Looking for His glorious appearing! Titus 2:13

Worship Site Demolished, Pastors Arrested in China
Oct 11th, 2009
Daily NewsCompass Direct News
Categories: Today's Headlines;Persecution

LOS ANGELES, October 7  – Following a mob attack on a church in northeastern China and the demolition of their worship site last month, the government put officials on alert to use military force against churches to quell potential “unrest,” according to a leading advocacy group. Citing reliable government sources, China Aid Association (CAA) reported that the central government on Sept. 26-27 ordered officials in “all relevant government agencies” to prepare to use military force against Christians who might react to the attack on the Fushan Church branch congregation in Linfen city, Shanxi Province. On Sept. 13 some 400 uniformed police and civilians bearing shovels, batons, bricks, iron hooks and other weapons beat members of the church who were sleeping at the nearly finished factory building used as a worship site. With several Fushan County officials involved in the attack, dozens of Christians were seriously injured among the more than 100 who were hurt, according to CAA. On Sept. 25 Shanxi Province officers of the Public Security Bureau detained nine Fushan Church leaders on their way to Beijing to protest the attack, and the next day authorities placed state military police inside and around the main Fushan Church building in Linfen city, the advocacy organization said. In Beijing, the crackdown ahead of the Oct. 1 National Day included the arrest of an internationally known house church rights defender. Public Security Bureau and State Security agents from Fengtai district in Beijing seized Pastor Hua Huiqi of Tent-Making Ministry on Sept. 17; his whereabouts are unknown.

The Person of the Holy Spirit
Oct 11th, 2009
Weekly Bible StudyHugh Davidson
Categories: Inspirational;Topical Study;Commentary

                                   The person of the Holy Spirit

John 15:26-16:11, ^”But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: and ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning. These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended. They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me. But these things have I told you, that when the time shall come, ye may remember that I told you of them. And these things I said not unto you at the beginning, because I was with you. But now I go my way to him that sent me; and none of you asketh me, Whither goest thou? But because I have said these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they believe not on me; of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and ye see me no more; of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.”

Today, we’re looking at the ministry of the Holy Spirit and today there seems to be a lot of confusion about who He is and what He does. Most Christians understand Jesus the Son of God and God the Father as two very distinct Persons within the Godhead and yet there has always been a lot of confusion over the identity of the Holy Spirit and many people have always thought of the Holy Spirit as more of a thing or some kind of phantom than a Person.

Although the word trinity is not mentioned in the Bible, we know God is three in one and this means there are three very distinct Person’s that make up the Godhead and they are all equal in every way. They (the Father, Son and Holy Spirit) are all omnipotent which means they are all powerful. We have no problem with the Father and Son but we misunderstand the person of the Holy Spirit when it comes to these powers. We see the omnipotentence of the Holy Spirit in Luke 1:35 where it says, “And the angel answered and said unto her, (referring to Mary) the Holy Spirit shall come upon you, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of you shall be called the Son of God.” Now, the power of the Highest is referring to the power of the Holy Spirit. And then second, the Holy Spirit is also omnipresent. And that means He is everywhere all at once. Psalms 139:7 says, “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?” The fact is, nobody can escape from the presence of God the Holy Spirit. I remember when the Russian cosmonaut came back from space and said, “I went right to the outskirts of the universe and I didn’t see God.” And W.A. Criswell said, “All he had to do was take his helmet off.” He is everywhere. And then third, the Holy Spirit is also omniscient which means He is all knowing. In other words, He knows everything. 1 Corinthians 2:10 tells us, “But God has revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God.” And listen, if He knows all the secrets of the Father and the Son then He obviously knows everything that’s in your heart and mine. And then fourth the Holy Spirit is eternal. He is from everlasting to everlasting. He has no beginning and He has no end. Hebrews 9:14 says, “How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” He’s called the eternal Spirit because He is eternal.

It’s hard for any of us to imagine why the eternal God of the universe would be pre-occupied with the life of anyone on this planet whose lifespan is less than a hundred years. When I’m doing funerals I often use the analogy of life by comparing a person’s life to one of the large trees that we find in almost every graveyard. Some of those trees have been there for more than two hundred years and the people who are buried under them have only been on this earth for maybe seventy or even eighty years. This tells us that the gravesite is not the end for us but that God has an eternal purpose for ours lives that goes way beyond that of a tree.

And fifth the Holy Spirit is equal to the other two members of the Godhead. Acts 5:3-4 says, “But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to keep back part of the price of the land? While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own power? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied unto men, but unto God.” In the first part of the verse he says, you lied to the Holy Spirit and the last part he says, you lied to God. And in essence Peter is referring to the Holy Spirit as God and putting Him on the same level as the other two members of the Godhead. 

And there are several other scripture references that show the co-existence of the three persons within the trinity. For instance, in Luke 3:22 it says, “And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.” And here we see the evidence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and they’re all mentioned in the one verse and we can also see the same reference elsewhere in the New Testament.

And then there are four important principles to remember about the Holy Spirit. One, the Holy Spirit is God, and He is a Person or a personable God. In other words, He is not a force or simply an influence but He is a personality. Second, we aren’t to ignore the ministry of the Holy Spirit. After all, His mission is to reveal Jesus and Jesus’ mission was to reveal the Father. And the Father’s goal was to send Jesus and the Holy Spirit so we can come to Him. All three of them have perfect harmony in their efforts to redeem us and all three of them are working together to bring us to heaven. And then third, the Holy Spirit gives us gifts to use in ministry in order to enable us to be effective for God. So, anything we do in terms of leading others to Jesus or teaching the word, all the credit goes to the Holy Spirit who is working in us and through us. And let’s face it, if we were simply working in our own power or in our own strength we might accomplish an awful lot but there wouldn’t be any eternal benefits.

Now, there are those rare times when the Holy Spirit will honor the word of God and even work through those who don’t know Him. I heard the testimony of a Bible College teacher who came to Jesus as a young boy while listening to a couple of young men who were holding a tent meeting in his neighborhood. He said he heard the gospel and then went forward and accepted the Lord and when the tent meeting was over these men left the area and he joined a local church. Later on, he went to Bible College and spent the rest of his life in the ministry but one day he said he found out that one of the two preachers at the tent meetings where he was saved had come from a Christian home but neither of these men were saved and they had rented the tent and held the meetings until they could get enough cash to get home and when they did they left. The Holy Spirit obviously honored the word they preached but that doesn’t mean they’re going to get any rewards for preaching it. I think they got their reward when they got their money.    

The first century church certainly lived out the meaning of Acts 1:8, “But you shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto Me.” The key in any church that is going to have an impact on the world and move out to fulfill the great commission is that it’s going to be a Spirit-filled church. A Spirit-filled church is simply a church in which the people walk in consistent obedience to the will of God which is expressed in the Word of God. So we see that a Spirit-filled church is where people walk, talk, think and act in the energy of the Spirit of God because their hearts are given over to the saturation of the Word of God and this is the kind of church that God uses to change the world.

The ‘oldest Hatred’
Oct 11th, 2009
CommentaryMark Steyn
Categories: Commentary;Anti-Israel

n Toronto, anti-Israel demonstrators yell “You are the brothers of pigs!”, and a protester complains to his interviewer that “Hitler didn’t do a good job.”

In Fort Lauderdale, Palestinian supporters sneer at Jews, “You need a big oven, that’s what you need!”

In Amsterdam, the crowd shouts, “Hamas, Hamas! Jews to the gas!”

In Paris, the state-owned TV network France-2 broadcasts film of dozens of dead Palestinians killed in an Israeli air raid on New Year’s Day. The channel subsequently admits that, in fact, the footage is not from January 1st 2009 but from 2005, and, while the corpses are certainly Palestinian, they were killed when a truck loaded with Hamas explosives detonated prematurely while leaving the Jabaliya refugee camp in another of those unfortunate work-related accidents to which Gaza is sadly prone. Conceding that the Palestinians supposedly killed by Israel were, alas, killed by Hamas, France-2 says the footage was broadcast “accidentally.”

In Toulouse, a synagogue is firebombed; in Bordeaux, two kosher butchers are attacked; at the Auber RER train station, a Jewish man is savagely assaulted by 20 youths taunting, “Palestine will kill the Jews;” in Villiers-le-Bel, a Jewish schoolgirl is brutally beaten by a gang jeering, “Jews must die.”

In Helsingborg, the congregation at a Swedish synagogue takes shelter as a window is broken and burning cloths thrown in; in Odense, principal Olav Nielsen announces that he will no longer admit Jewish children to the local school after a Dane of Lebanese extraction goes to the shopping mall and shoots two men working at the Dead Sea Products store; in Brussels, a Molotov cocktail is hurled at a Belgian synagogue; in Antwerp, lit rags are pushed through the mail flap of a Jewish home; and, across the Channel, “youths” attempt to burn the Brondesbury Park Synagogue.

In London, the police advise British Jews to review their security procedures because of potential revenge attacks. The Sun reports “fears” that “Islamic extremists” are drawing up a “hit list” of prominent Jews, including the Foreign Secretary, Amy Winehouse’s record producer, and the late Princess of Wales’s divorce lawyer. Meanwhile, The Guardian reports that Islamic non-extremists from the British Muslim Forum, the Islamic Foundation and other impeccably respectable “moderate” groups have warned the government that the Israelis’ “disproportionate force” in Gaza risks inflaming British Muslims, “reviving extremist groups,”  and provoking “UK terrorist attacks” — not against Amy Winehouse’s record producer and other sinister members of the International Jewish Conspiracy but against targets of, ah, more general interest.

Forget, for the moment, Gaza. Forget that the Palestinian people are the most comprehensively wrecked people on the face of the earth. For the past sixty years they have been entrusted to the care of the United Nations, the Arab League, the PLO, Hamas and the “global community” — and the results are pretty much what you’d expect. You would have to be very hardhearted not to weep at the sight of dead Palestinian children, but you would also have to accord a measure of blame to the Hamas officials who choose to use grade schools as launch pads for Israeli-bound rockets, and to the UN refugee agency that turns a blind eye to it. And, even if you don’t deplore Fatah and Hamas for marinating their infants in a sick death cult in which martyrdom in the course of Jew-killing is the greatest goal to which a citizen can aspire, any fair-minded visitor to the West Bank or Gaza in the decade and a half in which the “Palestinian Authority” has exercised sovereign powers roughly equivalent to those of the nascent Irish Free State in 1922 would have to concede that the Palestinian “nationalist movement” has a profound shortage of nationalists interested in running a nation, or indeed capable of doing so. There is fault on both sides, of course, and Israel has few good long-term options. But, if this was a conventional ethno-nationalist dispute, it would have been over long ago.

So, as I said, forget Gaza. And instead ponder the reaction to Gaza in Scandinavia, France, the United Kingdom, Canada, and golly, even Florida. As the delegitimization of Israel has metastasized, we are assured that criticism of the Jewish state is not the same as anti-Semitism. We are further assured that anti-Zionism is not the same as anti-Semitism, which is a wee bit more of a stretch. Only Israel attracts an intellectually respectable movement querying its very existence. For the purposes of comparison, let’s take a state that came into existence at the exact same time as the Zionist Entity, and involved far bloodier population displacements. I happen to think the creation of Pakistan was the greatest failure of post-war British imperial policy. But the fact is that Pakistan exists, and if I were to launch a movement of anti-Pakism it would get pretty short shrift.   

But, even allowing for that, what has a schoolgirl in Villiers-le-Bel to do with Israeli government policy? Just last month terrorists attacked Bombay, seized hostages, tortured them, killed them, and mutilated their bodies. The police intercepts of the phone conversations between the terrorists and their controllers make for lively reading:

“Pakistan caller 1:  ‘Kill all hostages, except the two Muslims. Keep your phone switched on so that we can hear the gunfire.’

“Mumbai terrorist 2: ‘We have three foreigners, including women. From Singapore and China.’

“Pakistan caller 1: ‘Kill them.’

“(Voices of gunmen can be heard directing hostages to stand in a line, and telling two Muslims to stand aside. Sound of gunfire. Sound of cheering voices.)”

“Kill all hostages, except the two Muslims.” Tough for those Singaporean women. Yet no mosques in Singapore have been attacked. The large Hindu populations in London, Toronto, and Fort Lauderdale have not shouted “Muslims must die!” or firebombed Halal butchers or attacked hijab-clad schoolgirls. CAIR and other Muslim lobby groups’ eternal bleating about “Islamophobia” is in inverse proportion to any examples of it. Meanwhile, “moderate Muslims” in London warn the government: “I’m a peaceful fellow myself, but I can’t speak for my excitable friends. Nice little G7 advanced western democracy you got here. Shame if anything were to happen to it.”

But why worry about European Muslims? The European political and media class essentially shares the same view of the situation — to the point where state TV stations are broadcasting fake Israeli “war crimes.” As I always say, the “oldest hatred” didn’t get that way without an ability to adapt: Once upon a time on the Continent, Jews were hated as rootless cosmopolitan figures who owed no national allegiance. So they became a conventional nation state, and now they’re hated for that. And, if Hamas get their way and destroy the Jewish state, the few who survive will be hated for something else. So it goes.

But Jew-hating has consequences for the Jew-hater, too. A few years ago the poet Nizar Qabbani wrote an ode to the intifada:

O mad people of Gaza,

a thousand greetings to the mad

The age of political reason

has long departed

so teach us madness

You can just about understand why living in Gaza would teach you madness. The enthusiastic adoption of the same pathologies by mainstream Europe is even more deranged — and in the end will prove just as self-destructive.

Revelation 13:15
Oct 11th, 2009
Exploring RevelationArt Sadlier
Categories: Commentary;Prophecy;Book Study

"And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed."

In the previous verses we saw the miracles that the false prophet performed in order to deceive the people of the world. Satan is a deceiver and the whole tribulation period is a time of deception. The deception starts at the beginning of the tribulation and continues to grow until here in verse 15, it reaches it's greatest point.

An image of the beast is made and then comes this crescendo of deception, "Power to give life unto the image of the beast". I suggest again, that this is the appearance of giving life, Satan cannot actually give life, but he in a miraculous way appears to bring to life an inanimate object. This image of the beast can first of all speak, perhaps by means of T.V. the image addresses the whole world with the program of Satan. Notice what the program of Satan is: that the whole world should worship the image. Satan has a three step program here. First, to have the world to worship the image. Secondly, to worship the beast himself. We see him in 2 Thess. 2:4 sitting in the temple of God showing himself that he is God. Thirdly, to have the whole world worship Satan himself, remember he said, "I will be like the most High".

Now we see a further amazing thing about the image, "that the image of the beast should.....cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed." How this is accomplished we are not sure, beheading seems to the means of execution. Perhaps those who do not respond to the emails of the image of the beast will simply be marked for death by beheading.

Now  will begin the greatest slaughter in all of history, billions will be put to death for refusing to worship Satan. Notice a contrast between those who worship God and those who worship Satan. Men and women will worship Satan under threat of death or through deception. Men and women will worship God out of a voluntary free will and out of hearts overflowing with love and gratitude to God for His goodness and mercy. What a contrast? That leaves no place for the hyper-calvinist idea that man has no part in exercising a free will to receive salvation.

So now we see the age long struggle to win the hearts of men and women coming to climax. Billions are receiving the Mark of the beast and following Satan, while at the same time billions are demonstrating their love for Christ by laying down their lives.

News Analysis from the Near - Future - How the U.S. Turned It's Back on Israel
Oct 11th, 2009
Daily Newsonline.wsj.com
Categories: Contemporary Issues;The Nation Of Israel

Jan. 20, 2010 (please note this is a futuristic analysis of what may come to pass based on current trends)

When American diplomats sat down for the first in a series of face-to-face talks with their Iranian counterparts last October in Geneva, few would have predicted that what began as a negotiation over Tehran's nuclear programs would wind up in a stunning demand by the Security Council that Israel give up its atomic weapons.

Yet that's just what the U.N. body did this morning, in a resolution that was as striking for the way member states voted as it was for its substance. All 10 nonpermanent members voted for the resolution, along with permanent members Russia, China and the United Kingdom. France and the United States abstained. By U.N. rules, that means the resolution passes.

The U.S. abstention is sending shock waves through the international community, which has long been accustomed to the U.S. acting as Israel's de facto protector on the Council. It also appears to reverse a decades-old understanding between Washington and Tel Aviv that the U.S. would acquiesce in Israel's nuclear arsenal as long as that arsenal remained undeclared. The Jewish state is believed to possess as many as 200 weapons.

Tehran reacted positively to the U.S. abstention. "For a long time we have said about Mr. Obama that we see change but no improvement," said Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki. "Now we can say there has been an improvement."

The resolution calls for a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Middle East. It also demands that Israel sign the 1970 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and submit its nuclear facilities to international inspection. Two similar, albeit nonbinding, resolutions were approved last September by the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.

At the time, the U.S. opposed a resolution focused on Israel but abstained from a more general motion calling for regional disarmament. "We are very pleased with the agreed approach reflected here today," said then-U.S. Ambassador to the IAEA Glyn Davies.

Since then, however, relations between the Obama administration and the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, never warm to begin with, have cooled dramatically. The administration accused Tel Aviv of using "disproportionate force" following a Nov. 13 Israeli aerial attack on an apparent munitions depot in Gaza City, in which more than a dozen young children were killed.

Mr. Netanyahu also provoked the administration's ire after he was inadvertently caught on an open microphone calling Mr. Obama "worse than Chamberlain." The comment followed the president's historic Dec. 21 summit meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Geneva, the first time leaders of the two countries have met since the Carter administration.

But the factors that chiefly seemed to drive the administration's decision to abstain from this morning's vote were more strategic than personal. Western negotiators have been pressing Iran to make good on its previous agreement in principle to ship its nuclear fuel to third countries so it could be rendered usable in Iran's civilian nuclear facilities. The Iranians, in turn, have been adamant that they would not do so unless progress were made on international disarmament.

"The Iranians have a point," said one senior administration official. "The U.S. can't forever be the enforcer of a double standard where Israel gets a nuclear free ride but Iran has to abide by every letter in the NPT. President Obama has put the issue of nuclear disarmament at the center of his foreign policy agenda. His credibility is at stake and so is U.S. credibility in the Muslim world. How can we tell Tehran that they're better off without nukes if we won't make the same point to our Israeli friends?"

Also factoring into the administration's thinking are reports that the Israelis are in the final stages of planning an attack on Iran's nuclear installations. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who met with his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak in Paris last week, has been outspoken in his opposition to such a strike. The Jerusalem Post has reported that Mr. Gates warned Mr. Barak that the U.S. would "actively stand in the way" of any Israeli strike.

"The Israelis need to look at this U.N. vote as a shot across their bow," said a senior Pentagon official. "If they want to start a shooting war with Iran, we won't have their backs on the Security Council."

An Israeli diplomat observed bitterly that Jan. 20 was the 68th anniversary of the Wannsee conference, which historians believe is where Nazi Germany planned the extermination of European Jewry. An administration spokesman said the timing of the vote was "purely coincidental."

Eu Draws Up Plans to Establish Itself As 'world Power'
Oct 11th, 2009
Daily Newstelegraph.co.uk
Categories: Today's Headlines;Revived Roman Empire

The European Union has drawn up secret plans to establish itself as a global power in its own right with the authority to sign international agreements on behalf of member states. 

Confidential negotiations on how to implement the Lisbon Treaty have produced proposals to allow the EU to negotiate treaties and even open embassies across the world. 

A letter conferring a full "legal personality" for the Union has been drafted in order for a new European diplomatic service to be recognised as fully fledged negotiators by international bodies and all non-EU countries. 

According to one confidential paper, the first pilot "embassies" are planned in New York, Kabul and Addis Ababa. 

The move is highly symbolic in Britain as it formally scraps the "European Community", the organisation in which Britons originally voted to remain in the country's only referendum on Europe 34 years ago. 

Mark Francois, Conservative spokesman on Europe, said that the deal showed why the British should have been given a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. 

"As we have long warned, the Lisbon Treaty increases the EU's power at the expense of the countries of Europe," he said. "The new power a single legal personality would give the EU is a classic example. 

"It illustrates why it is wrong for Labour to try to deny the British people any say on this Treaty at all." 

The decision, taken shortly before Ireland's referendum last week, will mean a new European diplomatic service with over 160 "EU representations" and ambassadors across the world. 

Lorraine Mullally, the director of Open Europe, described the move as "a huge transfer of power which makes the EU look more like a country than an international agreement". 

"Giving the EU legal personality means that the EU, rather than member states, will be able to sign all kinds of international agreements – on foreign policy, defence, crime and judicial issues – for the first time," she said. 

She pointed out that the 1975 referendum was on staying in the EC and that it was the European Communities Act that gave Brussels legislation primacy over British law. 

"British voters agreed to join the European Communities, not a political union with legal personality with the power to sign all kinds of international agreements," said Miss Mullally. "No one under the age of 52 has ever had a say on this important evolution and it's about time we did." 

A restricted document circulated by the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, seen by The Daily Telegraph, spells out the need for legal changes to set up a European External Service (EEAS), an EU diplomatic and foreign service with "global geographical scope". 

The paper said: "The EEAS will need a legal status providing it with functional legal personality so that it has sufficient autonomy. 

"This legal personality should also give it the capacity to act as necessary to carry out (its) tasks." 

A British diplomat defended the decision. "The EU has been able to sign treaties for over a decade. The innovation under the Lisbon Treaty is that the European Community will cease to have legal personality. This is about simplification," she said. 

Brussels ambassadors yesterday began detailed work, in secret, to create new institutions, the EEAS, "foreign minister" and EU President, that are to be set up under the Lisbon Treaty. 

Decisions "in principle" will be taken despite the fact that both Poland and the Czech Republic have not yet fully ratified the new EU Treaty. 

The creation of the EEAS has sparked a bitter Brussels turf war. The European Commission could lose up to 1,424 senior staff from three departments. 

Another 400 staff will be taken from the Council of the EU and an "equivalent" number will be seconded from national diplomatic services. 

The EEAS will take over Commission representations – there are currently more than 160 offices around the world – and its senior diplomats will be given the same status as national ambassadors.

Child of Two Worlds
Oct 11th, 2009
Thought for the weekA. W. Tozer
Categories: Commentary;Inspirational

In the kingdom of God, the surest way to lose something is to try to protect it, and the best way to keep it is to let it go. This was the word of our Lord Jesus Christ: "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross!" Christ turned from the fallen world of Adam and spoke about another world altogether, a world where Adam's philosophy is invalid and his technique inoperative. He spoke of the kingdom of God whose laws are exactly opposite to those of the kingdom of men. So, the true Christian is a child of two worlds. He lives among fallen men, but when he is regenerated, he is called to live according to the laws and principles that underlie the new kingdom. He may, then, find himself trying to live a heavenly life after an earthly pattern-and this is what Paul called "carnal" living. That is why it is vitally important to move up into the life of the Spirit of God. Give up your earthly "treasures" and the Lord will keep them for you unto life eternal!

Are the Kings of the East Arming for Armageddon?
Oct 11th, 2009
Commentaryomegaletter.com
Categories: Prophecy

The Western media had a brief flirtation with the disturbing news coming out of Burma, or Myanmar, but since nobody could make up their minds whether it was really supposed to be called 'Myanmar' or 'Burma' they quickly lost interest in the story.

Burma officially changed its name to "Myanmar" at the UN in 1989, but neither the US nor the UK recognized the name change. So before going forward, let's agree to call the place "Burma" for the sake of clarity.

First off, where the heck is it? Burma is nestled in a corner of Southeast Asia bordered by China, Laos, Thailand, Bangladesh and India.

Burma achieved independence from British colonial rule in January, 1948 marking the end of the era in which 'the sun never set on the British flag' and the end of the European Colonial Era.

Burma has been ruled since 1962 by a military junta that has turned the country into an international criminal enterprise run by Senior General Than Shwe. Than Shwe is cut from the Kim Jong il mold; a superstitious nutbar who keeps astrologers on staff to advise him.

In Burma, everything from poetry to films is censored through state control of all media, including the internet. The Burmese are kept as much in the dark about the outside world as the North Koreans.

The Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders has placed Burma among the bottom 10 countries in its world press freedom ranking. It says the press is subject to "relentless advance censorship".

Internet access is tightly controlled by the government. It is further hampered by a poor telephone infrastructure and an unreliable supply of electricity.

Reporters Without Borders calls Burma a "black hole" whose system "increasingly resembles an intranet as more and more foreign electronic services have been cut".

But that's how things have been in Burma for forty-five years. So how come I had to tell you where it is? Put another way, how come I had to look it up before I could tell you?

(Burma gets so little international attention that the best I could say until I looked it up was that it was somewhere near India)

But all that is about to change.

According to recent intelligence information, Burma is planning to join the new 2nd-tier nuclear club that now includes Pakistan, India, North Korea, and soon, Iran.

The military junta decided in January 2002 to build a nuclear reactor and the government controlled news in Burma has reported that Burma's pending new constitution will place the development of “nuclear energy” under the control of the “Defense and security industries” along with production of “arms and ammunition and explosives including biological and chemical weapons.”

Officials said the sites for the reactor include a region known as the Mandalay Division of the country, which is near the new capital called Nay Pyi taw. A second locations is the nearby Magwe Division.

Both locations have been identified as probable locations for either an existing or planned nuclear facility. Burma is getting help with the covert nuclear project from technicians from Russia and North Korea.

The reported North Korea connection to the nuclear project, if confirmed, would trigger another major crisis with the North Koreans -- and with China.

Beijing is helping with a huge underground hydro-power plant in Mandalay, raising concerns that China is proliferating nuclear technology to Burma like it did to Pakistan in the 1980s.

Russian involvement included a joint project led by Burmese and Russian specialists from the Atomstroy Export Group to build a 10 megawatt pool-type nuclear research reactor in Kyaukse Mandalay Division.

According to intelligence sources, some 300 Burmese military officers have been study nuclear science in Russia and one source stated that a North Korean ship carrying senior Korean nuclear technology specialist, Maj. Hon Kil Dong was sent to Rangoon in July 2006.

This information comes via the subscription intel website, Geo-Strategy Direct, compiled by Washington Times reporter Bill Gertz, one of the most plugged-in reporters in Washington and an extremely credible source.

"And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. . . And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. . . And there were voices, and thunders, and lightnings; and there was a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. . . And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great." (Revelation 16:12,16,21)

When you consider that the Apostle John was attempting to describe something that did not exist in a language that had no words to describe it, John did an excellent job of describing the effects of a nuclear explosion -- right down to the hailstones.

When a nuke goes off, the water vapor that rises to the top freezes in the upper atmosphere and comes back down in hundred pound chunks of nuclear 'hail'.

The Scriptures identify four spheres of global power in the last days by region as seen from the perspective of Jerusalem: the kings of the south, the antichrist's government to the west, the Gog-Magog alliance to the uttermost north of Israel, and the kings of the east.

The Scriptures don't tell us much about the Kings of the East, other than their location, their numbers (200 million soldiers) and that the battlefield will be marked by voices, and thunders, and lightnings, an earthquake of indescribable proportions, and giant hailstones.

But as we get closer to the time appointed, the picture begins to come into focus. The People's Republic of China , the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, India, North Korea, and now Burma.

Asia is arming itself for Armageddon.

Note this, as well. We've noted in previous briefings that every modern event related to Bible prophecy can trace itself in someway to the birth of Israel in 1948.

The government of antichrist rests on his control of three central pillars of Western society -- a centralized global government, a centralized global economy and a centralized global religious system.

The revived Roman Empire was born out of the 1948 Benelux Treaty. The UN Constitution, "the Universal Declaration of Civil and Political Rights, was signed in 1948.

The World Trade Organization was created out of the 1948 GATT Treaty, which also spawned the IMF and World Bank. The World Council of Churches was created in Amsterdam under UN auspices in 1948.

The invention of the transistor led to the official 'birth of the computer age' -- making centralized control of all these things possible, -- in 1948.

Finally, the Cold War, which set the stage for the Gog-Magog Alliance, officially began with the Berlin Airlift standoff between the US and Soviet Union in 1948.

Look up these nations in your encyclopedia: The People's Republic of China declared its existence in 1947. Pakistan declared independence in 1947. India declared independence in 1947. North Korea split from South Korea in 1948.

And Burma declared its independence in 1948. 

"Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." (Matthew 24:34-36)