As a student of Biblical prophesy, I have been keeping up with the news as it relates to prophetic passages in the Bible. Next month is the 70th anniversary of Israel becoming a nation after 2000 years of being abolished. That number is not insignificant. It is a number used for completion of a waiting period. Several things are being put in place that line up extremely well with passages in Daniel, Isaiah, Micah, and other prophesy books.

Of particular interest to me are: activities of the Temple Mount Committee; Trump and his Mid-East peace plans; and the rise of Erdogan in Turkey as the supreme ruler openly re-establishing the Islamic Caliphate with vocal intent to dominate the entire world.

The Temple Mount committee is planning a huge celebration on the Temple Mount. Trump is planning to formally open the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, as well as an anticipated announcement of a Mid-East peace plan between Israel and Saudi Arabia. So how does this align with Bible prophesy? Conditions must be first put in place before the battles described in the Bible can commence.

First, something must happen to enrage the Shia muslims to attack the Sunni muslims. (Iran attacking Saudi Arabia). The U.S. declaring Jerusalem to be Israel’s proper capital, along with a peace treaty with Israel would do exactly that.  Second, and this is a few years in the future, the Antichrist will not be revealed until the Jews are once again sacrificing in the Temple – he will enter the Holy of Holies and declare himself to be god, putting an end to the daily sacrifices. The Jews are on the brink of rebuilding the Temple.

Keep an eye on Jerusalem in the coming weeks.

Frank

We spent Debbie’s 65th birthday driving back from Kansas City. It was a long, arduous drive with lots of construction delays in Fort Worth. I don’t think we’ll be driving that way for a few more years.

I just wanted to wish Debbie a most wonderful, happy birthday wish, as she has always made me the happiest man I know. She has made me stronger, more responsible, and more committed to Christ than I would have been without her. She has stuck with me through my foolishness, my dumb mistakes, my injuries and illnesses. She set the standards for our kids, and raised two amazing, wonderful children to be caring, responsible adults.

So here’s to my loving wife, Debbie: Happy Birthday, sweetheart. I love you more than words can express!

Frank

Genesis 41: 53 When the seven years of plenty which had been in the land of Egypt came to an end, 54 and the seven years of famine began to come, just as Joseph had said, then there was famine in all the lands, but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. 55 So when all the land of Egypt was famished, the people cried out to Pharaoh for bread; and Pharaoh said to all the Egyptians, “Go to Joseph; whatever he says to you, you shall do.” 56 When the famine was spread over all the face of the earth, then Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold to the Egyptians; and the famine was severe in the land of Egypt. 57 The people of all the earth came to Egypt to buy grain from Joseph, because the famine was severe in all the earth.

Luke 12: 42 And the Lord said, “Who then is the faithful and sensible steward, whom his master will put in charge of his servants, to give them their rations at the proper time? 43 Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes. 44 Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions.

Revelation 13: 16 And he causes all, the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the free men and the slaves, to be given a mark on their right hand or on their forehead, 17 and he provides that no one will be able to buy or to sell, except the one who has the mark, either the name of the beast or the number of his name.

The time is coming soon when Christians will not be able to buy or sell anything, including food. God has graciously given us adequate information regarding the events that are beginning to unfold in preparation for Jesus’ return. Those events include terrible persecution against Jews and Christians. I expect we will not be able to buy or sell for a minimum of 2 ½ years, and we must be prepared for those hard times.

Putting these passages together, God has shown us what to do. Just as Joseph was given advanced warning of a famine, so we are given advanced warning of Satan’s attempt to starve us. The parable of the steward who gave the servants their rations at the proper time was not just speaking spiritually. This was a physical example of a real-world crisis God’s children will face. We need to be ready. I envision a world-wide organized effort for local congregations to store up for themselves food and supplies to survive the tribulation they will face. Compared to those times, we are now in the years of plenty. We need organized plans now that will enable us to give the servants their rations at the proper time.

Hurricane Harvey has shown us an unprecedented amount of relief effort for the victims of this terrible natural disaster. Yet the amount of food, clothing, and basic necessities pouring into Texas and Louisiana are but a fraction of what will be needed for Christians to survive the tribulation. An effort of this magnitude will not be successful until the Church recognizes that Jesus is right at the door, and that the Church will face the wrath of the antichrist. Just as Jesus said in the parable of the ten virgins, the entire church is asleep to the signs of His coming.

I used to think that politics were all run by human beings. That people had all kinds of motivations that drove them to push legislation for or against just about anything under the sun. But in this past election cycle and current administration, I have learned that something much more powerful than the whims of man is at work.

Consider the obvious: Our nation’s acceptance of the false claim of “separation of church and state” has led to all kinds of “political correctness” against Christianity. We have torn down all public displays of the Ten Commandments, crosses, nativity scenes, Bible verses. We have condemned business owners for living their faith in Christ (bakers, wedding photographers, etc), actually running them out of business because they would not condone sinful behavior. We have forbidden our pastors from saying anything political because it might spread the salt of God’s Word on our society.

Now consider the daily news: Irrational attacks on our President (who is doing his best to uphold the tenets of Christian principles in our government). The unending accusations about Russian involvement, even though every intelligence source says there was no collusion, or even a direct investigation of the President; the completely unjustified judicial sanctions against the President’s immigration orders (which he is expressly authorized to issue in Title 8, USC); the riots and looting we all witnessed; the attacks on police; the completely irrational behavior of countless senators, representatives, media, and celebrities. My point here is that the behavior of the liberals is beyond human explanation – and here is the wake up call: we are witnessing a demonic possession the likes of which the world has not seen since the days of Noah. The spirit of the Antichrist is growing, and spreading rapidly throughout the world, and that includes the good old USA.

Ephesians 6: 11-12: “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” We need to recognize that our problems are not social; our problems are not political; our problems are not climates or policies or any other human construct. Our problems are spiritual, and we are asleep on the battlefield!

I have always abhorred politics. That is precisely why I didn’t make it past Major in the Army. I did not play their political games. Never mind I was ahead of my peers by all accounts in terms of jobs performed. (Successful Company Commander when all my peers were being relieved of duties, Battalion Executive Officer of the Army’s largest battalion when I was still a Captain, Operations officer of the Corps Support Command as a Major). But it just takes one jerk who doesn’t like you to ruin your promotion potential.

Politics has ruined many a corporation, and now it is ruining this great land of ours. Mark my word, America will no longer be a democratic republic by the time my kids are my age. The Republicans in Congress are to blame. The progressives have their agenda, to turn America into a socialist state. Since the RINOs are going along with it, we have no hope. We fund Planned Parenthood (condoning the murder of millions of babies) but not the border wall (protecting our citizenry and livelihoods). We turn our blind eyes away from all the corruption rampant throughout our government.

We let the vocal minority liberal progressives silence the Christian influence in our education, our government, and our society. Without the voice of reason, “every man did what was right in his own eyes.” Yes, this county is doomed, and it won’t take a war or even an external threat. We will commit national suicide if we continue the direction we are going.

Our only hope is to turn this nation back towards the God of the Bible, and truly drain the swamp with our votes. I only pray we have time left to do that.

As the writer of Hebrews said, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen.”

As with most matters of morality and eternal substance, our culture has redefined the meaning of “faith”. We are told that one faith is as valid as another, that “all roads lead to the same god.” Faith is looked upon in our culture as a weakness, not a strength. We people of faith are accused of using our faith as a crutch, because we are not mentally strong enough to handle situations through our own reasoning. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Faith is being defined nowadays as a blind hope for which there is no solid evidence. It is seen as an excuse for those who don’t know better, for those who aren’t “enlightened”. (There is a strong irony in that statement.)

Biblical faith is the polar opposite of what we are accused of having.  The difference is in the object (the substance) of faith. The world considers faith to be in something that we cannot be certain of. Their “faith” is a blind hope in something we might wish to be true, but could not prove. They refuse to acknowledge the blatantly obvious evidence of God. In fact, Romans chapter 1 tells us this is a “willful ignorance”:

^“18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, ¹⁹ since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. ²⁰ For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. ²¹ For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

“People are without excuse.”  Rather than being a blind, unjustified faith, true faith is in knowing the object of your faith for certain. We KNOW God. We are absolutely convinced of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. There is no uncertainty in those facts, for the believer. We recognize God’s hand in all of creation, in the miracles of life, in the history and the affairs of humankind, and in the events of our own life.

When a person goes to college, they work for about four years of their life. They struggle through classes and labs, tests and exams, professors and lectures. And when the time comes for them to graduate, they look forward to that day when they will walk across the stage and receive their diploma. They know for certain that it is going to happen. Everything necessary to achieve that graduation has been accomplished. They are excited and filled with anticipation. They have faith they will graduate and receive that diploma, because they are totally and utterly convinced of its certainty. That describes the Christian’s “faith”.

The Christian has worked though the fact that he or she is a sinner. They recognize that there is nothing they can do to save themselves. Then they learn about Jesus, our Savior, who has done everything necessary to win our salvation. We know that he has gone to prepare a place for us, and that we will be with Him in total and complete sinless perfection for all eternity! We know for certain that this is going to happen. We are excited and filled with anticipation for that day to arrive because we are totally and utterly convinced of its certainty. Faith is not blind: it knows the person in whom it is placed. Faith is not a hope because we want something to happen. It is an anticipation of what we know is going to happen. Our faith should be the source of the greatest excitement in our lives. It should empower everything we think and do.

This definition of faith mirrors the biblical definition of “hope”. Hope is not wishful thinking. Hope is the anticipation of what we know is going to happen.

Frank

The word tolerate originally meant “to endure without repugnance; put up with“, regarding wrong behavior or action that was being tolerated. In other words, we would allow wrong behaviors or actions to be ignored or dismissed without punitive results or corrective actions. The word directly implies guilt of some sort, whether violations of laws or social norms. To be tolerant was to look the other way without doing or saying anything to correct the misbehavior.

But as with many terms, our liberal humanist friends have redefined the word in order to spread their liberal humanist ideology. Tolerate no longer implies guilt. The term now means to put up with anything that is different from you, to include all things that you might consider “wrong”. The new definition seeks to demonize Biblical morality. It seeks to neutralize Biblical declarations of sin and abominable behaviors. Take away the guilt factor, and everyone “can do what is right in their own eyes” (a biblical condemnation of widespread sin).

The liberal humanist has perverted the original meaning even further, by equating “tolerance” with “forced acceptance”. To see this in action, look no further than the rash of wedding cake companies and photographers who have been put out of business for refusing to serve gay weddings. These good people serve gays routinely, but were unwilling to compromise their principles by participating in a ceremony that violates their personal convictions regarding Biblical standards.

You would think that someone who is so forceful about tolerance would be tolerant themselves. But alas, their hypocrisy is blatantly obvious when they refuse to accept a decision that goes against their own convictions. (such as the will of the people to elect a President.) The inexcusable hysteria that continues even months after the election screams the fact that they refuse to be tolerant when they don’t get their way.

“Tolerance” is more analogous to “compromise” when it comes to a system of values, norms, and behavioral standards. Tolerance is not standing up for what you know to be righteous behavior. Tolerance is sticking your head in the sand while the world around you spins into depravity. Don’t tell me to be tolerant.

Frank

All this hullabaloo about the Russians hacking the DNC for the purpose of influencing the election is simply not true. I have no doubt the Russians have been actively involved in hacking US systems, both governmental and industrial, for many years. We’ve been actively hacking them as well. As long as there are computerized systems, there will be hacking attempts. It’s a fact of life in the digital age.  It is the modus operandi of the liberals to create a strawman argument, then shout it long and loud, until people actually believe the lies as if they are fact. That is true of their accusations of racism, and all the “-phobics” and “-ogenies” they have spewed against conservatives and their leaders. It is true of the intent of the Russian hacking.

The DNC information (emails) provided to Wikileaks was provided by a disgruntled insider from within the DNC, itself. The reason the liberal media is pushing the Russian conspiracy theory, is that they, the media, should have been investigating the DNC goings on, and they, the media, should have been the ones to expose the corruption. The media exists as a representative of the people to provide overwatch on those people and agencies who run our government – to protect us from possible corruption by exposing it whenever and wherever it happens. (Read Patrick Henry’s writings.)  The media does NOT exist to participate in the cover-up of that corruption. It does NOT exist to create and communicate propaganda. But that is precisely what our main stream media has been doing for years.

If the MSM had been doing its job, Wikileaks would have nothing to expose, and indeed, would not even exist. I’m not saying that Wikileaks is righteous in what they have done, as they have overstepped the bounds of national security on more than one occasion. However, in regards to the DNC email scandal, Wikileaks merely provided what our MSM should have provided on their own. That disgruntled DNC worker knew he could not go to the MSM with the emails, because the media are part of the problem. He had to go to Wikileaks in order to be heard and taken seriously. THAT, folks, is the problem that NO ONE is addressing.

This has hurt the MSM as measured by a steady decline in viewership, and it has been going on for more than 4 years.  A little research into the viewership numbers shows Fox boasting a viewership 3 1/2 times that of CNN, and 2 1/2 times that of MSNBC.  The lowest rated primetime show on Fox was significantly higher than the highest rated prime time show on CNN for 2016.  Every single show on Fox outperformed their competition at CNN and MSNBC. Americans are clearly aware of the media bias from the MSM, and we are sick and tired of it.

MAJOR UPDATE!!! Be sure your sins will find you out!  The latest egregious leak of CIA secrets to Wikileaks has within its contents evidence that our own CIA was doing the hacking, and trying to make it look like the Russians were doing it! How politicized and corrupt are our intelligence agencies? This truly is George Orwell’s 1984 world. The swamp is much more pervasive and contaminated than we could have ever imagined.

In the middle of explaining who God is to the Greeks, Paul makes this statement: “²⁵ And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. ²⁶ From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. ²⁷ God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us.” Acts 17: 25-27

The thought occurred to me that this whole “open borders” idea from the liberals is yet another attack on God. The Bible makes it clear that it is God who sets the boundaries of the nations. In other places in the Old Testament, it is clear that God set the boundaries of Israel and other nations, and removed those boundaries when it suited His will. The whole idea of “open borders”, supported by Hillary and Merkel, and other liberals around the world, is a direct attack on the authority of God to set those same borders.

Ephesians 6: 12 tells us that the war we are fighting is not against people, but against the spiritual forces of darkness:  ^“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.”

The problem is that the devil and his demons control humans who are opposed to God. We must therefore protect ourselves from evil. That is why we must control our immigration policies, and remove those who are a deadly threat to our citizens.

Frank

How do you define ‘freedom’? In our secular, pluralistic society, freedom is a grossly misunderstood and misused concept. Freedom is now considered to be “the ‘right’ to do whatever you want to do”.

Is freedom the absence of restrictions? Anyone who believes this is ignoring all of life around them. A fish is ‘free’ to swim anywhere it wants. But it takes in oxygen only from the water. As soon as it leaves the restriction of a water habitat, it will die. The fish is restricted by its very nature. So it is with all things. Freedom therefore is necessarily limited by our very nature. Our concept of ‘freedom’ must account for the nature of things, and the restrictions imposed by those characteristics.

Within those restrictions, the fish is free to go here or there. However, if it swims into the path of a predator, it will likely die. So, it restricts its behavior to avoid certain dangers. This is a self-imposed restriction designed to prolong its life. Is it free to swim into the path of a predator? Yes, but is that freedom good for the fish? Not at all. The fish will follow self-imposed restrictions to its behavior to preserve its life.

This brings up the second misconception of freedom, that all freedom is good. Terrorists think they are ‘free’ to wreak havoc on anyone they decide to terrorize. Is that freedom ‘good’? The civilized world would answer an emphatic ‘no’. This truth applies to many human behaviors. Enron executives thought they were ‘free’ to set their own salaries and benefits, to the detriment of all their employees. Civilization depends upon certain restrictions to human behaviors to keep us from destroying ourselves. Indeed, all our laws are actually restrictions on human behavior. They are necessary to prevent total chaos, and ultimately our annihilation.

So if freedom is not the absence of restrictions, and if not all freedom is good for us, who then determines what restrictions are placed upon us, and who determines which freedoms are good or bad? Let’s take ‘freedom of religion’ for example. Society generally agrees that freedom of religion is a good thing. But how far does that freedom extend? When one person believes that a certain behavior is right, and another believes that same behavior is wrong, which belief wins at the point of confrontation? Who decides that, and upon what set of standards is that decision made?

Is there a universal set of standards by which all freedoms and restrictions should be established? The answer to that question should be blatantly obvious, even to those who reject the answer. The Ten Commandments are a universal set of restrictions placed upon human behavior that govern our freedom. The utopian society that the world longs for would become a reality if everyone adhered perfectly to those ten simple rules. So why has this set of standards been forcibly removed from our nation? If they are so beneficial to us, why have we tossed them out of our schools and government? What impact has this action had on our ‘freedom’? Are we more free without them, or are we in bondage to our propensity for greed and power?

Sadly, by removing those restrictions on our behavior, we are less free than we were when we lived by those rules.

Of course, I know the answer to the questions I have posed above. Our sinful nature would rather create our own set of rules to live by, rather than live by the rules given to us by our creator. And the rules we then establish are based upon our rejection of God’s authority over us. We try to manage our own behavior at the same time our nature is pushing us to pursue greed, power, and pride. We get so far away from God’s rules that we can no longer determine what is right or wrong, and we redefine what ‘freedom’ actually is.

Freedom, properly defined, requires a set of restrictions that enable us to care for and improve everyone and everything around us. We can be free to enjoy nature without damaging or destroying nature. We can be free to love and help people around us without bringing them harm in any way. We can be free to choose a vocation that benefits mankind and provides support to our family, without denying others that same freedom.

When the Bible talks about freedom, it is always talking about freedom from the slavery of sin. We are sinful creatures. We can’t help it, and we can’t stop it on our own. We are, in a very real sense, enslaved to sin. But through belief in Christ, we have been released from the penalty of sin, and are truly free from the slavery of sin. Freedom, therefore, is the inalienable right to do good! Freedom to do bad is nothing more than sin. And that is not freedom, it is slavery! (See Romans 6)