<i>Well-done, good and
faithful servant, you were faithful in a few things; I will put you in charge
of many</i>, (Mathew 25:23, NIV).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">Therefore, the author herewith boldly encourages his fellow <i>called
out ones</i>. As we begin to faintly hear in the distance, the imminent hoof
beats of that great white horse, carrying our soon-to-return Messiah, to stand
firm and, as Ephesians 6:10-18 so boldly exhorts, let us: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">…be strong in the Lord and in
his mighty power. 11 put on the full
armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and
blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of
this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly
realms.13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so<b> </b>that when the day
of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done
everything, to stand.<b> </b> 14 Stand
firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the
breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the
readiness that comes from the gospel of peace.
16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you
can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of
salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.18 and pray in
the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep
on praying for all the saints, <b>(</b>Ephesians <st1:time hour="18" minute="10" w:st="on">6:10</st1:time>-18, NIV). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">In conclusion, the author believes he has provided in these two
books sufficient scriptures that literally refute both the secret
Pre-Tribulation escape to heaven theory, and the establishment of a 1000-year
geopolitical kingdom reign for Nationalistic Jews. God’s Kingdom reign will be
established on earth, its headquarters will be inside of the soon-to-descend
New Jerusalem, and it will be an eternal kingdom. Until this day arrives, the
world and its people will continue to slide further down the diabolical trash
heap of history. One only has to see on television, hear on radio, read in
newspapers and the Internet, to realize that mankind is drifting farther and
farther away from God. The world is being dragged asunder by demonic forces,
appearing as angels of light, twisting God’s message set forth in His Holy
word. Heathen religions (and even many Protestant denominations) are fomenting
a different Gospel than the one Paul was given by Jesus Christ, the very God of
creation Himself! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">In the United States (especially), many churches and their leaders
are propagating a soothing, titillating Gospel and lulling many uninformed
Christians into a false sense of religious security. Many American citizens
(especially), believing they are true God-fearing people, are being duped by
religious charlatans, whose sole mission is to glorify themselves and fill
their coffers by writing and promoting false doctrines at the expense of people
who genuinely seek the truth, who genuinely seek forgiveness for their sinful
lives, and the proper direction to serve God in truth. Many of them have fallen
victim to “quick fix” religious formulae used by the thousands of false
teachers and prophets, who use the media as their pulpit of expediency, charming
and seducing many of God’s children away from their local congregations, and
the faithful service required in their immediate households and in their
respective neighborhoods. These demonically inspired (and so-called) men of God
are <i>snatching</i> our loved ones from the flock right before our very eyes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">Yet, while many who boldly speak forth the gospel truth, which
calls for the genuine sacrifice of prayer and faithful service to the poor,
hungry and homeless, they are being told that they will be <i>Left Behind </i>to suffer God’s wrath, while their
adherents are being craftily seduced to believe they will not experience
tribulation through secret escape to heaven mythologies. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXPPtq5AboESbp4k43uZNpRm0uWXhAyLnY-yq600tb73S3sDsKFkeY2xgOyG2Rv-LqyOLYK2OhkStAd3kewMWaZMgDBdH4nAyEtT_FhUWAyEsV8LVif06VRLbrhof9un6hWlYPQN4OLEg/s1600/REU-PHILIPPINES_-9-760x506.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXPPtq5AboESbp4k43uZNpRm0uWXhAyLnY-yq600tb73S3sDsKFkeY2xgOyG2Rv-LqyOLYK2OhkStAd3kewMWaZMgDBdH4nAyEtT_FhUWAyEsV8LVif06VRLbrhof9un6hWlYPQN4OLEg/s320/REU-PHILIPPINES_-9-760x506.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">The choice is yours. Keep waiting for a secret escape to heaven,
or pick up your cross and follow Jesus, wherever that path may lead. Are you
ready to pick up your cross, and follow Him? Are you ready to lay down your
life so others can also share eternal life with Jesus Christ, our God?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">Until next time, maybe sooner, when we will be joined together in
that great meeting in the air at His Coming, the author leaves you with this
profound message:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><u><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: large;">We must pay more careful
attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away</span></u></b><span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">. 2 For if the message spoken by angels was
binding, and every violation and disobedience received its just punishment, 3
how shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation? This salvation, which
was first announced by the Lord, was confirmed to us by those who heard him. 4 God also testified to it by signs, wonders
and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his
will. 5 It is not to angels that he has
subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. 6 But there is a place where someone has
testified: "What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that
you care for him? 7 You made him a little lower than the angels; you crowned
him with glory and honor 8 and put everything under his feet." In putting
everything under him, God left nothing that is not subject to him. Yet at present we do not see everything
subject to him. 9 <b><u>But we see
Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and
honor because he suffered death, so that by the grace of God he might taste
death for everyone</u></b>. 10 In
bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom
everything exists, <b><u>should make the
author of their salvation perfect through suffering.</u></b> 11 Both the one who makes men holy and those
who are made holy are of the same family.
So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers. 12 He says, "I will declare your name to
my brothers; in the presence of the congregation I will sing your
praises." 13 And again, "I will put my trust in him. And again he says, "Here am I, and the
children God has given me." 14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he
too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who
holds the power of death--that is, the devil-- 15 <b><u>and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their
fear of death</u></b>, (Hebrews 2:1-15, NIV). [Bold and underline is
by the author, solely for emphasis]</span><b><o:p></o:p></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
<br />
For more information about the author and his books, please click on <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GWFubrlDRNzsarAnets9HsgL11gYgqXkiPYUPsA4oU0/edit?usp=sharing"><span style="color: blue;">Joe Ortiz</span></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-58660332849503722872016-06-04T14:21:00.000-07:002016-06-04T14:35:53.707-07:00WHAT PRETRIBS DON'T SAY! by Dave MacPherson<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Noisy pretribs can sure be quiet when they want to sell another book or video.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> Take the famous "rapture" passages in I Thess. 4-5 and I Cor. 15.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> Pretribs endlessly see an "any-moment rapture" in I Thess. 4 and paint it in glowing pretrib colors. But the same Paul in the same book ties together the "times and seasons" (5:1) of the rapture (<span class="aBn" data-term="goog_394268727" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">4:17</span></span>) with the "sudden destruction" (5:3) part of the (posttrib) "day of the Lord" (5:2) - which doesn't have even a hint of pretrib coloring!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> (The "day of the Lord" is posttrib because the posttrib sun/moon darkening happens BEFORE that "day" - see Joel <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_394268728" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">2:31</span></span> and Acts <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_394268729" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">2:20</span></span>.)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> And can you guess what's in the rapturous I Cor. 15 that pretrib teachers love to cover up? They screech to a stop at "twinkling of an eye" and "last trump" and then omit telling that what is "changed" (vss. 51-2) is tied to the end of death (vs. 54). (Trib death ends when the posttrib arrival of the Victor over death ends trib death!)</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> Ready for more? Look at Acts 2:34-35, Acts <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_394268730" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">3:21</span></span>, and II Thess.1:6-10. Christ stays in heaven UNTIL it's time to come to earth to destroy His wicked foes and restore "all things" and give "rest" to His followers!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> If pretribism can easily skip over Scripture, wait till you see how they cover up their own history which was never a part of Christian theology or any organized church before 1830!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> Throughout most of the 1900s, leading Christian scholars assumed - while influenced by those who were repeating and not researching - that John Darby of the Brethren had fathered the pretrib rapture view in the 1830s. No scholar had ever found any clear public teaching of pretrib in the centuries preceding Darby. Even the late Dr. John Walvoord, the longtime No. 1 pretrib authority and head of Dallas Theological Seminary, had stated in his book "The Rapture Question" that Darby (who admitted in print that pretrib was then a totally "new" doctrine!) had been one of the "early pretribulationists"!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> My books, from the 1970s to the present time, have provided long forgotten and newly uncovered evidence (endorsed by many eminent scholars) that Darby furtively plagiarized British pastor Edward Irving and his followers, all of whom had credited a young Scottish woman with the initial pretrib "spark"!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> Trying to distance themselves from the scandals associated with the earliest pretrib developers and promoters of the 1830s, today's pretrib defenders have been desperately trying to find anyone before 1830 who seemed to have at least a hint of pretrib in their writings. Today's desperados can even "find" pretrib in Old Testament passages that tell about folks merely "escaping" trouble, or "find" pretrib in folks being raptured before an endtime "conflagration" in an obvious posttrib setting!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> Two historical figures of the past that present-day pretrib promoters have tried to put revisionist pretrib make-up on are Pseudo-Ephraem (8th cent. ?) and Rev. Morgan Edwards (whose quoted sermon is dated 1788).</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikQETSw68BHovpmLHkbCX0KX4ywAYfDpEEYNS-V5tnxsr784pBerJhoYEdJlgsoCRm5jzJsdnMFO6qivFQ8Wp1vpc0CGqKlIxIDMBW-KK4QWFxXz25vKpfJiMHMxhV-_HTYpILfg8t9fQ/s1600/Chuck+Missler.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikQETSw68BHovpmLHkbCX0KX4ywAYfDpEEYNS-V5tnxsr784pBerJhoYEdJlgsoCRm5jzJsdnMFO6qivFQ8Wp1vpc0CGqKlIxIDMBW-KK4QWFxXz25vKpfJiMHMxhV-_HTYpILfg8t9fQ/s200/Chuck+Missler.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> To see the hatchet job on Pseudo-Ephraem, Google "Pseudo-Ephraem Taught Pretrib - Not" and "Chuck Missler (left)- Copyist" (and catch deceitful censors at work).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> For the complete skinny on Morgan Edwards, Google "Morgan Edwards' Rapture View" (and find out what Thomas Ice etc. knew they couldn't hide forever).</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> For more information about how you can get my 300-page book "The Rapture Plot" (the most accurate and detailed book on pretribism's sordid history) dial 800.643.4645, or you can check it out via inter-library loan at any library.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> For in-depth theology and what the Greek New Testament is really saying about any Rapture to Heaven mythology, when it comes to Bible-based facts, check out Joe Ortiz' two superb books at "<a href="https://sites.google.com/site/theendtimespassover/main-page"><span style="color: blue;">The End Times Passover" web site</span></a>.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeaox4crIVmPlqFkEX7g64FJaReKKij-8SunFkcrbEp3Fus5-f8i68kHx1-EMbjoPXG9BEXAWRpsL13DajxUM2026LS7lzaI5khrxJ5h_1j-b-KtoBKpxqX6qt7zPrmGcFfRd2cyhOJgs/s1600/The+Rapture+Plot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeaox4crIVmPlqFkEX7g64FJaReKKij-8SunFkcrbEp3Fus5-f8i68kHx1-EMbjoPXG9BEXAWRpsL13DajxUM2026LS7lzaI5khrxJ5h_1j-b-KtoBKpxqX6qt7zPrmGcFfRd2cyhOJgs/s320/The+Rapture+Plot.jpg" width="209" /></span></a><span style="font-size: large; text-align: left;">Dave MacPherson. What People are saying</span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">What They Are
Saying About ... THE RAPTURE PLOT! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Gary DeMar (President American Vision): "A
majority of prophecy writers and speakers teach that the church will be
raptured before a future tribulational period. But did you know that prior to
about 1830 no such doctrine existed. No one in all of church history ever
taught pretribulational rapture. Dave MacPherson does the work of a
journalistic private investigator to uncover the truth....The Rapture Plot is
the never-before-told true story of the plot - how plagiarism and subtle
document changes created the 'mother of all revisionisms.' A fascinating piece
of detective work." Robert H. Gundry (Professor Westmont College):
"As usual MacPherson out hustles his opponents in research on primary
sources. C. S. Lovett (President Personal Christianity): You don't read very
much of Dave MacPherson's work before you realize he is a dedicated researcher.
Because his work has been so honest and open his latest work The Rapture Plot
has produced many red faces among some of the most recognized rapture writers
of our time. When their work is compared to his it is embarrassing for them to
see how shallow their research is." R. J. Rushdoony (President Chalce</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: large;">don):
"Dave MacPherson has been responsible for major change in the eschatology
of evangelical churches by his devastating studies of some of the central
aspects thereof. In The Rapture Plot MacPherson tells us of the strange tale of
'rapture' writings, revisions, cover-ups, alterations and confusions. No one
has equaled MacPherson in his research on the 'pretrib rapture.' Attempts to
discredit his work have failed...."</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj5idU_nrwlx9wfNhICVc6n7NOMY6eeezLZ5qeP8d7_EhEYcuvP06HJ-HJpINGRvc33rioLBPS6YjW4q9HaTHdNvImpubUuvprn4Plt7xjhsTYprNulSz3hkMq5kz3fdD4Jxv05jl77og/s1600/Dave+MacPherson+Profile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgj5idU_nrwlx9wfNhICVc6n7NOMY6eeezLZ5qeP8d7_EhEYcuvP06HJ-HJpINGRvc33rioLBPS6YjW4q9HaTHdNvImpubUuvprn4Plt7xjhsTYprNulSz3hkMq5kz3fdD4Jxv05jl77og/s320/Dave+MacPherson+Profile.jpg" width="237" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">About the Author: Born 1932 of Scotch/English
descent Dave MacPherson is a natural for British historical research. His
calling was journalism. Receiving a BA in English in 1955 he spent 26 years as
a newsman reporting and filming many notable events persons presidents and
dignitaries.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-85950153981305390592016-06-03T22:55:00.000-07:002016-06-04T13:59:15.901-07:00JERRY JENKINS: BETTING ON PRETRIB ! by Dave MacPherson<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Maybe I should say that Jerry Jenkins is betting on fellow pretrib investors like Tim LaHaye and Thomas Ice who seem to have put all of their money - and a lot of their spin - on their pretrib rapture roulette wheel.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: calibri, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Since the 1830s pretrib gamblers have been addicted to numbers including the numbers of Bible verses which they think can be combined to "prove" a pretrib rapture.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: calibri, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Even worse is their desire to predict dates for it, some of which have been based on occult things like the measurements inside Egypt's Great Pyramid and constellations in the Zodiac! (See my book "The Three R's" for massive documentation on such speculation which so far has created only losers.) </span></div>
<div style="font-family: calibri, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> The earliest pretribs gambled with only their British reputations (lawyer Robert Baxter had predicted the rapture would occur on July 14, 1835). Today's rapture robber barons and tribulational tycoons, especially in America, make millions of dollars with books, videos, films, music, and radio and TV shows - and often predict actual dates or, while playing it safe, merely talk about only "times and seasons."</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj50l03W0gE11yK_5XfVF5EYs8kuGf1zyReEdwx2unnAmi34NYH-Q7pxbecvF1Utcg3MHWW15v8wt9T5cO8LGU1rqVcjPiV5yYfUgJBdVGps1sgPdRM8PizNsjMb2zqqfPWTHVxHk1vNPA/s1600/Corrie_ten_Boom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj50l03W0gE11yK_5XfVF5EYs8kuGf1zyReEdwx2unnAmi34NYH-Q7pxbecvF1Utcg3MHWW15v8wt9T5cO8LGU1rqVcjPiV5yYfUgJBdVGps1sgPdRM8PizNsjMb2zqqfPWTHVxHk1vNPA/s1600/Corrie_ten_Boom.jpg" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Jerry Jenkins has to know that Corrie Ten Boom's 1974 "Logos Journal article: <span style="color: blue;">(<a href="http://z3news.com/z3news_dev/wp-content/pdf/studies/Corrie_Ten_Boom_Rapture.pdf"><span style="color: blue;">Corrie Ten Boom: Beware of False Teaching of Pre-Tribulation Rapture</span></a>)</span> "The Coming Tribulation" (which labeled pretribs as "the false teachers that Jesus was warning us to expect in the latter days") revealed that millions of Christians were tortured to death" in China when the communists took over in 1949 simply because they had been trusting only in pretrib rapture escapism that had been brought in by foreign missionaries! (And pretrib date-setting fizzles since then have caused many other such tragedies like the Chinese one!)</span></div>
<div style="font-family: calibri, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Even so, Jenkins has long seared his conscience and kept on making fortunes with the same fund-raising fly-away fraud. And he's even jumped willy-nilly into the current worldwide discussion on pretrib rapture history, preferring repeating to researching.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj009qsS_gUp6NqSsvtJOcunLCSr4nQZ3JSuA7zSqw0uJ7e19s9ZNBfEzdAZPFbluR4v2ZMcQ6KYAeZgLcEztis_f_rXN2neYKrRh7SKlBFMUHnyU16tRCOrxhf949QJLVd9ZMYT8SOCDE/s1600/Christinaity+Today+5182016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj009qsS_gUp6NqSsvtJOcunLCSr4nQZ3JSuA7zSqw0uJ7e19s9ZNBfEzdAZPFbluR4v2ZMcQ6KYAeZgLcEztis_f_rXN2neYKrRh7SKlBFMUHnyU16tRCOrxhf949QJLVd9ZMYT8SOCDE/s1600/Christinaity+Today+5182016.jpg" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> In the May 18, 2016 issue of "Christianity Today" Jenkins, while politely pilfering the rapture "cards" that hired guns like Thomas Ice like to misleadingly shuffle with, audaciously referred to "the fiction that the rapture is as recent as John Nelson Darby." </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> (Pretribs often like to say "rapture" instead of "pretrib rapture" as if they have a monopoly on that word - something I found Jenkins doing in that same May 18 magazine. And if you say you don't believe in a pretrib rapture, the pretrib rapturally-correct "thought police" like to make the dishonest claim that you don't believe in a rapture at all!)</span></div>
<div style="font-family: calibri, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> In the same "CT" piece Jenkins "found" pretrib is some "17th-century expressions of the rapture" and listed some practically unknown names, but gave no quotes or sources. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: calibri, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> He undoubtedly wouldn't have labeled "Baptist Morgan Edwards" in 1788 as a holder of "a pre-tribulation rapture" if he had chanced upon a Google item titled "Morgan Edwards' Rapture View" in which "Dr. " Ice deliberately stopped his quotation of Edwards just BEFORE the sentence where Edwards tied his rapture to the second coming to earth in Matt. 24!</span></div>
<div style="font-family: calibri, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Well, Jenkins can find out if Tommy Ice (whose "Ph.D" came from a tiny unaccredited Texas school that was fined for illegally issuing degrees, according to World Net Daily!) is operating with a full deck if he Googles "Pretrib Rapture Pride," "Walvoord Melts Ice," "Thomas Ice (Bloopers)," "Be careful in polemics - Peripatetic Learning," and "Pretrib was NEW in the 1830s." And Jenkins may need some additional tranquilizers when he Googles "Prof. Wm. L. Craig Leaves Tim LaHaye Behind!" and "LaHaye's Temperament."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Right now stop and take a deep breath because you're about to hit a jackpot involving a famous hypocrite!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggxIemTRKvRJEYkPoq36wn_fOVhPSODhMRI-Lb0v5cHpNb3sF8hFEwjU_GouARbNflYEkI4BT5gxbTZ7p9p8MRnhbqJ-QHxM9P32Y-SSbW7Z7xm5QYS1d34rmU47ncV66N7FANDLJSVWQ/s1600/Roulette+wheel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggxIemTRKvRJEYkPoq36wn_fOVhPSODhMRI-Lb0v5cHpNb3sF8hFEwjU_GouARbNflYEkI4BT5gxbTZ7p9p8MRnhbqJ-QHxM9P32Y-SSbW7Z7xm5QYS1d34rmU47ncV66N7FANDLJSVWQ/s320/Roulette+wheel.jpg" width="320" /></span></a><span style="font-size: large;"> Not only has Jenkins been gambling with countless numbers of trusting believers around the world with his 186-year-old pretrib delusion (which no Greek scholar before 1830 ever found in the Word - Google "Famous Rapture Watchers"), but for quite some time he has been a below-the-radar secret casino gambler himself, even though he is the Chairman of the Board at Moody Bible Institute, a longtime evangelical icon that DOES NOT allow its students to gamble!!!</span></div>
<div style="font-family: calibri, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Now that you're really awake, Google "Left Behind's Jerry Jenkins: Casino Hypocrite," "Jerry Jenkins Apologizes for His Gambling in Casinos," and "Jerry Jenkins Rebuked for Gambling" (Examiner, Oct. 28, 2013). By the way, one of Jerry's sons (one of the "chips" off the old block who has discovered the "sin" in caSINo) has followed in Jerry's noble footsteps and has a high-up position in a casino, as the above info brings out!</span></div>
<div style="font-family: calibri, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> It's obvious that multi-millionaire pretribber (and prefibber) Jerry knows how to spin the lucrative rapture wheel of fortune. </span></div>
<div style="font-family: calibri, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> But does he have the Vegas idea how soon horrendous world events could collapse his ill-gotten pretrib house of cards and shuffle him off the scene?</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Dave MacPherson. What People are saying</span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">What They Are
Saying About ... THE RAPTURE PLOT! </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyQHtk7zTtS2vQ0znYU9aBtCnEkepV51bje_3mrk7aVD1Zpt2FNSmKQyAwKj0UfjBsomSYFnBBKFC-Pi8o5VyGHGAGQJQ7MtQVg8del41kPOIEI6zaAqJKuUDS4LSiw-bVGdopKNOsNZQ/s1600/Rapture+Plot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyQHtk7zTtS2vQ0znYU9aBtCnEkepV51bje_3mrk7aVD1Zpt2FNSmKQyAwKj0UfjBsomSYFnBBKFC-Pi8o5VyGHGAGQJQ7MtQVg8del41kPOIEI6zaAqJKuUDS4LSiw-bVGdopKNOsNZQ/s1600/Rapture+Plot.jpg" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">Gary DeMar (President American Vision): "A
majority of prophecy writers and speakers teach that the church will be
raptured before a future tribulational period. But did you know that prior to
about 1830 no such doctrine existed. No one in all of church history ever
taught pretribulational rapture. Dave MacPherson does the work of a
journalistic private investigator to uncover the truth....The Rapture Plot is
the never-before-told true story of the plot - how plagiarism and subtle
document changes created the 'mother of all revisionisms.' A fascinating piece
of detective work." Robert H. Gundry (Professor Westmont College):
"As usual MacPherson out hustles his opponents in research on primary
sources. C. S. Lovett (President Personal Christianity): You don't read very
much of Dave MacPherson's work before you realize he is a dedicated researcher.
Because his work has been so honest and open his latest work The Rapture Plot
has produced many red faces among some of the most recognized rapture writers
of our time. When their work is compared to his it is embarrassing for them to
see how shallow their research is." R. J. Rushdoony (President Chalcedon):
"Dave MacPherson has been responsible for major change in the eschatology
of evangelical churches by his devastating studies of some of the central
aspects thereof. In The Rapture Plot MacPherson tells us of the strange tale of
'rapture' writings, revisions, cover-ups, alterations and confusions. No one
has equaled MacPherson in his research on the 'pretrib rapture.' Attempts to
discredit his work have failed...." </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4hvtO3kxx3oQsluWECKUeCcDW9leh2B1sFtQ3pAouR8dyi8mfSmCfJA9Gs6UpN_0fMRfOi2_hE2l0akpw1hqNXgttO2VdSbs_wnDwoAidhu_90LN5r3fkw1aMIAhv-zYt5ZY9-1RapIM/s1600/Dave+MacPherson+Profile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4hvtO3kxx3oQsluWECKUeCcDW9leh2B1sFtQ3pAouR8dyi8mfSmCfJA9Gs6UpN_0fMRfOi2_hE2l0akpw1hqNXgttO2VdSbs_wnDwoAidhu_90LN5r3fkw1aMIAhv-zYt5ZY9-1RapIM/s320/Dave+MacPherson+Profile.jpg" width="237" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;">About the Author: Born 1932 of Scotch/English
descent Dave MacPherson is a natural for British historical research. His
calling was journalism. Receiving a BA in English in 1955 he spent 26 years as
a newsman reporting and filming many notable events persons presidents and
dignitaries.</span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-5478748192254213022016-05-29T18:33:00.000-07:002016-05-29T21:33:48.551-07:00America’s Version of Christianity Has Been Skewed from the Very Beginning! <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Flag"><span style="color: blue;">Christian Flag</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">At
the heart of the culture wars, especially the immigration debate, is the notion
that God has been on the side of “American Christians” since they bolted Europe
onto the shores of what we now call the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United States of America</st1:place></st1:country-region>. They left
their homeland and established a religious beachhead to get out from under the
heavy handed arm of the church-state that ruled most of the then known world.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Reformed
Christians had had enough of that Church and its collusion with the state, and
were justified in leaving in hopes to practise religion without that
organization’s persecution. Most religious scholars of that period knew that Church
was not practicing biblical precepts as Luther and other great men of God
rightly proved. Basically, the so-called Church was an off-shoot of </span><st1:city style="font-size: 16pt;" w:st="on">Constantine</st1:city><span style="font-size: 16pt;">’s invention when he merged paganistic </span><st1:city style="font-size: 16pt;" w:st="on">Rome</st1:city><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> with the downtrodden remaining flock of the </span><st1:place style="font-size: 16pt;" w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">church</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Jesus Christ</st1:placename></st1:place><span style="font-size: 16pt;">, who accepted a watered-down
version of the true Gospel after almost four centuries of being fed to the
lions and other heinous persecutions. That can wear down even the most faithful
and committed person in due time.</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUK7BDBJlB0UcGe4zEAUFFZSEDpwRKjbv-NSYeMsGH8aMlSClCiSA67Bb08-WknYj-jIvRc59hyphenhyphenSTL3k0EJ2FlnUDkipsPPReM6BV5vUemJ29iLaeF_9YpTKbQsQs6eu_UqcyfXXS_ExY/s1600/Aztec+Indian.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUK7BDBJlB0UcGe4zEAUFFZSEDpwRKjbv-NSYeMsGH8aMlSClCiSA67Bb08-WknYj-jIvRc59hyphenhyphenSTL3k0EJ2FlnUDkipsPPReM6BV5vUemJ29iLaeF_9YpTKbQsQs6eu_UqcyfXXS_ExY/s320/Aztec+Indian.JPG" width="218" /></span></a></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">After
Constantine merged these two factions, the early leaders of the new religious
order usurped and enforced a man-contrived persecutory doctrine on the half Pagan,
half true believers and misinterpreted (or rather twisted) the scriptures to
infer that Jesus bestowed the leadership of the community of His true followers
on the Apostle Peter when he stated thusly in Matthew 16:17-20: <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span id="goog_1835698261"></span><span id="goog_1835698262"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;">"Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not
revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. <b><sup>18 </sup></b>And I
tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will <a href="http://gospelhall.org/bible/bible.php?search=EDIFICATION&dict=vine&lang=english"><span style="color: blue;">build</span></a> <span id="goog_1835698257"></span><span id="goog_1835698258"></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/"></a>my church and the
gates of Hades will not overcome it. <b><sup>19 </sup></b>I will give you the
keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in
heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Religious
zealots have believed for centuries that (in these verses) Jesus was bestowing
the leadership of that (newly perceived religious) organization on the
shoulders of the Apostle Peter, who they claim was the first Pope of the now
powerful Catholic Church. This particular issue has caused a major chasm
between Catholics and Protestants and continues to this very day.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXCp2camyyV4UERfljq9mEUoNnQjI10tEMZtvU2lfWGdf7zizA6UCfXvt3rFMS2YwWJYz8lv5Lh8KLFMlO2WhWAwo_DwL9DvmwHAlSRZGDbZY6PXe-B0j3_2BidaeU_PyOXTBIDok8wK8/s1600/Debating+Theologians.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXCp2camyyV4UERfljq9mEUoNnQjI10tEMZtvU2lfWGdf7zizA6UCfXvt3rFMS2YwWJYz8lv5Lh8KLFMlO2WhWAwo_DwL9DvmwHAlSRZGDbZY6PXe-B0j3_2BidaeU_PyOXTBIDok8wK8/s320/Debating+Theologians.JPG" width="229" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">However,
many theologians (much, much more qualified than me) answered that question a
long time ago and have provided deep biblical explanations as to what Christ
was truly conveying to Peter. (See </span><a href="http://www.gotquestions.org/Peter-first-pope.html"><span style="color: blue; font-size: 16.0pt;">Was Saint Peter the first Pope?</span></a><span style="font-size: 16pt;">). Nevertheless, the Internet alone contains
thousands of individuals and organizations that continue with their pro and con
opinions. There are two facts that settle the argument right out of the
starting gate. One is provided by renowned and profound Bible commentator
Matthew Henry, who up summed the issue as to whether Jesus was prophesying that
the Apostle Peter was going to be the foundation of God’s church:</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "sans-serif"; font-size: large;">Now we have
one of two choices. The church is built upon Peter, or the church is build upon
Peter's confession, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.<br /><br /><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="background: white; margin-left: .5in; text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "sans-serif"; font-size: large;">Now the
Catholics assert that the church was built on Peter. There are problems with
this. Number one, Jesus said unto him, "Thou art Petra's", which in
the Greek is a little stone. And then He declared, "upon this
Petras", which is a giant stone, "I will build my church, and the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it." The church was not build upon
the little stone, but upon the giant rock; "Thou art Petros", a
little stone, "upon this Petras".<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "sans-serif"; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">This
is great exegesis, to say the least. However, an even more profound fact
besides Henry’s word comparison analysis (petras, petros) of Matthew 16:17-20,
is one key word in this group of scripture few ever have focused on. It is the verb <a href="http://gospelhall.org/bible/bible.php?search=oikodomeo&dict=vine&lang=greek#A1"><span style="color: blue;"><i>build</i> (to strengthen, embolden), as opposed to create</span></a>! I wrote about this
profound fact in my book, <i>The End Times
Passover</i> (page 32), a clear Bible-based fact that relatively few
theologians have ever dealt with in their “Peter the Pope” debate that has torn
apart any hope for unity between Catholics and Protestants. This revelation is
actually a small and minor one that any student of the Greek language would be
able to understand, if only they would take the time to examine God’s words
more closely. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">When Jesus told Peter that upon this rock I will <i>build</i> my church (Matthew 16:18), Christ was telling Peter that on
the Day of Pentecost, His already existing <i>ecclesia</i>
(a people called out) would receive
the edifying, strengthening and emboldening power from the Holy Spirit, in
order for His already existing <i>ecclesia </i>would possess the power it never had before, (see Luke 24:49; Joel 2:28; Ephesians
1:13). In Matthew 16:18, the word <i>build</i>
used by Jesus in this verse is the Greek verb <i>oikodomeo</i>, which means to <i>strengthen,
edify, embolden</i>. If Jesus wanted to
tell Peter He was going to create something new on the Day of Pentecost, Jesus
would have used the more appropriate word for creating a new religious entity,
which is the Greek verb <i>ktizo</i>, <i>to create</i>! Jesus was not saying He would be creating a
new religion (the so-called Christian Church); but, rather, He was telling
Peter that through Himself (the bigger rock) He would strengthen His already
existing assembly (<i>ecclesia</i>), this small remnant group of faith-believing
Israelites and Gentiles who are now following Him, (Luke 12:32). <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">How
does someone strengthen something that supposedly doesn’t already exist? If God’s <i>ecclesia</i>
(<i>a people called out</i>) didn’t already
exist before the outpouring of Holy Spirit-induced power, what was the Holy
Spirit giving strength to? God’s <i>ecclesia</i>
(<i>a people called out</i>) includes all of
His children of promise going back to faithful Abel and up to those who today
believe in the promised Messiah, who Himself surrendered His life so believers
could live for eternity with Him. Jesus was prophetically telling Peter that on
the Day of Pentecost, those true believers would receive power to fulfill His
mission of broadcasting His Good News to all mankind, not that Peter was going
to be a Pope. God’s true church cannot function without Holy Spirit power. Even
accomplished theologians and masters of varying philosophies since time
immemorial can never convey God’s truth to humanity unless they are imbued with
Holy Spirit power (</span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Joe%20Ortiz/Desktop/America%20Version%20of%20Christianity%20Has%20Been%20Skewed%20from%20the%20very%20beginning.docx#_top">1 Corinthians 2:14</a></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> <a href="file:///C:/Users/Joe%20Ortiz/Desktop/America%20Version%20of%20Christianity%20Has%20Been%20Skewed%20from%20the%20very%20beginning.docx#_top">2
Corinthians 4:3-4</a>, <a href="file:///C:/Users/Joe%20Ortiz/Desktop/America%20Version%20of%20Christianity%20Has%20Been%20Skewed%20from%20the%20very%20beginning.docx#_top">John 1:9-13</a>).</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">But
yet that one issue (the Peter the Pope debate) alone keeps many beloved and
believing Catholics and Protestants at each others throats, preventing greater
unity among God’s children worldwide. The common believer, those who faithfully
kneel before God inside a Catholic cathedral in Rome or inside a modern glass
hewn edifice in Dallas, Texas, have been kept biblically in the dark for centuries, as their
leaders continue their contrived doctrinal battles, instead of teaching their
parishioners God’s truth. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">And
that truth cannot be discerned until both teacher and student have received
this “power from on high!” Instead, those “competing” entities (Catholics and
Protestants) adopt man made precepts as if they hold more biblical sway than the
other, when in fact they are both wrong on so many fronts. Sadly, the American version
of Christianity is in shambles, crumbling, destined to the dust heap of
religiosity, along with those who chose not Jesus’ way, but to practise church
their own fashion, to suit their own selfish needs.</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3oGzieO-hOZK6CIQaU1QwpxgbFUAHUsQwM8DpbqnKfUI2Ho_GHKJwAMYVZWPWvvEjpQIJIbQiu3QyjdVInq6BQpBHOqzdbqga3cimRA-jNaOGoqDVmmabdmqlOClV7EPQWmDxSCMYjg8/s1600/Crumbling+church.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3oGzieO-hOZK6CIQaU1QwpxgbFUAHUsQwM8DpbqnKfUI2Ho_GHKJwAMYVZWPWvvEjpQIJIbQiu3QyjdVInq6BQpBHOqzdbqga3cimRA-jNaOGoqDVmmabdmqlOClV7EPQWmDxSCMYjg8/s320/Crumbling+church.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">A.W.
Tozer, one of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s greatest Bible scholars and preachers we have been blessed with in recent
modern times, himself spoke of the church’s condition over forty years ago when
he said:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;">
<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: #494949; font-size: large;">Within the last quarter of a century we
have actually seen a major shift in the beliefs and practises of the
evangelical wing of the church so radical as to amount to a complete sellout;
and all this behind the cloak of fervent orthodoxy. With Bibles under their
arms and bundles of tracts in their pockets, religious persons now meet to
carry on "services" so carnal, so pagan, that they can hardly be
distinguished from the old vaudeville shows of earlier days. And for a preacher
or a writer to challenge this heresy is to invite ridicule and abuse from every
quarter, (<i>Of God and Men</i>, pg 16-18 by
A.W. Tozer)</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="color: #494949; font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiopyAeyaR_DEHq4ZWXgrIPDYIj2aOf3VcUyBAt71nZlsemev1scOXQsFsp6j55YgVd5M4JGMlOGzZOWqM0rKV2pu2l3yod8lEq-v95ViXercPJmA6uMdyY_M-pNfDLJ_OWXbQej9llA4k/s1600/Candles.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiopyAeyaR_DEHq4ZWXgrIPDYIj2aOf3VcUyBAt71nZlsemev1scOXQsFsp6j55YgVd5M4JGMlOGzZOWqM0rKV2pu2l3yod8lEq-v95ViXercPJmA6uMdyY_M-pNfDLJ_OWXbQej9llA4k/s320/Candles.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Pastors and priests need to tell their flocks the truth, and not encourage and perpetuate mythologies to control their man-conceived religions. For example, the belief by the Catholic faithful in Mariology (reverence of Mary on an equal plane with God), confessions to a priest, repetitious prayers such as the Rosary, and lighting votive candles for the dead (among other man conceived traditions) are beliefs and practises that are not called for nor contained in the Bible any more than the belief by many Protestants that Jesus is planning to come down from heaven and secretly snatch born again Christians up to heaven seven years before His Parousia (return to earth), to avoid the so-called Great Tribulation. There is no Bible truth foundation, either, to support the evangelical Protestant doctrine that the cultic Zionism philosophy (which purports ethnic Jews and the land they currently control has been divinely promised to them) is biblically based, nor that today’s nation of ethnic Jews will soon rule the whole world from New Jerusalem. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Prior
to this rampant break from things that involved the true spirit of Jesus Christ
(who guides and directs His children of Promise to help the poor, widows and
orphans, the infirm and the homeless), throughout the remaining years, leading
up to the 16<sup>th</sup> century period when Reformist said, “Ya Basta,” the
then known Church had totally decimated any semblance of the true religion that
followers of Christ practiced and believed in. Through its manipulative
alteration of scripture and invoking a myriad of diabolical, ecclesial
distortions, some of which still exist today, the true disciples of Jesus
Christ, His children of promise, those who are prepared to surrender everything
they have (family, jobs, homes), ready to pick up their cross and follow Him, have
been replaced with an American version of Christianity that belies everything
Christ represents. If this angers you, instead of hanging your head in shame,
then your belief system needs to be questioned and challenged! Keep reading; it
gets worse!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">First
of all, one can’t really blame the Puritans for leaving their European
homelands to escape the painful rule and control by the religion-state
cabbalistic elites. But two wrongs don’t make a right! </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">From
the outset, those Puritans who landed on Plymouth Rock got it all wrong;
firstly, by believing the </span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Joe%20Ortiz/Desktop/America%20Version%20of%20Christianity%20Has%20Been%20Skewed%20from%20the%20very%20beginning.docx#_top"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Manifest
Destiny</span></a><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> concoction that they were the
“New Israel!” Even though that concept had not been coined yet, the emerging American
church viewed itself as the modern <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region>
and assumed its perceived role as inheritors of the proverbial Promised Land,
New Jerusalem <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">USA</st1:place></st1:country-region>!</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Sadly the mostly pious Puritans viewed
themselves as better than any other peoples in the then known world, and proved
so in their dealings with Native Americans, whom they called heathens. Early
explorers such as <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Columbus</st1:place></st1:city>
and others who in the name of God conquered the Mayan and Aztec nations (of
whom historians have painted as mere barbarians) served as inspiring examples
for the Puritans.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiho4HD3Sge9KGlmWZLapZcgaKVUVnB9DCHJuhJtzgni_FdzFTMO-QqBhDMgfxGSRNfZFEGeKsRWxu5HUXHO08mBPPb2-rylm2LUR6BFf8RoF6Rd2VlI9Rl0-YLVqGVvJQQBijORTL465Q/s1600/Dead+Indians.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiho4HD3Sge9KGlmWZLapZcgaKVUVnB9DCHJuhJtzgni_FdzFTMO-QqBhDMgfxGSRNfZFEGeKsRWxu5HUXHO08mBPPb2-rylm2LUR6BFf8RoF6Rd2VlI9Rl0-YLVqGVvJQQBijORTL465Q/s320/Dead+Indians.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><v:shape id="_x0000_i1028" style="height: 303.75pt; width: 6in;" type="#_x0000_t75">
<v:imagedata o:title="Wounded Knee" src="file:///C:\Users\JOEORT~1\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image006.jpg">
</v:imagedata></v:shape><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Throughout
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">America</st1:country-region></st1:place>’s
short history of 250 years, it has carved itself a worldwide reputation as a
conquering body of so-called Christians, almost to the point of eradicating an
entire nation of indigenous people through its genocidal penchant, all of this
in the name of God. America forced the remaining Native Americans onto
reservations, moved back the border boundaries (and in essence stole much of
the land) of Mexico, has proclaimed its Lordship on most peoples of color,
including throughout its history, by building the most powerfully economical,
political and societal infrastructure in history, on the backs of African slaves, and Chinese and Mexican labor. Let us not forget the interned
Japanese Americans during WWW 11. All of
this was done solely to enrich the coffers of the elitist money-changers of the
world! Now, American Christians, what would Jesus say about all of these
shenanigans?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">And
now, as the immigration reform debate becomes more heated as never before, the nativists’
reactions scream louder than the atomic bombs we dropped on <st1:city w:st="on">Hiroshima</st1:city>
and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Nagasaki</st1:city></st1:place>!
And yet, many theologians of today are at the forefront and feed the mad frenzy
of the uninformed, uneducated peoples with their “let’s save our culture, let’s
stop the browning of <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region>”
rhetoric and inciting their flocks to extricate from this country those
“parasitic” </span><a href="file:///C:/Users/Joe%20Ortiz/Desktop/America%20Version%20of%20Christianity%20Has%20Been%20Skewed%20from%20the%20very%20beginning.docx#_top"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Latino immigrants</span></a><span style="font-size: 16pt;">, also in the name of God!</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Sad!
So sad! Not for those Americans who feel their “culture” is being threatened by
Liberals and the so-called “Reconquista” cabal (as the Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan,
Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh led mantra festers); but sad because those who claim
to be “good American Christians” have no idea what has happened to what they
believed was their ideal of Christianity. They have co-mingled Christianity and
Americanism in such a distorted manner that no true believer of Jesus Christ
can recognize! The once patriotic tunes written by American heroes such as Francis Scott Key, Sabine-Baring-Gould and Arthur Sullivan
have morphed into the background music of the “Friday the 13th” movie!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Flag"><span style="color: blue;">Christian Flag</span></a><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">Sadly,
the existent cultural view of American Christianity was based on how our
forefathers practiced religion to begin with. Their version of American Christianity
has always been a “holier than thou” and “let’s see how many folks we can
convert” to swell up our respective ranks. Let’s see how big we can build our “true”
churches. And then, once we build them to heights unimagined, let’s see how we
can control the government and mandate that all people in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">America</st1:place></st1:country-region> have to
practise religion the same way we do, because we are a Christian nation, the true children of God!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;">That
version of America Christianity has been doing that ever since it landed on
American shores. It has built huge, giant mega-churches, crystal cathedrals,
some of the biggest and most beautiful edifices this side of ancient <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Rome</st1:city></st1:place>. It has organized itself into various
denominations, yet all with enough money and power to influence any politician
they so choose. They have their “Christian” candidates that once they get into
office they will change the “culture” back to the way it used to be, an
American Identity culture, where primarily its adherents can still rule and
still eradicate the good old <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">US </st1:place></st1:country-region>of its “heathen” peoples. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Well,
folks, the questions beg to be asked! What happened to listening to what the
Holy Spirit wanted us to do? What happened to turning the other cheek? What
happened to picking up our crosses and following Christ, ready, willing and
able to die for Him as He did for us, in order that he may be glorified and get
all the credit due Him for paying such a heavy price for our salvation? What happened
to praying for the needy, the sick, the infirm, helping the widows and orphans
and the aliens amongst our midst, as Christ told us was true religion? Instead,
the churches then and the churches today have become smug, self-righteous, and
holier than thou, vindictive, mean-spirited; full of pride, just like the “church”
the Puritans fled from over 300 years ago!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Matthew Henry, once
again, sums it up best:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">“It
is here plainly and peremptorily declared wherein true religion consists: Pure
religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">(1.)
It is the glory of religion to be pure and undefiled; <u>not mixed with the
inventions of men or with the corruption of the world.</u> False religions may
be known by their impurity and uncharitableness; according to that of John, <u>He
that doeth not righteousness is not of God neither he that loves not his
brother,</u> (1 John 3:10) <a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="25"></a>But, on the other hand, a holy life
and a charitable heart show a true religion. <u>Our religion is not adorned
with ceremonies, but purity and charity</u>. And it is a good observation of
his that a religion which is pure should be kept undefiled. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">(2.)
That religion is pure and undefiled which is so before God and the Father. That
is right which is so in God’s eye, and which chiefly aims at his approbation.
True religion teaches us to do every thing as in the presence of God; and to
seek his favor, and study to please him in all our actions. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">(3<u>.)
Compassion and charity to the poor and distressed from a very great and
necessary part of true religion</u>: Visiting the fatherless and widow in their
affliction. Visiting is here put for all manner of relief which we are capable
of giving to others; and fatherless and widows are here particularly mentioned,
because they are generally most apt to be neglected or oppressed: <u>but by <b>them</b> we are to understand all who are
proper objects of charity, all who are in affliction</u>.</span><span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 9.5pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">It is very remarkable that the sum of religion be
drawn up to two articles: it is to <b><u>be
charitable</u></b> and to <b><u>relieve the
afflicted</u></b>,” (Matthew Henry Commentary on James 1:26-27)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB_KzB8c6vvEVhWrRZfdsyq44qvk2fykO9ZNI52ktKiC_UKzNGECP0ZCnJDmwGbhEs3MZQ4_ZghhcosAx_jmgAcUV6x5KRd579GAyc-bfStEXz6ka8aIz20e22MFZ8XE37O98AYGunYVQ/s1600/Baby+Food.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB_KzB8c6vvEVhWrRZfdsyq44qvk2fykO9ZNI52ktKiC_UKzNGECP0ZCnJDmwGbhEs3MZQ4_ZghhcosAx_jmgAcUV6x5KRd579GAyc-bfStEXz6ka8aIz20e22MFZ8XE37O98AYGunYVQ/s320/Baby+Food.JPG" width="320" /></a></span></div>
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<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">There is no more afflicted person than one who is
scorned, maligned, mistreated, and rejected (especially by those who call
themselves American Christians), solely because economic conditions in Third
World countries have forced the poor to seek work (wherever) to feed their families
and their children. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">God’s true disciples (not the American version) are
hereby those whom Jesus uses, not the government, but His <i>ecclesia</i>, <i>a people called out</i>,
to be the charitable ones, and those who will bring relief to the afflicted! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">-30-<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Joe Ortiz is the author of two books that challenge the <i>Left
Behind</i> and Pre-Tribulation Rapture, and premillennial dispensational
precepts and doctrines being promoted by many right-wing evangelicals. The two
books include <i>The End Times Passover</i> (Etymological Challenges to
Millenarian Doctrines) and <i>Why Christians Will Suffer Great Tribulation</i>
(The Sequel to The End Times Passover), published by <i>Author House Publishers</i>. The former talk show host, journalist and
news columnist is the first Mexican American to host a show on an
English-language, commercial radio station, beginning in 1971 at KABC-AM Radio
in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Los Angeles</st1:place></st1:city>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;">Blog addresses:</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://son-of-encouragement.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2a5db0; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">The End Times Passover</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://ourdailybreadbyjoeortiz.blogspot.com/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2a5db0; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Our Daily Bread</span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: large;">Web sites:</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10pt;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><a href="http://sites.google.com/site/joeortizassociates/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2a5db0; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Joe
Ortiz Associates</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span> Web site for Joe Ortiz
Associates, a full service public relations company<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10pt;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><a href="http://sites.google.com/site/theendtimespassover/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2a5db0; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">The End
Times Passover</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>Web site to discuss end times topics
and to promote books written by Joe Ortiz</span></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "symbol"; font-size: 10pt;">·<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><a href="http://sites.google.com/site/tomfloresnflusa/" target="_blank"><span style="color: #2a5db0; font-family: "arial" , "sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt;">Tom
Flores NFL USA</span></a><span class="apple-converted-space"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> <span class="apple-converted-space"> </span> This is the new and
official site of the Tom Flores Fan Club, managed by Joe Ortiz, fan club
President.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: large; font-weight: normal;"><br />2 comments:<o:p></o:p></span></h4>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">1.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><v:shape alt="" id="_x0000_i1029" style="height: 26.25pt; width: 26.25pt;" type="#_x0000_t75"><v:imagedata o:href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3jR1-QPR2S_LnOAoF4NAMq1vWcQZs9Dm6SN2Y-PR35tmDK78-ET5zfiHGC_jhj8iiurPHgelmsbJPDGVmAO9PkK5wSflNFR63VU3zmoD10RNi9FF3s8-cMFODFz_nMJMY3hIgW-ocBRGL/s35/New+Business+Pic+200x334.jpg" src="file:///C:\Users\JOEORT~1\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image008.jpg"></v:imagedata></v:shape><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/profile/17001670767390896572"><b><span style="color: #771100; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">David Allan Cruz, C.Ht., EFT-ADV</span></b></a><a href="http://ourdailybreadbyjoeortiz.blogspot.com/2009/11/americadoc.html?showComment=1257816759530#c7105179238487173020"><span style="color: #771100; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">November 9, 2009 at 5:32 PM</span></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: large;">This is an excellently written and well-researched article. Quite worth reading. The only problem I have with it is that the author seems to forget that Jesus didn't speak Greek. Whatever he may have meant with regard to Peter, (petras or petros) or the strengthening (oikodomeo) vs. creating (ktizo), the Greek words didn't come from Jesus, but from a man who wrote in Greek, which means it was an interpretation...one that came several years or even centuries following the death of Jesus. This is not the word of God...it is the interpretation of those words by man.<br /><br />On the other hand, I agree wholeheartedly that "The Church", Christianity and religion itself (regardless of what religion that may be) has been usurped throughout history by men driven by lust for power and wealth...quite successfully. The author's perspective of American history is quite accurate and painful, especially for those of us, Native, Mexican and Black, who were the historical victims of their corruption. I agree that this corruption continues and is even now being used to oppress and victimize those who do not fit the template of what they believe is the "face" of America.<br /><br />Perhaps it's time, as the author suggests, for Christianity to investigate itself and its motives. Perhaps it's time for Christianity and all religion, as they exist now, to come to an end. Instead, let people read the Bible, the Koran, the Talmud, The Popul Vuh, the writings of the Buddha, Confucius and Lao Tse and find that ultimately they and we all have one basic Truth in common...we are creations of God and are One with that Creative Energy. When we understand that, we can let go of our illusion of separateness from God and from each other and create this world as it is intended to be...filled with love and understanding for one another and with joy and gratitude for the blessing of life we've been given.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" target="_self"><span style="color: #771100; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Reply </span></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/delete-comment.g?blogID=8196357958039257138&postID=7105179238487173020" target="_self"><span style="color: #771100; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Delete</span></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">2.<span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;"> </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><v:shape alt="" id="_x0000_i1030" style="height: 0.75pt; width: 0.75pt;" type="#_x0000_t75"><v:imagedata o:href="http://img1.blogblog.com/img/blank.gif" src="file:///C:\Users\JOEORT~1\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image009.gif"></v:imagedata></v:shape><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><cite><b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Anonymous</span></b></cite><a href="http://ourdailybreadbyjoeortiz.blogspot.com/2009/11/americadoc.html?showComment=1372567020304#c9134030806944322754"><span style="color: #771100; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">June 29, 2013 at 9:37 PM</span></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">Real truth - as found in the above article and the Bible - brings about far more conviction than falsehood. Thanks for bringing us all to our knees. Johnny</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" target="_self"><span style="color: #771100; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Reply </span></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/delete-comment.g?blogID=8196357958039257138&postID=9134030806944322754" target="_self"><span style="color: #771100; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Delete</span></a></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-11902074587493399512016-05-13T09:54:00.000-07:002016-07-12T08:15:01.954-07:00The Saint Must Walk Alone By A.W. Tozer<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC9I_-OyswtcEV4UZIXqDvaXR0Hwn7rH3cVoUWlo2D6OQi_dGkUQP-QZ4IAX3PO44fPSR1leE8KZZI1sJBwH75ysgOJLAOb1K4JkJk2g21ODoQtMg83Han5ALyGCytbEfXTc2Cw0VuZZ0/s1600/JO+Las+Fuentes+Crop.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC9I_-OyswtcEV4UZIXqDvaXR0Hwn7rH3cVoUWlo2D6OQi_dGkUQP-QZ4IAX3PO44fPSR1leE8KZZI1sJBwH75ysgOJLAOb1K4JkJk2g21ODoQtMg83Han5ALyGCytbEfXTc2Cw0VuZZ0/s1600/JO+Las+Fuentes+Crop.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> Most of the world's great souls have been lonely. Loneliness seems to be one
price the saint must pay for his saintliness.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> In the morning of the world (or should we say, in that strange darkness that
came soon after the dawn of man's creation), that pious soul, Enoch, walked
with God and was not, for God took him; and while it is not stated in so many
words, a fair inference is that Enoch walked a path quite apart from his
contemporaries.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> Another lonely man was Noah who, of all the antediluvian, found grace in
the sight of God; and every shred of evidence points to the aloneness of his
life even while surrounded by his people.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> Again, Abraham had Sarah and <st1:place w:st="on">Lot</st1:place>, as well
as many servants and herdsmen, but who can read his story and the apostolic
comment upon it without sensing instantly that he was a man "whose soul
was alike a star and dwelt apart"? As far as we know not one word did God
ever speak to him in the company of men. Face down he communed with his God,
and the innate dignity of the man forbade that he assume this posture in the
presence of others. How sweet and solemn was the scene that night of the
sacrifice when he saw the lamps of fire moving between the pieces of offering.
There, alone with a horror of great darkness upon him, he heard the voice of
God and knew that he was a man marked for divine favor.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> Moses also was a man apart. While yet attached to the court of Pharaoh he
took long walks alone, and during one of these walks while far removed from the
crowds he saw an Egyptian and a Hebrew fighting and came to the rescue of his
countryman. After the resultant break with <st1:place w:st="on">Egypt</st1:place> he dwelt in almost complete
seclusion in the desert. There, while he watched his sheep alone, the wonder of
the burning bush appeared to him, and later on the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">peak</st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st="on">Sinai</st1:placename></st1:place>
he crouched alone to gaze in fascinated awe at the Presence, partly hidden,
partly disclosed, within the cloud and fire.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> The prophets of pre-Christian times differed widely from each other, but one
mark they bore in common was their enforced loneliness. They loved their people
and gloried in the religion of the fathers, but their loyalty to the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and their zeal for the welfare of the nation of <st1:place w:st="on">Israel</st1:place>
drove them away from the crowd and into long periods of heaviness. "I am
become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's
children," cried one and unwittingly spoke for all the rest.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> Most revealing of all is the sight of that One of whom Moses and all the
prophets did write, treading His lonely way to the cross. His deep loneliness
was unrelieved by the presence of the multitudes:</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-size: large;">'Tis midnight, and on Olive's brow </span></i><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The star is dimmed that lately shone;</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">'Tis midnight; in the garden now,</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">The suffering Savior prays alone. <i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><i>'Tis <st1:time hour="0" minute="0" w:st="on">midnight</st1:time>,
and from all removed<br />
The Savior wrestles lone with fears;<br />
E'en the disciple whom He loved<br />
Heeds not his Master's grief and tears.</i> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">- William B. Tappan </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"> He died alone in the darkness hidden from the sight of mortal man and no one
saw Him when He arose triumphant and walked out of the tomb, though many saw
Him afterward and bore witness to what they saw. There are some things too
sacred for any eye but God's to look upon. The curiosity, the clamor, the
well-meant but blundering effort to help can only hinder the waiting soul and
make unlikely if not impossible the communication of the secret message of God
to the worshiping heart.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> Sometimes we react by a kind of religious reflex and repeat dutifully the
proper words and phrases even though they fail to express our real feelings and
lack the authenticity of personal experience. Right now is such a time. A
certain conventional loyalty may lead some who hear this unfamiliar truth
expressed for the first time to say brightly, "Oh, I am never lonely.
Christ said, `I will never leave you nor forsake you,' and `Lo, I am with you
always.' How can I be lonely when Jesus is with me?"</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> Now I do not want to reflect on the sincerity of any Christian soul, but
this stock testimony is too neat to be real. It is obviously what the speaker
thinks <i>should</i> be true rather than what he has proved to be true by the
test of experience. This cheerful denial of loneliness proves only that the
speaker has never walked with God without the support and encouragement
afforded him by society. The sense of companionship which he mistakenly
attributes to the presence of Christ may and probably does arise from the
presence of friendly people. Always remember: you cannot carry a cross in
company. Though a man were surrounded by a vast crowd, his cross is his alone
and his carrying of it marks him as a man apart. Society has turned against
him; otherwise he would have no cross. No one is a friend to the man with a
cross. "They all forsook Him, and fled."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> The pain of loneliness arises from the constitution of our nature. God made
us for each other. The desire for human companionship is completely natural and
right. The loneliness of the Christian results from his walk with God in an
ungodly world, a walk that must often take him away from the fellowship of good
Christians as well as from that of the unregenerate world. His God-given
instincts cry out for companionship with others of his kind, others who can
understand his longings, his aspirations, his absorption in the love of Christ;
and because within his circle of friends there are so few who share inner
experiences, he is forced to walk alone. The unsatisfied longings of the
prophets for human understanding caused them to cry out in their complaint, and
even our Lord Himself suffered in the same way.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> The man who has passed on into the divine Presence in actual inner
experience will not find many who understand him. A certain amount of social
fellowship will of course be his as he mingles with religious persons in the
regular activities of the church, but true spiritual fellowship will be hard to
find. But he should not expect things to be otherwise. After all he is a
stranger and a pilgrim, and the journey he takes is not on his feet but in his
heart. He walks with God in the garden of his own soul - and who but God can
walk there with him? He is of another spirit from the multitudes that tread the
courts of the Lord's house. He has seen that of which they have only heard, and
he walks among them somewhat as Zacharias walked after his return from the
altar when the people whispered, "He has seen a vision."</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> The truly spiritual man is indeed something of an oddity. He lives not for
himself but to promote the interests of Another. He seeks to persuade people to
give all to his Lord and asks no portion or share for himself. He delights not
to be honored but to see his Savior glorified in the eyes of men. His joy is to
see his Lord promoted and himself neglected. He finds few who care to talk
about that which is the supreme object of his interest, so he is often silent
and preoccupied in the midst of noisy religious shoptalk. For this he earns the
reputation of being dull and over serious, so he is avoided and the gulf between
him and society widens. He searches for friends upon whose garments he can detect
the smell of myrrh and aloes and cassia out of the ivory palaces, and finding
few or none, he, like Mary of old, keeps these things in his heart.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> It is this very loneliness that throws him back upon God. "When my
father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up." His
inability to find human companionship drives him to seek in God what he can
find nowhere else. He learns in inner solitude what he could not have learned
in the crowd - that Christ is All in All, that He is made unto us wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification and redemption, that in Him we have and possess
life's <i>summum bonum</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> Two things remain to be said. One, that the lonely man of whom we speak is
not a haughty man, nor is he the holier-than-thou, austere saint so bitterly satirized
in popular literature. He is likely to feel that he is the least of all men and
is sure to blame himself for his very loneliness. He wants to share his
feelings with others and to open his heart to some like-minded soul who will
understand him, but the spiritual climate around him does not encourage it, so
he remains silent and tells his griefs to God alone.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> The second thing is that the lonely saint is not the withdrawn man who
hardens himself against human suffering and spends his days contemplating the
heavens. Just the opposite is true. His loneliness makes him sympathetic to the
approach of the brokenhearted and the fallen and the sin-bruised. Because he is
detached from the world, he is all the more able to help it. Meister Eckhart
taught his followers that if they should find themselves in prayer and happen
to remember that a poor widow needed food, they should break off the prayer
instantly and go care for the widow. "God will not suffer you to lose
anything by it," he told them. "You can take up again in prayer where
you left off and the Lord will make it up to you." This is typical of the
great mystics and masters of the interior life from Paul to the present day.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> The weakness of so many modern Christians is that they feel too much at home
in the world. In their effort to achieve restful "adjustment" to
unregenerate society they have lost their pilgrim character and become an
essential part of the very moral order against which they are sent to protest.
The world recognizes them and accepts them for what they are. And this is the
saddest thing that can be said about them. They are not lonely, but neither are
they saints.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;">For more information about the author, his blogs and other web sites, please click on <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=1GWFubrlDRNzsarAnets9HsgL11gYgqXkiPYUPsA4oU0&pli=1#"><span style="color: blue;">Joe Ortiz</span></a>.</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-55182557113470324032016-05-09T08:36:00.000-07:002016-05-09T08:36:31.530-07:00Money- Changers in the Temple: Evil Bankers in Literature and Film by Tim Wenzel, Virginia Union University<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies” –Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Taylor, May 28, 1816.<br /><br />“I have two enemies, the southern Army in front of me and the financial institutions in the rear. Of the two, the one in the rear is the greatest enemy.” –Abraham Lincoln, November 1864.<br /><br />In 1946, Dr. Gustav M. Gilbert, an American psychologist fluent in German, was assigned by the U.S. Army to study the minds and motivations of the Nazi defendants at the Nuremberg tribunals. What was it that set into motion the wide-ranging extermination of Jews? Why did so many comply in this extermination? How could anyone be complicit in such terrible things and feel no remorse? <br /><br />The following year, Gilbert’s Nuremberg Diary was published, containing transcripts of his conversations with the German prisoners including Rudolf Hess, Hermann Goering, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Alfred Rosenberg, and Franz von Papen, among many more. In his Epilogue, Gilbert concluded, “Most of the defendants acknowledged that there had been horrible crimes committed, but claimed that they had individually acted in good faith according to the standards of their respective positions and professions. The generals had only follow orders; the admirals had done no more than other admirals; the politicians had only worked for the Fatherland; the financiers had only attended to business” (429). And as Gilbert later concludes about Hermann Goering, “His own utterances, than and in his testimony, show his interest was primarily economic—how to get their property and how to force them out of the economic life of Europe….his guilt is unique in its enormity. The record discloses no excuses for this man,” (437).<div>
<br /> Gustav Gilbert’s character was played by Matt Craven in the 2000 film Nuremberg. In one key scene, he tells Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson (played by Alec Baldwin), “I was searching for the nature of evil and I think I’ve come close to defining it: a lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the defendants: a genuine incapacity to feel for their fellow man. Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy” (Nuremberg).<br /> Often, the causes of evil are raised when such horrific events as the Holocaust and other genocides, or events such as 9/11 or school shootings occur; how such atrocities toward humanity can be carried out on such a massive scale, what conditions are necessary in terms of cause and effect in order for these slaughters to unfold, how the acts can rise without detection, and how they can continue to go on, are all subject to scrutiny and debate. Violence, death, and murder, especially when it happens in the thousands or in the millions, are the place where the nature of evil is studied most intently.<br /></div>
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Of course, lack of empathy (or eroded empathy) does not always reveal itself through violence and mass murder. It resides too in the more subtle and often overlooked use of deliberate deception of the masses for individual gain, namely in the world of money and finance. When the making of profit leads to a lack of empathy, when there is no concern for another’s misfortune over one’s own gain, the perpetrator falls squarely under Gilbert’s definition of evil. The incapacity by some bankers and investors to feel for their fellow man, in a place absent of empathy and filled with the possibility of profit, becomes fertile ground on which to study the nature of evil. For the profit-driven, me-first mindset, money becomes more important than people. This is the common conclusion in understanding the lack of empathy in the world of finance and the motivation toward maximizing profit and its disregard for the members of the community. </div>
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This theme is abundant in literature and film, and the story is always the same: greed, emboldened by a complete lack of concern for anyone other than the perpetrator, allows the antagonist to commit monetary crimes against humanity. <br /> It is interesting to trace the long, deep literary path of this root of all evil. In some of the earliest literary references, the abuse of money at the expense of the people came with usury—that is, the practice of making unethical or immoral monetary loans through the use of excessive or abusive interest rates. Aristotle, in Politics, Book I, Part 10, states, “The most hated sort, and with the greatest reason, is usury, which makes a gain out of money itself, and not from the natural object of it. For money was intended to be used in exchange, but not to increase at interest,” and “of any modes of getting wealth, this is the most unnatural.” Aristotle’s voice had a profound impact on the society of his time and well into the Middle Ages. As Murray N. Rothbard notes in Economic Thought Before Adam Smith, “The views of Aristotle are particularly important because the entire structure of his thought had an enormous and even dominant influence on the economic and social thought of the high and late middle Ages, which considered itself Artistotelian.” <br /></div>
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Nevertheless, usury continued unabated. Thomas Aquinas, drawing from Aristotle’s teachings, considered usury to be contrary to nature because “it is in accordance with nature that money should increase from natural goods and not from money itself.” Aquinas emphasized usury as a sin of violence—performed openly (manifested), and unlike the crime of fraud, which is performed by deception (occulted). As Ambrose observed, “Usury is whatever is added to the capital.” Likewise, St. Jerome held all profit unjust and considered business as “evil,” as “turning men from seeking true rest, which is God” (Durant 630). And of course Jesus Christ’s rebellion against another form of usurers, the money-changers in the temple: “Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all those who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves…my house shall be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of robbers” (Matthew 21: 12). The emphasis of the selling of doves--a symbol of peace and divinity and objects taken from the natural world--shows a particular lack of empathy and perhaps explains what drove Christ to His rare burst of anger, anchored by his proclamations that “love of money is the root of all evil,” "lend, expecting nothing in return" (Luke 6:35) and that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the Kingdom of God” (Mark 10:25) </div>
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In Jesus’ references to the use/misuse of money throughout the New Testament, it is clear that the preoccupation with investing money and wealth for personal gain are spiritually draining on a community and its connection to God…and that money as a resource should be utilized to give away to those who are in need, so that it becomes a spiritually invigorating commodity for the community: to help the poor. As O’Callaghan notes, “The practice of usury or interest strikes at the very root of Christian religion, whose life consists in charity and works of mercy, (107).” Further, O’Callahan notes that Ezekiel “declares that oppression of the poor and stranger, and the execution of usury…was one of the hideous crimes that brought down the wrath of God upon the ancient Israelites…and moved him to disperse them among the nations” (106).<br /></div>
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This vein on the dangers of money and profit in society runs throughout the Bible and in many other religious texts as well, including the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, the analects of Confucius , the Talmud, and the Tao te Ching. As Durant notes in The History of Civilization, the greatest obstacle to the development of banking was the ecclesiastical doctrine of interest: Aristotle’s condemnation of interest as an unnatural breeding of money by money, Christ’s condemnation of interest, and the reaction of the church against commercialism and usury in Rome (630). “The use of all that is in the world,” said Clement of Alexandria, “ought to be common to all men. But by injustice, one man has called that his own, another that; and so has come a division among men” (Durant 630).<br /></div>
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Aquinas’ contention that usury was a sin of violence was particularly relevant for Dante, who collected the usurers and placed them, in his Inferno, into the seventh (and lowest) circle of hell. This was an emphatic point for Dante in his composition of the Inferno: the usurers, wholly unnatural and harmful to society, will play out eternity in the third ring of the seventh circle, on a barren plain of sand ignited by flakes of fire, eternally damned to feel the pain of burning flesh. Usurers, for Dante, were sinners against nature, those who harm the natural order of industry and economy. Dante is more obvious in his disgust with the usurers than in any comment on his last circle: "From art and nature, if you will recall/the opening of Genesis, man is meant/ to earn his way and further humankind/But still the usurer takes another way: /He scorns nature and her follower, art, /Because he puts his hope in something else" (71). Dante’s “something else” is the wholly unnatural act that infects society, the self ahead of all others, money over people, profit over good; usury erodes the foundation of human civilization. Thus, the punishment of usurers at this lowest level is a just one.<br /></div>
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For Ezra Pound, banking institutions were the major threat to European society. As Froula notes, “the creation of money out of nothing by the banks was the outrage against which Pound’s entire effort at economic reform was aimed” (“On Canto 45”). In Canto XLV, Pound weighs in on the issue of usury: “With usura hath no man a house of good stone/each block cut smooth and well- fitting/that design might cover their face” (23). Here is the anonymity of a faceless evil entity, whereby the institution “covers the face” in order that each may not see and that it may go on about its business. Later in the canto, Pound states, “no picture is made to endure nor to live with/but it is made to sell and sell quickly/with usura, sin against nature” (23). Dante sees occupations infected by the disease of the need for profit, for “with usura the line grows thick/with usura is no clear demarcation/and no man can find site for his dwelling” (23). And then in the concluding lines of the canto, “Usura slayeth the child in the womb….it hath brought palsy to bed, lyeth/between the young bride and her bridegroom/CONTRA NATURAM/They have brought whores for Eleusis/Corpses are set to banquet/at behest of usura” (24). “CONTRA NATURAM,” highlighted by Pound in capital letters, emphasizes the unnatural act imposed by banks on the people (and a burst of anger from the pen of Dante).</div>
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As Robert Casillo notes, although usury seems only an economic evil, Pound reaches the conclusion that economics is the key to a well-ordered society, and that cultural vitality depends on the proper use of money. As for misuse, as Froula contends, “Pound saw the prime offenders against this principle as private banks, which are empowered to create money, or credit, out of nothing…” And to draw the connection between violence and usury, Pound himself states, “Wars in old times were made to get slaves. The modern implement of imposing slavery is debt” (“On Canto 45”).<br /></div>
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Pound understood that money from interest was nothing more than a symbolic designation of credit, “which by rights belongs to the people of a society, and not to private banks” (Froula). The rising power of the banks and the subsequent rising interest rates imposed on the people greatly concerned Pound in the early 20th century, as it did for John Steinbeck. In fact, the power and lack of empathy of private banks was evident in the Joads eviction from their land in The Grapes of Wrath, where, in Chapter 5, representatives of the bank come to tell the tenants they must get off the land. As Tom Fensch points out in Steinbeck’s bitter fruit, “Indeed, the Joads could not really comprehend why they were thrown off their Oklahoma farm. Even as meager as the topsoil was, it was their land—their dirt—their soil. Except it wasn’t—it belonged to the bank…” (ii). <br /> </div>
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For the banks, sharecropping would no longer be a profitable pursuit; the land was worthless, as were the men and women who farmed it. The men who arrive and represent the banks, whose empathy had been efficiently decayed, take no responsibility for what they are doing: it is the bank, a non-human entity, which is to blame. “The bank,” Steinbeck writes in Chapter 5, “is something else than men. It happens that every man in a bank hates what the bank does, and yet the bank does it. The bank is something more than men, I tell you. It’s the monster. Men made it, but they can’t control it” (45).<br /></div>
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When the tractor arrives to plough over homes and land, it is clear that the driver is merely an instrument for the banks, drained of a morally proper conscience, despite the fact that the tenants recognize him as the son of a neighbor. He is dressed to represent the faceless figure of the bank itself, an entity without empathy and monstrous in his appearance: “The man sitting in the iron seat did not look like a man; gloved, goggled, rubber dust mask over nose and mouth, he was part of a monster, a robot in the seat” (Steinbeck 48).<br /></div>
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To illustrate the wholly unnatural actions of the bank, Steinbeck established a difference between what the farmers wanted to do with the land (natural) and what they were forced to do by the landowners and banks (unnatural). Then the drought struck and stretched across most of the decade, creating out of the ruined topsoil an unnatural, man-made entity with no mercy. By 1938, 80% of the Great Plains had been decimated by wind erosion, mainly because farmers on small farms didn’t properly rotate their crops to maintain the nutrients in the soil. Because most of them were deeply indebted to banks, they were forced to abuse the very soil over which they lived, abusing nature to stave off a financial collapse brought upon them by unnatural means (Ken Burns). The Dust Bowl was avoidable: by consequence, the lifeless topsoil was carried away by the wind in massive black clouds that covered thousands of miles; indeed, dust from the Great Plains covered all of the cities and towns across the Eastern seaboard and was even deposited on ships in the Atlantic Ocean. The sharecroppers and farmers who knew nature and how to properly tend the land were powerless to stop it (Ken Burns). As Steinbeck writes in Chapter 5, “The squatters nodded—they knew, God knew. If they could only rotate the crops they might pump blood back into the land. Well, it’s too late. And the owner men explained the workings and the thinking of the monster that was stronger than they were” (Steinbeck 43). As Thomas Fensch notes, “Steinbeck understood the interlocking nature of the banks and the large-scale farmers: how they could destroy the small farmer who didn’t comply with the migrant farmer policies imposed by the farmers’ associations and banks” (26). Landless and without homes, many of the farmers were forced to leave.<br /></div>
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As in many of his other works, Steinbeck criticized the consequences of unchecked capitalism and emphasized action and change. Though The Grapes of Wrath was attacked by some critics for promoting socialism and communism with its inferences to sharing the wealth and its portrayal of the bank as monster, its influence had a positive impact on society during the Depression. Like Upton Sinclair’s political influence of The Jungle on Teddy Roosevelt, whose changes to the terrible working conditions of the meat-packing industry included the busting of the beef trusts and the rise of labor unions to protect workers, one of the most significant results of Steinbeck’s influences on American society was the creation of the New Deal by FDR in 1933. Inspired by the plight of the Joads, the first phase of Roosevelt’s New Deal provided recovery and relief from the Great Depression with programs of agricultural and business regulation, inflation, price stabilization, and public works, followed by the social security system in 1935 and the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938. Indeed, in both the works of Sinclair and Steinbeck, literature was the catalyst for social reform.<br /></div>
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Despite these changes to society as a result of literary influence, however, little has changed. Banks wield their power now more than ever, and the evil banker, the banker without empathy, is still very much present in literature and film. In the 1946 film The Best Years of Our Lives, three veterans from World War II are examined as they make the difficult transitions back into civilian life. One of the veterans, an upper-class banker named Al Stephenson (played by Frederick March) has little difficulty returning to his job; in fact, the bank president, wanting to take advantage of Stephenson’s veteran status, promotes him to Vice-President of Small Loans to administer the new GI Bill of Rights for veterans. Stephenson clearly sees the moral implications, as the profit to be made on these loans by the bank is more important than the lives of the soldiers. In one scene, a veteran tells Stephenson that he wants a loan in order to buy a farm to fight the global food shortage. Fighting world hunger, the veteran tells Stephenson “is the most important thing there is” (The Best Years of Our Lives). Filled with empathy, Stephenson approves the loan. However, when Stephenson tells the president that he gave a loan to a veteran without collateral on the basis of the young man’s integrity is in “his collateral is in his heart and his hands and his guts.” Stephenson’s decision to grant the veteran the loan stems from an intuition he developed as an Army Sergeant by reading his men in battle. However, the president warns him never to make a loan again without receiving collateral. The callousness and coldness of a money-driven, profit-driven society is brought home as Stephenson sees that he must lose his empathy to become a successful bank partner (The Best Years of Our Lives). <br /></div>
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War and its aftermath had changed society as America moved out of the Depression and into an era of greed and excessive capitalism; a war veteran who came back to the bank after an absence of four years could clearly see the change; the bank was now driven harder by greed and unmoved by empathy. Though Stephenson is promoted upon his return home, his conscience pulls him down because of this promotion. His position at the bank and his subsequent guilt turns him into an alcoholic; this is evident when he attends a banquet for the employees of the bank. In a drunken address to his co-workers and wife, Stephenson satirizes the bank’s collateral policy with a war story, then concludes his speech with an assurance that the bank will do all it can to help veterans, and all those in need: “I love the Cornbelt Loan and Trust Company. There are some who say that the old bank is suffering from hardening of the arteries and of the heart. I refuse to listen to such radical talk. I say that our bank is alive, it's generous, it's human, and we're going to have such a line of customers seeking and getting small loans that people will think we're gambling with the depositors' money. And we will be. We will be gambling on the future of this country” (The Best Years of Our Lives). The returning war hero re-establishes his humanity and points out the greedy underbelly of the bank, and American values are presumably restored.<br /></div>
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American values are also questioned by the role of the bank in Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, released in 1946, the same year as The Best Years of Our Lives. In Capra’s film, Henry F. Potter uses his authority as banker, with his wealth and lack of empathy, to run Bedford Falls; this power ultimately drives George Bailey to the point of desperation and financial ruin and to the economic collapse of the town. Bailey, a banker like Al Stephenson who is still holding on to his empathy, sees this destruction through the ascendance of Potter, as he pleads to the townspeople, “If Potter gets hold of this Building and Loan, there'll never be another decent house built in this town. He's already got charge of the bank. He's got the bus line. He got the department stores. And now he's after us. Why? Well, it's very simple. Because we're cutting in on his business, that's why. And because he wants to keep you living in his slums and paying the kind of rent he decides” (It’s a Wonderful Life). Potter is the prototypical capitalist, consuming all around him in a rush devoid of empathy. He is the monster, embodied here in this film, of which Steinbeck warns.<br /></div>
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As David Mamet observes in his article “It’s a Conservative Life,” the character of the good banker is seen much more often in fiction rather than in reality. “George Bailey….is a banker. Like Scrooge, he handles money. Unlike Scrooge, he takes none for himself. He is a banker-altruist, dedicated to the community. Now, no doubt, and thank God, such people exist. But why do we discover them in myth?” Later in the article, Mamet weighs in on Bailey’s full-blown empathy as this “banker-altruist,” a man of noble conscience who approves loans based on the content of a person’s character over any financial instability. George Bailey is a man filled with integrity, but as Mamet notes, “This is, of course, the fantasy of any who have ever applied for a loan. But who has encountered it other than in the movies?”<br /></div>
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The American Film Institute, in its listing of the top ten fantasy films, placed It’s a Wonderful Life at number 3, presumably because of the presence of Clarence the angel and George Bailey’s subsequent ability to foresee a life he hasn’t lived and what the world would become without him. But the real fantasy, in retrospect, is Bedford Falls itself, that idealistic town that is not run by Potter but by its citizens, where integrity and honesty are driving forces regulating their small and efficient economy. In the 21st century, Bedford Falls does not exist. That unlived life George Bailey foresaw in his suspended state, that fantasy that forms the core narrative of the film, has become the reality of Pottersville. In short, the reality in which we live is the reality in which George Bailey has died.<br /> For Potter, the bottom line is paramount, religious as a point of worship. Similarly, George Banks, the empathy-challenged banker father in Mary Poppins, sees the institution of the bank in religious terms; when entering the bank, his church, he solemnly whispers to his children, “Remember that the bank is a quiet and decorous place, and we must be on our best behavior” (Mary Poppins). </div>
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George Banks opens the film with song, proclaiming his ordered world-view and his controlling nature, made possible only by his lack of empathy; thus he becomes a distant father to his children, and in his conservative mindset he disapproves of his wife’s involvement in the “Votes for Women” movement. But his structured life ironically turns against him, as a run on his bank leads to his downfall. The bank's senior officers blame him for the bank's greatest money loss "since we financed that tea shipment to the American Colonies that got ruined by those rebels" (Mary Poppins). Mr. Banks is promptly fired, and to make things more humiliating for his sacrilege against the great and powerful institution of the bank, his bowler hat is torn and his umbrella is pulled inside out. Out of the cold, remorseless prison of the bank, Banks escapes from a world where empathy has been summarily denied. His sense of humanity is restored, and he is allowed finally to develop a closer relationship with his family. As Charlotte Cameron notes, “the cold and absent George Banks has to be ruined by a run on his bank before he can become a real father” (Cameron). <br /></div>
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In Oliver Stone’s Wall Street (1987), Gordon Gekko’s mantra “Greed is good” illustrates that a concern for money had clearly overtaken a concern for people during the profit-driven eighties, where money replaced God at the altar of worship. As Gekko tells the stockholders of Teldar Paper, “Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms -- greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge -- has marked the upward surge of mankind” (Wall Street). The character, ordered and without empathy, is a representation of the investment bankers growing power in the profit-driven, at- all-costs 1980’s. According to Edward R. Pressman, producer of the film, "Originally, there was no one individual who Gekko was modeled on… but Gekko was partly Milken, who was the ‘Junk Bond King’ of the 1980s, and indicted on 98 counts of racketeering and fraud in 1989” (Goodley). Gekko is driven by greed; like Mr. Banks in Mary Poppins, he is structured and disciplined in his desire and approach for more, as his lust for money takes him into the worlds of corporate raiding and insider trading. Like Banks, he is doomed to fail, as his protégé, Bud Fox, is arrested for his role in their illegal trades; he agrees to turn state's evidence against Gekko in return for a lighter sentence. Gekko is convicted of insider trading and multiple securities violations, and all ends well for Bud, who ruminates on his bad decisions and the lessons that unchecked capitalism has taught him (Wall Street).</div>
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Michael Douglas, in an interview, related his shock at the public response to his character of Gordon Gekko in the film: “We just never anticipated that all these people in business school would be ranting and raving that this was the person they wanted to be” (Goodley). Perhaps out of a sense of guilt that he had some culpability in creating Wall Street monsters through his portrayal of Gekko, Douglas stated in a later interview in 2007 (with the release of the sequel Money Never Sleeps) “A lot of those business school students are the leaders of these investment banks, hedge funds now where we’re seeing all this incredible corruption” (Gormon).<br /></div>
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The film Boiler Room (2000) follows a team of investment bankers, a generation after Oliver Stone’s Wall Street, who transform from business school students into fraudulent men devoid of empathy. They recite the Gordon Gekko mantra verbatim, driven without conscience by love of money through the hard sell and high commission. Jim Young, imploring his protégés in the same guise as Gekko, proclaims of the hard sell, “There is no such thing as a no-sell call. A sell is made on every call you make. Either you sell the client some stock, or he sells you on a reason he can't. Either way, a sell is made. The only question is: who's gonna close? You or him?! Now be relentless” (Boiler Room), and then, in a show of arrogance, “anybody who tells you money is the root of all evil doesn’t have any” (Boiler Room). <br /></div>
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The central character of Boiler Room, an investment banker by the name of Seth Davis, is acutely aware of his lack of empathy and greed, driven into him effectively by Jim’s persuasive speech--but not so permanent that he is able to retain a semblance of his humanity. Even though Seth is well on his way to becoming a millionaire and fulfilling his life-long dream of being filthy rich and earning the respect of his father, he sees the corruption and lack of empathy all around him; he is able to break free when he is able to empathize, when he realizes he is cheating hard-working families out of their life's savings just to earn himself a few thousand dollars in commissions. Says Seth in retrospect: “I had a very strong work ethic. The problem was my ethics in work, (Boiler Room).” The story ends well for Seth; like George Banks and Bud Fox, he finds his humanity, and although Seth is arrested by the FBI for the violation of SEC regulations, and he is taken into custody by the FBI along with his father, who was arrested for attempting to conceal his son, he is able to walk free after he gathers evidence to implicate J.T. Martin, the investment firm overrun with empathy-devoid bankers (Boiler Room). The firm is brought down, and all is once again right with the world.<br /></div>
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Perhaps the most notable evil banker is the one who melds the evil world of finance with the evil world of violence, where the rapists, murderers, and usurers of Dante’s seventh circle meld into one amorphous form: Patrick Bateman in Bret Ellis’s American Psycho. Set in the late 1980’s in the early years of Reagan’s de-regulation of the banks, Ellis’s novel opens with a clear reference to Dante’s hell and the seventh circle of usurers, as the novel begins, in capital letters (like Pound’s CONTRA NATURAM), “ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE,” and then, “is scrawled in blood red lettering on the side of the Chemical Bank near the corner of Eleventh and First and is in print large enough to be seen in the cab as it lurches forward in the traffic leaving Wall Street” (3). Like Steinbeck’s monster, Patrick Bateman is not human; he sees himself existing in an amorphous state siphoned of empathy: “There is an idea of Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me, only an entity, something illusory, and though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are comparable: I am simply not there” (Ellis 376). He is the faceless monster, or the face covered and riding the iron seat of Steinbeck’s proverbial tractor. Ellis wants to make this monster surreal, though, to illustrate the horrific crimes perpetrated from the lair of Wall Street; he provides the shock value by linking Wall Street debauchery to horrific physical violence, an allegory of the terror that the banking institution inflicts on the families, on the communities, that Seth Davis of Boiler Room chose to avoid. Instead, Patrick Bateman is an investment banker/serial killer of the most graphically violent kind: people are beheaded, gutted, chopped up, drilled into, nailed to the floor, burned, maced, and dissected alive. Through all of this, from a first-person perspective, Bateman delivers his utter lack of empathy to an audience unaware of his presence: “I had all the characteristics of a human being—flesh, blood, skin, hair—but my depersonalization was so intense, had gone so deep, that my normal ability to feel compassion had been eradicated, the victim of a purposeful erasure. I was simply imitating reality, a rough resemblance of a human being, with only a dim corner of my mind functioning” (282).<br /></div>
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Bateman revels in the materialism and shallowness all around him; the novel is saturated with references to brand names and material culture, in a decade where the saying became “whoever dies with the most toys wins.” The novel’s use of present tense affirms the inherent selfishness of living for the present, without any concern for the future, and a shedding of value systems and ethics rooted in an understanding of a past and for a stable future that has vanished. Ellis noted that his creation of American Psycho was really an indictment of this materialist culture that went into overdrive in the 1980’s. “I was living like Patrick Bateman. I was slipping into a consumerist kind of void that was supposed to give me confidence and make me feel good about myself but just made me feel worse and worse and worse about myself” (Baker). So more and more and more; there is never enough as more and more profit is demanded. And to return to Steinbeck on this consuming greed, he writes in Chapter 5 in The Grapes of Wrath, “The bank—the monster has to have profits all the time. It can’t wait, it’ll die...when the monster stops growing, it’ll die. It can’t stay one size” (Steinbeck 44).<br /></div>
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So the horrific effects of bank- as-monster continue into the 21st century. But what is to be done about the limitless greed and the role of banks? How to stop the ramped-up capitalism that led to the financial collapse of 2008? The documentary Inside Job (2010) was the first film to expose the shocking truth behind the economic crisis of 2008, a global meltdown on the order of 20 trillion dollars, causing millions to lose their jobs and homes. The documentary includes interviews with major financial insiders and chronicles the rise of a rogue industry, unveiling the corrosive relationships on Wall Street that have corrupted politics, regulation, and academia. In the 1980’s the financial industry exploded and investment banks went public, bringing them huge amounts of investor money; people started getting rich. The Reagan administration, supported by economists and financial lobbyists, allowed for deregulation of savings and loans in 1982 and risky investments with depositor’s money; by the end of the decade, hundreds of savings and loan companies had failed. One of the safeguards following the Depression was the formation of the Glass-Steagle Act, which prevented banks from using consumer deposits to invest in risky business activities; in 1999, Congress passed the Gramm- Leach-Bliley Act, which effectively overturned Glass-Steagle and paved the way for future mergers. Perhaps the biggest indictment of Steinbeck’s proclamation that the bank “can’t stay one size;” however, arrived with subprime loans, which led to a massive increase in predatory lending. Borrowers were needlessly burdened with expensive subprime loans, and many of these loans were given out to people who could not repay them. It was the hard sell of Boiler Room, convincing the buyer who didn’t have the capital to sustain a mortgage that he or she could sustain a mortgage. Indeed, the banks made more profit through subprime loans, growing proportionally larger in size. Countrywide Financial, the largest subprime lender, issued $97 million in loans and made $11 billion in profits (Inside Job). </div>
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Then it all fell through: home foreclosures skyrocketed and lenders could no longer sell loans to investment banks; loans went bad, leaving investment banks with loans and real estate they couldn’t sell: the collapse of Bear-Stearns in March 2008, the collapse of Lehman stock in September 2008, and AIG’s 700 billion dollar bailout, which cost taxpayers over $150 billion, among many others. World stock markets fell and unemployment rose. Despite all this, in the United States, banks are now bigger and more powerful than ever before because of fewer competitors, such as JP Morgan and Bank of America. After the ‘08 crisis, the financial industry, with more lobbyists than members of Congress, fought hard and successfully to stop reform (Inside Job).<br /></div>
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As Patrick Bateman continues to roam freely at the end of American Psycho, he states, “I feel naked, suddenly tiny. My mouth tastes metallic, then it gets worse…But I’m left with one comforting thought: I am rich---millions are not” (Ellis 392). Those responsible for this recent financial meltdown, the blatant fraud of trillions of dollars, were never punished and rarely even investigated. Like the monster that is Bateman, some of them walked away with hundreds of millions in bonuses while the public bailed out their companies. So it is difficult to solve such a problem when perpetrators are not punished and they feel no remorse, and when they walk invisible among us. As Bateman notes about his horrific actions, “My conscience, my pity, my hopes disappeared a long time ago...if they ever did exist. There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it, I have now surpassed” (Ellis 377). And even if caught and prosecuted, what would it gain? Bateman answers, “There is no catharsis. I gain no deeper knowledge about myself; no new understanding can be extracted from my telling. There has been no reason for me to tell you any of this. This confession has meant nothing…” (Ellis 377).<br /></div>
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As Chris Hedges notes in his superb book Empire of Illusion (“a trenchantly argued critique of the near destruction of the American Dream by unfettered capitalism,” as one reviewer puts it), the banker as entity without empathy has taken control. “The manipulative character has superb organizational skills yet is unable to have authentic human experiences. He or she is an emotional cripple and driven by an overvalued realism. He or she is exclusively trained to sustain the corporate structure, which is why our elites wasted mind-blowing amounts of our own money on corporations like Goldman Sachs and AIG, (112).” Hedges quote Theodor Adorno, a German sociologist and philosopher famous for his critical theory of society. Adorno might as well be describing Patrick Bateman when he says, “[the bank] is especially difficult to fight against…because those manipulative people, who actually are incapable of true experience, for that reason manifest an unresponsiveness that associates them with certain mentally ill psychotic characters, namely schizoids” (113).<br /> </div>
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What matters most now is fighting Steinbeck’s insatiable monster by carefully examining the economic climate in which it thrives, through critical thinking and moral autonomy. As Immanuel Kant made clear, this is only possible through reflection and the self-determination necessary to not cooperate with such an overwhelming force: to know wrong and to take steps to stop it. It is Emerson’s self-reliance to nonconformity, and John Stuart Mill’s rejection, in this age of materialism and the “more is better” mindset, of the tyranny of the majority (guided by the one percent). Sadly, what’s needed now, the critical thinking skills that come out of universities and especially humanities programs have been severely diminished. In his book The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities, Frank Donahue writes that (as Hedges summarizes it),” liberal arts education has been systematically dismantled for decades and any form of learning not strictly vocational has at best been marginalized and in many schools abolished” (108); and the author adds, “Students are steered away from asking broad, disturbing questions that challenge the assumptions of the power elite. They do not know how to interrupt or examine an economic system that serves the corporate state, (108).” </div>
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<br /> The humanities and critical thinking skills pose threats to the sanctity of the corporate state. Without critical thinking skills and a knowledge of the past, without the ability to assess direction for the future, there is no fight, because the reasoning necessary to establish a criteria for even drawing a fight never materializes. Why? As Hedges explains, “The elite, and those who work for them, were never taught to question the assumptions of their age. The socially important knowledge and cultural ideas embodied in history, literature, philosophy, and religion, which are at their core subversive and threatening to authority, have been banished from public discourse” ( 113). Or, at best, the little public discourse on these matters that goes on is largely unnoticed, relegated to harmless journals such as this, or if noticed, castigated as left-wing rhetoric, with little or no action taken toward reform. In short, there are too few critical thinkers able to go up against the banks, even in such impressive numbers as the protestors of Occupy Wall Street. </div>
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So the monster lives—living, breathing, and growing. “Now—{75} years after Steinbeck published The Grapes of Wrath,” Fensch observes, “we have joblessness, homelessness, poverty in America…and the greed of the banks…all back with a vengeance” (iii). And the banks, more than ever before, despite their culpability in the financial meltdown, carry on, allowing a fertile breeding ground for the spawning of Patrick Batemans, who are trained to relieve themselves of empathy and to carry on toward the bottom line. <br /> <br />Works Cited<br /><br />Aristotle. Politics, Book 1, Part 10. Web. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.html.<br />Baker, Jeff. “Q&A: Bret Easton Ellis talks about writing novels, making movies.” The Oregonian. July 7, 2010. Web. http://www.oregonlive.com/books/index.ssf/2010/07/qa_bret_easton_ellis_talks_abo.html<br />Bayan, Rick. “Pottersville Revisited.” The New Moderate. December 6, 2011. Web. http://newmoderate.com/2011/12/06/pottersville-revisited/<br />Cameron, Charlotte. “Celluloid City: Bankers on Film.” Financial News. 08 October 2010. Web. http://www.efinancialnews.com/story/2010-10-08/celluloid-city-bankers-on-film<br />Casillo, Robert. “On Canto 45.” Modern American Poetry. Web. http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/pound/canto45.htm<br />Durant, Will. The Story of Civilization: 4, The Age of Faith. New York: Simon And Schuster, 1950. Print.<br />Ellis, Bret Easton. American Psycho. New York: Vintage, 1991. Print.<br />Fensch, Thomas. Steinbeck’s bitter fruit: from The Grapes of Wrath to Occupy Wall Street. Chesterfield, VA: New Century Books, 2012. Print.<br />Froula, Christine. “On Canto 45.” Modern American Poetry. Web. http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/m_r/pound/canto45.htm<br />Goodley, Simon. “Brace Yourselves: Gekko is Back.” The Telegraph. 28 August 2007. Web. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/2814749/Brace-yourself-Gekko-is-back.html<br />Gormon, Ryan. “Michael Douglas PSA to Fight Corrupt Wall Street: Greed is Not Good.” Policymic. Web. http://www.policymic.com/articles/4803/michael-douglas-psa-to-fight-corrupt-wall-street-greed-is-not-good<br />Hedges, Chris. Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle. New York: Nation Books, 2009.<br />Inside Job. Directed by Charles Ferguson. Matt Damon, William Ackman. Sony Pictures, 2010. DVD.<br />Jefferson, Thomas. “Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, May 28, 1816.” Letter. The Thomas Jefferson Papers. The Library of Congress: American Memory. Web. http://memory.loc.gov/cgibin/query/r?ammem/mtj:@field%28DOCID+@lit%28tj110172%29%29<br />Ken Burns: The Dust Bowl. Pbs.org, 2012. DVD.<br />Longfellow’s Dante: The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Transl. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1867. Print.<br />Mamet, David. “It’s a Conservative Life.” The Guardian. 13 December 2001. Web. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2001/dec/14/artsfeatures.davidmamet<br />The New Oxford Annotated Bible. ed. Michael D. Coogan. Oxford University Press, 2001. Print.<br />Nuremberg. Dir. Yves Simoneau. Alec Baldwin, Brian Cox (2000). DVD.<br />O’Callahan, Jeremiah. Usury: Monopoly, Forestalling, Traffic. Gallican Liberties. Graves, Anatomy. New York: The Gordon Lester Ford Collection, 1856. Print.<br />Pound, Ezra. The Cantos of Ezra Pound. New York: New Directions Pub. Corp, 1970. Print.<br />St. Augustine. The Political Writings of St. Augustine. Transl. Henry Paolucci. Chicago: Gateway Edition, 1962. Print.<br />“Return of the Gekko.” Financial News. 11 October, 2010. Web. http://www.efinancialnews.com/story/2010-10-11/return-of-gekko<br />Rothbard, Muray N. Economic Thought Before Adam Smith: An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought (Vol. 1). Edward Elgar Pub, 1995. Print.<br />Steinbeck, John. The Grapes of Wrath. Penguin Books, 1992. Print.<br />The Best Years of Our Lives. Dir. William Wyler. Myrna Loy, Frederic March, 1946. DVD.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-5804481214494032832016-03-14T09:45:00.000-07:002016-03-14T10:10:39.981-07:00PRETRIB RAPTURE STEALTH By Dave MacPherson<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Many evangelicals believe that Christ will "rapture" them to heaven years before the second coming and (most importantly) well BEFORE Antichrist and his "tribulation." But Acts <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1614635373" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">2:34</span></span>, 35 reveal that Jesus is at the Father's right hand in heaven until He leaves to destroy His earthly foes at the second coming. And Acts <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1614635374" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">3:21</span></span> says that Jesus “must” stay in heaven with the Father "until the times of restitution of all things” which includes, says Scofield, “the restoration of the theocracy under David’s Son” which obviously can’t begin before or during Antichrist’s reign. See also Heb. <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1614635375" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">10:12</span></span>, 13. ("The Rapture Question," by longtime No. 1 pretrib expert John Walvoord, didn't dare to even list, in its scripture index, the above Acts verses! They were also too hot for John Darby - the so-called "father of dispensationalism" - to list in the scripture index in his "Letters"!) </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> Paul explains the “times and the seasons” (I Thess. 5:1) of the catching up (I Thess. <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1614635376" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">4:17</span></span>) as the “day of the Lord” (5:2) which FOLLOWS the posttrib sun/moon darkening (Matt. 24:29; Acts <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1614635377" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">2:20</span></span>) WHEN “sudden destruction” (5:3) of the wicked occurs! The "rest" for "all them that believe" is also tied to such destruction in II Thess. 1:6-10! (If the wicked are destroyed before or during the trib, who'd be left alive to serve the Antichrist?) Paul also ties the change-into-immortality “rapture” (I Cor. <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1614635378" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">15:52</span></span>) to the end of trib “death” (<span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1614635379" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">15:54</span></span>). (Will death be ended before or during the trib? Of course not! And vs. 54 is also tied to Isa. 25:8 which Scofield views as Israel's posttrib resurrection!) It's amazing that the Olivet Discourse contains the "great commission" for the church but not even a hint of a pretrib rapture for the church!</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"> Many don't know that before 1830 all Christians had always viewed I Thess. 4’s “catching up” as an integral part of the final second coming to earth. In 1830 this "rapture" was stretched forward and turned into an idolized separate coming of Christ. To further strengthen their novel view, which evangelical scholars overwhelmingly rejected throughout the 1800s, pretrib teachers in the early 1900s began to stretch forward the “day of the Lord” (what Darby and Scofield never dared to do) and hook it up with their already-stretched-forward “rapture.” Many leading evangelical scholars still weren’t convinced of pretrib, so pretrib teachers then began teaching that the “falling away” of II Thess. 2:3 is really a pretrib rapture (the same as saying that the “rapture” in 2:3 must happen before the “rapture” ["gathering"] in 2:1 can happen – the height of desperation!). Google "Walvoord Melts Ice" for more on this, and also Google "Pretrib Rapture Pride."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"> If you would like to see more details on the bizarre 186-year-old history of the pretrib rapture which began in Britain in 1830, see my book "The Rapture Plot" (available by calling 800.643.4645).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">And if you would like to see two excellent works proving how unbiblical the pretrib rapture really is, I am happy to recommend "The End Times Passover" and "Why Christians Will Suffer Great Tribulation," both by my good friend Joe Ortiz (Google "Joe Ortiz Associates").</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Dave MacPherson. What People are saying</span></div>
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Saying About ... THE RAPTURE PLOT! </span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMtd1aT0gGWeGBph0T5xOgrgmEEAqCSxAe7w3UhZ0xEo7Y2Sxm93lWLj68gR3MaN_9izzOnwcpB-EW_Q7XMSIyJyGdwSqPj8XLX2vDYJjDGMzg1REwEUtGwp7BmcoJ18KPmxXgsbjJXqk/s1600/Rapture+Plot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="clear: left; float: left; font-size: large; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMtd1aT0gGWeGBph0T5xOgrgmEEAqCSxAe7w3UhZ0xEo7Y2Sxm93lWLj68gR3MaN_9izzOnwcpB-EW_Q7XMSIyJyGdwSqPj8XLX2vDYJjDGMzg1REwEUtGwp7BmcoJ18KPmxXgsbjJXqk/s1600/Rapture+Plot.jpg" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Gary DeMar (President American Vision): "A
majority of prophecy writers and speakers teach that the church will be
raptured before a future tribulational period. But did you know that prior to
about 1830 no such doctrine existed. No one in all of church history ever
taught pretribulational rapture. Dave MacPherson does the work of a
journalistic private investigator to uncover the truth....The Rapture Plot is
the never-before-told true story of the plot - how plagiarism and subtle
document changes created the 'mother of all revisionisms.' A fascinating piece
of detective work." Robert H. Gundry (Professor Westmont College):
"As usual MacPherson out hustles his opponents in research on primary
sources. C. S. Lovett (President Personal Christianity): You don't read very
much of Dave MacPherson's work before you realize he is a dedicated researcher.
Because his work has been so honest and open his latest work The Rapture Plot
has produced many red faces among some of the most recognized rapture writers
of our time. When their work is compared to his it is embarrassing for them to
see how shallow their research is." R. J. Rushdoony (President Chalcedon):
"Dave MacPherson has been responsible for major change in the eschatology
of evangelical churches by his devastating studies of some of the central
aspects thereof. In The Rapture Plot MacPherson tells us of the strange tale of
'rapture' writings, revisions, cover-ups, alterations and confusions. No one
has equaled MacPherson in his research on the 'pretrib rapture.' Attempts to
discredit his work have failed...." <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1JjqFrDdQhzk4KgNN7MMlmhyeKhxNgaE50snWrsoZQcuc5kG6XTgHLV5nHXfGFWvpogxxgczlU2tlRNFtRE8H36Kxi38rXYqX1fODDNYlx5TiZmPReqnGR9GBTT0t3JoVwR3BjcNxqf4/s1600/Dave+MacPherson+Profile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-size: large;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1JjqFrDdQhzk4KgNN7MMlmhyeKhxNgaE50snWrsoZQcuc5kG6XTgHLV5nHXfGFWvpogxxgczlU2tlRNFtRE8H36Kxi38rXYqX1fODDNYlx5TiZmPReqnGR9GBTT0t3JoVwR3BjcNxqf4/s320/Dave+MacPherson+Profile.jpg" width="237" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #333333; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">About the Author: Born 1932 of Scotch/English
descent Dave MacPherson is a natural for British historical research. His
calling was journalism. Receiving a BA in English in 1955 he spent 26 years as
a newsman reporting and filming many notable events persons presidents and
dignitaries.</span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-40743325633519300112016-03-10T19:39:00.000-08:002016-03-10T19:39:39.025-08:00We Are Heavenly Minded People!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaDVsTs_e1C3P8UVnsdTQ_yYn-vVbo_kZFO7ZlW6H5ZbHPrERhzZUoscnLg76rsTKfMWSixIycD5YNmgLwPUc4fMTpUsh01l1HYlT0Mh5bX59WdoPlfWwLTDjvqe3m2ziwaMYkAzAvWIc/s1600/Rapture+Floaters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaDVsTs_e1C3P8UVnsdTQ_yYn-vVbo_kZFO7ZlW6H5ZbHPrERhzZUoscnLg76rsTKfMWSixIycD5YNmgLwPUc4fMTpUsh01l1HYlT0Mh5bX59WdoPlfWwLTDjvqe3m2ziwaMYkAzAvWIc/s320/Rapture+Floaters.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">We (those of us fortunate enough to have been raised a Christian, or recently repented and turned our lives over to Jesus Christ), for the most part have been trained and have accepted the myth that when you die you either go directly to Heaven or Hell. Millions and millions of people will say to themselves or friends and relatives, "Yes, my husband passed away and is now in Heaven with the man upstairs." </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">If you try to correct them with Bible facts that this is not true, you will be scolded, harangued and dismissed as a heretic. Unfortunately, this easily taught and accepted myth is an indictment against the church and its preachers and teachers who find it more acceptable to tell (especially) a young child that daddy is in the grave resting until The Resurrection. Telling them that daddy is now with the Lord in Heaven and is keeping watch over the entire family is more convenient and "soothing."<br /><br />"Heretic! Blasphemer! You're crazy! These are the nice words I have been called for pointing out that a person does not go to Heaven (or Hell) immediately after they die. For that matter, no one ever goes to Heaven after they pass away and especially after or during the so-called 'Rapture' to Heaven that has and is being promoted by millions of people worldwide, especially by evangelicals in the United States.<br /><br /> Yes, I know, even you are raising your eyebrow and silently asking yourself, "has Joe Ortiz finally flipped out?" Even I asked myself the same question after studying this aspect for several years prior to writing my book, "The End Times Passover." I probably spent more time researching this specific topic than any other chapter in my book. In fact, this chapter (#10, Heavenly Minded) took longer to write because I chose to crisscross and cross reference many Bible versions, commentaries, dictionaries, concordances and Greek and Hebrew dictionaries to make sure what was unveiling before my eyes was accurate. My conclusion that no one ever goes to Heaven was eerily haunting because I knew that the data that was being revealed to me flies across the face of orthodoxy and religious traditions throughout the world. Yet, even after I finished writing my book (for the most part around 1986) a certain degree of doubt still entered my mind. I take the caveat we are cautioned by in the Book of <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James+3%3A1-2&version=NIV">James 3:1-2</a> very seriously: (Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. 2 We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check)."<br /><br />Below are a few groups of scripture that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that God's Holy City (New Jerusalem) comes down to earth, from where God will administer His kingdom, along with those who believed and trusted in Jesus Christ, for an eternity:<br /><br />Hebrews 11:8-10 (NIV): 8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. 9 By faith he made his home in the Promised Land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. 10 For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God, (Hebrews 11:8-10 NIV)<br /><br />Hebrews 13:11-14 (NIV)11 The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. 12 And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood.13 Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. 14 For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.<br /><br />Revelation 21:1-4 (NIV)21 Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes, there will be no more death’] or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”<br /><br />Revelation 21:22-27 (NIV) 22 I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. 25 On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. 26 The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. 27 Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br />Psalm 37:11 (KJV)11 But the meek shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.<br /><br />Matthew 5:5 (NIV): 5 Blessed are the meek,for they will inherit the earth.<br /><br />John 14:23-24 (NIV): 23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.<br /><br />2 Corinthians 6:16 (NIV): 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said:“I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God,and they will be my people.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br />Matthew 25:31-46 (ESV): “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ...<br /><br />Revelation 7:13-17 (NIV):13 Then one of the elders asked me, “These in white robes—who are they, and where did they come from?”14 I answered, “Sir, you know.”And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.15 Therefore,“they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence.16 ‘Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst.The sun will not beat down on them,’[a]nor any scorching heat.17 For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><br />Is there any doubt?<br /><br />For information about the author's books, web sites and blogs, please click on <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=1GWFubrlDRNzsarAnets9HsgL11gYgqXkiPYUPsA4oU0&pli=1#"><span style="color: blue;">Joe Ortiz</span></a></span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-87116594806302357132016-02-10T07:28:00.000-08:002016-02-10T07:28:39.310-08:00Dallas Seminary Secrets by Dave MacPherson<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilm_1ssKo84Ls-au2c2Ul-Orj0QKtEWpEu1_pC8OUcmejoNkW_ocQLW9fIKOk-D-Q-JNirOg7mFDPTPTOPgv3BXyET3nTS4y4LxtqNYfQJrZb0nsncBrcF2NzAMs6nlfSAuXCnpRETOq4/s1600/Dallas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilm_1ssKo84Ls-au2c2Ul-Orj0QKtEWpEu1_pC8OUcmejoNkW_ocQLW9fIKOk-D-Q-JNirOg7mFDPTPTOPgv3BXyET3nTS4y4LxtqNYfQJrZb0nsncBrcF2NzAMs6nlfSAuXCnpRETOq4/s320/Dallas.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;">Dallas, Texas is called the Big D. And Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS), deep in the heart of Big D, is the No. 1 school promoting another Big D.</span><br class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;" /><br class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;" /><span class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;">I refer to "Dispensationalism" which, like a pearl shell, has long built up layers of supposed "proof" in order to protect its inner secret: the little money-making pearl known as the pretribulation rapture, a 19th century, fringe-British-invented theological novelty that was based originally on only OT and NT types and symbols and NOT on a single Bible verse!</span><br class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;" /><br class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;" /><span class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;">For many years Dr. John Walvoord was DTS's president and was viewed as the world's No. 1 pretrib rapture authority. Astonishingly, the first (1957) printing of Walvoord's "The Rapture Question" admitted on p. 148: "The fact is that neither posttribulationism nor pretribulationism is an explicit teaching of Scripture." Walvoord, of course, could easily apply "explicit" in this manner to the historic posttrib view. The real shock was seeing him applying it to his own pretrib view!) Dr. George Ladd of Fuller Seminary was the first one to alert me about this. In the same 1971 letter to me, Ladd added that in later printings of Walvoord's book the above devastating admission no longer appears for obvious reasons!</span><br class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;" /><br class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;" /><span class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;">In two of his books ("The Blessed Hope and the Tribulation," 1976) and "The Rapture Question, Revised," 1979), Walvoord discussed my extensive research on pretrib rapture history. Many are still unaware that Walvoord, when opposing my findings, leaned not for support on any of his own DTS profs including church history experts but instead leaned almost exclusively on a militant member of the Plymouth Brethren named R. A. Huebner who at that time was a retired electrical engineer who had admitted that he had never attended college, seminary, or even a Bible school! (My research, BTW, has uncovered serious copying errors in Huebner's works - 95 of them in his 1973 booklet and 257 in his 1991 book including words changed, added, or subtracted when quoting others!)</span><br class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;" /><br class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;" /><span class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;">Walvoord's "The Rapture Question" also declares on p. 127: "Posttribulationism has long been a common doctrine held by the majority of the church." </span><br class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;" /><br class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;" /><span class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;">(Interestingly, even though pretrib teachers are aware of this true statement, they either pretend it doesn't exist or give the impression that anyone holding to a non-pretrib view is someone akin to a heretic!) </span><br class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;" /><br class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;" /><span class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;">Bible teachers who've either taught, spoken, or studied at Dallas Seminary include the following: Tony Evans, Arnold Fruchtenbaum, Ed Hindson, Mark Hitchcock, Thomas Ice, H. A. Ironside, Robert Jeffress, David Jeremiah, Hal Lindsey, Erwin Lutzer, J. Vernon McGee, Dwight Pentecost, Randall Price, Ron Rhodes, Charles Ryrie, Charles Stanley, Joseph Stowell, Chuck Swindoll, Merrill Unger, and Andy Woods.</span><br class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;" /><br class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;" /><span class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;">My greatest shocks have been when discovering massive plagiarism among some of the scholars tied to Dallas Seminary. My book "The Rapture Plot" has an appendix covering such thievery even in the writings of men like Charles Ryrie and Paul Lee Tan.</span><br class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;" /><br class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;" /><span class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;">And my later book "The Three R's" shows, with side-by-side lines, that famed DTS prof Dr. Merrill Unger, holder of more than one doctorate, quietly plagiarized some of Hal Lindsey's books! He pilfered lines on 67 pages in Hal's "The Late Great Planet Earth" and also lifted lines on 36 pages in Hal's "There's A New World Coming."</span><br class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;" /><br class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;" /><span class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;">Much more evidence of such dispensational dishonesty is found in my "Plot" book. Readers can also Google "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty" and "Walvoord's Posttrib Varieties - Plus."</span><br class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;" /><br class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;" /><span class="auto-style2" style="font-family: Arial;">Remember: DTS stands for Dallas Theological Seminary." It can also stand for "Distorting the Scripture"!</span></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-90252551192178836172016-01-08T17:12:00.001-08:002016-01-09T12:29:16.966-08:00David Reagan: Texas-Sized Copycat Artist of Pre-Trib Rapture Rhetoric by Dave MacPherson<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">Truthful prophecy writers are needed as much as truthful politicians - and I'm thinking of the successful so-called prophecy commentator Dr. David R. Reagan (pictured above), a Texan who profits more by repeating eschatological errors than by researching facts that already verify who started the "Pre-Tribulation Rapture to Heaven" doctrine. Reagan is the Senior Evangelists for Lamb and Lion Ministries.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I'm honored that my decades-long research on pre-tribulation rapture history is part of Joe Schimmel's fantastic new DVD titled "Left Behind or Led Astray?" However, my documentation soon became a lightning rod attracting angry rebuttals from British pretrib defender Paul Wilkinson and even more recently from American, pretrib promoter, David Reagan whose response is titled "In Defense of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture: Left Behind or Led Astray?"</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But something is missing. Reagan's response isn't Texas-sized. It isn't even Rhode Island-sized. And much of his "research" is merely his copy-catting and repeating of totally groundless - and malicious - gossip from other hired premillennial gunslingers including some from Texas. Here's an example:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">My article "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty" - appearing on the net since 2009 - states:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">"Thomas Ice's article 'Inventor of False Pre-Trib Rapture History' states that my book 'The Rapture Plot' is 'only one of the latest in a series of revisions of his original discourse....' And David Reagan in his article 'The Origin of the Concept of a Pre-Tribulation Rapture' repeats Ice's falsehood by claiming that I have re-published my first book ["The Unbelievable Pre-Trib Origin"] 'over the years under several different titles.' " (Google "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty" to see how I expose their deliberate prevarications.)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Since my research used a "microscope" for close-ups on the pretrib origin (unlike many others who used a "telescope" covering so many centuries before and after the origin they somehow missed the exact origin itself!), allow me to comment on some points Reagan brought up.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Because he saw older writers like Ribera, Edwards, and Lacunza as possibly being part of the pretrib origin search, I invite interested readers to Google "Catholics Did NOT Invent the Rapture," "Morgan Edwards' Rapture View," and "The Real Manuel Lacunza," and, no, neither Ribera nor Lacunza "believed the Rapture would occur 45 days before the end of the Tribulation," as Reagan, foolishly copying others, asserted.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Re Margaret MacDonald (the real pretrib rapture theory originator), Reagan described her as a "hyper-Charismatic"who had "emotional trances in 1830 which are portrayed as demon-induced."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">For the record: I have never said (or even thought) that "demon" or "demonic" should ever be applied to her, or have ever believed she experienced anything like a "trance"!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Her 1830 pretrib "revelation" (or "vision") was merely her INTERPRETATION of scripture, no matter what any pretrib "straw" men want to project!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Reagan quotes "Rapture Ready" founder Todd Strandberg who says he can't recall ever hearing any speaker say "I believe in the Rapture because Margaret MacDonald told me so." What Todd doesn't want to recall are my Google pieces titled "Open Letter to Todd Strandberg" (dated 2001) and "The Rapture Index (Mad Theology)" (dated 2006).</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">When Hal Lindsey's books write about "the one taken and the other left" before the Antichrist is "revealed," everyone knows he's expressing pretrib rapture doctrine. But when Reagan looked at Margaret's words saying the very same thing in the same order (in lines 58-63 in her 117-line pretrib discovery account), he had the audacity to declare that "not one trace of that [pretrib] doctrine could be found in the vision MacPherson presents as proof!"</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Naturally Reagan would never want anyone to Google "X-Raying Margaret," "Margaret MacDonald's Rapture Chart," "Margaret MacDonald's Main Point" (which shows Wilkinson and Ice deviously omitting all or part of her main point in order to dishonestly declare that she wasn't teaching pretrib!), and "Pretrib Rapture's Missing Lines."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Reagan then discussed early Church Fathers. Since he evidently loves copying and repeating more than researching, you may be wondering about the much-repeated "Pseudo-Ephraem" claim. But instead of wondering, feel free to Google "Pseudo-Ephraem Taught Pretrib - Not!" Other related Google items would include "Grant Jeffrey's Apocalypse Debacle" and "Wily Jeffrey."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Reagan also talks about John Darby. Since many - including Darby idolizer Paul Wilkinson - still (wrongfully) view Darby as the "father" of pretrib dispensationalism, I invite all to Google "The Unoriginal John Darby," "John Darby Did NOT Invent the Rapture," and "Edward Irving Vs. John Darby."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Since Reagan doesn't overlook Thomas Ice - the No. 1 pretrib "bulldog" or maybe "pit bull" - I hereby draw attention to these Google articles: "Pretrib Rapture Pride," "Walvoord Melts Ice," "Edward Irving is Unnerving," "Thomas Ice (Bloopers)," and "Be Careful in Polemics - Peripatetic Learning."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Finally, one can wonder why David Reagan, with his background as an educator, is so taken up with the 186-year-old pretrib rapture. Perhaps it's because there's more profit in eschatology than there is in education!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">(By the way, if you love being educated in things that matter concerning the return of Jesus Christ, be sure to Google the website and book <span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/theendtimespassover/main-page">The End Times Passover</a> </span>written by notable journalist and Bible scholar Joe Ortiz.)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dave MacPherson. What People are saying</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">What They Are Saying About ... THE RAPTURE PLOT!</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Gary DeMar (President American Vision): "A majority of prophecy writers and speakers teach that the church will be raptured before a future tribulation period. But did you know that prior to about 1830 no such doctrine existed. No one in all of church history ever taught pretribulational rapture. Dave MacPherson does the work of a journalistic private investigator to uncover the truth....The Rapture Plot is the never-before-told true story of the plot - how plagiarism and subtle document changes created the 'mother of all revisionisms.' A fascinating piece of detective work." </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Robert H. Gundry (Professor Westmont College): "As usual MacPherson out hustles his opponents in research on primary sources. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">C. S. Lovett (President Personal Christianity): You don't read very much of Dave MacPherson's work before you realize he is a dedicated researcher. Because his work has been so honest and open, his latest work The Rapture Plot has produced many red faces among some of the most recognized rapture writers of our time. When their work is compared to his it is embarrassing for them to see how shallow their research is." </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">R. J. Rushdoony (President Chalcedon): "Dave MacPherson has been responsible for major change in the eschatology of evangelical churches by his devastating studies of some of the central aspects thereof. In The Rapture Plot MacPherson tells us of the strange tale of 'rapture' writings, revisions, cover-ups, alterations and confusions. No one has equaled MacPherson in his research on the 'pretrib rapture.' Attempts to discredit his work have failed...."</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">About the Author: Born 1932 of Scotch/English descent Dave MacPherson is a natural for British historical research. His calling was journalism. Receiving a BA in English in 1955 he spent 26 years as a newsman reporting and filming many notable events persons presidents and dignitaries.</span></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-22744904794832110752015-12-03T14:36:00.001-08:002015-12-03T23:21:46.732-08:00PRETRIB RAPTURE SECRETS by Dave MacPherson<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"> How can the “rapture” be “imminent”? Acts <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1627824655" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">3:21</span></span> says that Jesus “must” stay in heaven (He's now there with the Father) “until the times of restitution of all things” which includes, says Scofield, “the restoration of the theocracy under David’s Son” which obviously can’t begin before or during Antichrist’s reign. ("The Rapture Question," by the long time No. 1 pretrib authority John Walvoord, didn't dare to even list, in its scripture index, the too-hot-to-handle Acts <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1627824656" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">3:21</span></span>!) Since Jesus can’t even leave heaven before the tribulation ends (Acts <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1627824657" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">2:34</span></span>,35 echo this), the rapture therefore can't take place before the end of the trib! (The same Acts verses were also too hot for John Darby - the so-called "father of dispensationalism" - to list in the scripture index in his "Letters"!) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="text-align: left;"> Paul explains the “times and the seasons” (I Thess. 5:1) of the catching up (I Thess. <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1627824658" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">4:17</span></span>) as the “day of the Lord” (5:2) which FOLLOWS the posttrib sun/moon darkening (Matt. 24:29; Acts <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1627824659" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">2:20</span></span>) WHEN “sudden destruction” (5:3) of the wicked occurs! The "rest" for "all them that believe" is tied to such destruction in II Thess. 1:6-10! (If the wicked are destroyed before or during the trib, who'd be left alive to serve the Antichrist?) Paul also ties the change-into-immortality “rapture” (I Cor. <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1627824660" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">15:</span></span>) to the posttrib end of “death” (<span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1627824661" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">15:54</span></span>). (Will death be ended before or during the trib? Of course not! And vs. 54 is also tied to Isa. 25:8 which is Israel's posttrib resurrection!) </span></span></div>
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Many are unaware that before 1830 all Christians had always viewed I Thess. 4’s “catching up” as an integral part of the final second coming to earth. In 1830 this "rapture" was stretched forward and turned into a separate coming of Christ. To further strengthen their novel view, which the mass of evangelical scholars rejected throughout the 1800s, pretrib teachers in the early 1900s began to stretch forward the “day of the Lord” (what Darby and Scofield never dared to do) and hook it up with their already-stretched-forward “rapture.” </div>
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Many leading evangelical scholars still weren’t convinced of pretrib, so pretrib teachers then began teaching that the “falling away” of II Thess. 2:3 is really a pretrib rapture (the same as saying that the “rapture” in 2:3 must happen before the “rapture” ["gathering"] in 2:1 can happen – the height of desperation!). </div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"> Other Google articles on the 185-year-old pretrib rapture view include "Pretrib Rapture: how WHAT becomes WHEN," "Pretrib Rapture: A Staged Event," "Catholics Did NOT Invent the Rapture," "John Darby Did NOT Invent the Rapture," "Pretrib Rapture Scholar Wannabes," “Famous Rapture Watchers,” "Pretrib Rapture Diehards," “X-Raying Margaret,” "Margaret Macdonald's Rapture Chart," "Edward Irving is Unnerving," “Thomas Ice (Bloopers),” "Walvoord Melts Ice," "Pretrib Rapture Pride," “Wily Jeffrey,” “The Rapture Index (Mad Theology),” “America’s Pretrib Rapture Traffickers,” “Roots of (Warlike) Christian Zionism,” “Scholars Weigh My Research,” “Pretrib Hypocrisy,” "Appendix F: Thou Shalt Not Steal," "Pretrib Rapture Secrecy," “Deceiving and Being Deceived,” and "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty" – many of these on Joe Ortiz's worldwide and widely read blogs such as "The End Times Passover." </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-56096245615851029862015-10-28T10:47:00.000-07:002015-10-28T11:00:02.813-07:00VA Retaliates Against Veteran Whistleblower With False Arrest and Confiscation of His American Flags, by Ted Hayes, America's Leading Civil Rights Activist for the Homeless.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<section class="post-lead" style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19px; margin: 10px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 20px;"><div class="single_postmeta" style="font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; margin-bottom: 15px; overflow: hidden; padding-left: 3px; text-shadow: rgb(238, 238, 238) 0px 0px 1px;">
<span style="display: block; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px;">By <a href="http://www.veteranstoday.com/author/admin/" style="color: #990000; cursor: pointer; outline: none; text-decoration: none;">GPD</a> on October 27, 2015</span><span style="display: block; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px;"><a class="fontsize-button fontSizeMinus" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="increase-font" rel="nofollow" style="color: #990000; cursor: pointer; outline: none;" title="Decrease font size"><span class="icon-minus-sign" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background: rgb(153, 0, 0); border-radius: 2px; color: white; cursor: pointer; display: inline; float: left; font-family: FontAwesome; font-size: 11px; height: auto; line-height: normal; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 0px; padding: 2px; text-align: center; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; width: 15px;"></span></a><a class="fontsize-button fontSizePlus" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" id="decrease-font" rel="nofollow" style="color: #990000; cursor: pointer; outline: none;" title="Increase font size"><span class="icon-plus-sign" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background: rgb(153, 0, 0); border-radius: 2px; color: white; cursor: pointer; display: inline; float: left; font-family: FontAwesome; font-size: 11px; height: auto; line-height: normal; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 0px; padding: 2px; text-align: center; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; width: 15px;"></span></a><a class="print-this-page" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" rel="nofollow" style="color: #990000; cursor: pointer; outline: none;" title="Print this post"><span class="icon-print" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background: rgb(153, 0, 0); border-radius: 2px; color: white; cursor: pointer; display: inline; float: left; font-family: FontAwesome; font-size: 11px; height: auto; line-height: normal; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 0px; padding: 2px; text-align: center; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; width: 15px;"></span></a><a class="email-this-page" href="mailto:?subject=Veterans%20Today%20%3A%20VA%20Retaliates%20Against%20Veteran%20Whistleblower%20With%20False%20Arrest%20and%20Confiscation%20of%20His%20American%20Flags&body=I%20recommend%20this%20page%3A%20VA%20Retaliates%20Against%20Veteran%20Whistleblower%20With%20False%20Arrest%20and%20Confiscation%20of%20His%20American%20Flags.%0AYou%20can%20read%20it%20on%3A%20http%3A%2F%2Fwww.veteranstoday.com%2F2015%2F10%2F27%2Fva-retaliates-against-veteran-whistleblower-with-false-arrest-and-confiscation-of-his-american-flags%2F" style="color: #990000; cursor: pointer; outline: none; text-decoration: none;" title="Send by email : VA Retaliates Against Veteran Whistleblower With False Arrest and Confiscation of His American Flags"><span class="icon-envelope-alt" style="-webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; background: rgb(153, 0, 0); border-radius: 2px; color: white; cursor: pointer; display: inline; float: left; font-family: FontAwesome; font-size: 11px; height: auto; line-height: normal; margin-right: 5px; margin-top: 0px; padding: 2px; text-align: center; text-decoration: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; width: 15px;"></span></a></span></div>
</section><article class="entry post-378887 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-veterans-administration category-veterans_affairs tag-american tag-arrest tag-confiscation tag-false tag-flags tag-retaliates tag-va tag-veteran tag-whistleblower last_archivepost" style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue Light', 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px;"><h3 style="color: inherit; font-family: 'Open Sans', 'Franklin Gothic Medium', 'Arial Narrow Bold', Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 24.5px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1; margin: 0px 0px 0.3em; text-align: center; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility;">
<img alt="rbrock" class="size-full wp-image-378889 aligncenter" src="http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/rbrock.jpg" height="333" style="border: 0px; clear: both; display: block; height: auto; margin: 0px 0px 15px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px 10px; vertical-align: middle;" width="320" />By Ted Hayes</h3>
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<img alt="rbrock1" class="alignright size-full wp-image-378891" src="http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/rbrock1.jpg" height="262" style="border: 0px; display: inline; float: right; height: auto; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: auto !important; margin-top: 4px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px 10px; vertical-align: middle;" width="346" />LOS ANGELES – Under the apparent orders of top VA officials, VA police issued a deceptive arrest citation and confiscated the American Flags of Veteran whistleblower Bob Rosebrock at the Old Veterans Guard’s 397<span style="font-size: 11.25px; line-height: 0; position: relative; top: -0.5em; vertical-align: baseline;">th</span> consecutive Sunday Rally to “Save Our Veterans Land” and to “Bring Our Homeless Veterans HOME.”</div>
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Every Sunday since Memorial Day, Rosebrock, a 73-year old Vietnam Wartime Veteran, has patriotically hung two of his personal American Flags on the front fence of the Los Angeles VA. He’s done this in honor of the men and women who have defended our Nation and its Flag, particularly those who are convalescing at the VA from their war injuries.</div>
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However on Sunday, just three minutes after Rosebrock hung his American Flags, and three hours after sending a widespread e-mail addressed to Vincent Kane, VA Secretary McDonald’s special assistant, that exposed and challenged extensive VA corruption, a VA police car approached rapidly across the Grand Lawn to the front gates of the VA.</div>
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<img alt="officers" class="size-full wp-image-378890 aligncenter" src="http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/officers.jpg" height="286" style="border: 0px; clear: both; display: block; height: auto; margin-bottom: 0px !important; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px 10px; vertical-align: middle;" width="431" />Two armed VA police officers exited their patrol car, one with a camera and the other directing Rosebrock to remove the two Flags or else he would be cited and his Flags confiscated as “evidence.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
Rosebrock questioned the VA police officer about this bizarre action and wanted to know what law he was supposedly violating and the officer said it’s a federal regulation that prohibits displaying placards or posting materials on VA property.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
Rosebrock informed the police officer that the American Flag did not fit that description and that hanging an American Flag on the outside of the VA in honor of our Veterans should never be deemed unlawful.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
He questioned the police officer as to why he was falsely harassing a Veteran on the outside instead of dealing with all the illegal land issues on the inside perpetrated by non-Veteran entities.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
He further questioned about the illegal construction of a “public amphitheater” on VA property and why the officer didn’t demand that it be removed the same way he was demanding his Flags be removed, and he said that was not his job.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
The officer then did the job he was obviously sent to do and ordered Rosebrock to remove his two American Flags.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
It’s important to note that Rosebrock purchased one of the Flags on September 11, 2001 as a proud and patriotic gesture in defiance of the atrocious terrorist attack on American soil. He hangs it on the VA’s front fence as a salute in honor of the men and women who have served in the Iraqi and Afghanistan Wars in defense of our Nation’s Flag.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
False Flag Arrest</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
Consequently, Rosebrock refused to remove his two American Flags and the VA police officer cited and charged him under “United States District Court Violation Notice” — 38 C.F.R. § 1.218(a) 9) “Displaying of placards or posting of materials on bulleting [sic] boards or elsewhere except as authorized”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
A small child will tell you this regulation has absolutely nothing to do with an American Flag.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
Nevertheless, the arresting officer informed Rosebrock that he could pay a $75 fine or appear in federal court and challenge it, and Rosebrock assured him that he was not paying any fee for this bogus arrest citation and that he would appear in court. The officer informed Rosebrock that he would receive a court appearance notice in about four or five weeks.</div>
<div class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_378892" style="background: rgb(241, 241, 241); display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 10px; margin-top: 4px; max-width: 98%; overflow: hidden; text-align: center; width: 800px;">
<img alt="Armed VA police officers illegally seize Rosebrock’s two American Flags" class="size-full wp-image-378892" src="http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/flag.jpg" height="294" style="border: 0px; display: block !important; height: auto; margin-left: auto !important; margin-right: auto !important; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px 10px; vertical-align: middle;" width="790" /><br />
<div class="wp-caption-text" style="color: #555555; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 16px; margin: 7px;">
Armed VA police officers illegally seize Rosebrock’s two American Flags</div>
</div>
<div class="wp-caption alignright" id="attachment_378893" style="background: rgb(241, 241, 241); display: inline; float: right; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 10px; margin-top: 4px; max-width: 98%; overflow: hidden; text-align: center; width: 343px;">
<img alt="police car" class="wp-image-378893 size-full" src="http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/polica-car.jpg" height="288" style="border: 0px; display: block !important; height: auto; margin-left: auto !important; margin-right: auto !important; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px 10px; vertical-align: middle;" width="333" /><br />
<div class="wp-caption-text" style="color: #555555; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: 16px; margin: 7px;">
Once they executed their illegal flag-heist, the VA police departed hastily in their taxpayer-funded get-away car.</div>
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
It should come as no surprise that top VA officials would go to great lengths to intimidate, harass and retaliate against Rosebrock over such minutia since he has been the major whistleblower against the VA’s far-reaching illegal use of VA property while they ignore, abuse and neglect thousands upon thousands of homeless Veterans in Los Angeles.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
As a firsthand witness to Sunday’s fiasco, I have a couple basic questions:</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
Why is the VA demeaning the American Flag as an illegal placard or material on VA property and not as a revered symbol of freedom and justice in honor of Veterans at the VA?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
How can federal VA police confiscate two American Flags belonging to an elderly Military Veteran who presents them in honor of war-injured Veterans, and declare them to be “evidence” of an illegal nature?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
Are American Military Veterans now being subjected to government “flag control” the same way it tries to exercise “gun control” over America’s citizenry?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
Does the government no longer respect the American Flag as a symbol of patriotism in honor of those who are rehabilitating from defending it?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
It also needs to be noted that six years ago Rosebrock was falsely arrested six times by the VA police for hanging the American Flag in distress on the front gate of the VA, in full accordance with the U.S. Flag Code as he sent forth a legal and public message that Veterans lives and their property were in “extreme danger.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
Rosebrock won a Federal Judgment against top VA officials that eventually led to a second lawsuit and another Federal Judgment confirming the validity of his distress message that the lives and property of Veterans were indeed in extreme danger, and they still are.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
Now Rosebrock is being retaliated against for his continuous reminding top VA officials of their corruption, cronyism and cover up of illegal use of Veterans property and the VA’s failure to end Veteran homelessness as promised..</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
As a first-hand witness to the VA’s unprecedented misconduct and unfair treatment against Rosebrock on Sunday, I am deeply concerned for his safety and well-being with such an out-of-control agenda of obvious VA retaliation.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
This is just a preliminary overview of the unwarranted arrest citation and seizure of Rosebrock’s American Flags on Sunday, and more will be reported in due time.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
Wake up fellow Americans and speak up about this out-of-control corruptness and retaliation at the Los Angeles VA.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
Thanks and cheers to GOD for the men and women who defend America and our Nation’s Flag.</div>
<hr style="border-bottom-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); border-bottom-style: solid; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-top-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-top-style: solid; margin: 20px 0px;" />
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
<img alt="ted" class="alignright size-full wp-image-378894" src="http://www.veteranstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/ted.jpg" height="228" style="border: 0px; display: inline; float: right; height: auto; margin-bottom: 15px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: auto !important; margin-top: 4px; max-width: 100%; padding: 0px 10px; vertical-align: middle;" width="163" />(Bio) Ted Hayes is America’s leading Civil Rights activist who is internationally recognized as such for the nation’s homeless peoples, as well as US Military Veterans entrapped in homelessness.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
Hayes not only has conscientious experience of living years with hard-core, chronic, street-sidewalk dwelling homeless person, but as a result, has devised the only national plan, Marshall-like plan to eradicate it. A true lay expert who is also the founder the legendary, 13 year existent Dome Village in downtown LA. See <a href="http://www.domevillage.us/" style="color: #990000; cursor: pointer; outline: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">www.Domevillage.us</a> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHbMry4g_BRoVbyYJAEIpVAVIWjgrFnvGQ27kl-X7OFRE-CqVT7RkSaw8mJAmxMmrFLFQEikxr7PrRJjWdUbIDm-32s34GGW2rNkWJ_wB_P5zFpLz6hpmtWHSKE0NPwCVIh14Uu_zAS5Q/s1600/Joe+and+Ted+Hayes+1992.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHbMry4g_BRoVbyYJAEIpVAVIWjgrFnvGQ27kl-X7OFRE-CqVT7RkSaw8mJAmxMmrFLFQEikxr7PrRJjWdUbIDm-32s34GGW2rNkWJ_wB_P5zFpLz6hpmtWHSKE0NPwCVIh14Uu_zAS5Q/s320/Joe+and+Ted+Hayes+1992.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 15px;">
"It's great to see my homeless advocate colleague, Ted Hayes, is still on the front lines of the homeless battle. During my years in Los Angeles, Ted and I worked together on many issues concerning the homeless. When I ran for the Los Angeles County school Board of Trustees, in 1992, Ted was one of the first to endorse my candidacy. It was an honor and I was truly humbled by this courageous man's endorsement.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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For more information about the author of "The End Times Passover" and "Why Christians Will Suffer Great Tribulation," his blogs and his web sites, please click on <span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=1GWFubrlDRNzsarAnets9HsgL11gYgqXkiPYUPsA4oU0&pli=1#"><span style="color: blue;">Joe Ortiz</span></a>. </span></div>
</article></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-61761260522480668902015-10-28T09:07:00.000-07:002015-10-28T09:07:02.239-07:00The Great Gulf Between Zionism And Judaism by G.J. Neuberger<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghYLRkHX5d3JcUj-A60YTE0O52Yb7Uo3zPLtfePGuyIJz60zPJncC0I__-mE58JolfsmmpAX1MqB_-eUoGlGyiAzgPO2y1ujpbWtaZ4RkdUpy_WQe_H3cIOcR43mrjvKF-Ps7Wu4gPO5M/s1600/Neutra.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghYLRkHX5d3JcUj-A60YTE0O52Yb7Uo3zPLtfePGuyIJz60zPJncC0I__-mE58JolfsmmpAX1MqB_-eUoGlGyiAzgPO2y1ujpbWtaZ4RkdUpy_WQe_H3cIOcR43mrjvKF-Ps7Wu4gPO5M/s400/Neutra.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">[<i>Paper delivered by G.
J. Neuberger, a member of Neturei Karta at the Tripoli Conference on Zionism
and Racism</i>]</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Where the Torah tells about the creation of the first human
being, the most prominent Jewish commentator, Rashi, explains that the earth
from which Adam was formed was not taken from one spot but from various parts
of the globe. Thus human dignity does not depend on the place of one's birth
nor is it limited to one region. The greatness or worth of a person is not
measured by his or her outward appearance. Jews believe that Adam was created
in G-d's image and that he is the common ancestor of all mankind. At this stage
in human history, there is no room for privileged people who can do with others
as they please. Human life is sacred and human rights are not to be denied by
those who would subvert them for "national security" or for any other
reason. No one knows this better than the Jews, who have been second-class
citizens so often and for so long. Zionists, however, may differ. This is
understandable because Judaism and Zionism are by no means the same. Indeed
they are incompatible and irreconcilable: If one is a good Jew, one cannot be a
Zionist; if one is a Zionist, one cannot be a good Jew. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The Treason of Zionism </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">A conference such as this is long overdue, and I wish to
thank those who made it possible to hold it. For over 60 years I have fought
Zionism, as did my father before me, and I am therefore quite familiar with it.
For those who have been in this fight for only the last ten or twenty years,
what I have to say may be surprising or even shocking. Nevertheless these
matters must be stated clearly and openly, because unless the disease of
Zionism is diagnosed accurately, it cannot be cured. Too long have those
opposed to Zionism engaged in daydreaming and wishful thinking. In order to
recognize Zionism for what it is, one has to know about Judaism, about Zionism
-- the opposite and negation of Judaism, and about Jewish history. In the time
allotted to me, I am not going to talk about the actions of the Zionists; they
will be adequately dealt with by other speakers. As a Jew, I plan to discuss
Zionism, which is rebellion against G-d and treason to the Jewish people. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">To begin with, a few definitions: Who is a Jew? A Jew is
anyone who has a Jewish mother or who converted to Judaism in conformity with
Halacha, Jewish religious law. This definition alone excludes racism. Judaism
does not seek converts, but those who do convert are accepted on a basis of
equality. Let us see how far this goes. Some of the most eminent and respected
rabbis were converts to Judaism. Jewish parents throughout the world bless
their children every Sabbath and holiday eve, and they have done it in the same
way for millennia. If the children are girls, the blessing is, "May G-d
let you be like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah." Not one of these
matriarchs was born a Jewess; they were all converts to Judaism. If the
children are boys, the blessing is, "May G-d let you be like Ephraim and
Manasseh." The mother of these two was an Egyptian woman who became Jewish
and had married Joseph. Moses himself, the greatest Jew who ever lived, married
a Midianite woman who became Jewish. Finally, the Tanach, the holy writings of
the Jew, contains the book of Ruth. This woman was not only not Jewish by
birth, but she came from the Moabites, traditional enemies of the Jewish
people. This book describes Ruth's conversion to Judaism and is read annually
on the holiday commemorating the giving of the Torah, the "Law," i.e.
the Pentateuch. At its very end, the book of Ruth traces the ancestry of King
David, the greatest king the Jews ever had, to Ruth, his great-grandmother. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Apart from the Zionists, the only ones who consistently
considered the Jews a race were the Nazis. And they only served to prove the
stupidity and irrationality of racism. There was no way to prove racially
whether a Mrs. Muller or a Mr. Meyer were Jews or Aryans. The only way to
decide whether a person was Jewish was to trace the religious affiliation of
the parents or grandparents. So much for the this racial nonsense. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Racial pride has been the downfall of those Jews in the past
who were blinded by their own narrow-minded chauvinism. This brings us to a
second definition. Is there a Jewish people? If so, what is its mission? Let us
make this completely clear: The Jewish nation was not born or reconstituted a
generation ago by some Zionist politicians. The Jewish nation was born on <st1:place w:st="on">Mount Sinai</st1:place> when the Jews by their response, "let us
do and let us hear," adopted the Torah given to them by G-d for all future
generations. `This day you become a people," though valid still today, was
spoken thousands of years ago. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">According to Jewish tradition, there are seven Noahide laws
which apply to all human beings. Then there are the Ten Commandments which form
basic standard of morality and conduct for adherents of all monotheistic
religions. In addition to these, there are 613 laws obligatory for Jews, and
every Jew has to observe those which are applicable to him or her according to
Halacha. It is the carrying out of these mitzvoth, "commandments,"
which constitutes the essence of being Jewish, and therefore of the Jewish
people and their covenant with G-d. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In what way are the Jews a "chosen people"? Every
Jewish man anywhere and at any time when called to the reading of the Torah
says, "Who has chosen us from all the peoples and gave us His Torah."
This is the way in which the Jews are chosen. The Jewish people are chosen not
for domination over others, not for conquest or warfare, but to serve G-d and
thus to serve mankind. "And the hands are the hands of Esau," has
been traditionally interpreted to mean that while "the voice is
Jacob's," the hands- - symbolizing violence - are Esau's. Thus physical
violence is not a tradition or a value of the Jews. The task for which the
Jewish people were chosen is not to set an example of military superiority or
technical achievements, but to seek perfection in moral behavior and spiritual
purity. Of all the crimes of political Zionism, the worst and most basic, and
which explains all its other misdeeds, is that from its beginning Zionism has
sought to separate the Jewish people from their G-d, to render the divine
covenant null and void, and to substitute a "modern" statehood and
fraudulent sovereignty for the lofty ideals of the Jewish people. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Hypocrisy and Perversion </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">One means of misleading many Jews and all too many non-Jews
is the Zionist misuse of names and symbols sacred in Judaism. They use the holy
name <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region>
for their Zionist state. They have named their land acquisition fund with a
term that traditionally implies the reward for piety, good deeds, and
charitable work. They have adopted as a state symbol the menorah (candlebrum).
What hypocrisy, what perversion it is to have the Israeli army fight under an
emblem, the meaning of which is explained in the Tenach (on the occasion of a
previous return to the Holy Land) as, "not with armed force and not with
power, but in My spirit says the Lord of Hosts." </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The infamous founder of political Zionism, may his name be
cursed, who only discovered his own Jewishness because of anti-Semitism
displayed at the Dreyfus trial in France, proposed various solutions to what he
called the "Jewish problem." At one point he proposed to resettle the
Jews in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Uganda</st1:country-region>.
At another he proposed to convert them to Catholicism. He finally hit on the
idea of a Judenstaat, an exclusive Jewish state. Thus from its very beginning
Zionism was a result of Anti-Semitism and indeed is completely compatible with
it, because Zionists and anti-Semites had (and have) a common goal: To bring
all Jews from their places of domicile to the Zionist state, thus uprooting
Jewish communities that had existed for hundreds and even thousands of years.
Loyalty to the Zionist state was substituted for loyalty to G-d, and the state
was made into the modern "golden calf". Belief in the Torah and
fulfillment of religious obligations in Zionist eyes became a private matter
and not a duty for every Jew or for the Jewish people. The Zionists made divine
law subject to party or parliamentary votes, and they set their own standards
of conduct and ethics. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Neither the founder of political Zionism nor any of the
prime ministers of the Zionist state believed in the divine origin of the Torah
nor even in the existence of G-d. All prime ministers were members of a party
that opposed religion in principle and that considered the Bible a document of
ancient folklore, devoid of any religious meaning. And yet these same Zionists
base their claim to the <st1:place w:st="on">Holy Land</st1:place> on this same
Bible, the divine origin of which they deny. At the same time they conveniently
forget the Jewish holiday prayer "and for our sins have we been exiled
from our land," and ignore the fact that the present exile of the Jewish
people is divinely decreed and that the Jewish people are neither commanded nor
permitted to conquer or rule the Holy Land before the coming of the Messiah.
The Jewish people do, of course, recognize special spiritual ties to that land
they call it Eretz Yisrael. Every morning, afternoon, and evening, and night
they mention it and Zion and Jerusalem in their prayers, and indeed a Jew does
not sit down to a meal without doing likewise. To the Jew, the very soil of the
Holy Land is different from that of any other spot on this globe, and wherever
he is he turns his face toward Jerusalem during prayers. To live in the Holy
Land or even to be buried there was always considered to be of high merit. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">This love of the land and the Jewish longing for a return to
it and for the coming of the Messiah have been exploited innumerable times
during the past 2,000 years. Zionism has had many precursors and each has been
a curse for the Jews. Individuals who proclaimed themselves the Messiah and
messianic movements have sprung up from time to time, from the Roman era
through the Middle Ages and down to the modern Zionists. Many of these
pseudo-Messiahs posed as rabbis or as national leaders, though some of them
eventually professed other faiths; many temporarily - some for longer periods -
succeeded in misleading Jews, rabbis, and entire Jewish communities. All were
in due course exposed and recognized as frauds, and those who had set their
hope on them found only disappointment and all too often disaster. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In the early stages of the development of modern Zionism,
the Mizrachi was founded, an organization of so-called religious Zionists who
tried to combine their faith with political Zionism. This led to constant
conflict between the dictates of divine law and the demands of Jewish
nationalism. Most of the time, the Mizrachi was outvoted at Zionist congresses
and served only to give the Zionist movement a false religious aura. Whenever
expediency called for it, these "religious" Zionist fellow-travelers
have been used by the Zionist government to underpin national claims with
"religious" authority. The National Religious Party in the Zionist
state has been well rewarded for giving its stamp of approval to nationalistic
measures and enactments, whether these rewards were of financial nature or in
the form of cabinet or other government posts. The chauvinism of these
religious Zionists frequently exceeded that of other Zionists, and it was
always couched in religious terms - a prime example of the abuse of religion.
The fraudulence of these "religious" Zionists was demonstrated during
the past year when it was revealed that two of their world leaders had
committed million-dollar thefts. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">A Jewish world organization was founded in 1912 on the
German-Polish border with the specific purpose of fighting Zionism. This
organization, Agudath <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region>,
"Union of Israel," was to represent the true Jewish people in the
world and to unmask the unwarranted and unjust claims of the Zionists. Rabbis
everywhere joined Agudath <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region>,
as did masses of observant Jews. Anti-Zionist congresses were convened in <st1:city w:st="on">Vienna</st1:city> and in Marienbad.
In countries such as <st1:country-region w:st="on">Poland</st1:country-region>,
Agudists were members of parliament. Under Agudah leadership more than 50 years
ago, Jews in the <st1:place w:st="on">Holy Land</st1:place> opposed to Zionism
obtained permission from <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region>,
the mandatory power in <st1:city w:st="on">Palestine</st1:city>,
to declare in writing that they did not wish to be represented by the Zionists
or any of their groups, particularly not by the Zionist quasi-governmental
organizations such as the Va'ad Leumi, "National Council." </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Haganah Assasination </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Shortly thereafter, Jacob de Haan, a former distinguished
Dutch diplomat who was then leader of Agudath <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region> in <st1:city w:st="on">Palestine</st1:city>, initiated talks with Arab leaders
with a view toward the eventual establishments of a state there in which Jews
and Arabs would have equal rights. In this way he hoped to forestall the
creation of a Zionist state. Despite threats to his life, de Haan, fully aware
of the ultimate dangers of a Zionist state, continued his talks and
negotiations. On the eve of his departure in 1924 for <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region> to meet
with authorities there, he was assassinated by the Haganah, the Zionist
paramilitary force, in the center of <st1:city w:st="on">Jerusalem</st1:city>
as he came from evening prayers. More than a half a century ago, this devout
and visionary Jew gave his life in a fight that he considered paramount, at a
time when the world at large was still blind and deaf to the difficulties and
problems that a future Zionist state would entail. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Zionist Terrorism </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">As a result of such terrorism and increasing Zionist
pressure, Agudath <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region>
gradually began to weaken and to compromise. During the Nazi period, it entered
indo deals and arrangements with the Zionists, despite the fact that its
fundamental aim had been to combat Zionism. After the Zionist state was
established, Agudath <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region>
broke off with its past, participated in the Zionist government on the cabinet
level and elected Agudists to the Zionist parliament. Still professing a
nominal anti-Zionism, Agudath <st1:country-region w:st="on">Israel</st1:country-region>
established a network of "independent" schools in the <st1:place w:st="on">Holy Land</st1:place>, but today the overwhelming part of the budget
of these schools comes from the Zionist government. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">In view of these developments, those Jews who wanted to
continue the fight against Zionism without any compromise left Agudath Israel
and constituted themselves as the Neturei Karta, an Aramaic phrase meaning
"Guardians of the City," i.e. the city of Jerusalem. The Neturei
Karta in turn became a worldwide movement, known in some places as "Friends
of Jerusalem." </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">The greatest leader of the Neturei Karta was Rabbi Amram
Blau, an inspired and dedicated leader whose compassion equaled his courage. He
could not keep silent in the face of injustice, immorality, or hypocrisy. He
was beloved by Jews and respected by Christians and Muslims. Born in <st1:city w:st="on">Jerusalem</st1:city>, he never left
the <st1:place w:st="on">Holy Land</st1:place> during his entire life. In his
writings he stressed many times that Jews and Arabs had lived in harmony until
the advent of political Zionism. Rabbi Blau was imprisoned in <st1:city w:st="on">Jerusalem</st1:city>, not by the Ottoman authorities,
not by the British, and not by the Arabs, but by the Zionists. What was his
crime? He defended with vigor and honesty, without regard for his own safety,
the holy character of <st1:city w:st="on">Jerusalem</st1:city>
against the "innovations" and encroachments of the Zionists. He
fought for the sanctity of the Sabbath and actively opposed the inroads of
indecency and immorality made under the Zionist regime. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Unceasingly Rabbi Blau denounced the establishment of a
Jewish state before the coming of the Messiah as an act of infamy and
blasphemy. Under his leadership, the Neturei Karta declared year after year
that they did not recognize the legitimacy of the Zionist state or the validity
of its laws. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">During the first period of fighting between the Zionist
state and the Arabs, the rabbis of the Neturei Karta went toward the combat
lines, carrying a white flag, and stated that they wanted no part in this war
and that they were absolutely opposed to the creation of a Zionist state. In
his last proclamation, Rabbi Blau deplored the actions of the Zionists against
the Muslim and Christian Palestinians and the grievous harm done by the
Zionists to the Jewish people in endeavoring to change them from "a
kingdom of priests and a holy nation" to a modern state, devoid of
spiritual foundation, based on chauvinism, built on conquest, and relying on
military prowess. "The number of your cities constitute your gods,"
the prophet Jeremiah had thundered to the chauvinist and idolatrous Jewish
government of this day. Like it, the Zionists are now establishing a new status
quo and expanding their position by founding new settlements in he territories
occupied since 1967. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Rabbi Blau in his last statement severely condemned the UN
for recognizing and accepting as a member the Zionist state, thus giving the
Zionists unprecedented prestige and power. It is high time that the
anti-Zionist nations listen to him, heed his plea, and undo this great wrong
and correct this fatal error. It is well known that no action was taken
concerning the expulsion of the Zionist state because of the fear that
financial support for the UN would be withdrawn. Let those states, opposed to
Zionism, who have become affluent during the past generation, show that they
mean what they say by offering to replace any financial loss the UN may suffer
as a consequence, and let the member states vote their conscience without fear
and regardless of any intimidation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">There has been times before in Jewish history, as related in
the Bible, when the masses were misled and only a minority of Jews clung to the
true mission of the Jewish people. One of the first such of the occasions was
the worship of the golden calf; today we unfortunately see a repetition of
this, with the Zionist state now being the object of worship. Until the
appearance and growing influence of political Zionism, Jewish leaders were
chosen on the basis of their piety, decency, learning, and their love of
justice and mercy. Today only too often so-called Jewish leaders, completely
unqualified under Jewish law and traditional concepts, make pronouncements and
decisions in the name and on behalf of the Jewish people. This is particularly
true in the USA where there is the largest Jewish community in our time. I can
never forget the remark of a woman in Oklahoma: "Isn't today's Judaism
wonderful! All you have to do is give money." </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Even at his death Rabbi Blau refuted the Zionists who had
often claimed that the Neturei Karta was nothing but an insignificant sect of a
few hundred souls. Yet when Rabbi Blau died in Jerusalem on a Friday morning
two years ago, a few hours later no fewer than 22,000 men attended his funeral.
</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">At all times in the past, the misleaders of the Jews have
sooner or later fallen by the wayside, and only those who upheld the validity
of the Torah and the Talmud (the written and oral law) and of Halachah, and who
resisted the demagogues, prevailed. The Neturei Karta follow in this tradition.
They continue as a living rebuke to Zionism and speak in our time for the true
Jewish people, those who have not been misled by Zionism. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">During the Roman conquest of the Holy Land, there were Jews
who on the basis of nationalism and racial pride were sure that they could not
lose a war. They, like the Zionists of our day, were opposed to any compromise
or settlement; there were determined to fight to the end. At that time, however
almost 2,000 years ago, the fore most rabbi, Rabbi Yochanan ben Sakkai, chose a
different way. The military adventurers prevented him from leaving beleaguered
Jerusalem to negotiate with the Romans, so the rabbi had himself carried out in
a coffin by his disciples to the Roman headquarters. He said to the Romans that
the Jews need neither an army nor weapons and asked for permission to establish
a yeshiva, a Jewish religious school, at Yavneh. It was this religious school,
and not the militarists or generals of the time, that helped to perpetuate
Judaism and the identity of the Jewish people. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It must be stated explicitly that while not all Jews are
Zionists, not all Zionists are Jews. The motives of some of these non-Jewish
Zionists, e.g. Lord Balfour and General Smuts, are at least open to question.
From the beginning of the Zionist movement, some of the most articulate and
fervent Zionists have been Christian clergymen, especially
"fundamentalists," who hail Zionism as an important
"religious" movement and welcome it as a fulfillment of prophecy.
They also, and significantly, serve the cause of Zionism. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">One of the basic aims of Zionism is aliyah, the immigration
to the Zionist state of Jews from all countries. Nevertheless, during the past
few years hundreds of thousands of Israelis have outgathered themselves from
the Zionist paradise, and American Jews have "voted with their feet"
and have chosen not to be ingathered. These Jews recognize that the Zionist
state is in fact nothing but a giant ghetto. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Instead of being able to render assistance to Jewish
communities in other countries, American Jews have been mobilized to
concentrate on helping the Zionist state, making the USA the real and major
source of Zionist power and influence. The Zionists, true to the nature of
their movement, rely on technical superiority and on a forbidding military
deterrent - provided largely by the USA - for their security. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Nothing could be further from the true ideals of the Jewish
people. The Jewish people were chosen in the first place "for you are the
leas of all nations." As the Psalm says, "they rely on vehicles and
horsepower, but we invoke the name of the Eternal, our G-d." </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">One most vital point deserves mention. A former president of
the World Zionist Organization has stated explicitly that a Zionist owes
unqualified loyalty to the Zionist state and that, in the case of a conflict,
the first loyalty of a Zionist must be to the Zionist state. According to
Jewish law, however, a Jew owes allegiance and loyalty to the country of which
he is a citizen, and, of course, no faithful Jews owes any loyalty or
allegiance to the Zionist state which has been condemned by the foremost rabbis
of our age. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">It is not my purpose to detail how Zionism should be dealt
with. Let me state, however, that isolated or spontaneous acts against
individuals or the mere adoption of resolutions in the UN or elsewhere are not
effective means of bringing an end to Zionism. Let me state also that the
battle against Zionism must be waged first, not on the shores of the
Mediterranean, but in Zionism's most powerful bastion the USA. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">As an American citizen, I deplore that our government and
our politicians have adopted an attitude that is in complete contradiction to
the advice of the father of our country George Washington. Instead of shying
away from foreign entanglements and permanent alliances with foreign powers,
the establishment in Washington has embraced Zionism so wholeheartedly that in
the eyes any criticism of the Zionist state and any opposition to political
Zionism in the UN by any nation has become a punishable offense. And the
American media do not dare to speak out against such an absurdity. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Unfortunately, thus far, each year sees still further gains
in influence by American Zionists. This fact has made possible events and
developments that were unthinkable even ten years ago. It takes a lot of
courage to be opposed to Zionism in the USA today. It also took a lot of
courage during the Second World War to be anti-Fascist in Italy or anti-Nazi in
Germany. In the long run Zionism is nothing but a passing aberration in the
long history of the Jewish people and of the world. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Let us take faith and hope in the certainty that eventually
prejudice, hatred, and injustice will disappear, and that the prophecy will
come true that all nations of the world will participate in the pilgrimage to <st1:city w:st="on">Jerusalem</st1:city>, "For My
house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations."<br /><br />[For more information about the author's web sites and published books, please click on <span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=1GWFubrlDRNzsarAnets9HsgL11gYgqXkiPYUPsA4oU0&pli=1#"><span style="color: blue;">Joe Ortiz</span></a>.]</span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-59001088947995053522015-10-05T05:15:00.000-07:002015-10-05T05:15:33.973-07:00 Pretrib Rapture: How WHAT becomes WHEN by Dave MacPherson<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwFoVvUQYjOZXEmI89BzgNbu_EFxuw5S-FPlJcjKxGOKYV-xVZB8XyukmhiAr5yRCxUdMSO2KqQD852C9GusQOSBnIIv4i_YmRDeAEr2pOx9ehAGBvULHL05MdQWmarrf2a11xqgR6qQk/s1600/Anguished+by+your+circumstances.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwFoVvUQYjOZXEmI89BzgNbu_EFxuw5S-FPlJcjKxGOKYV-xVZB8XyukmhiAr5yRCxUdMSO2KqQD852C9GusQOSBnIIv4i_YmRDeAEr2pOx9ehAGBvULHL05MdQWmarrf2a11xqgR6qQk/s320/Anguished+by+your+circumstances.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Certain rapture verses in the Bible are a WHATers paradise!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> WHATers can dazzle their audience with a lot of WHAT WHAT WHAT between Gen. 1:1 and Rev. </span><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_606161838" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">22:21 </span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">and, while you're not noticing, quickly sneak in their own WHEN of the rapture and ignore the Bible's WHEN!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> WHATers read all of the WHAT details in I Thess. 4:13-18, emphasize the "comfort one another" at the end, and say something like "What a comforting thought that the rapture can happen at any moment BEFORE the tribulation!"</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> They often add: "It wouldn't be comforting if we had to face the Antichrist." (Maybe they believe a lighthouse wouldn't be comforting to sailors on a dark, stormy night but only when the sun is shining!)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> WHATers avoid the next chapter (I Thess. 5) which says that the rapture's "times and seasons" happen WHEN "sudden destruction" (the "destruction" part of the "day of the Lord") happens.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> (How can the wicked be destroyed before, or during, the time of their tribulational "reign"? Even their leader, the Antichrist, isn't destroyed until the trib's end!)</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> Now look at I Cor. 15:51-54. WHATers have a blast with the first half. They dwell on "mystery," read "in a moment" as if it really means "AT ANY MOMENT," spend an inordinate amount of time explaining how fast the "twinkling of an eye" is, and try to prove that "last" (in "the last trump") doesn't really mean "last"!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> Seldom do WHATers dare to reveal WHEN we are changed into immortal bodies - but verse 54 dares to when it says our rapturous change occurs WHEN WHEN WHEN "Death is swallowed up" (same as "ended"). </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> Obviously the trib's time of death can't be ended before, or even during, the trib!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> And WHATers don't want you to realize that the "Death" quote is a paraphrase of Isa. 25:8 which even Scofield etc. agree is in a posttrib setting!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> II Thess. 1:6-10 is further proof that our rapture ("rest" in vs. 7) happens WHEN the wicked are destroyed - and not several years ahead of time!</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> And Acts 2:34-35 and Acts </span><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_606161839" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">3:21</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> declare that Christ must stay in heaven UNTIL He comes down to earth to destroy the wicked (make them His "footstool") and restore "all things" - so how can He leave heaven ahead of time for a pretrib rapture?</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> II Tim. </span><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_606161840" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="font-size: x-small; position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">3:14</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> says we should "vet" our teachers ("knowing of whom thou hast learned them"). You can do this if you Google or Yahoo "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> What I'm wondering is this: WHEN will everyone wake up and realize that a lot of WHAT will never take the place of WHEN?</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Calibri, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> </span><br />
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">About the Author: Born 1932 of Scotch/English
descent Dave MacPherson is a natural for British historical research. His
calling was journalism. Receiving a BA in English in 1955 he spent 26 years as
a newsman reporting and filming many notable events persons presidents and
dignitaries.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-59356374244540780582015-09-13T16:08:00.002-07:002015-09-13T16:08:21.998-07:00Satire by Dave MacPherson: An Exciting Day at Rapture Bible College (some names have been changed to protect the guilty) <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<em>Professor John Wallboard: </em>Welcome to Advanced Rapture Techniques, course no. 666. If you study hard you'll get a Rapture Franchise someday. Talk about money! You'll be so successful you can even have a scandal or two and folks will still love you. Some of our star graduates are Tommy Eisegesis, Hal Lindseedy, Dwight Plentycost, Chas. Ryewheat, Chas. Stainley, Jimmy Swagger, Jack Van Empty, Edgar Whizheain't, and Jack Wiles. Does anybody already know any rapture gimmicks?</div>
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<em>Tim </em>(a student): I do. Pastor Stainley recently showed how fast the "twinkling of an eye" is by blinking his eye and making everyone laugh. Then, with sleight of mouth, he said the rapture will happen that fast. No one even noticed (heh, heh) that this passage doesn't say how fast the catching up is. But I knew he only wanted to compare the rapture with the final advent. Actually, Matt. 24:31's "gather" (in a posttrib setting) could be just as fast. But if we admit this, we lose a good pretrib argument, right?</div>
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<em>Prof. Wallboard: </em>Excellent, Tim. Now here's a technique on the "day of the Lord" I've used. Everyone ties together the rapture and the start of this "day." Since we're pretrib we naturally stretch forward this "day" and tie it to our rapture----what Darby and Scofield never dared to do. Since Acts puts the (posttrib) sun/moon darkening before this "day," our prophecy charts would be more honest if they showed this darkening near the tribulation's start. But it would hurt us, so we just ignore Acts and no one (hee, hee) ever seems to notice! Does anyone know how pretrib began?<br />
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<em>Tim: </em>I do. Our books claim that around 1830 John Darby discovered the church/Israel "dichotomy" which led him to pretrib. But my research has uncovered some long-covered-up facts. Darby brought the "new" (his term) pretrib view to the U.S. during the 1860's and 1870's. He seemed to view Southerners as ignorant and never once visited what had been the Confederate States. However, he later inspired outsiders and inside "Judases" to pretribize the South, taking advantage of the Civil War's chaos and destruction of Southern libraries and churches. Today many Southerners are finding out that posttrib was the South's ONLY rapture view during the 1600's, 1700's, and early 1800's prior to the Great Southern Betrayal!</div>
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Professor Wallboard, the most complete documentation on pretrib's bizarre, short-lived history is Dave MacPherson's <em>The Rapture Plot </em>(300 pgs., index, bibliog., appendices), available at <a href="http://armageddonbooks.com/" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">armageddonbooks.com</a>. If MacPherson's name is typed in on Internet search engines such as Yahoo and Google, quite often the first entry is: "Dave MacPherson's the Rapture plot: weighed and found wanting." Well, the world's worst scales must have been used! This entry is based on only <em>five and a half pages </em>(focusing on the same <em>Plot </em>book) in Frank Marotta's 28-page booklet on Morgan Edwards, a booklet in which words are sloppily added, subtracted, and changed in quotes, not to mention deliberate falsification of evidence, all of which proves there's something Marotta in more than just the state of Denmark! And everyone knows that if money is paid, an entry can be listed in the first slot on search engines----proof that pretrib tries to succeed by buying as well as by lying!</div>
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Something has begun to bother me. Our techniques are actually lies----</div>
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<em>Prof. Wallboard: </em>But, Tim----</div>
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<em>Tim: </em>----and if our view is wrong, we're gambling with millions of lives!</div>
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<em>Prof. Wallboard: </em>TIM!</div>
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<em>Tim: </em>Don't stop me, Professor. I've checked Darby's writings. He didn't see any "dichotomy" until LONG AFTER the Irvingites began publicly teaching pretrib in 1830. In fact, Darby didn't clearly teach pretrib himself until 1839! You also know that Scofield was a jailed forger even AFTER his conversion in 1879 and that his wife divorced him in 1883 after he deserted her and his daughters! Pretrib is a colossal hoax! I'm leaving this class and this school! And I won't be surprised if God uses financial collapses and other disasters to wake up pretrib deceivers and deceivees!</div>
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What People are saying about <span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">About THE RAPTURE PLOT!<br /> </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">Gary DeMar (President American Vision): "A
majority of prophecy writers and speakers teach that the church will be
raptured before a future tribulational period. But did you know that prior to
about 1830 no such doctrine existed. No one in all of church history ever
taught pretribulational rapture. Dave MacPherson does the work of a
journalistic private investigator to uncover the truth....The Rapture Plot is
the never-before-told true story of the plot - how plagiarism and subtle
document changes created the 'mother of all revisionisms.' A fascinating piece
of detective work." Robert H. Gundry (Professor Westmont College):
"As usual MacPherson out hustles his opponents in research on primary
sources. C. S. Lovett (President Personal Christianity): You don't read very
much of Dave MacPherson's work before you realize he is a dedicated researcher.
Because his work has been so honest and open his latest work The Rapture Plot
has produced many red faces among some of the most recognized rapture writers
of our time. When their work is compared to his it is embarrassing for them to
see how shallow their research is." R. J. Rushdoony (President Chalcedon):
"Dave MacPherson has been responsible for major change in the eschatology
of evangelical churches by his devastating studies of some of the central
aspects thereof. In The Rapture Plot MacPherson tells us of the strange tale of
'rapture' writings, revisions, cover-ups, alterations and confusions. No one
has equaled MacPherson in his research on the 'pretrib rapture.' Attempts to
discredit his work have failed...." <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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descent Dave MacPherson is a natural for British historical research. His
calling was journalism. Receiving a BA in English in 1955 he spent 26 years as
a newsman reporting and filming many notable events persons presidents and
dignitaries.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-70148824063824547472015-04-06T17:54:00.000-07:002015-09-07T16:23:14.182-07:00Rev. 3:10 - The Pretrib Rapture Clincher! by Dave MacPherson<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: large;">When pretrib promoters are asked for a single verse proving a pretrib rapture, they invariably bring up Rev. 3:10 with a "I gotcha" look on their face. This verse says "Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth."<br /> The Tim LaHaye Prophecy Study Bible states: "This [Rev. 3:10] is the most specific guarantee from our Lord Himself that Christian believers will not go into that seven-year Tribulation period He is about to unveil (Rev. 6-18)."<br /> Thomas Ice, in an article titled "Kept From The Hour," writes: "I believe that Revelation 3:10 is a verse teaching that the church is promised exemption from the seven-year tribulation period, thus supporting the pretrib rapture."<br /> Hal Lindsey's 1999 book (the cover of which says "Hal Lindsey...Vanished Into Thin Air...The Hope of Every Believer") has this comment about Rev. 3:10 on p. 231: "The promise of being kept from the hour...[does] fit into the pattern of a pre-Tribulation Rapture scenario."<br /> This escaptist interpretation of Rev. 3:10 (which was never a part of any official Christian theology or organized church before 1830) can be traced, unhindered, all the way back to a 19th century British group called the Irvingites who admitted they had been influenced by young Margaret Macdonald of Scotland. In Dec. 1831 one Irvingite writer identified as "Fidus" included the following in an article in his group's journal "The Morning Watch" (pp. 260f): <br /> He said that after "Philadelphia" is "caught up, that which withholdeth shall have been removed; all, on pain of death, shall be obliged to receive the mark of the beast...." "...that, being translated, we may in the pavilion of God escape the desolation of the wicked one and that universal hour of trial....that as the church of Philadelphia, in preserving the word of patience, refuses to let it go; so her being preserved from the hour of trial is not her being enabled to bear it, but her being exempt from undergoing it...." <br /> He added that the saints are "caught up...under the second woe (Rev. 11:13)...translated before the supremacy of the man of sin...." "Thou may be translated on the morrow...."<br /> (Note the "pretribness" - a word I coined - as well as imminence in Edward Irving's group, the first group to publicly teach what even John Darby admitted later on was then a "new" view that had never been known before!)<br /> Was Darby correct? Let's see how the greatest Greek NT scholars of the past had interpreted Rev. 3:10.<br /> John Wycliffe: "Wherefore let us pray to God that he keep us in the hour of temptation, which is coming upon all the world, Rev. iii."<br /> Matthew Henry: "Those who keep the gospel in a time of peace shall be kept by Christ in an hour of temptation [Rev.3:10]."<br /> Albert Barnes: "...he will keep them in the future trials that shall come upon the world [Rev. 3:10]."<br /> R. C. Trench: "...the Philadelphian church...to be kept in temptation, not to be exempted from temptation...."<br /> J. H. Thayer: "To keep [Rev. 3:10]:...by guarding, to cause one to escape in safety out of."<br /> H. B. Swete: "The promise [of Rev. 3:10], as Bede says, is 'not indeed of your being immune from adversity, but of not being overcome by it.' "<br /> Theodor Zahn: "...He will preserve...at the time of the great temptation [Rev. 3:10]..."<br /> A. T. Robertson: "In Rev. 3:10...we seem to have the picture of general temptation with the preservation of the saints."<br /> R. C. H. Lenski: "...it [Philadelphia] shall be kept untouched and unharmed by the impending dangers [Rev. 3:10]."<br /> (Google "Famous Rapture Watchers" to see the sources and pages for the above quotes.)<br /> I would now like to quote a modern Bible scholar who reflects in his superb writings the deep Greek New Testament scholarship of the past. He writes:<br /> "To the angel in the church of Philadelphia, the Lord acknowledges this congregation as being faithful to the name of Jesus...[and] He tells them that they will not be victimized by the 'hour of trial' [Rev. 3:10] that is going to come on the whole world for testing."<br /> The same scholar adds: "That 'great testing' is to include all who live on earth, and all who endure (Gr. bastazo, bearing under hardships) for His name's sake will be kept (Gr. sozo, safe, well) from the 'hour of trial,' which will be testing men's faith in Jesus Christ." He points out that true believers will not be "removed (or snatched) from earth up to heaven" before the same end time trial but "will be guarded (tereo, kept from) during the trial itself!"<br /> The well-known modern scholar I allude to is my good friend <a href="https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=1GWFubrlDRNzsarAnets9HsgL11gYgqXkiPYUPsA4oU0&pli=1#">Joe Ortiz</a>. And I have been quoting his excellent and timely book <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/theendtimespassover/main-page/a-secret-escape-to-heaven">Why Christians Will Suffer "Great Tribulation"</a> (pp. 87, 153).<br /><br /><br /> The next time you hear persons claiming that Revelation 3:10 is proof of a pretribulation rapture, feel free to share the information in this paper with them. Hopefully they will thank you even before the "hour of trial" arrives!</span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-69072193290912804012015-04-05T22:58:00.000-07:002015-04-05T22:58:52.029-07:00Are We To Love the Sinner but Hate the Sin? <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">I recently received an email from a fellow Christian brother, who has been doing front-line battles in the harvest field with his wife and kids, suffering much abuse and persecution for standing true to the Gospel. He was addressing the much quoted canard that "God loves the sinner but not the sin," a retort used by many fellow Christians who are quick to judge believers who rebuke sin and sinner alike. Sadly, many believers who use this often-quoted phrase are ignorant as to what the Bible truly says about God's feelings about this issue</span><span style="font-size: 15px;">:</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">(A mob of <span style="color: blue;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+19%3A1-13&version=NIV"><span style="color: blue;">homosexuals</span></a> </span>try to </span><span style="color: black; font-size: xx-small;">force their way into Lot's house in Sodom and Gomorrah </span><span style="color: black; font-size: xx-small;">to gang rape two angels)</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">"Recent Blog Response to Sodomite Activist.... concerning the issue of government forcing Christian owned and run businesses, under threat or financial ruin, to participate in events that are contrary to their Christianity</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b style="color: black;"><span style="color: #4c76a2;">For the record, "love the sinner and hate the sin" is a quote from a born and raised HINDU name Mohandas "Ghandi" not the Bible. </span></b><b style="color: black;"><span style="color: #4c76a2;">(Mahatma by his followers)</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a46016; font-family: inherit;">Originally taken from St. Augustine. His Letter 211 (c. 424) contains the phrase </span><em style="color: #a46016; font-family: inherit;">Cum </em><em style="color: #a46016; font-family: inherit;">dilectione hominum et odio vitiorum</em><span style="color: #a46016; font-family: inherit;">, which translates roughly to "With love for mankind and hatred of sins." The phrase has become more famous as "love the sinner but hate the sin" or "hate the sin and not the sinner" (the latter form appearing in Mohandas Gandhi’s 1929 autobiography).</span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #4c76a2; font-family: inherit;">The Bible says.....</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #4c76a2; font-family: inherit;">Psalm 5:4 For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee.<br />Psalm 5:5 The foolish shall not stand in thy sight:<span style="background-color: #fdf869;"> thou hatest all workers of iniquity.</span></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #4c76a2; font-family: inherit;">I, did not write it,....That's what it says! "God HATES ALL WORKERS OF INIQUITY"...</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #4c76a2; font-family: inherit;">Psalm 139:21 <span style="background-color: #fdf869;">Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? </span>and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?<br />Psalm 139:22<span style="background-color: #fdf869;"> I hate them with perfect hatred:</span> I count them mine enemies.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #4c76a2; font-family: inherit;">Jeremiah--23:14 I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies:<span style="background-color: #fdf869;"> they strengthen also the hands of evildoers</span>, that none doth return from his wickedness: they are all of them unto me as Sodom, and the inhabitants thereof as Gomorrah.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #4c76a2; font-family: inherit;">It seems that I am caught between shining the light of TRUTH, and not casting my pearls of wisdom before swine. Anyone who doesn't like what the Bible says will always attempt to twist it to make it say something that condones whatever they are in to.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #4c76a2; font-family: inherit;">"IF" our nation was observing the God's LAW AS WRITTEN in the Bible, stinking sodomites would not be allowed to live, much less run their mouths and cause trouble.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="background-color: #fdf869; color: #cd232c; font-family: inherit;">Leviticus <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1992358607" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">20:13</span></span> If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="background-color: #fdf869; color: #cd232c; font-family: inherit;">Leviticus <span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1992358608" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">20:15</span></span> And if a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death: and ye shall slay the beast.</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #4c76a2; font-family: inherit;">The practice of "loving ones neighbor" whether they be "next door" or an "acquaintance" is a Spiritual Love, "agape", that means having concern for their "eternal condition" and praying for their salvation. It DOES NOT mean taking part in their abominations. While praying for a thief or a rapist to be saved, they are likely to be shot if they are in the process of robbing or raping someone, and should be!!!!</span></b></div>
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<b><span style="color: #4c76a2; font-family: inherit;">I know, and have known, numerous homosexuals in my lifetime, and never at any point has ANY of them tried to FORCE me into participation of their lifestyle, nor I them into mine.</span></b></div>
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<i><span style="color: #d264aa; font-family: inherit;"><b>Notwithstanding the fact that most homosexuals do not bother anyone, and they do not want to be bothered, there is a very small minority of Sodomite Reprobates that have put their money and voice together, infiltrated, companies, political parties, and now are getting away with trampling on, and bankrupting Christian businessmen at will !!! But as much as God hates them and their deeds according to the above quoted Scripture, they are not to blame for our present state of affairs.</b></span></i></div>
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<i><b><span style="color: #d264aa; font-family: inherit;">The blame lies with the vast majority of SORRY 501 c 3 lobotomized Christians that do not know their Bibles much less History, and God has said that "they are neither hot nor cold and he will "spue them out of HIS mouth". They stand by and do nothing and say nothing while our fellow brethren are being brought to the slaughter at an alarming rate. "IF WE DO NOT ALL HANG TOGETHER, WE SHALL SURELY HANG SEPARATELY"..Patrick Henry</span></b></i></div>
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<i><b><span style="color: #d264aa; font-family: inherit;">It's only a matter of time before too many people are pushed too far and there will be bloodshed! When it all comes tumbling down, the blame is not with the prostitute politicians or the special interests that they have sold their souls to, the blame falls squarely on the corrupt church! God has given us a mirror image of our rotting transgressions, according to Scripture. </span></b></i></div>
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<i><b><span style="color: #d264aa; font-family: inherit;">SEE Jeremiah Ch 18 for a step by step commentary.</span></b></i></div>
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<b><span style="color: #4c76a2; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="color: #4c76a2;">If you asked a Christian owned/run business to cater for a porn convention, a wife swapping party, bestiality club, a Sodomite parade, or any type of celebration that promotes ABOMINATIONS that God HATES, </span></b><b><span style="color: #4c76a2;">You are asking them to PARTICIPATE in your filth and debauchery, and this has NOTHING TO DO WITH AGAPE LOVE.</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b><span style="color: #4c76a2;">No store, business or vendor asks, or is aware of a buyers religion OR sexual preferences, much less how much sin they commit. </span></b><b><span style="color: #4c76a2;">In fact they would have no way of knowing what their products were being used for unless the buyers purposely run their mouths about it!!!!</span></b></span></div>
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<b><span style="color: #4c76a2; font-family: inherit;">If a business refused to sell to sinners, there would be no one to sell to. Any business will SELL ANYTHING TO ANY BODY.</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: #4c76a2;"><b>But that's not good enough for stinking Sodomite activists, they want to FORCE Christians, TO PARTICIPATE IN THEIR ABOMINATIONS AND RUB THEIR FACE IN IT OR ELSE DESTROY THEIR BUSINESS AND LIVELIHOOD WITH THE HELP OF PROSTITUTE POLITICIANS AND JUDGES . Judgement day is coming, and HELL has no shortage of space. Bro V." [</b></span><a href="http://www.openbible.info/topics/men_sleep_with_men" style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="color: blue;">Scripture Concerning Homosexuality</span></a><span style="color: #4c76a2;"><b>]</b></span><br /><br />This subject matter is currently a raging debate like no other, one that occupies the minds and hearts of both sinners of homosexuality and believers. It is the duty of believers to pray for homosexuals to repent of their life-style and turn to God for healing. Those who choose to ignore the word of God on this subject matter will suffer the consequences. Like any other person who commits any form of sin, we are instructed to forgive them, rather than persecute them. God is the judge and will deal with those who continue to live in their homosexual sins and life-style. Believers have no choice but to stand fast in what God's word states about this sin; however, preoccupation with this particular malady can be draining on our spirit just as much as obsessing with the multitude of other sins that contribute to the decimation of society as a whole.<br /><br />Yet, the word of God reins supreme. Many of us have close friends who practice (and live) this life-style. Those who know me and who have worked with me realize that I do not go out of my way to convict or condemn them; but they also know that I am a servant of God, one who is prepared to speak and preach all aspects of the Bible. They know that I have not made the sin of homosexuality a "cause celebre" any more than adultery, idolatry, murder, rape and the myriad of sins that are increasing at an accelerated pace. When asked by them how I feel about the sin of homosexuality, I pointedly tell them that the Bible clearly states it is a sin. I also make sue I tell them that we are all sinners, that no one is righteous as we clearly can see in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+3%3A+9-19&version=NIV"><span style="color: blue;">Romans 3: 9-19</span></a>. We all have to deal with this issue of sin (whatever is that one specific burden that continues to control us); which can only be addressed through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.<br /><br />In the past, I used to dismiss many issues of sin and was guilty of repeating the same mantra: <br /><br />"Don't worry, Harry, God hates the sin but not the sinner."<br /><br />I can't do that anymore!<br /><br />For information about this blog and the author's books, please click on <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/theendtimespassover/main-page"><span style="color: blue;">Joe Ortiz</span></a><br /><br /></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-4038822864456257782015-03-19T21:07:00.000-07:002015-05-19T08:51:17.458-07:00John Darby Did Not Invent The Rapture, by Dave MacPherson<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br /> John Nelson Darby is not the "father of
dispensationalism" (the favorite feature of which is an imminent pretrib
rapture)!<br />
While you may be gnashing your teeth, I'll share a
present web quote from Dr. F. Nigel Lee (owner of nine earned doctorates!):<br />
"Dave MacPherson, in his various books, has made
a major contribution toward vindicating Historic Christian Eschatology. The
1830 innovations of the disturbed Margaret Macdonald documented by MacPherson -
in part or in whole - immediately spread to Edward Irving and his followers,
then to J. N. Darby and Plymouth Brethrenism, and were later popularized by the
dispensationalistic Scofield Reference Bible, by Classic Pentecostalism, and by
latter-day pretribulationists like J. F. Walvoord and Hal Lindsey."<br />
[In this paper I include pages in my book "The
Rapture Plot" which have complete sources for all quotations.]<br />
Leading pretrib (and Darby) defenders like Charles
Ryrie and John Walvoord declare that dispensationalism sprang from Darby's
"distinction" between the church and Israel (Plot, p. 88)<br />
This reportedly led to Darby's strange belief that
Matt. 24's "elect" are Jews and not the church.<br />
Incredibly, Darby wasn't first or original with any
aspect of the same system including this bedrock known today as the
church/Israel dichotomy!<br />
In the Dec. 1831 issue of "The Morning
Watch," a journal published by Rev. Edward Irving and his followers, a
writer focusing on Matt. 24 said that "the tribulation of those days"
will be "poured upon the Jews..." (Plot, p. 71)<br />
Even Darby-idolizer R. A. Huebner, on whom Walvoord
leaned almost exclusively in two of his books when opposing my research,
admitted in his 1991 book (Plot, p. 71) that Darby did not believe that
"the elect in Matt. 24 were Jewish saints" until "1832 or
1833" - both of which are after 1831 and the Irvingites, a group so
original and innovative (and copied by Darby) that I'm tempted to refer to them
collectively as the "Walt Disney of the 1830s"!<br />
In a moment when he was prophetically challenged,
Huebner's 1991 book offered an early Darby quote that Huebner suggested could
be a hint of pretrib as early as 1827 (which would have preceded Macdonald and
the Irvingites). Even though Huebner had second thoughts and admitted later in the
same book (p. 100) that he could be wrong, Thomas Ice keeps announcing publicly
that Huebner "documents" that Darby was pretrib in 1827 (Plot, pp.
213-220)!<br />
What both Huebner and Ice have covered up: that
Darby's own words at the time prove that he was posttrib from 1827 through 1838
and that he had no clear pretrib teaching before 1839 - nine years after Irving
and his group had begun the clear teaching of it (Plot, pp. 95-120)!<br />
In addition to the church/Israel dichotomy and the
pretrib rapture, the Irvingites also preceded Darby and his group on other
dispensationalist aspects including the literal method; the Gentile
parenthesis; rapture arguments based on unclear OT and NT types and symbols;
and the "church-in-ruins" theme!<br />
Darby never once claimed to be the pretrib rapture
originator or even the founder of any theological system. He even disliked the
term "system." He wrote that "A system takes the place of godly
subjection to the word," and added (in 1880): "Truths are sometimes
simpler, when we take them simpler and do not make a system."<br />
At least we can view him as a zealous (almost
arm-twisting) "popularizer" during his many worldwide trips while
spreading what he referred to as the "new" (his term) pretrib rapture
view (Plot, pp. 137-138).<br />
If Darby watchers had known all along about the
historical bombshell revealed for the first time ever in my "Plot"
book, they never would have called Darby the "father" of anything!<br />
In brief, here's what happened. After Darby's death in
1882, one of his influential disciples wrote and published a series of articles
in his own journal supposedly detailing the history of the Irvingites as well
as that of his own group, the Darbyist Brethren.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><br />His aim was to give Darby lasting fame. He
accomplished this by furtively adding, subtracting, and changing many words in
the earliest, hard-to-locate "rapture" documents - Irvingites (<i>see photo of them above from 1915)</i> as well
as Brethren - thus giving the false impression that Irving and his followers
had not been first to teach pretrib dispensationalism. By dishonestly covering
up and eliminating the Irvingites who truly had been the first in everything,
he was able to deceitfully and wrongfully elevate Darby as the "father of
pretrib rapture dispensationalism"!<br />
The entire name-revealing exposure of this century-old
fraud - perhaps the greatest money-making hoax in religion ever - is aired for
the first time ever in my book "The Rapture Plot" (available by
calling 800.643.4645).<br />
Sadly, the same Darby-exalting merchandising is still
with us (Google "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty" for details).</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">Dave MacPherson. What People are saying</span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What They Are
Saying About ... THE RAPTURE PLOT! <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; color: #333333;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Gary DeMar (President American Vision): "A
majority of prophecy writers and speakers teach that the church will be
raptured before a future tribulational period. But did yo</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">u</span> know that prior to
about 1830 no such doctrine existed. No one in all of church history ever
taught pretribulational rapture. Dave MacPherson does the work of a
journalistic private investigator to uncover the truth....The Rapture Plot is
the never-before-told true story of the plot - how plagiarism and subtle
document changes created the 'mother of all revisionisms.' A fascinating piece
of detective work." Robert H. Gundry (Professor Westmont College):
"As usual MacPherson out hustles his opponents in research on primary
sources. C. S. Lovett (President Personal Christianity): You don't read very
much of Dave MacPherson's work before you realize he is a dedicated researcher.
Because his work has been so honest and open his latest work The Rapture Plot
has produced many red faces among some of the most recognized rapture writers
of our time. When their work is compared to his it is embarrassi</span> ng for them to
see how shallow their research is." R. J. Rushdoony (President Chalcedon):
"Dave MacPherson has been responsible for major change in the eschatology
of evangelical churches by his devastating studies of some of the central
aspects thereof. In The Rapture Plot MacPherson tells us of the strange tale of
'rapture' writings, revisions, cover-ups, alterations and confusions. No one
has equaled MacPherson in his research on the 'pretrib rapture.' Attempts to
discredit his work have failed...."</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">About the Author: Born 1932 of Scotch/English
descent Dave MacPherson is a natural for British historical research. His
calling was journalism. Receiving a BA in English in 1955 he spent 26 years as
a newsman reporting and filming many notable events persons pres</span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">idents and
dignitaries.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-9317814513726226442015-01-31T11:06:00.000-08:002015-01-31T11:14:55.336-08:00Passions That Destroy Morality!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-size: large;"> Clint Eastwood's latest movie, </span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2179136/?ref_=nv_sr_1" style="font-size: x-large;" target="_blank">“American Sniper”</a>,<span style="font-size: large;"> lionizes the most despicable aspects of U.S. society—the gun culture, the blind adoration of the military, the belief that we have an innate right as a “Christian” nation to exterminate the “lesser breeds” of the earth, a grotesque hyper-masculinity that banishes compassion and pity, a denial of inconvenient facts and historical truth, and a belittling of critical thinking and artistic expression. Many Americans, especially white Americans trapped in a stagnant economy and a dysfunctional political system, yearn for the supposed moral renewal and rigid, militarized control the movie venerates. These passions, if realized, will extinguish what is left of our now-anemic open society. Click the LINK below for the entire review.</span><br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40817.htm#.VMlc2JpFZgY.blogger">Killing Ragheads for Jesus: Information Clearing House - ICH</a></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-63726655542714335172015-01-10T12:46:00.000-08:002015-01-10T12:46:53.129-08:00 John MacArthur & His Pretrib Rapture House of Cards By Dave MacPherson<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKg3yXHBpXdrSkJHdCnr1jyjdTZh_MqhbxVlXfKBLcP8Zw5J5r2e8RbdCLwphU80fmkl2P62vhd_BAJe5nC_rEast1Eg5NtuGpJv3K6Nq7ZtBEKkrlt6v07DeRQXVy3WcmEBUEveRmQgI/s1600/house-of-cards-jan-piller.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: white; clear: left; display: inline !important; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKg3yXHBpXdrSkJHdCnr1jyjdTZh_MqhbxVlXfKBLcP8Zw5J5r2e8RbdCLwphU80fmkl2P62vhd_BAJe5nC_rEast1Eg5NtuGpJv3K6Nq7ZtBEKkrlt6v07DeRQXVy3WcmEBUEveRmQgI/s1600/house-of-cards-jan-piller.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> by Dave MacPherson</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> Southern California pastor John MacArthur, head of the "Grace to You" Ministry, lives to jump into theological controversies and prove to his opponents that his "grace" is more biblical than their "grace"!</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> For many years he's been involved with the "Lordship Salvation controversy" (see Wikipedia).</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> In recent years he's sparred over Revelation's mark of the beast. To see how he's raised many temperatures, look up "John MacArthur OUTRAGE - take Mark of Beast, still be saved..." on YouTube!</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> Since last fall MacArthur has inspired articles like "John MacArthur Sends 500,000,000 Charismatics to Hell" which is still all over the web. An excellent article explaining this incendiary headline is titled "John MacArthurs Strange Fire (Calvinists hating on Arminians, again?)" which can be found on Google and which is a response to the "Strange Fire Conference" MacArthur had held earlier at his church which is still causing aftershocks around the world!</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> MacArthur's controversies began after he was exposed early in life to 19th century dispensationalism which he constantly (and arrogantly) reflects by sneaking in the "any-moment rapture" into whatever his topic happens to be. At the same time he tries to somehow combine Reformed theology with Deformed Dispensationalism. (Sorry, I couldn't resist the temptation to add the word "Deformed"!) </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> Who knows, maybe John (Reformedispy) MacArthur is right and the greatest Greek scholars (Google "Famous Rapture Watchers"), who uniformly said that Rev. </span><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1004268298" style="background-color: white; border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">3:10</span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> means "preservation through" and not "raptured away from" were wrong. But John has a conflict. On the one hand, since he knows that all Christian theology and organized churches before 1830 believed the church would be on earth during the tribulation, he would like to be seen as one who stands with the great Reformers. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> On the other hand, if John has a warehouse of unsold pretrib rapture material, and if he wants to have "security" for his retirement years and hopes that the "big California quake" won't louse up his plans, he has a decided conflict of interest. Maybe the Lord will have to help strip off the layers of his seared conscience which have grown for years in order to please his parents and his supporters - who knows? </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> One thing is for sure: pretrib is truly a house of cards and is so fragile that if a person removes just one card from the TOP of the pile, the whole thing can collapse. Which is why pretrib teachers don't dare to even suggest they could be wrong on even one little subpoint! Don't you feel sorry for the straitjacket they are in? While you're mulling all this over, Google "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty" for a rare behind-the-scenes look at the same 185-year-old fantasy. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> And if you want the real skinny on what the Bible really teaches (that is, the real meaning of words and phrases in the original language) I can happily recommend "The End Times Passover" by distinguished writer and scholar Joe Ortiz. His book "Why Christians Will Suffer Great Tribulation" is also a must read. </span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"> What's more, Joe's "grace" in explaining deep Bible truths is much more gracious than the "grace" exhibited by another California prophecy writer we've just heard about!<br /></span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.898998260498px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 25.898998260498px;"> </span><br />
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><span style="background-color: transparent; text-align: left;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; text-align: left;">Dave MacPherson. What People are saying</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">What They Are Saying About ... THE RAPTURE PLOT!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">Gary DeMar (President American Vision): "A majority of prophecy writers and speakers teach that the church will be raptured before a future tribulational period. But did you know that prior to about 1830 no such doctrine existed. No one in all of church history ever taught pretribulational rapture. Dave MacPherson does the work of a journalistic private investigator to uncover the truth....The Rapture Plot is the never-before-told true story of the plot - how plagiarism and subtle document changes created the 'mother of all revisionisms.' A fascinating piece of detective work." Robert H. Gundry (Professor Westmont College): "As usual MacPherson out hustles his opponents in research on primary sources. C. S. Lovett (President Personal Christianity): You don't read very much of Dave MacPherson's work before you realize he is a dedicated researcher. Because his work has been so honest and open his latest work The Rapture Plot has produced many red faces among some of the most recognized rapture writers of our time. When their work is compared to his it is embarrassing for them to see how shallow their research is." R. J. Rushdoony (President Chalcedon): "Dave MacPherson has been responsible for major change in the eschatology of evangelical churches by his devastating studies of some of the central aspects thereof. In The Rapture Plot MacPherson tells us of the strange tale of 'rapture' writings, revisions, cover-ups, alterations and confusions. No one has equaled MacPherson in his research on the 'pretrib rapture.' Attempts to discredit his work have failed...."</span></div>
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<span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 9pt;">About the Author: Born 1932 of Scotch/English descent Dave MacPherson is a natural for British historical research. His calling was journalism. Receiving a BA in English in 1955 he spent 26 years as a newsman reporting and filming many notable events, persons, presidents and dignitaries.</span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09298569870962359507noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8196357958039257138.post-14245702732063413672014-06-01T19:11:00.000-07:002015-12-13T20:00:09.997-08:00A Historical Critique of Dispensationalism, Zionism, and Daniel's Prophecy of 70 Weeks, by Mark Dankof<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Any historical analysis and consideration of the Dispensational perspective on prophecy must take into account the paramount importance of the “Prophecy of Seventy Weeks” in Daniel 9: 24-27, particularly the 19th century historical developments which facilitated the creation of the “gap” or “parenthesis” theory between the 69th week and an allegedly futuristic 70th week; the recency of the doctrine of the pre-Tribulation rapture before the onset of the 70th week[i] [1] ; and the derivative idea of the bifurcation of the coming of Jesus Christ into two stages, one involving His return for the saints before the Great Tribulation, the second involving His return with His saints after the expiration of the 70th week. After due consideration of these topics, the practical outworking of the “parenthesis” theory and the two-stage coming of Christ in Dispensational piety and action will be examined historically, both in terms of the 19th century and the 20th.[ii] [2] Of special significance is the Dispensational religious/political alliance with the modern State of Israel and political Zionism, a development which has had profound impact on much of modern Protestant Evangelicalism’s understanding of the Kingdom and the role of the Church in political alliances and activism based on an eschatological belief system. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Dispensational position on Daniel 9 must first be understood in contrast to the two (2) other major exegetical schools of thought on the passage which have developed in history. The first of these is the Maccabean; the second is the Traditional. The former position is often associated with higher biblical critical assumptions about the dating and interpretation of the prophecy specifically, and the book of Daniel generally. The Dispensationalist Emerson writes[iii] [3] : </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If Daniel were written 165 B. C. or thereabouts, how could a literary and religious writer have achieved complete anonymity among a people suffering persecution when any encouragement alleged to come from Jehovah would have been like a ray of light on a dark night? If such a book achieved its purpose, someone (its author or its alleged discover) must certainly come to popular attention. The Maccabees were not in the least anonymous. Therefore why would the author of Daniel be, if he professed to have discovered a prophecy or to have written one? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">We might ask ourselves what kind of a book should we expect from the exile period. The two books of the Maccabees would be the types of books one naturally would expect to come out of the great persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes. But Daniel shows sufficient evidence of belonging to the Babylonian Exile. It has been rightly said: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“If the Exile has that importance in relation to the development as already described, then the whole progressive development of the divine revelation as it lies before us in the Old and New Testaments, warrants such as are found in the book of Daniel. Since miracles and prophecies essentially belong not only in general to the realization of the divine plan of salvation but have also been especially manifested in all the critical periods of the history of the kingdom of God neither the miracles in the historical parts of the book nor its prophecies, consisting of singular predictions, can in any respect seem strange to us.” [Emerson quoting C. F Keil, Bible Commentary on the Book of Daniel, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, p. 20] </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As we compare First Maccabees with the book of Daniel, we have in the former, the kind of book that embodies most of the elements that the book of Daniel should have had, had it been written in the Maccabean period. To be more specific, Daniel should have been anti-Hellenic and shown zeal for the temple and temple worship and a holy indignation for those profaning it. The book should have been full of zeal for the law and denunciation of those not so zealous. First Maccabees is full of Palestinian places, names, local color and glorification of the Hasmonean exploits. This we do not find in Daniel. Even Montgomery [Emerson quoting J. A. Montgomery. The Book of Daniel. ICC Series. Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1926, p. 90] says, “Further the historical background of these chapters is Babylonian. Again their sumptuous barbaric scenery is obviously not that of Palestine: one need only compare the arid scenery of the later chapters.” </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Since 400 years had elapsed between the Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign and the Babylon of the Maccabean period, conditions utterly different had come into being with reference to the whole city and area. The city had lost its preeminent position and was under Greek control. What a wonderful research staff and what a wonderful source library the pseudo Daniel must have had. He seems to have avoided the pitfalls into which Herodotus fell only a century after the events about which he wrote. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">How could the Jewish high priest in 332 B. C. have shown Alexander the Great the prophecy of Daniel as pertaining to his own conquests when, according to the theory, the book was not (to have been) written for another 164 years? Josephus could hardly have imagined the dream that Alexander related to the high priest. How also do we explain Jerusalem’s escape from destruction after its refusal to surrender? And how do we explain its switch in loyalty from a nearly monotheistic Persia under which the Jewish people had peace, prosperity and governmental friendliness, to a polytheistic Macedonia? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">How could a book with such uncertain antecedents have ever become a part of the Canon of Scripture? It was not the Jewish custom to select the canonical books carelessly or at random [Emerson quoting Edersheim, The Life and Times of the Messiah, New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1931, Volume 2, App. 5]. Even though Daniel is listed in the “writings” rather than in the “prophets”, we have no record of any hesitancy of including his book in the sacred Scripture until the time of Porphyry (233-304 A. D.). It was the Jewish belief and criterion that all Scripture had a prophetic authorship. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">If the Maccabean authorship and the date of 165 B. C. for Daniel are rejected, when was it written? If we were to accept the internal evidence aside from the evident familiarity of the author with the life and time of Nebuchadnezzar, we have two hints in the book itself. The first chapter ends with the words, “And Daniel continued even unto the first year of King Cyrus.” If this is to be taken at face value, this chapter at least, may have been written 537-536 B. C.; i. e., in the first year of Cyrus. On the other hand, Daniel’s final vision (Daniel 10: 1) dates the vision in the third year of Cyrus; that is 534-533 B. C., which would also be the dating of the last three chapters since they all are a part of the same vision. The problem would thus be simple if we could be sure that all of the remaining chapters were written in the intervening two years. We note that each chapter has a unity of style–in fact, all of the chapters together have a unity of style that would suggest that they were at least taken from notes put down on the spot at the time of the occurrence. Since these were all written under inspiration and since the Holy Spirit brings to our minds not only from our own human experience but beyond our experience the things which he wills, there is nothing to prevent our dating the actual writing from 537-533 B. C. After all, if John could write another apocalypse during a comparatively brief stay on Patmos, Daniel might well have written his prophecy in what could have been the last few years of his life. Both books are the product of a long walk with God, and both are swan songs. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The non-Dispensational scholars, R. K. Harrison and E. J. Young, also take issue with the higher Biblical criticism and late dating approach of the Maccabean school of interpretation. Harrison notes the seminal role of Porphyry (3rd century A. D.) in denying a 6th century date for Daniel, and assigning to it the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. Harrison also underscores the anti-supernaturalistic assumptions of the neo-Platonic philosopher, who “. . . commenced his reasoning from the a priori assumption that there could be no predictive element in prophecy, so that the work could only be historical in nature, and therefore of a late date. This formidable heathen antagonist of the Christian faith maintained that the author of Daniel had lied in order to revive the hopes of contemporary Jews in the midst of their adversities. . . . The German literary-critical movement seized avidly upon the supposition that the prophecy could contain no predictive element, and repudiated the Jewish and Christian tradition of a sixth-century B. C. date of composition for the book. . . . At the outset it has to be stated that there can be no question whatever as to the influence that the views of Porphyry exercised over the minds of scholars who denied a predictive element to Hebrew prophecy. For them, prophecy consisted in forth telling rather than foretelling, so that any aspect of the latter could have no place in true prophecy.”[iv] [4] Young agrees with this specifically[v] [5] where the dating of the entire book of Daniel is concerned, as well as in the case of the “Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks” in chapter 9.[vi] [6] </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Thus, both Dispensational and non-Dispensational evangelical scholars dismiss the Maccabean school of interpretation of Daniel 9 as rooted in a presuppositional anti-supernaturalism which either distorts or ignores internal evidences which point to the unity of the entire book under the authorship of the 6th century prophet. The higher critics, who almost uniformly adhere to the interpretation, assert their position with equal vehemence: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This chapter [chapter 9 of Daniel] consists, not of a symbolic vision, as in chs. 7-8, but of a revelation made directly by an angel. In answer to Daniel’s prayer for a solution to the problem of why Jeremiah’s prophecy of a restoration of Israel after 70 years has not been fulfilled, the angel Gabriel explains to him that the prophecy means 70 weeks of years–i. e., 7 times 70 years. Moreover, Gabriel divides these 490 years into three very unequal periods of 49, 434, and 7 years, respectively. Because the writer’s calculations are only approximate and his historical references not always clear, there is still some difference of opinion in interpreting certain details in Gabriel’s explanation. But practically all exegetes now agree that the 490 years terminate in the end of Antiochus IV Epiphanes’ persecution; the once common opinion that saw in vv. 26-27 a reference to the death of Jesus Christ is now abandoned by almost all exegetes [emphasis mine].[vii] [7] </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Catholic exegete, Hartmann, provides an excellent synopsis of the Maccabean summary of the prophecy.[viii] [8] He translates the “Seventy Weeks” as “seventy Sabbatical periods.” The change from the 70 years of Jeremiah to 7 times 70 years is based not only on the fact that Israel’s lack of complete repentance merited this sevenfold punishment (Lv. 26: 34-35) but also on 2 Chr. 36: 21, where Jeremiah’s prophecy is connected with the Sabbatical years spoken of in Lv. 26: 34-35. Verse 24, for Hartmann, involves a brief summary of the whole period of 490 years. If reckoned at its longest, from the time that Jeremiah first spoke his prophecy (605) to the end of Antiochus IV Epiphanes’ persecution (164), this period would be “only 441 years. But the writer, who no doubt knew little of the chronology of the early post-exilic period, would not be disturbed by this discrepancy between his symbolic numbers and the historical facts.”[ix] [9] [emphasis mine]. Hartmann indicates that the reference to the “most holy will be anointed” almost certainly refers to the consecration by Judas Maccabeus of the restored Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem Temple, although he acknowledges that the Church Fathers often applied it to Jesus, “the Anointed One.”[x] [10] In verses 25-27, the three main periods of the 490 years are acknowledged to exist. Hartmann takes the reference to the anointed one of verse 25 as “probably” Cyrus the Great; less likely as Zerubbabel or the high priest Joshua. “Only if one reckons from the second utterance of Jeremiah’s prophecy (ca. 595) to the anointing of Cyrus as king of Persia (558–a date the writer of Dn 9 would hardly know!) could the required 49 years be approximately obtained. But the following words imply that the first period extends to the beginning of the rebuilding of Jerusalem, which would embrace much more than seven weeks of years.”[xi] [11] [emphasis mine] He then indicates that the 62 weeks of years, or 434 years, allowed for the rebuilding of Jerusalem are “too many by far; from 538-171 (the next date) is only 367 years.”[xii] [12] [emphasis mine] In verse 26, Hartmann assigns to the “anointed shall be cut down”, the historical referent of the deposed high priest, Onias III, and his murder in Antioch in 171 B. C., thus his failure to possess the city of Jerusalem. Also in verse 26, “the people of a leader” is linked to the Syrian army of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, which plundered the Jerusalem Temple in 169 and 167. The phrase, “for one week” in verse 27 is the period after Onias’ death (170-163), with the accompanying theory that the writer of the chapter was writing a few months before the persecution ended in December, 164. The “firm pact with the many” is allegedly Antiochus IV Epiphanes’ alliance with renegade Jews who favored the Hellenization of their culture. “‘Half the week” is for Hartmann, the second half of the seven year period beginning in 170, although he insists that the Temple desecration actually lasted only three years–from December, 167, to December, 164. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Young and O. T. Allis, comprising the best of what Reiter calls the “Princeton-Westminster tradition,” [xiii][13] offer an interpretation of the prophecy which simultaneously rejects higher critical anti-supernaturalism while affirming the historical fulfillment of the 70th week in the events surrounding the first advent of Jesus Christ. These respective schemas are representative of the Traditionalist, or what Reiter would term the Historicist school of interpretation.[xiv] [14] Allis deals most extensively with Daniel 9: 24-27 in Prophecy and the Church, chapter five, entitled, “Old Testament Prophecies Concerning the Kingdom,” where he begins by stating:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The effect produced on the interpretation of prophecy by the “parenthesis” doctrine of the Church as set forth by Dispensationalists is one of the clearest proofs of the novelty of that doctrine as well as of its revolutionary nature. In 1835 an article appeared in the Christian Witness, the earliest organ of the Brethren, in which the claim was made that all of the prophecies of Daniel are still unfulfilled, that they do not relate to the Church age but are to be fulfilled in the future kingdom age. At the time this article was written the view was generally held that the Christian Church or dispensation was the great theme of Old Testament prophecy. Today in Dispensational circles it is regarded as axiomatic that the Church is completely ignored by the prophets. Consequently, the prophets have a very important role in deciding the issues raised by Dispensationalism. And since the Dispensational doctrine that the Church was unknown to them was first applied to the Book of Daniel, we shall confine ourselves largely to it in testing the correctness of this method of interpreting the prophecies of the Old Testament.[xv] [15] </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Allis continues by saying that the importance of the “Prophecy of 70 Weeks” in Dispensational teaching can: </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">hardly be exaggerated. It is often appealed to as the conspicuous proof that the entire Church Age is a parenthesis in the prophetic program which is to be discovered between vvs. 26 and 27 of Dan. ix. . . Since Dispensationalists hold that the prophecy of the Seventy Weeks is directly Messianic, it is not necessary for us to discuss the various anti-Messianic interpretations that have been proposed. Our concern is to defend the form of the Messianic interpretation which has been called the “traditional” one because it has been so widely accepted, and to show its superiority over this “parenthesis” interpretation, the discovery of which has furnished, so Dispensationalists tell us, the key to the interpretation of prophecy.[xvi] [16] </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Allis begins his summation of the Traditional perspective by acknowledging the points of agreement with Dispensationalism, chiefly that the seventy weeks represent weeks of years, a total of 490 years; that only one period of weeks is described, as is proved by the fact that the subdivisions (7+62+1) when added together give a total of 70; that the “anointed one, the prince” of verse 25 and the “anointed one” of verse 26 are the same person, the Messiah; and that the first 69 weeks or 483 years had their terminus in the period of the first advent–their fulfillment is long past.[xvii] [17] He then focuses on the two chief differences between the Traditional and Dispensational schools of interpretation. First, the question of whether or not the great events described in vs. 24 have been fulfilled, or are yet future; second, the issue of whether or not the 70th week is past or future.[xviii] [18] Dispensationalists take the futurist perspective on both questions, a development Reiter freely acknowledges to be of 19th century origin. The latter locates the genesis of the futuristic position on Daniel’s 70th week to a time just subsequent to the introduction of the futuristic approach to the Apocalypse in 1826 by Samuel R. Maitland.[xix] [19] John Nelson Darby, the central figure in Brethrenism and “founder of dispensationalism,” then advanced the position that a “gap existed between the sixty-ninth and seventieth weeks, with the result that the seventieth week is still future.”[xx] [20] </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Allis’ presentation of the “Traditional” interpretation begins on page 113 of Prophecy and is as follows. First, that according to the view, all of the great transactions referred to in vs. 24 are to be regarded as having been fulfilled at the first advent and, more specifically, in what is to be regarded as the “climactic event of the prophecy, the redemption at Calvary, which is referred to literally in verse 26 and figuratively in vs. 27.”[xxi] [21] The words, “to finish transgression and to make an end of (or seal up) sins and to make reconciliation for iniquity” are to be regarded as referring to that atonement for sin which was accomplished once and for all on the Cross. This interpretation is in accord with many New Testament statements, e. g., Heb. x. 12-14. Thus Allis reminds us that Paul says that:</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">. . . Jesus has “abolished death.” (2 Tim. 1. 10). Death was a very real thing to Paul. He was living under its shadow, when he wrote these words to Timothy. But the fear of death and the power of death had been destroyed, because Christ had brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. For Paul, death was indeed “abolished.” Sin is, likewise, very much alive; it is very active in the world. But sin was finally dealt with (“made an end of”) and reconciliation brought about through the death of Christ, His passive obedience as a sufferer for sin. It only remains that the benefits of that finished work be applied to all those for whom it was performed. The same applies to the three other matters referred to in this verse. An “everlasting righteousness” was provided for all the redeemed through the active obedience of Christ, His perfect keeping of the law of God. Prophecy was “sealed,” i. e., authenticated in a unique way by the life and death and resurrection and ascension of Christ; and prophetic gifts ceased in the Christian Church with the close of the apostolic age. The “anointing of a most holy” may refer either to a person or to a place. If to a person, the reference may be to the descent of the Holy Spirit on Jesus to fit Him for His Messianic work (Lk. iii.22; iv. 18); if to a place, it may refer to the entrance of the risen Christ into heaven itself, when “through his own blood he entered once for all into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption” (Heb. ix. 12) for all His elect. In a word we have in vs. 24 the prophecy of the “satisfaction of Christ,” of His obedience and sufferings, by virtue of which the sinner obtains forgiveness and acceptance with God. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">According to this view, the 69th week ended with the beginning of the ministry of John the Baptist and the baptism of Jesus; and the 70th week followed immediately upon it. Consequently, the “cutting off” of the Anointed One which occurred, “after the threescore and two weeks” must be regarded as having taken place in the 70th week; and a reference to it is to be found in the words, “In the midst [half] of the week, he [the Messiah] shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease.” That Christ by His death put an end to the Jewish ritual of sacrifice, substituting for bulls and goats “a sacrifice of nobler name and richer blood than they,” is the great argument of the Epistle to the Hebrews. So interpreted, it is the Messiah who makes firm or confirms the covenant for the one (the 70th) week; and the crucifixion which takes place in the midst of it is the great event of that week and may be regarded as the climax of the entire prophecy.[xxii] [22] </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Allis admits that the Traditional interpretive scheme is not without problems, simply that the problems posed are far less exegetically and historically problematic than those posited by the Dispensationalist grid. He does concede that one difficulty resides in the fact that the Traditional interpretation does not clearly define the “terminus of the 70th week.”[xxiii] [23] If “in the midst” is taken in its natural sense to refer to a half week, or 3 ½ years, the latter 3 ½ years must be accounted for.[xxiv] [24] Allis regards as “possible”[xxv] [25] the options that either the last half refers to the period of the founding of the Church and the preaching of the Gospel exclusively to the Jews, a period ending with or about the time of the martyrdom of Stephen; or that the time in question was “graciously extended to some 35 years, to the date of the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus, a reference to which is found in vs. 26.”[xxvi] [26] His main point continues to be that if Calvary took place “in the midst of the week,” there can be “no interval between the 69th and the 70th weeks.”[xxvii] [27] It is to be noted that the scheme of E. J. Young, another Traditionalist, is not without its mathematical problems. In a summation which coincides with that of Allis, Young notes: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The traditional Messianic interpretation entails less [emphasis mine] difficulty than do the others and at the same time does justice to the language of the text. Upon this view the seventy sevens serve as a symbolical number for the period that has been decreed for the accomplishment of the Messianic salvation (v. 24). In v. 25 we are taught that two segments of time elapse from the issuing of a word from God to rebuild Jerusalem until the appearance of Christ. After these two segments have elapsed, the Messiah will be cut off by death and Jerusalem and the Temple will be destroyed by the Roman armies of Titus. The Messiah, however, will cause the Jewish sacrifice to cease by means of His death, and He will do this in the midst of the seventieth seven. As a consequence, the Temple will be destroyed, and the destruction will continue until the end appears which has been appointed by God. The precise point of termination of the period of seventy sevens is not revealed. The emphasis, rather, is not so much upon the beginning and termination of this period as it is upon the great results which the period has been set apart to accomplish. [emphasis mine][xxviii] [28] </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Finally then, must come a summation of the basic position of the best representatives of the Dispensational “gap” or “parenthesis” theory regarding Daniel 9: 24-27. These representatives include modern exegetes John Walvoord, [xxix][29] Leon Wood, [xxx][30] Herman Hoyt, [xxxi][31] Paul Feinberg, [xxxii][32] and Charles Ryrie, [xxxiii][33] as well as the classic, older Dispensational scholars, including Sir Robert Anderson,[xxxiv] [34] Arno C. Gaebelein, [xxxv][35] William Blackstone, [xxxvi][36] and William Bell Riley. [xxxvii][37] In summation, the basic outline of the Dispensational interpretation of the passage, beginning with Darby, is as follows–first, in contrast to the Traditional perspective, verses 24 and 27 are deemed to be future in their fulfillment.[xxxviii] [38] The “Prophecy of 70 Weeks” is part of the division of Daniel’s book (chapters 7-12) that records visions of future earthly kingdoms, both human and divine. [xxxix][39] J. Randall Price [xl][40] continues the summary of the Dispensational position by mentioning the six restoration goals [xli][41] of 9: 24, which are outlined by the remainder of chapter 9, in terms of events which will unfold in Israel’s subsequent history. As Price notes, Dispensationalism joins with most Christian scholarship in holding that the seventy weeks are to be interpreted as seventy weeks of years; the resulting period of 490 years (70 x 7) is divided, according to the text (vv. 25-27), as periods of seven weeks (49 years), sixty-two weeks (434 years), and one week (7 years). Dispensationalism is also in agreement with most evangelical scholarship in interpreting the context of the passage as messianic, with the coming of Messiah taking place after the sixty-nine weeks.[xlii] [42] What follows with Price is the crux of the Dispensational view of the passage: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">However, dispensationalism (classical) is distinct in its interpretation of Daniel’s Seventieth Week (v. 27) as future. With Israel’s rejection of the Messiah and His death taking place after the sixty-ninth week (v. 26), the completion of the six restoration goals for Israel (v. 24) is left for the Seventieth Week. If the Seventieth Week immediately succeeds the sixty-ninth week historically, then the expected restoration must be applied spiritually to the church as a new Israel [emphasis mine]. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Because dispensationalism adheres to the principle of literal interpretation and recognizes the scriptural distinction between God’s program for Israel and for the church, it understands the historical completion of Israel’s restoration must take place in a future week [emphasis mine]. During this time (as described in v. 27), there is a resumption of the messianic program for Israel with the overthrow of the Antichrist (the apocalyptic prerequisite to the establishment of the messianic kingdom). This interpretation requires [emphasis mine] a prophetic postponement [emphasis mine] (older writers referred to this as a “gap” or “parenthesis” [emphasis mine]) between the events of verses 26 and 27. The revelation of a prophetic postponement in the fulfillment of the eschatological aspect of the messianic program is in harmony with numerous passages in the Old Testament [emphasis mine] that reveal the two [emphasis mine] advents of Christ [numerous passages cited]. . . The six restoration goals of Daniel’s seventy-weeks prophecy (v. 24) may have a near fulfillment in the experience of the nation (Messiah’s redemptive advent) but must wait for its complete fulfillment in the future (Messiah’s restorative advent [emphasis mine]). The postponement understood between verses 26 and 27 is the consequence of partial and complete fulfillment in the messianic program. The first phase of the messianic program accomplished spiritual redemption for ethnic Israel in the First Advent (Matthew 1: 21; cf. Luke 2: 11). National rejection of Messiah (Matt. 23: 37; cf. Acts 3: 13-15, 17; 4: 25-27), while fulfilling the promise of Gentile inclusion (Acts 15: 14-18; Rom. 11: 11, 25, 30), necessitated a second phase of the messianic program to apply spiritual redemption to Israel nationally (Acts 3: 18-21; Rom. 11: 26-29, 31) and complete the promise of national restoration (Matt. 23: 39; Acts 1: 6-7; 3: 22-26; 15: 16), which will be fulfilled at the Second Advent (Zech. 12: 10-13: 2; 14: 3-11). The dispensational view depends on the validity of interpreting the Seventieth Week eschatologically [emphasis mine].[xliii] [43] </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This then, is the summation of the Dispensationalist exegesis of the passage. In a review of different commentators in the literature, there are minor revisions and differences in emphasis, but the basic adherence to the parenthesis theory and the futuristic fulfillment of the 70th week is absolute. One variance worth mentioning is the occasional difference over the dating of the beginning of the prophecy. Most of the Dispensational commentators begin the 70 weeks at either 458 or 444 B. C. (Nehemiah 2), utilizing one of two decrees of an Achaemenid king of Persia to the Jews as the commencement of the allotted time for the unfolding of events in Israel’s prophetic program. Occasionally, one will see reference to 538 B. C. as the commencement (Cyrus’ decree), but this is rare in comparison to the other two beginning points noted. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What then, are the historical considerations presented by the Dispensational system, with particular reference to the futuristic view of Daniel 9, and the way in which 1 Thessalonians 4; 2 Thessalonians 2, the Olivet Discourse, and Revelation 4-22 are woven around it? It would seem that the initial paramount consideration would be the establishment of the genesis of the position in history; secondarily would be an examination of the way in which the Dispensational system has impacted American Evangelicalism, particularly in its understanding of the Kingdom, its historical pessimism about society and the Church, and the fascinating, often paradoxical character of the political/religious link it has forged with modern Zionism and the State of Israel. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">What are the sources, in terms of individuals and historical epochs, which enable the Dispensational theories of a parenthesis Church, a pre or mid-Tribulational Rapture, a Great Tribulation corresponding to Daniel’s 70th week, and a two stage coming of Christ, to be traced to their provable origins? The absolute answers to these questions are a matter of debate, but ongoing historical research provides some clues, the meaning of which is in dispute between adherents of the Dispensational system and its opponents. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">At a bare minimum, it can be reliably asserted that the Dispensational distinctives aforementioned are 19th century developments, a developing system of Biblical interpretation that was unknown in earlier epochs and especially in the early Church. It is true that Dispensational adherents attempt to maintain that their system is a continuation of historic premillennialism [xliv][44] , yet Ladd maintains that, “For all practical purposes, we may consider that this movement–for dispensationalism has had such wide influence that it must be called a movement–had its source with Darby and Kelly.” [xlv][45] Robert Cameron in 1896, had reacted with some others in the Niagara Bible Conference to some of the dispensational elements, blaming the movement completely on the Darbyists, saying that they had introduced “a theory absolutely without a single advocate in the history of the Church, from Polycarp down.”[xlvi] [46] Timothy Weber, whose work, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming–American Premillennialism 1825-1982, is probably the most definitive historical appraisal of Dispensationalism since C. Norman Kraus’ 1958 book, Dispensationalism in America, agrees that futurism made its way into the English-speaking world in the early nineteenth century, with Darby its most creative innovator in the development of the Dispensational distinctives which subsequently received further refinement from such contributors as James Brookes and C. I. Scofield. Interestingly enough, Weber traces the modern futurist movement to a Jesuit named Ribers, who proposed as early as 1590 that the prophecies concerning Antichrist would not be fulfilled until the very end of the church age, all in an attempt to undermine the Protestant claims that the papacy was in fact the Antichrist.[xlvii] [47] </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This late 16th century historical source for futurism made a contribution uniquely suited to the gifts of Darby in his seminal development of the classic Dispensational system, first in the British Isles, then through his travels to the United States in post Civil War America, where the distinctives of the system received further refinement and promulgation in the 19th century American prophecy conferences, which both Weber and Kraus provide historical documentation of. 19th century America was in the midst of radical shifts in its culture, economy, and political structure subsequent to the Civil War. Historicism had suffered a setback through the date-setting disaster of William Miller, a Baptist preacher from Vermont, who had calculated a foolproof arrival date for Jesus Christ of October 22, 1844. Miller and his followers became the “laughing stocks” of American Evangelicalism when Christ failed to appear.[xlviii] [48] The “Great Disappointment” resulted in the Millerite formation of the Seventh-Day Adventists, many of whom wrote off the rest of Protestantism and Roman Catholicism as the great whore of biblical prophecy (Rev. 17).[xlix] [49] By 1845, Premillennialism had fallen on hard times through Miller’s catastrophic mistake–yet by 1875 had rebounded in a new form called Dispensationalism, which held that no “last days” prophecy will be fulfilled until just before the return of Jesus Christ; which rejected the historicists’ “year-day theory” for dating prophetic events, and the idea that the Papacy was the Biblical Antichrist. As Weber notes, the Dispensational denial that the prophecies were intended for the Church Age as a whole, served to relieve them of the “dangerous and often embarrassing task of matching biblical predictions with current events, and the task of setting dates for the second coming.”[l] [50] Weber adds that a key distinctive in the new system was the conviction that God has two completely different plans operating in history, one for an earthly people (Israel) and one for a heavenly people (the church). “Rightly dividing the Word of Truth,”came to mean, in particular the maintenance of the distinction between the two people of God.[li] [51] C. H. Mackintosh, whose popularizations of Darby’s theology sold well in the United States, gave a clear exposition of the new, novel idea of the “parenthesis” or “gap” theory based on Daniel 9 to the 19th century faithful.[lii] [52] Weber seizes upon the emerging radical implications and derivatives of this idea: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In essence this meant that the Christian church had no prophecies of its own. It occupied a mysterious, prophetic time warp, a “great parenthesis,” which had no place in God’s original plans. . . . This perspective left dispensationalists, to say nothing of the church, in a difficult position. According to their reasoning, the church is in the world but can lay claim to none of the prophecies of future earthly events. As we have already seen, dispensationalists blushed at the thought of assigning earthly prophecies to God’s heavenly people. Furthermore, as every dispensationalist knew, the Bible bulged with predictions of future events. Daniel’s seventieth week, postponed for the time being, must occur sometime. This time of trouble, called the great tribulation by all pre-millennialists, was described in great detail in Revelation and other places (e. g. Matt. 24 and II Thess. 2). To complicate matters even further, dispensationalists believed that God was unwilling or unable to deal with his two peoples or operate his two plans at the same time. Consequently, it seemed necessary to remove the church [emphasis mine] before God could proceed with his final plans for Israel. This rather difficult problem was easily solved by dispensationalism’s most controversial and distinctive doctrine–the secret, pretribulational rapture of the church [emphasis mine]. . . . Up to the early 1830's it seems that all futurist premillennialists had seen the rapture in conjunction with the second coming of Christ at the end of the tribulation. But dispensationalists, taking their cues from the creative teaching of John Darby, separated them. At the rapture, they said, Christ will come for his saints, and at the second coming, he will come with his saints. Between these two events will occur the tribulation, which dispensationalists equated with Daniel’s seventieth week and the reign of Antichrist. In this way the church will be removed from the scene so that God can resume his prophetic countdown and his dealings with Israel.[liii] [53] </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The charge that a preconceived ecclesiology was forcing novel exegetical schemes and conclusions upon Daniel 9 and other Biblical texts proved irresistable to opponents of Dispensationalism. Incredibly, some of its adherents, including John Walvoord, have agreed that the bifurcation of Israel and the Church is even more important than eschatology itself. Richard Reiter writes: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Additional evidence for the importance of the doctrine of the church came from the vigorous and capable presentation of pretribulationism carried on throughout the early 1950s by John F. Walvoord, president of Dallas Theological Seminary, in Bibliotheca Sacra. Published in 1957 as The Rapture Question, the series of essays that preceded The Blessed Hope by Ladd in 1956 picked up and answered Ladd’s criticisms along with those of earlier posttribulationists. Walvoord clearly established that “the rapture question is determined more by ecclesiology than eschatology” for the definition of “church” and “the doctrine of the church is. . . determinative in the question of whether the church will go through the tribulation” [Reiter quoting Walvoord, The Rapture Question page 50].[liv] [54] </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This line of analysis mirrors Darby himself, who claimed that the doctrine [of the pre- Tribulational rapture] “virtually jumped out of the pages of Scripture once he accepted and consistently maintained the distinction between Israel and the Church.”[lv] [55] He writes: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It is this conviction, that the Church is properly heavenly in its calling and relationship with Christ, forming no part of the course of events of the earth, which makes its rapture so simple and clear; and on the other hand, it shows how the denial of its rapture brings down the Church to an earthly position, and destroys its whole spiritual character and position. Prophecy does not relate to heaven. The Christian’s hope is not a prophetic subject at all.[lvi] [56] </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Kraus duly notes the prior importance of the ecclesiology issue for Darby, noting that, “It was not until several years after his break with the Anglican Church in 1827 that he became specifically interested in prophecy. His interest in this subject is at least second handedly traceable to the Albury Conferences, out of which grew the Irvingite movement.”[lvii] [57] Kraus also quotes James Bear as indicating that the Albury Conferences, and the subsequent Powerscourt House conferences, were the traceable location and genesis of the Dispensational distinctives, where the “truths of the distinctive nature of the Church and the ‘rapture’ were discovered, which led to the development of a new complex of ideas which we know today as ‘Dispensationalism.’”[lviii] [58] When the significance of Darby’s trips to Canada in 1859, 1864, and 1866, and his trips to the United States in 1870, 1872-1873, and 1874 are duly noted,[lix] [59] it is clear that Kraus is correct in demonstrating that all of the key figures in American Dispensational thought were merely repristinating and further developing and systematizing the basic ecclesiology and eschatology of Darby himself: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Even a casual review of these outlines and explanations makes it clear that the American writers were influenced by Darby. Their outlines are essentially repetitions; at best they are variations on a theme. The differences in the outlines grow out of the relative emphasis placed on the definition of a dispensation as a historical or theological concept. In each case a dispensation is a combination of both elements, the theological superimposed upon the historical. However, dispensationalism is basically theological rather than historical in its orientation. It is not primarily an attempt to trace the rise and fall of political, social, or religious movements in the passage of time. It is, rather, a philosophy of history–an attempt to interpret history according to a theological norm. Thus the differences which appear in the outlines are not essential, but are merely individual applications of the accepted dispensational norm. When this point is clearly recognized it is immediately apparent what Darby’s relation is to those who follow. He expounded the norm.[lx] [60] </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">These American writers included S. H. Cox (1793-1880), Henry M. Parsons (1828-1913), the Christian Zionist William E. Blackstone (1841-1935), A. J. Frost, James Hall Brookes (1830-1897) who is termed by Kraus the “outstanding leader of the Bible conference movement from 1875 to the time of his death,”[lxi] [61] and G. Campbell Morgan (1864-1945).[lxii] [62] These names were accompanied by pulpit presences influenced by Darbyism which included A. J. Gordon at the Clarendon Street Baptist Church in Boston; D. L. Moody in Chicago; and of course, Brookes himself at the Walnut Street Presbyterian Church in St. Louis.[lxiii] [63] Kraus notes the significance as well, of the early division in the Plymouth Brethren movement over Darby’s Dispensational distinctives, coming chiefly from Benjamin Wills Newton (1805-1898) and Samuel Prideaux Tregelles (1813-1875), who became increasingly marginalized in Darby’s takeover of the mainstream of the movement, and in the latter’s exportation of the distinctives to a waiting American audience: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Early in the Brethren movement two viewpoints concerning eschatology emerged. As Darby developed his dispensational concepts he met with opposition within his own group. Benjamin Wills Newton (1805-1898) and the great textual scholar, Samuel Prideaux Tregelles (1813-1875), disagreed with his dispensational distinctions. George Muller who had joined the Plymouth Brethren in 1830 also felt, as he told Robert Cameron, that he had to make a choice between Mr. Darby and the Bible, and that he had chosen the Bible. But it was the “exclusive Brethren” under the leadership of Darby that made the initial contacts in America [emphasis mine]. Probably the two most popular writers, and the widest read by American ministers, were William Trotter and Charles Henry Macintosh, although the writings of William Kelly and Darby also circulated widely. Until about 1880 the literature of Tregelles, Newton, and George Muller had very little influence upon the Bible conference movement; and when it did become known it did not turn the tide of dispensationalism [emphasis mine].[lxiv][64] </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Thus, a historical line of development in the development and promulgation of Dispensational Distinctives may legitimately be drawn from Darby and his “exclusive Brethren” to his most distinguished 19th century exponents, including Brookes, Trotter, Macintosh, and Blackstone; subsequently to C. I. Scofield and his most significant editor for his early 20th century Scofield Reference Bible, Arno C. Gaebelein;[lxv] [65] later to the more recent responsible refinements of the Dispensational system through the work of Lewis Sperry Chafer, Charles Ryrie, and John Walvoord; and finally to the Sensational Dispensationalism of Hal Lindsey and the Late Great Planet Earth in 1970, whose 18 million copies in sales popularized a position whose lineage is traceable to the Irishman Darby and his disenchantment with the Anglican communion. In all of these writers, the futuristic 70th week of Daniel, the two-stage coming of Christ, and the secret, “at any moment” pre-Tribulational Rapture predominate, in the interest of maintaining the Church/Israel dichotomy. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But is there any conclusive historical evidence for how or where Darby received his inspiration for the doctrine of the pre-Tribulational Rapture of the Church? According to Weber, “historians are still trying to determine how or where Darby got it.”[lxvi] [66] Darby’s opponent, Tregelles, charged that the idea originated in about 1832 during an ecstatic utterance in the congregation of Edward Irving, where the charismatic gifts of the Spirit were alleged to have been poured out.[lxvii] [67] Weber remarks that: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A newer though still not totally convincing view contends that the doctrine initially appeared in a prophetic vision of Margaret Macdonald, who was a teenager from Glasgow, Scotland, in the early part of 1830. According to some recently discovered (and confusing) manuscripts, Miss Macdonald claimed special insight into the second coming and may have even advocated a pretribulation rapture of the church. Shortly after her vision of the end, Margaret began speaking in tongues and became, along with other members of her family, one of the main attractions of a charismatic type of revival in western Scotland. Deeply disturbed by the reports of a new Pentecost, the Plymouth Brethren commissioned Darby to investigate. He arrived in the middle of 1830 and, according to his own testimony twenty-three years later, actually met and heard Miss Macdonald. According to recent theory, Darby returned home totally against the so-called outpouring of the Spirit, but borrowed Margaret Macdonald’s view of the rapture, modifying it at a number of points and fitting it into his system, without ever acknowledging his debt to her.[lxviii] [68] </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The riposte between Dave MacPherson[lxix] [69] and John Walvoord is apropos here. MacPherson, in the Great Rapture Hoax, states definitively that Margaret MacDonald’s revolutionary revelation of a two-stage Second Coming came to her as she studied various Scripture passages in the spring of 1830 in Port Glasgow, Scotland. He develops this line of argument by claiming in Appendix A, entitled, “Margaret’s Revelation,” that: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">One of her unique thoughts was that the first stage (the Rapture) would take place before the revealing of the Antichrist–an idea that had never been heard of in Church history before she expressed it! Not long after her revelation, she wrote down her account of everything and sent handwritten copies of it to a number of Christian leaders. The Morning Watch, a leading British publication, quickly copied some of her distinctive notions. Her revelation was first published in Robert Norton’s Memoirs of James and George Macdonald, of Port Glasgow (1840), pp. 171-176. Norton published it again in The Restoration of Apostles and Prophets; In the Catholic Apostolic Church (1861), pp. 15-18.[lxx] [70] </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">MacPherson then reproduces the text of Macdonald’s “two-stage revelation” with numbered lines of 1-117 for easy reference.[lxxi] [71] He divides the 117 line revelation into three (3) basic divisions entitled, 1) Preparation for the Rapture [lines 1-60]; 2) The Revealing of Antichrist [lines 60-87]; and 3) General Exhortations [lines 87-117].[lxxii] [72] An extremely detailed and difficult analysis of the 117 lines follows on pages 133-180 of Hoax, where MacPherson draws certain conclusions about Darby based on a written communication of the latter allegedly penned in 1833: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I trust many have been aroused since I have been here, and the Lord’s coming looked for by many, and some brought to peace. We have also some very nice scripture reading meetings, to which any of the clergy who hold the truth, have fallen in, though quite mixed, and every one at liberty to speak. It is chiefly, of course, on what may be called first principles, but I trust thorough ones practically. It is a remarkable circumstance, that a dear young lady, who was instrumental in setting them afloat for me, and at several members of whose family they were held–who had been only called about a year by the Lord, but was very decided ever since–was suddenly called away the other day in the midst of it all. The people in Limerick felt it a good deal, and I trust it may be the instrument of good to many. The whole family, which was a principal one here, had been all thoroughly worldly a year ago, and herself and her sister at the head of all idleness. [MacPherson quoting Darby in Letters, vol. 1, p. 15)[lxxiii] [73] </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">MacPherson then concludes that: </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Why did Darby admit such things about a young Irish lady (written three years after Margaret’s revelation) and not give Margaret any credit for her prior Rapture? Surely he must have known that sooner or later someone could discover the real Pre-Trib origin. The answer, as I see it, is that Darby was a well-read, knowledgeable opportunist, one who had studied to be a lawyer. He had been in Margaret’s home in mid-1830 and knew that her distinctive views had been picked up quickly by The Morning Watch and also by other Irvingites and his own Plymouth Brethren. He knew that, in time, memories and personalities would fade away and that he could well be regarded as the Pre-Trib Rapture’s great systematizer and promoter, if not immediately its originator.[lxxiv] [74] </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In appendix C of Hoax, MacPherson provides the complete text of a letter he penned to Dr. Robert H. Gundry of Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California. Gundry, after receiving the letter dated January 21, 1980, allegedly changed his book The Church and the Tribulation, deleting his previous support for Edward Irving as the pre-Tribulation Rapture originator, and substituting MacPherson’s evidence about Margaret Macdonald as the historical explanation for the doctrine’s origin. The corrected text appeared in Gundry’s sixth printing in December of 1980.[lxxv] [75] In his letter to Gundry, MacPherson continues his conclusions about Darby: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">No one disputes the fact that modern Pre-Tribism can be traced back to John Darby. In the Collected Writings of J. N. Darby, Vol. II, p. 102, Darby claimed in an 1850 work of his that II Thessalonians 2: 1-2 was the passage that gave him a seal of approval for believing in Pre-Trib. His statement follows: “It is this passage which, twenty years ago, made me understand the rapture of the saints before–perhaps a considerable time before–the day of the Lord (that is before the judgment of the living.” Darby, unlike many of today’s Pre-Tribs, rightly held that the day of the Lord starts at the end of the Tribulation. Note that in the early development of his Pre-Tribism Darby didn’t dogmatically see a big gap between the Rapture and the end of the Tribulation; he did say “considerable” (whatever that meant) but tied in that word with “perhaps.” </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Note also the reference to “twenty years ago”–which brings us back to 1830. But was he figuring precisely or only approximately? Where, in his 1830 writings, did he give evidence of such a doctrinal change-over? In the Dec 1830 Christian Herald Darby’s article entitled, “On ‘Days’ Signifying ‘Years’ in Prophetic Language,” was a defense of historicism and the year-day theory, with not even a hint of a two-stage coming. It should be remembered that Margaret was teaching a two-stage coming in the spring and summer of 1830, that the Irvingite journal I’ve already mentioned printed the same concept in its Sept 1830 issue, and that the Plymouth Brethren were preaching a two-stage coming in 1831. Existing evidence indicates that Darby was clearly a Post-Trib prior to 1830 (as he indicated in his 1850 work), the earliest moment he could have derived it from anyone else (and I’m taking all available documentation into consideration) was when he visited Margaret in her home in Scotland in the middle of 1830.[lxxvi] [76] </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Walvoord evaluates the MacPherson evidence in The Rapture Question[lxxvii] [77] and The Blessed Hope and the Tribulation [lxxviii][78] citing five specific reasons for casting aspersion on the historical accuracy and motives of some of MacPherson’s sources, not to mention the latter’s conclusions that Darby definitively received any of his ideas or positions on the Rapture from Margaret Macdonald. His points are cogently argued, and underscore Weber’s description of the manuscripts in question as “confusing.”[lxxix] [79] What is more revealing, however, than Walvoord’s well crafted response to MacPherson, are the former’s admissions that: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">“One of the strongest arguments of the posttribulational view is the claim that pretribulationism is a new doctrine. . . . He [Alexander Reese, The Approaching Advent of Christ, pp. 30-33] went on to trace the rise of pretribulationism. “About 1830, however, a new school arose within the fold of Pre-millennialism that sought to overthrow what, since the Apostolic Age, have been considered by all pre-millennialists as established results, and to institute in their place a series of doctrines that had never been heard of before. The school I refer to is that of ‘The Brethren’ or ‘Plymouth Brethren,’ founded by J. N. Darby.” . . . The assertion that pretribulationism in its modern form can be traced to some extent [emphasis mine] to Darby is supported by Darby’s own writings. In his search for premillennial truth, Darby arrived at the position that the church is a special work of God distinguished from His program for Israel. This in turn led, to the position that the Rapture is a special event for the church itself.[lxxx] [80] [emphasis mine] . . . The statement of Ladd [George Eldon Ladd] that pretribulationism until the nineteenth century is a half truth. Pretribulationism as it is known today is comparatively recent [emphasis mine], but the concept of imminency of the Lord’s return–which is the important point–clearly dates to the early church. [1][81] </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">So the recency of the Pre-Tribulational Rapture, the Two-Stage coming of Christ, and a futuristic view of the 70th week of Daniel would appear to be on solid ground historically, dating back to Darby and the 19th century, regardless of the question of the legitimacy of the evidence surrounding the Margaret Macdonald allegations by MacPherson. Weber, in the course of his work, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming–American Premillennialism 1825-1982, surveys other items of historical concern and significance in any survey of Dispensationalism. These include the pivotal importance of the American Civil War and World War I in facilitating the societal turbulence and uncertainty which created fertile soil for the apocalyptic pessimism associated with Dispensationalism; the theological crisis created by German higher critical Biblical scholarship in the 19th and 20th centuries which saw Dispensationalism increasingly perceived as the “conservative” alternative to anti-supernaturalism and rationalism (a perception aided and abetted by the effective development of Dispensationally oriented publishing houses and the Dispensationally oriented Bible Institute movement); and the developing, often paradoxical, political alliance between modern Zionism and a Dispensationally oriented Protestant Evangelicalism. In this last regard, Weber’s October 5, 1998 Christianity Today article chronicles the amazing career of William E. Blackstone as the premier American Dispensationalist in energizing the Zionist-Dispensationalist alliance for the purpose of creating the modern State of Israel, an alliance made possible only by the Dispensationalist “postponement of the Kingdom for Israel” theory based on its exegesis of Daniel, chapter 9: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">No American dispensationalist beat the drum for a Jewish state more than William E. Blackstone (1841-1935). Born in New York and reared in an evangelical Methodist home, after the Civil War Blackstone settled in Oak Park, Illinois, and established himself as a successful businessman and lay evangelist to the Chicago business community. He became a dispensationalist and a close friend of D. L. Moody. In 1878, he published Jesus is Coming, which went through three editions, was translated into 42 languages, and was dispensationalism’s first bestseller in America. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the late 1880s, Blackstone visited new Jewish settlements in the Holy Land and returned to Chicago committed to helping the restoration of the Jews. In 1890 he organized the first conference of Christians and Jews in Chicago and used the occasion to push for a new Jewish state. Most participants, including the Jews, were not interested. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Undeterred, in 1891 Blackstone drew up a petition (or “memorial”) advocating the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. In short order, he collected 413 signatures from leading Americans, including the chief justice of the Supreme Court, the speaker of the House, the mayors of Chicago, New York, and Boston, and business leaders such as Cyrus McCormick, John D. Rockefeller, and J. Pierpont Morgan. Blackstone forwarded the memorial to President Benjamin Harrison, who ignored it, and later he sent others to Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In spite of his ongoing efforts to convert Jews to Christ, he became good friends with Zionist leaders and regularly sent them the results of his prophetic study. In 1918, at a Zionist conference in Philadelphia, organizers hailed Blackstone as a “Father of Zionism”; and in 1956, on the seventy-fifth anniversary of his memorial to President Harrison, the citizens of Israel dedicated a forest in his honor.[lxxxi] [82] </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The historical import of the Blackstone activities on behalf of the Zionist movement cannot be exaggerated, either for Israel or the Evangelical movement in America. In the case of the latter, Blackstone set the foundation for the subsequent development of what Weber terms the “pro-Israel network,”[lxxxii] [83] encompassing much of the televangelist community, including Jerry Falwell, John Hagee of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, and Pat Robertson; the burgeoning number of pro-Zionist Evangelical para-church organizations, ranging from Jan Van Der Hoeven’s International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, to the Tulsa based Bridges for Peace, the National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel (NCLCI), the Restoration Foundation of Atlanta, the Arkansas Institute of Holy Land Studies, and the First Fruits of Zion Ministries.[lxxxiii] [84] Closer examination reveals the foundation of the Fundamentalist/Pentecostal political/religious network–the belief that the second coming of Jesus Christ is tied, eschatologically, to the reestablishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, and the resumption of Jewish control of the united city of Jerusalem. As Weber states, “Obviously, the key to this entire prophetic plan is the re-founding of Israel as a nation state in Palestine. Without Israel the whole plan falls apart.”[lxxxiv] [85] </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The paradoxes of this alliance are legion. The cooperative relationship between Protestant Evangelicals of Dispensational ideology and Israel has muted the former’s criticism of the obvious political and financial links of the American Jewish lobby with many of the far political left’s most recognizable names, movements, and organizations, including the disturbing amount of Jewish money generated for the homosexual rights nexus, Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Norman Lear’s People for the American Way, the last of which underscores the acknowledged, but downplayed role of American Jews in the financial underpinning of the Hollywood establishment and culture. Simultaneously, the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) and its disbursement of money for Presidential, Senatorial, and House campaigns reveals a similar curiosity–the contribution of cash to politicians across the ideological spectrum from port to starboard, ranging from Bella Abzug to Jesse Helms–politicians who share in some cases only one position in common–the desirability of maintaining a Jewish state in Palestine. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Evangelical-Liberal alliance is not without its tensions. Earlier in this decade, Abraham Foxman, the executive director of the Anti Defamation League of B’nai Brith, mailed a fund-raising letter to his national constituency, energizing their desire to contribute money by raising the red herring of the alleged threat to Jewish civil liberties and freedom in America inherent in the existence of the politically oriented Religious Right in America. The letter specifically cited the threat to the homosexual rights movement and the continued legalization of abortion in America as definitively Jewish concerns. It then proceeded to suggest that the appeal of televangelists like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell–two of Israel’s biggest supporters within Evangelicalism–was suggestive of a latent, burgeoning anti-Semitism in the United States. This amazing attack upon two of Protestant Evangelicalism’s biggest heavyweights in the pro-Israel network by Foxman, was considered sensational, ill-advised, and without historical context by many Evangelicals familiar with his communication. The latter were amazed that the media access and popularity of The Old Time Gospel Hour and The 700 Club could possibly invoke images of hatred and anti-Semitic progroms. Behind Foxman’s visceral attack, however, could have lurked a historical context unfamiliar to most modern Evangelicals–the curious, tragic, ill-advised linkage of several prominent Dispensationalists in the early part of the 20th century with the benchmark of international anti-Semitism, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.[lxxxv] [86] The Protocols articulated an alleged international Jewish linkage and foundation for a global ideological, political program, which included the extermination of Christianity and the sponsorship of International Communism, particularly through the control of international finance and banking, the manipulation and overthrow of existing governments, and subversive utilization of the print media. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Jewish Student Online Research Center (JSOURCE)’s web site on the Protocols reveals the extent of the ongoing relevance of the Protocols for Jewish fears of an international resurgence of anti-Semitism and anti-Jewish violence. Its synopsis of the Protocols states: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” the most notorious and most successful work of modern antisemitism, draws on popular antisemitic notions which have their roots in medieval Europe from the time of the Crusades. The libels that the Jews used blood of Christian children for the Feast of Passover, poisoned the wells and spread the plague were pretexts for the wholesale destruction of Jewish communities throughout Europe. Tales were circulated among the masses of secret rabbinical conferences whose aim was to subjugate and exterminate the Christians, and motifs like these are found in early antisemitic literature. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The conceptual inspiration for the Protocols can be traced back to the time of the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century. At that time, a French Jesuit named Abbe Barruel, representing reactionary elements opposed to the revolution, published in 1797 a treatise blaming the Revolution on a secret conspiracy operating through the Order of Freemasons. Barruel’s idea was nonsense, since the French nobility at the time was heavily Masonic, but he was influenced by a Scottish mathematician named Robison who was opposed to the Masons. In his treatise, Barreul did not himself blame the Jews, who were emancipated as a result of the Revolution. However, in 1806, Barruel circulated a forged letter, probably sent to him by members of the state police opposed to Napoleon Bonaparte’s liberal policy toward the Jews, calling attention to the alleged part of the Jews in the conspiracy he had earlier attributed to the Masons. This myth of an international Jewish conspiracy reappeared later on in 19th century Europe in places such as Germany and Poland. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The direct predecessor of the Protocols can be found in the pamphlet, “Dialogues in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu,” published by the non-Jewish French satirist Maurice Joly in 1864. In his “Dialogues,” which make no mention of the Jews, Joly attacked the political ambitions of the emperor Napoleon III using the imagery of a diabolical plot in Hell. The “Dialogues” were caught by the French authorities soon after their publication and Joly was tried and sentenced to prison for his pamphlet. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Joly’s “Dialogues,” while intended as a political satire, soon fell into the hands of a German anti-Semite named Hermann Goedsche writing under the name of Sir John Retcliffe. Goedsche was a postal clerk and a spy for the Prussian secret police. He had been forced to leave the postal work due to his part in forging evidence in the prosecution against the Democratic leader Benedict Waldeck in 1849. Goedsche adapted Joly’s “Dialogues” into a mythical tale of a Jewish conspiracy as part of a series of novels entitled, “Biarritz,” which appeared in 1868. In a chapter called “The Jewish Cemetery in Prague and the Council of Representatives of the Twelve Tribes of Israel,” he spins the fantasy of a secret centennial rabbinical conference which meets at midnight and whose purpose is to review the past hundred years and to make plans for the next century. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Goedsche’s plagiary of Joly’s “Dialogues” soon found its way to Russia. It was translated into Russian in 1872, and a consolidation of the “Council of Representatives” under the name “Rabbi’s Speech” appeared in Russian in 1891. These works no doubt furnished the Russian secret police (Okhrana) with a means with which to strengthen the position of the weak Czar Nicholas II and discredit the reforms of the liberals who sympathized with the Jews. During the Dreyfus case of 1893-1895, agents of the Okhrana in Paris redacted the earlier works of Joly and Goedsche into a new edition which they called the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” The manuscript of the Protocols was brought to Russia in 1895 and was printed privately in 1897. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The Protocols did not become public until 1905, when Russia’s defeat in the Russo-Japanese War was followed by the Revolution in the same year, leading to the promulgation of a constitution and institution of the Duma. In the wake of these events, the reactionary “Union of the Russian Nation” or Black Hundreds organization sought to incite popular feeling against the Jews, who they blamed for the Revolution and the Constitution. To this end they used the Protocols, which was first published in a public edition by the mystic priest Sergius Nilus in 1905. The Protocols were part of a propaganda campaign that accompanied the pogroms of 1905 inspired by the Okhrana. A variant text of the Protocols was published by George Butmi in 1906 and again in 1907. The edition of 1906 was found among the Czar’s collection, even though he had already recognized the work as a forgery. In his later editions, Nilus claimed that the Protocols had been read secretly at the First Zionist Congress at Basle in 1897, while Butmi, in his edition, wrote that they had no connection with the new Zionist movement, but, rather, were part of the Masonic conspiracy. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">In the civil war following the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the reactionary White Armies made extensive use of the Protocols to incite widespread slaughters of Jews. At the same time, Russian emigrants brought the Protocols to western Europe, where the Nilus edition served as the basis for many translations, starting in 1920. Just after its appearance in London in 1920, Lucien Wolf exposed the Protocols as a plagiary of the earlier work of Joly and Goedsche, in a pamphlet of the Jewish Board of Deputies. The following year, in 1921, the story of the forgery was published in a series of articles in the London Times by Philip Grave, the paper’s correspondent in Constantinople. A whole book documenting the forgery was also published in the same year in America by Herman Bernstein (The Truth About the “Protocols of Zion”; reprinted with an introduction by Norman Cohn. New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1971). Nevertheless, the Protocols continued to circulate widely. They were even sponsored by Henry Ford in the United States until 1927, and formed an important part of the Nazis’ justification of genocide of the Jews in World War II.[lxxxvi] [87] </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">As Weber has documented,[lxxxvii] [88] the endorsement of the Protocols by James M. Gray, the president of Moody Bible Institute, and Arno C. Gaebelein, a key editor of the Scofield Reference Bible, was most problematic; the promulgation of the document by Gerald Winrod, documented by both Weber and Norman Cohn,[lxxxviii] [89] and William Bell Riley, was further linkage of recognizable first and second tier Dispensationalists and Fundamentalists with the dynamite represented by the Protocols, a situation that reached its peak with their publication by Henry Ford in the Dearborn Independent in the early 1920s. From that time on, the Protocols became “exhibit A” in the propaganda campaign of the American anti-Semitic right.[lxxxix] [90] The magnitude of the historical irony cannot be lost–that those accused by their non-Dispensational brethren in Evangelical Protestantism of affording present day ethnic Israel a premier place in God’s redemptive-historical plan that was obviated by the events of 30-33 A. D. and 70 A. D., are simultaneously stained in the historical record of the 1920s and 1930s over the issue of anti-Semitism through the involvement of Gray, Gaebelein, Winrod, and Riley in the quagmire posed by the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Gaebelein’s writings reveal this paradox. In his commentary on Daniel [xc][91] , he makes clear his complete endorsement of the classic Dispensational scheme on the “Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks” and its “parenthesis” and “postponement” theories designed to enable the fulfillment of all of God’s promises to ethnic Israel for the restoration of their earthly Kingdom. One hint, however, of what would come in his controversial endorsement of the Protocols in the 1933 work, The Conflict of the Ages,[xci] [92] occurs in the Daniel commentary attached as an addendum to page 150, where a full page chart on the “Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks” is printed. In the portion of the chart entitled, “The Great Unreckoned Period,” (between the 69th and 70th weeks), Gaebelein places the repristination of ethnic Israel in Palestine. The reference to this event is entitled, “Part of the Jewish nation returns to the land in unbelief [emphasis mine] (Zionism) [emphasis mine].”[xcii] [93] </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">However correct this statement may be theologically, it may have had unfortunate consequences for both Gaebelein personally and the Dispensational movement historically, when coupled with his writings in chapter six of The Conflict of the Ages, a chapter entitled, “The Russian Revolution–Marxism Triumphant–World Revolution.” Here Gaebelein makes specific linkage of the global Jewish constituency to the International Communist Conspiracy, with his documentation of the allegedly disproportionate percentage of Jewry involved in the Bolshevist Revolution in Russia. Then comes the climax–his endorsement of the Protocols: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">And now we have to say something about that extremely mysterious document known as “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.” This document first came to light about 16 years before the first Russian Revolution. It was published by a Russian, Serge Nilus in 1901 and passed through a number of editions. A copy was deposited in the British Museum in 1907. The information as to Nilus is meager. We have seen the title page of one of these original editions and that page gives a strong indication that the man was a believer in the Word of God, in prophecy, and must have been a true Christian [emphasis mine]. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The title is “It is Near at the Door.” Then we noticed the following Scripture passages printed on the title page: Matthew xxiv: 33; Mark xiii: 29; Luke 21: 31; Revelation i: 3; xxii: 10; Daniel xii: 4. On the rest of this page we find the following statements: “Concerning something people do not wish to believe and which is so near [emphasis original].” Fourth edition of the book “Near is the Coming of Antichrist and the Kingdom of the Devil on Earth.” Revised and considerably augmented by later Researches and investigation. “Dedicated to the Small Herd of Christ. [emphasis original]” Finally two other passages are quoted in full: I Thessalonians v: 4 and Matthew xxiv: 13. [notice all of the Scripture passages cited by the document are classic eschatological texts–Dankof] </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Furthermore in reading these “Protocols” as contained in the book of Nilus, one becomes deeply convinced that an humble man of the stamp of Nilus could not possibly have written such a deeply worded statement. The reading of these Protocols impress one rather that they are the work of a set of very able men, students of history, of economics, and world politics [emphasis mine]. But the most important fact is that throughout the twenty-four Protocols we have a very pronounced re-statement of the principal theories of Illuminism and Marxism [emphasis original].</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">They have been branded a forgery by Jews and Gentiles. The authorship of this serious document will, in the opinion of the writer, never be ascertained. The words of the father of modern Zionism, Dr. Theodor Herzl, advocating a Jewish state, saying–“When we sink we become a revolutionary proletariat,” are insufficient to link Zionism with the Protocols, as it has been attempted. But the advocated plan of World Domination and World Revolution is a most sinister one. And here is the most astonishing fact, nearly all that these Protocols advocate, the destruction of Christian civilization [emphasis mine], has at least been partially been brought about by the Revolution and Sovietism. The work of undermining is still followed. A painstaking and deeper study of the Protocols, compared with present day world conditions, must lead, and does lead, to the conviction, that the plan of the Protocols, who ever concocted it, is not a crude forgery [crude forgery emphasis in original]. Behind it are hidden, unseen actors, powerful and cunning, who follow the plan still, bent on the overthrow of our civilization [emphasis mine]. (Quotes from the Protocols follow in the text).[xciii][94] </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Gaebelein, and other well meaning Dispensationalists like Gray, had no idea at the time that their eschatology, designed to uphold and redeem ethnic Israel as the apple of the eye of God the Father, would be forever linked in many Jewish scholarly circles with both anti-Semitism generally and Nazism specifically. This mental association is documented by Jewish scholar Norman Cohn in Warrant for Genocide in 1981, a work undertaken for the Brown University Judaic Studies Series in volume 23, a series with a Board of Editors comprised of leading Jewish historians and academics from George Washington University, Emory University, the University of California/Berkeley, Haifa University, the University of Texas, Ohio State University, et. al. Cohn’s work explicitly takes Scriptural texts given a particular slant of interpretation by Dispensationalists and states the following: </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">This extraordinary fact is that even these weird extravagances found believers. It is certain that many twentieth-century devotees of the Protocols really have imagined the secret Jewish government as composed of oriental sorcerers–one has only to look at the commentary on the Protocols published in Madrid in 1963 to find pages upon pages about ‘the kabbalah’. Nor is this the only respect in which des Mousseaux provides the link between the Protocols and archaic, half-forgotten religious beliefs. One of the most unexpected features of the Protocols is that Jewish world domination is to be exercised through a Jewish king, whom all nations will accept as their savior [emphasis mine]. This figure is taken straight from the end of the last chapter of Gougenot des Mousseaux. As he nears his 500th page the industrious author allows himself a flight of prophetic frenzy in which he foretells how, in the midst of a great European war, the Jews will raise up ‘a man with a genius for political imposture, a sinister bewitcher, around whom fanatical multitudes will cluster.’ The Jews will hail this man as the Messiah, but he will be more than that. After destroying the authority of Christianity he will unite mankind in one great brotherhood and bestow on it a superabundance of material goods. For these great services the Gentile nations too will accept him, exalt him, worship him as a god–but in reality, for all his apparent benevolence, he will be Satan’s instrument for the perdition of mankind [Cohn references Gougenot des Mousseaux, Le Juif, le Judaisme et la judaisation des peuples chretiens, Paris, 1869, pp. 485-98). </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Gougenot des Mousseaux states repeatedly that what inspired him to write this passage was the prophecy of Antichrist. According to this prophecy in the second chapter of the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, the second coming of Christ and the Last Judgement will be immediately preceded by the appearance of Antichrist, ‘the man of sin, the son of perdition’. He will demand to be worshiped by God; and by the miracles which he will perform with the Devil’s help he will deceive all who are willing to be deceived. He will establish his rule over the whole world until the returning Christ destroys him with the breath of his mouth. So far the New Testament–but in the second and third centuries after Christ, as the Church and the Synagogue came more and more sharply into competition and conflict with one another, Christian theologians began to give a new interpretation to this prophecy. They foretold that Antichrist would be a Jew and would love the Jews above all peoples; while the Jews for their part would be the most faithful followers of Antichrist, accepting him as the Messiah. As to what would happen next, the theologians were divided. If some expected the Jews to be miraculously converted to Christianity, others expected that they would follow Antichrist to the end and on the return of Christ would be sent, along with Antichrist, to endure the torments of hell for all eternity. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It has been argued elsewhere that the Nazi belief is a Jewish world-conspiracy represents a revival, in a secularized form, of certain apocalyptic beliefs which once formed part of the Christian world-view (see Norman Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium, revised editions, London and New York, 1961-2, pp. 62-3, 310). In this instance one can trace the precise way in which an apocalyptic belief–in the coming of Antichrist–contributed to the making of the Protocols, which were to become part of the Nazi scriptures. And indeed the connexion between the Protocols and the Antichrist prophecy does not stop there. In later chapters we shall see how the first important edition of the Protocols appeared in a Russian book about the imminent coming of Antichrist; and how something of the same apocalyptic atmosphere appears even in the thinking and writing of Hitler and Rosenberg as soon as they touch on the Protocols and the Jewish world-conspiracy.[xciv] [95]</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Thus, a novel interpretation of the book of Daniel and the “Prophecy of Seventy Weeks,” which originated in the early 19th century in the British Isles and later became prominent in post Civil War America through the ministry of Darby and his “exclusive Brethren” to key American Evangelicals, has had a turbulent history in the 20th century. To its non-Dispensational Evangelical detractors, it has embodied a non-Biblical view of the Kingdom and the Church which ascribes to ethnic Israel a significance and importance in world history thought to have ceased in God’s redemptive-historical time line with the destruction of the Temple in A. D. 70 at the hands of the Romans; to a secular political world and news media, it has provided the only interpretive key to understanding the improbable alliance of many Protestant Evangelicals with Israel and many of its Jewish allies and supporters on the political port side of the spectrum; to others, its eschatological scheme suggests the historical opposite of what its adherents claim, namely an ideological foundation for world anti-Semitism and virulent anti-Semitic propaganda. The “Prophecy of 70 Weeks” is to some what Churchill suggested of Russia, “I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”[xcv] [96] </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Endnotes</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[xcvi][1] . Dennis Reiter, Historicism and Futurism in Historic Premillennialism: 1878-1975. M. A. Thesis, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois: 25 and 74-97. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[xcvii][2] . C. Norman Kraus, Dispensationalism in America–Its Rise and Development. Richmond: John Knox Press, 1958; Timothy P. Weber, Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming: American Premillennialism 1875-1982, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983; “How Evangelicals Became Israel’s Best Friend.” In Christianity Today, October 5, 1998: 39-49; “Happily at the Edge of the Abyss: Popular Premillennialism in America,” in Ex Auditu, Volume 6, 1990: 87-101. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[xcviii][[xcix]3] . Dr. Wallace Emerson, Unlocking the Mysteries of Daniel, Orange: Promise Publishing Co., 1988: vi-vii of Introduction. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[c][[ci]4] . R.K. Harrison, Introduction to the Old Testament, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969: 1110-1111. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[cii][5] . E. J. Young, Introduction to the Old Testament, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 8th printing 1977: 362-363. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[ciii][6] . E. J. Young, “Daniel.” In The New Bible Commentary Revised, edited by Donald Guthrie, Alec Motyer, Alan M. Stibbs, and Donald J. Wiseman. Inter-Varsity Press, 1970: 699-700. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[civ][[cv]7] . Louis F. Hartman, “Daniel.” In the Jerome Biblical Commentary, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968: 457. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[cvi][8] . ibid., 457-458. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[cvii][9] . ibid., 457. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[cviii][10] . ibid., 457.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cix][11] . ibid., 457.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cx][12] . ibid., 457. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxi][13] . Reiter, op. cit., 144.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxii][14] . ibid., 74-97.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxiii][15] . O. T. Allis, Prophecy and the Church, Phillipsburg, Presbyterian and Reformed, 1945: 111.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxiv][16] . ibid., 111-112.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxv][17] . ibid., 112.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxvi][18] . ibid., 112.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxvii][18] . ibid., 112.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[1][19] . ibid., 112.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxviii][20] . ibid., 27.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxix][21] . Allis, op. cit., 113.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxx][22] . ibid., 113-114. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxxi][23] . ibid., 114.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxxii][24] . ibid., 114.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxxiii][25] . ibid., 115.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxxiv][26] . ibid., 115.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxxv][27] . ibid., 115.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxxvi][28] . Young, “Daniel”, op. cit., 700.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxxvii][29] . John Walvoord, The Rapture Question, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 19th printing 1979; The Blessed Hope and the Tribulation, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976; The Nations, Israel and the Church in Prophecy, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 988 [Reprint (1st work) of The Nations in Prophecy, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1967. Reprint (2nd work) of Israel in Prophecy, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1962. Reprint (3rd work) of The Church in Prophecy, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1964. </span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxxviii][30] . Leon Wood, A Commentary on Daniel, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1973; The Prophets of Israel, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxxix][31] . Herman Hoyt, “Dispensational Premillennialism,” in The Meaning of the Millennium–4 Views, Robert G. Clouse, editor, Inter-Varsity Press, 1977: 63-92. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxxx][32] . Paul Feinberg, “The Case for the Pre-Tribulation Rapture Position,” in The Rapture–Pre, Mid, or Post Tribulational?, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984: 45-86. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxxxi][33] . Charles Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today, Chicago: Moody Press, 1965.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxxxii][34] . Sir Robert Anderson, The Coming Prince, Grand Rapids: Kregel, 11th reprint 1984. An excellent modern essay which corroborates Anderson’s view of 360 day “prophetic years” is found in the work of Harold W. Hoehner, “Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ–Part VI: Daniel’s Seventy Weeks and New Testament Chronology,” in Bibliotheca Sacra, Volume 132, Number 525, January-March 1975: 47-65. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxxxiii][35] . Arno C. Gaebelein, Daniel, New York: Our Hope Publications, 1911; The Conflict of the Ages, New York: Our Hope Publications, 1933. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[1]</span><a href="http://www.markdankof.com/dispensationalism.htm#_ednref36#_ednref36" style="font-family: inherit;">[36]</a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> . William E. Blackstone, Jesus is Coming, New York/Chicago/London/Edinburgh: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1898, 1908, 1932. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxxxiv][37] . William B. Riley, The Evolution of the Kingdom, New York: The Book Stall, 1913.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxxxv][38] . Allis, op. cit., 115.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxxxvi][39] . J. Randall Price, “Daniel’s Seventy Weeks, Dispensational Interpretation,” Dictionary of Premillennial Theology, Grand Rapids, Kregel, 1996: 76. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxxxvii][40] . ibid., 76-78.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxxxviii][41] . ibid., 77. Curiously, J. Barton Payne, a post-tribulationalist, also affirms these six goals from Daniel 9: 24, referring to them as “six infinitival phrases of purpose,” in “The Goal of Daniel’s Seventy Weeks”, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 21/2, June 1978: 97-115. The quotation is from page 97 and includes Payne’s citation of E. J. Young’s idea that the six items presented in 9: 24 settle the terminus ad quem of the prophecy, while the termination of the 70 sevens coincides with the first advent of Christ. See. E. J. Young, The Prophecy of Daniel, a Commentary, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1949: 201. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxxxix][42] . ibid., 77.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxl][43] . ibid., 77-78.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxli][44] . Kraus, op. cit., 45.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxlii][45] . ibid., 45, quoting George Ladd in Crucial Questions About the Kingdom of God, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1952: 49. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxliii][46] . ibid., 45-46, quoting Robert Cameron in “Prophetic Teachers,” The Watchword, Vol. XVIII, October, 1986: 258.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxliv][47] . Weber, Living in the Shadow, op. cit., page 247, footnote 9 to chapter 1.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxlv][48] . ibid., 16.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxlvi][49] . ibid., 16.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxlvii][50] . ibid., 16.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxlviii][51] . ibid., 18.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxlix][52] . ibid., 20.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cl][53] . ibid., 21.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[cli][54] . Richard R. Reiter, “A History of the Development of the Rapture Positions,” in The Rapture–Pre, Mid, or Post Tribulational? Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984: 35-36. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[clii][55] . Weber, Living in the Shadow, op. cit., 22.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cliii][56] . ibid., 22. Weber quotes Darby in his Collected Works, XI, 156. On page 248 of Living in the Shadow, in footnote 23 for chapter 1, Weber observes that, “John Walvoord, a present-day dispensationalist, similarly states that one’s doctrine of the church is more important for the doctrine of the pretribulation rapture than is any particular scriptural passage. John Walvoord, The Rapture Question (Findlay, O.: Dunham Publishing, 1957), p. 16.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[cliv][57] . Kraus., op. cit., 28.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[clv][58] . ibid., 28 quoting James Bear in “Historic Premillennialism”, Union Theological Seminary Review, Vol. LV, May 1944, p. 215. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[clvi][59] . ibid., 46.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[clvii][60] . ibid., 43-44.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[clviii][61] . ibid., 36.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[clix][62] . ibid., 41.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[clx][63] . ibid., 46.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxi][64] . ibid., 48.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxii][65] . ibid., 113.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxiii][66] . Weber, Living in the Shadow, op. cit., 21.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxiv][67] . ibid., 21. Weber quotes Samuel Tregelles in The Hope of Christ’s Coming (London: Samuel Bagster and Sons, 1864), p. 35. In his own footnote 21 for chapter 1 (p. 248), Weber notes that Ernst Sandeen thinks the charge to be “pernicious and totally groundless.” See Sandeen, The Roots of Fundamentalism, p.64. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxv][68] . ibid., 22. In his footnote 22 for chapter 1 (p. 248), Weber cites Dave McPherson as a leading advocate of this theory in The Incredible Cover-Up: The True Story of the Pre-Trib Rapture (Plainfield, N. J.: Logos International, 1975). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxvi][69] . Dave MacPherson, The Great Rapture Hoax (Fletcher, N. C.: New Puritan Library, 1983) and The Rapture Plot (Simpsonville, N. C.: Millennium III Publishers, 1995). </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxvii][70] . MacPherson, The Great Rapture Hoax, op. cit., 125.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[1][</span><a href="http://www.markdankof.com/dispensationalism.htm#_ednref71#_ednref71" style="font-family: inherit;">71]</a><span style="font-family: inherit;"> . ibid., 125-128.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxviii][72] . ibid., 132.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxix][73] . ibid., 178.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxx][74] . ibid., 178-179.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxxi][75] . ibid., 187.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxxii][76] . ibid., 197-198.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxxiii][77] . Walvoord, The Rapture Question, op. cit., 150-155.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxxiv][78] . Walvoord, The Blessed Hope and the Tribulation, op. cit., 42-48.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxxv][79] . Weber, Living in the Shadow, op. cit., 22.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxxvi][80] . Walvoord, The Rapture Question, op. cit., 150-151.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxxvii][81] . Walvoord, The Blessed Hope, op. cit., 42.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxxviii][82] . Weber, “How Evangelicals Became Israel’s Best Friend,” Christianity Today, October 5, 1998: 41. Noteworthy supplemental reading to buttress Weber’s point here is found in Blackstone’s own Jesus is Coming (New York/Chicago/London/Edinburgh: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1898, 1908,1932), pages 236-242 which comprise a section entitled, “Zionism.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxxix][83] . ibid., 42.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxxx][84] . ibid., 47.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxxxi][85] . ibid., 41.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxxxii][86] . ibid., 42-43. See also Weber’s discussion of this tragedy in chapter 8 of his Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming, pp. 177-203. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxxxiii][87]. The Jewish Student Online Research Center (JS.) </span><a href="http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/anti-semitism/protocols.html" style="font-family: inherit;">Http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/anti-semitism/protocols.html</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxxxiv][88] . Weber, Living in the Shadow, op. cit., 154-157 and “Israel’s Best Friend” in Christianity Today, op. cit., 42-43.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxxxv][89] . Norman Cohn, Warrant for Genocide, Chico: Scholars Press, Brown University Judaic Studies 23, 1981., 236f.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxxxvi][90] . Weber, “Israel’s Best Friend,” op. cit., 43.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxxxvii][91] . Arno C. Gaebelein, Daniel, New York: Our Hope Publishers, 1911, 129-150.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxxxviii][92] . Arno C. Gaebelein, The Conflict of the Ages, New York: Our Hope Publishers, 1933.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[clxxxix][93] . Gaebelein, Daniel, op. cit., addendum to page 150.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxc][94] . Gaebelein, Conflict, op. cit., 99-100.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxci][95] . Cohn, op. cit., 42-43.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">[cxcii][96] . The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, edited by Angela Partington, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 4th edition 1992, page 202. Quoting Churchill in his 1 October 1939 radio broadcast, later reprinted in Into Battle (1941), p. 131. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Selected Bibliography </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Books, Commentaries, and Dissertations </span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Allis, O. T. Prophecy and the Church. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1945. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Anderson, Sir Robert. The Coming Prince. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1986 (10th reprint). </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Archer, Gleason L., Feinberg, Paul D., Moo, Douglas J., Reiter, Richard R. The Rapture–Pre, Mid, or Post </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Tribulational? Academie Press. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ariel, Yaakov. On Behalf of Israel: American Fundamentalist Attitudes Toward Jews, Judaism, and Zionism, </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">1865-1945. Chicago Studies in the History of American Religion 1.Brooklyn: Carlson Publications, </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">1991. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Bass, Clarence. Backgrounds in Dispensationalism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1960. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Blackstone, W. E. B. Jesus is Coming. New York/Chicago/London/Edinburgh: Fleming H. Revell Company, </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">1898, 1908, 1932. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Canfield, J. M. The Incredible Scofield and His Book. 1984. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Clouse, Robert G., editor. The Meaning of the Millennium–4 views. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1977. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Cohn, Norman. Warrant for Genocide–the myth of the Jewish world-conspiracy and the “Protocols of the </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Elders of Zion”. Brown University Judaic Studies Number 23. Scholars Press, 1983. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Couch, Mal, general editor. Dictionary of Premillennial Theology. Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1996. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ehlert, Arnold D. A Bibliographic History of Dispensationalism. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1965. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Emerson, Dr. Wallace. Unlocking the Mysteries of Daniel. Orange: Promise Publishing, 1988. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Enns, Dr. Paul. The Moody Handbook of Theology. Chicago: Moody Press, 1989. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Gaebelein, Arno C. The Conflict of the Ages. New York: Publication Office “Our Hope”, 1933. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">________. Daniel. New York: Publication Office “Our Hope”, 1911. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Gerstner, John. A Primer on Dispensationalism. Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and Reformed, 1982. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Harrison, Roland Kenneth. Introduction to the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Hartman, Louis F. “Daniel.” In The Jerome Biblical Commentary. Editors Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Fitzmyer, and Roland E. Murphy. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1968. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Hoekema, Anthony. The Bible and the Future. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Hudson, Winthrop S. Religion in America. New York: Scribners, 3rd edition, 1981. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ironside, H. A. A Historical Sketch of the Brethren Movement. Grand Rapids, 1942. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Kalafian, Michael. The Prophecy of 70 Weeks of the Book of Daniel. Lanham: University Press of America, </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">1991. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Kraus, C. Norman. Dispensationalism in America–Its Rise and Development. Richmond: Knox, 1958. </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">(excellent bibliography) </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Lindsey, Hal. The Late Great Planet Earth. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">MacPherson, Dave. The Great Rapture Hoax. Fletcher: New Puritan Library. 1983. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">________. The Incredible Cover-Up: The True Story of the Pre-Trib Rapture. Plainfield: Logos International, </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">1975. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">________. The Rapture Plot. Simpsonville: Millennium III Publishers, 1995. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Marsden, George M. Fundamentalism and American Culture–The Shaping of Twentieth Century </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Evangelicalism 1870-1925. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Marsden, Victor E., translator, Protocols of the Meeting of the Learned Elders of Zion. London: Britons </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Publishing, 1922. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Matheny, James F. and Marjorie B. The 70 Weeks of Daniel: An Exposition of Daniel 9: 24-27. Brevard: Jay </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">and Associates Publishers, 1990. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">McClain, Alva. Daniel’s Prophecy of the Seventy Weeks. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1940. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Millard, A. R. “Daniel.” In The New Layman’s Bible Commentary. Editors G. C. D. Howley, F. F. Bruce, H. L. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Ellison: Regency Reference Library. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979, 901-926. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Pentecost, J. Dwight. “Daniel.” In The Bible Knowledge Commentary–An Exposition of the Scriptures by </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Dallas Seminary Faculty–Old Testament. Editors John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck. Victor Books, </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">3rd Printing 1994: 1323-1377. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Reiter, Dennis L. Historicism and Futurism in Historic Premillennialism: 1878-1975. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Riley, William B. The Evolution of the Kingdom. New York: The Book Stall, 1913.</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Ryrie, Charles C. Dispensationalism Today. Chicago: Moody, 1965. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Sandeen, Ernest. The Roots of Fundamentalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Scofield, C. I. The New Scofield Reference Bible. Editorial Committee, E. Schuler English, et. al., New York: </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Oxford University Press, 1967. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Walvoord, John. The Blessed Hope and the Tribulation. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">________. The Nations, Israel, and the Church in Prophecy. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">________. The Rapture Question. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1979. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Weber, Timothy P. Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming: American Premillennialism, 1875-1982. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983. (excellent bibliography) </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Wood, Leon J. A Commentary on Daniel. Regency Reference Library. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1973. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">________. The Prophets of Israel. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Young, Edward J. An Introduction to the Old Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 8th printing 1977. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Articles</span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Butler, Jonathan M. “A Review of Timothy P. Weber’s, ‘Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming–American </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Premillennialism 1875-1982'.” Church History 58, Dec 1989: 546. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Davis, Moshe. “American Christian Devotees in the Holy Land.” Christian Jewish Relations 20, Winter 1987: </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">· 3-20 </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Doukhan, Jacques. “The 70 Weeks of Daniel : An Exegetical Study”. Andrews University Seminary Studies </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">17, Spring 1979: 1-22. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ehlert, Arnold D. “A Bibliography of Dispensationalism.” Bibliotheca Sacra, Vols. 51, 52, 53 (in series), 1944- </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">1946. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Francisco, Clyde T. “70 Weeks of Daniel.” Review and Expositor 57, Ap 1960: 126-137. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Greenberg, Gershon. “Fundamentalists, Israel, and Theological Openness.” Christian-Jewish Relations 19 </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">No. 3, S 1986: 27-33. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Gurney, Robert J. M. “The 70 Weeks of Daniel 9: 24-27.” Evangelical Quarterly 53, Ja-Mr 1981: 29-36. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Handy, Lowell K. “A Review of Michael Kalafian’s ‘The Prophecy of 70 Weeks of the Book of Daniel.” </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Encounter 53, Spring 1992: 197-199. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Hannah, John D. “A Review of ‘The Incredible Scofield and His Book’ by J. M. Canfield.” Bibliotheca Sacra </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">147, July-Sept. 1990: 351-364. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Hasel, Gerhard F. “The Hebrew Masculine Plural for ‘Weeks’ in the Expression ‘70 weeks’ in Daniel 9: 24.” </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Andrews University Seminary Studies 31, Summer 1993: 105-118. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Hoehner, Harold W. “Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ–Part 6: Daniel’s 70 Weeks and New </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Testament Chronology.” Bibliotheca Sacra 132, Ja-Mr 1975: 47-65. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Kennedy, Earl W. “A Review of Timothy P. Weber’s ‘Living in the Shadow of the Second Coming: American </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Premillennialism 1875-1982'.” Reformed Review 41, Autumn 1987: 76-77. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">McComiskey, Thomas. “The 70 ‘Weeks’ of Daniel Against the Background of Ancient Near Eastern </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Literature.” Westminster Theological Journal 47 No. 1, Spring 1985: 18-45. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Newman, Robert C. “Daniel’s 70 Weeks and the Old Testament Sabbath Year Cycle.” Journal of the </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Evangelical Theological Society 16, Fall 1973: 229-234. </span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Payne, J. Barton. “Goal of Daniel’s 70 Weeks.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 21: Je 1978: </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">97-115. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Poythress, Vern Sheridan. “Hermeneutical Factors in Determining the Beginning of the Seventy Weeks </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">(Daniel 9: 25).” Trinity Journal No. 2, Autumn 1985: 131-149. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Russell, C. Allyn. “Adoniram Judson Gordon: 19th Century Fundamentalist.” American Baptist Quarterly 4 No. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">1, Mr 1985: 61-89. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Saucy, Robert L. “Contemporary Dispensational Thought.” Theological Students Fellowship Bulletin 7 No. 4, </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Mr-Ap 1984: 10-11. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Scaer, David P. “Lutheran Viewpoints on the Challenge of Fundamentalism–Eschatology.” Concordia Journal </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">10, Ja ‘84: 4-11. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Smalley, W. F. “Another View of the Palestine Situation.” The King’s Business, XXI (June 1930): 290-292. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Weber, Timothy P. “A Review of Yaakov Ariel’s ‘On Behalf of Israel: American Fundamentalist Attitudes </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Toward Jews, Judaism, and Zionism, 1865-1945'.” Church History 62: Mr 1993: 138-141. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">________. “Happily at the Edge of the Abyss: Popular Premillennialism in America.” Ex Auditu 6, 1990: </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">87-100. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">________. “How Evangelicals Became Israel’s Best Friend.” Christianity Today, October 5, 1998: 39-49. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Whitcomb, John. “Daniel’s Great 70 Weeks Prophecy: An Exegetical Insight.” Grace Theological Journal No. </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">2, Fall 1981: 259-263.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Witmer, John A. “A Review of James and Marjorie Matheny’s ‘The 70 Weeks of Daniel: An Exposition of </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Daniel 9: 24-27.” Bibliotheca Sacra 149, Oct-Dec 1992: 491.</span></div>
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<div id="edn128" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn129" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn130" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn131" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn132" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn133" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn134" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn135" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn136" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn137" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn138" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn139" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn140" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn141" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn142" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn143" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn144" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn145" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn146" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn147" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn148" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn149" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn150" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn151" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn152" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn153" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn154" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn155" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn156" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn157" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn158" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn159" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn160" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn161" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn162" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn163" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn164" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn165" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn166" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn167" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn168" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn169" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn170" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn171" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn172" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn173" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn174" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn175" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn176" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn177" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn178" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn179" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn180" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn181" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn182" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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</div>
<div id="edn183" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn184" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn185" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn186" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn187" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn188" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn189" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn190" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn191" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn192" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn193" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<div id="edn194" style="mso-element: endnote;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">
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<br />
<div id="edn176" style="mso-element: endnote;">
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<div id="edn177" style="mso-element: endnote;">
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<div id="edn182" style="mso-element: endnote;">
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<div id="edn184" style="mso-element: endnote;">
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<div id="edn193" style="mso-element: endnote;">
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<div id="edn194" style="mso-element: endnote;">
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