The release of the memo regarding illegal FISA issued spy warrants on Candidate Trump and his staff should send Deep State servants to prison including Obama and Clinton. Now that the memo is being released, how far will the DOJ go in bringing the guilty to justice? How far will the Deep State go in diverting attention away from the memo?

The following is an analysis of the impact that the potential release of the “#memo release” will carry and what the ultimate impact on America will be.

#Release the Memo

On Monday evening, the House Intelligence Committee surprisingly voted to “#release” the classified memo circulating in Congress that purportedly reveals government surveillance abuses as well as outrageous criminality up to an including treason.

People all throughout the Patriot community have hailed this unexpected decision as a tremendous victory for truth and justice from a government that has come to look more like a brothel than a legislative body.

The current leading representative of the Communist (eg Democratic) Party, California Representative, Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called the decision to release the memo a “very sad day, I think, in the history of this committee.”

Isn’t it nice to know that this Democrat thinks that releasing a truthful report on criminal corruption from high government officials is a “sad day”.

This Tony Soprano version of how to run a  government is on full display for the entire American pubic to view. The motion passed on a party-line basis. In other words, Republicans = Truth (in this instance) and the Democrats = lies and corruption as well as subverting the will of the American public who voted for Donald Trump.

The burden now falls to President Trump as he has five days to decide whether he has any objections before the memo can be publicly released. If by some small chance, the President were to not to release this memo, he would lose his base as well as cast a long shadow over his Presidency.

Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz said he believed people could lose their jobs after the memo is released. His statements give some timely clues as to who and what he is talking about.

I believe the consequence of its release will be major changes in people currently working at the FBI and the Department of Justice,

He said, referencing DOJ officials Rod Rosenstein and Bruce Ohr. Rosenstein has done a magnificent job keeping Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, in line, or should I say, towing the Deep State line?

Sessions is afraid of his own shadow as he is so timid that he will not even prosecute the low-hanging fruit that constitutes Hillary Clinton’s emails which is evidence that cannot be taken back. Will Rosenstein be the first major player to turn state’s evidence?

Therefore, my fellow Americans, do not get your hopes up.  Exposure of criminality is not the same as prosecuting criminals. I predict that at this time next year, Hillary will be making more “bitches” quotes and getting a free pass from the mainstream media.

I would be remiss if I did not state that many of these revelations remind me of the movie, The Pelican Brief, in which two Supreme Court Justices were murdered to cover up criminal activity from a major oil baron.

One has to ask, with these coming revelations, how many planes will crash and suicides will happen which will all be designed to cover-up the truth? If one thinks that Clinton’s trail of bodies is lengthy, I am predicting that we have not seen anything yet.

The Deep State/Democratic Party Options

Many in the Independent are hailing the pending release of this information as a great victory for the “People”. It is and it will be hailed as a great victory by all loyal Americans. However, if one thinks that it is going to be sunny skies from here on out, they are fooling themselves.

The Deep State-Democratic coalition have many cards left to play and they can be summarized as follows:

1. A series of major false flags could be released that will take all attention away from the exposed criminality in the name of personal and collective survival for all Americans. This could and probably would include the detonating nuclear weapons  inside of many of our cities.
2. The release of a bio-agent upon America, which was predicted by my former FEMA friend who bugged out in fear of this event. His speciality was counter-bioterrorism.
3. Beginning World War III.
4. Inciting a civil war.
5. Causing an economic collapse
6. Any combination of any of the above.

Why Have the Republicans Suddenly Donned the White Hats?

Why all of a sudden are the Republicans intent on exposing government corruption at a high level? The answers to this question are multi-dimensional and varied.

1. The pervasive criminality of the Democrats (eg Clinton, Schumer, Reid, Pelosi, et al) is on display for all to see and the enhanced exposure will score political points with the public during this mid-term election year.
2. All of sudden, being honest as well as exposing corruption has suddenly become in vogue in Washington DC. Along these lines, Fox News has become the “Goody Two Shoes” network who has conveniently forgot how the Republicans have lied us into one war after another.

The Democrats need to be exposed for who and what they are. However, the Republicans should be careful to not get to close to the action because they, too, live in glass houses. Remember, politics equals deceit and corruption. There are some good people in government who are Republican. However, it would be a mistake to view the party as a bastion of morality based and freedom-inspired politics. The latter phrase is a quintessential oxymoronic statement.

Conclusion

Pennsylvania Rep. Scott Perry said,“You think about, ‘is this happening in America or is this the KGB?’ That’s how alarming it is…”  The KGB? Finally, someone understands what the Independent Media has been truthfully saying all of these years.

How far will the Republicans go in exposing the corruption? Not very damn far, just far enough to score political points would be my assessment Why? Because the Republicans are worried about that old phenomenon called “Guilt by Association”.

Someone sarcastically joked, yesterday, that I will soon have nothing to write about because we have destroyed the Deep State. I smiled and said, the writing has just begun. The Deep State is coming after the people with a vengeance. I still maintain that America’s darkest days lie ahead. There will be hell to pay for our newfound spirit of populism.

Which is worse? Would it be capitulation to a New World Order that will enslave some and exterminate the rest? Or, is it better to risk everything in an effort to stand up this tyranny?

When we break down our options, these are the only two that I see. At the end of the day, are we cowards or a products of Deep State capitulation, that is the question all of us have to answer.

Copyright © 2018, Dave Hodges, Common Sense show–All rights reserved

Editor’s Note: As we mark another Holocaust Memorial Day, we thought it would be appropriate to republish this article on Lessons to Learn from the Jewish Holocaust. Today’s post was originally published on January 27, 2016.

The Holocaust has been described as the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and mass murder of European Jews and other groups carried out by Nazi Germany and its allies between 1933 and 1945. In fact the term Holocaust referred to as the Shoah, comes from a religious term referring to sacrifices totally burned on the altar and offered to God.

Many researchers and historians have spent lifetimes attempting to make sense of the Holocaust, and we believe the search for answers will continue to not only remember and honor the victims but through trying to comprehend how a civilized and most educated culture could lose all sense of humanity.

Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor said that:

The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate consequence of the theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and environment—or as the Nazis liked to say, “of blood and soil.” I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some ministry or other of Berlin, but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers.

The truth is Jews have suffered greatly throughout the ages and many others have also been victims of indescribable brutality. Winston Churchill described the uniqueness of the Holocaust and the Final Solution as probably the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the whole history of the world.

Holocaust scholar Deborah Lipstadt points out two reasons why the German program of genocide remains in a class by itself as an example of evil:

It was the only time in recorded history that a state tried to destroy an entire people, regardless of an individual’s age, sex, location, profession, or belief. And it is the only instance in which the perpetrators conducted this genocide for no ostensible material, territorial, or political gain.

So what does the Jewish Holocaust teach us? In his book, When a Nation Forgets God: 7 Lessons we must Learn from Nazi Germany, Dr. Erwin Lutzer warns that if we think there is nothing to learn from it the Holocaust or Nazi Germany, we should think again:

When truth is rejected in the public sphere, the state will either turn to some semblance of natural law or more ominously to lies. Secular values will be imposed on society, and it will be done in the name of “freedom and tolerance.

First of all, it has been said that this is an age of tolerance–tolerance for everything except Christianity. The so-called social planners who are reshaping Western society according to purely humanistic values agree with Hitler that God and religion must be removed from all spheres of life. Religion most notably Christianity must be ousted from government, law, education, and the workplace.

At this moment we can see that most politicians have turned away from God as the source of salvation, life, and liberty. We are calling evil good and good evil, lawlessness, immorality, and evil are encouraged in society, there is injustice, and the law has been perverted. Therefore, as families, churches and other Christian organizations, we should be prepared to defend the truth, justice, and righteousness when our turn comes to stand.

Secondly, it matters to learn from it because the Jewish Holocaust happened to people like us, not just because the Jews are perfect people. Not at all, we are all fallen human beings who need the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ but the Lord promised Abraham that through him all nations and families of the earth would be blessed.

The whole world has enjoyed many blessings through the Jewish people. But the greatest blessing is the gift of salvation through God’s Son Jesus Christ. There will be other great blessings that are yet to be fulfilled when Jesus Christ will be King over the all the earth and of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this (Isaiah 9:7).

All nations of the earth will be blessed under the reign of Israel’s Jewish Messiah from Jerusalem. It is an undeniable fact that the destiny of every human being alive today and every nation on this earth is linked to the destiny of this tiny nation.

And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed (Genesis 12: 3-4 KJV).

Dietrich Bonhoeffer prophetically warns us:

Jesus Christ was the promised Messiah of the Israelite-Jewish people, and for that reason, the line of our forefathers goes back beyond the appearance of Jesus Christ to the people of Israel. Western history is, by God’s will, indissolubly linked with the people of Israel, not only genetically but also in a genuine uninterrupted encounter. The Jew keeps open the question of Christ. He is the sign of the free mercy-choice and of repudiating wrath of God Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise, you also will be cut off (Romans 11:22). That is why an expulsion of the Jews from the West must necessarily bring with it the expulsion of Christ. For Jesus Christ was a Jew.

Thirdly, one of the most important lessons history teaches is never to dismiss anything as impossible. Perhaps the most terrible sin of all is not that those who murdered the Jews said what they planned to do, but that the world didn’t listen. Maybe we’ve got to learn to hear even the things we don’t want to hear.

In his book, The Oak and The Calf, Alexander Solzhenitsyn who sustained long years of imprisonment and exile in Russia wrote that:

I may say that my whole life has trained me to expect the worst much more often than not, I am always readier, more willing to believe, the worst. In the camp I took to heart the Russian proverb: “Don’t let good luck fool you or bad luck frighten you.” I have learned to live by this rule and I hope never to depart from it.

May be we should learn to live by that rule as well and respond to evil before it is too late. 

Finally, the fourth lesson is that many people are saying that that the Holocaust never happened and there appears to be a return of anti-Semitism in Europe, United States, and other nations. The Jewish people once again are quickly becoming the scapegoats of humanity. Why the hatred, yet there is overwhelming evidence of what really happened? In a speech delivered in 1985, Richard Von Weizsaecker the President of Germany made this thought-provoking statement:

The Jewish nation remembers and will always remember. We seek reconciliation. Precisely for this reason we must understand that there can be no reconciliation without remembrance. The experience of million fold death is part of the very being of every Jew in the world, not only because people cannot forget such atrocities, but also because remembrance is part of the Jewish faith.

According to the Holy Scriptures particularly the Torah remembrance is part of the Jewish faith. Over and over again, as the nation of Israel prepared to cross the river Jordan and enter the Promised Land, Moses solemnly charged them to remember. They were to remember where they came from and how God delivered them:

And remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm; therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day (Deuteronomy 5:15).

There were to remember how they had come:

And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not (Deut.8:2).

The Lord warned them that even in prosperity and success they were not to forget the Lord who brought them out of Egypt. But this lesson wasn’t learned, and this attitude of independence, pride and ingratitude were repeated.

You shall not be afraid of them, but you shall remember well what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt: (Deut. 7:18) Then the LORD said to Moses, “Write this for a memorial in the book and recount it in the hearing of Joshua, that I will utterly blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven (Exodus 17:14).

The history of Israel proves that the sin of forgetfulness is a deadly sin, both to an individual and to nations. We should be deeply disturbed by how quickly many people have forgotten what happened. It’s even appalling and shocking that when you ask what people know about this dark period in human history, many are completely ignorant. George Orwell is quoted to have said:

Whoever controls the image and information of the past determines what and how future generations will think; whoever controls the information and images of the present determines how those same people will view the past.

The only way we can learn from the past is to study history. Remembering the past always helps us to understand the present. And to make the most of the present, we’ve got to try to use the knowledge learned from the past which is gone to create a better future which is still a mystery.

That is why the Bible speaks the language of remembering. God kept on reminding the Jews to remember what happened. What their ancestors taught them so that they could teach it to their children and eventually to the whole world.

The Bible tells us “The human heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? (Jeremiah 17: 9) Here again, Dr.Erwin Lutzer reminds us that:

Evil held in check by God often erupts when the conditions are right. When the restraints are gone, when people are desperate, and when power is up for grabs, the human heart is laid bare for all to see. We are naive if we think Nazi Germany cannot happen again. In fact the Bible predicts that it will…

Do we think the anti-Semites of yesterday are completely different human beings to the ones of today? Something to think about!

Twice in Romans 13:3-7 civil authorities are called ‘God servants’ and we are charged to give them due honor and respect. Unfortunately, the disrespect, cynicism, viciousness, character assassination and other hate attacks on America’s 45^th president are unbelievable!

He cannot read, he’s unhinged, unintelligent and mentally unfit for office and many more….USA Today labeled him “uniquely awful”… “sickening”… “not fit for office” … “not fit to clean the toilets in the planned Obama Presidential Library, he has erectile dysfunction and Depression… Remember no reporter ever questioned Hillary Clinton’s health when she could barely stand up!

Assassination mocks have been performed on President Trump which barely gets media coverage. If at all it was the former President, these stories would have been front page news in every newspaper, and the top story on every ‘Ministry of Truth’ network. What a double standard! He is also been compared to Idi Amin, Hitler, Stalin and other despots…”

Trojan Horse President

I find it ironic to believe that people would compare Trump to Idi Amin and Hitler, yet the one comparing him to Hitler is the Trojan horse that was used to convince the world of the need for this satanic New World Order which is directly connected with the antichrist system whether people know it or not. He did everything he could to transform America by destroying the family, morality and its national identity.

Consider the unprecedented messianic rhetoric that reporters, politicians, celebrities, and even preachers used in celebrating the ‘spiritual nature’ of Obama’s rise from ‘obscurity’ to U.S. president, and how this reflected people’s strong desire for the coming of an earthly saviour. This is the guy who gave a speech titled: ‘The World that Stands as One’ in Berlin, Germany on July 24, 2008, saying,

With an eye toward the future, with resolve in our hearts, let us remember this history, and answer our destiny, and “remake the world” once again.

This is exactly what Hitler had promised to do and exactly where he had planned to memorialize it. And now in the audacity of his advancing megalomania, he is comparing Trump to Hitler. Perhaps he was just joking!

Is the President Trump a Racist?

Now we have the hilarious theory that the president is a racist. I don’t know what words the president used or whether he said them when describing poor African nations. However, as a rule, a President of the United States should not label countries as s**** holes. I don’t think the President is a racist, otherwise, he would not have allowed a black homeless woman to live in Trump Tower rent-free for eight years.

Immigration Crisis: “Give me Your Tired, Your Poor”

Merit-based immigration doesn’t make Trump a racist and immigration doesn’t change people.  Furthermore, as Kevin Jackson quotes Karin McQuillan, who recently went to volunteer in the African nation of Senegal noted:

The culture is deeply embedded in African people. Dropping someone in the United States won’t magically erase who they were trained to be. Americans think it is a universal human instinct to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It’s not. It seems natural to us because we live in a Bible-based Judeo-Christian culture. We think the Protestant work ethic is universal. It’s not. My town was full of young men doing nothing. They were waiting for a government job…..

The more I worked there and visited government officials doing absolutely nothing, the more I realized that no one in Senegal had the idea that a job means work. A job is something given to you by a relative. It provides the place where you steal everything to give back to your family. I couldn’t wait to get home. So why would I want to bring Africa here? Non-Westerners do not magically become American by arriving on our shores with a visa.

Already the United States had written some small print under the heroic declaration: Give me your tired, your poor. Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” It is now being discovered that changing a person’s geography doesn’t change their humanity.

The point is not a matter of where you would rather live; it’s whether people from certain nations can be productive and lawful members of society.  The West has been besieged by thousands of people who wanted to emigrate to England, United States, or anywhere because of freedom.

It was the principles of freedom that gave people freedom of movement. This freedom enabled capital and labor to move from territories of less favorable conditions of production to territories of more favorable conditions of production. I am from Africa, and those of us who care about our fellow Africans need to be honest about our greatest problems: corruption, witchcraft and lack of leadership.

The Curse of Foreign Aid

Foreign aid given to corrupt governments has had a negative effect on practically every facet of the African person’s life. African governments who draw the loans from the IMF, World Bank, USAID and other bodies don’t achieve their objectives; they don’t increase the material well-being of third world nations.

Because of rampant corruption, there is no accountability; billions are wasted and diverted into illegal channels; meaningful projects and infrastructures that could have sustained the people and lifted their standard of living receive no capitalization.

The corrupt leaders of these poor nations have allowed other special interests in the world to take advantage of Africa for decades or even centuries. They trade the worthy and valuable goods, in return for unworthy goods, deceiving contracts, and political promises all at the expense of the people. Through such fake trade deals, the elites of this planet receive and control the natural resources of these countries, by keeping the countries that produce these resources in constant struggles and wars. What happens then?

These countries remain in need of outside help and this is where the imperialistic politics of the powers that be come in. More misleading aid and assistance are promised, to problems they helped create, in return for natural resources. The leaders who are meant to lead the Africans by example trade Africa’s worthy and valuable goods, in return for unworthy goods, deceiving contracts, and political promises.

Freedom of Choice

All the pain and suffering in Africa and the rest of the world are the outcomes of our sinful nature. God has given all human beings the gift and ability to choose and determine their own destinies. God created us and gave us a free will to choose. If God always fixes the outcomes of our choices how are we supposed to learn from our mistakes and use this gift known as freedom of choice?

Professor Ellis Washington identifies that there only one thing that can redeem Africa and what is that? Making the right choices! He writes:

Like all nations going back to antiquity, if Africa makes the right choices, it can be saved– but if Africa continues to make the wrong choices in its leadership, religious, economic and political philosophy, it is doomed to have the vast majority of its people essentially eking out a living in Stone Age conditions ruled over by a few ruthless, tyrannical leaders and their legions of crony autocrats from the West who, since the end of the white Colonial Period (1960), have continuously plundered and pillaged Africa’s vast natural resources while the people live in virtual voluntary slavery conditions – faceless, soulless proletariat cogs of a vast Marxist socialist state machinery that slowly grinds to death the people’s collective dreams, hopes and their pursuits of happiness.

If Africa is to survive and thrive, then three things must occur: 1) All of the murderous Marxist-socialist tyrants of the past must be vilified, forced from office and judged for their crimes against humanity; 2) Have African tribal and crony political and Marxist economic systems replaced by free-market capitalism throughout the continent; 3) Africa must turn from its tribal, pagan, witchcraft and Muslim traditions, repent and turn to the Lord, for if the trillions paid to “help” Africa from United Nations, European and American aid just since 1960 hasn’t put Africa on the road to prosperity, then only the Lord can save any nation.

The Protestant Work Ethic/Values

The Protestant Christian values are what people in the Western world lived by, and it is one of the reasons the West became successful in creating prosperous and wealthy societies. This work ethic became a vital component in the economies of the West and its impact is still felt today in businesses, professions, and manual labor. And even those nations that intentionally adopted those values have prospered although they did not have a Christian heritage.

An example is Hong Kong and Japan. For instance, the Japanese workers have been empowered to insist on quality at each step of producing their cars. Today, Toyota is one of the most successful corporations in the world.

Pride above all else is the root of sin; in fact, pride is the origin of all sin.  You can see all this from the so-called utopian New World Order experiments of people who are convinced they could do a better job than God in ordering society.

This is a Spiritual Battle

America, when you allow your nation to be controlled by Satan, it becomes fruitless to vent your anger at this stage on your president. At least he is trying to do the right thing. No person with understanding should ever criticize any politician wishing to do his/her job. The pressures are, in many cases, insufferable.

So then, who is the bad wolf? The Luciferian New World Order-aka Deep State advocates. “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6: 12).

Unfortunately, the ignorance of the masses is appalling. Many people are incapable of having a rational and intelligent discussion without a flood of bitter emotions which shuts down all reason and critical thinking. This is the state of the world and the growing state of America’s population.

Education has been carefully designed to retard the students’ intellectual abilities, thus preventing them from reading and understanding current events. Instead, the media feeds them with confusing and deceptive messages.

The battle for the soul of America is not whether half the nation wants Trump dead. It’s because the proportion of Evangelical Christians was large enough to permit them to exercise a powerful influence over him becoming America’s next president. America and subsequently the nations of the world are facing the most critical period in their history.

The spirit of the antiChrist, which controls and guides the political leaders of the world in a united fashion, opposes anything related to Christianity. The message of salvation through Jesus Christ will increasingly come in blatant opposition to this New World Order. We must, therefore, keep in mind that in the near future this new global system will be so successful that opposition will not be tolerated. As a matter of fact, it will be unthinkable.

Final Thoughts

America you better stop fighting against each other, your President and his government, and turn your anger and bitterness towards repentance both individually and as a nation.

And Christians pray for your President and his government as all these problems confronting them are spiritual problems but most of them are not aware of it. That’s the reason why Paul admonishes us to pray for those in positions of leadership (1Timothy 2:1–5). We are not told to put our faith and trust in any human leader or to use him to achieve our objectives.

Otherwise, if we don’t pray America will experience ethnic unrest as tensions are stirred up by factions who themselves are secretly primed by New World Order agents and are following the plans of the Hegelian dialectic:  the first step is a thesis, which is to create a problem. The second is an antithesis where opposition to the problem is generated through fear and panic. The third step is a synthesis that offers the solution to the problem created by step one.

Humanity is to be convinced through fear of the need for a world government or a New World Order which will deprive your freedoms, centralize economics, and control every aspect of your lives and your resources. My last warning is for you guys that are rioting and protesting against Trump: if you don’t free yourself from the illusion that you are in control, you will end up under a worse totalitarian system.

And to my fellow blacks: your loyalty to the skin of your colour doesn’t earn you any respect. Instead of criticizing and complaining about the President of the United States, you should find out how you can make an eternal difference in your society.  When you are treated unfairly, refuse the bait of bitterness or to hold a grudge and forgive.

In politics, as in many other fields of activity, human beings continually strive for promotion. Yet we don’t ask ourselves where promotion comes from or the power that exalts men to positions of authority or removes them from such positions. The Psalmist tells us that every promotion comes from God. He is the one Who both raises men up and puts them down (Psalm 75:4-7).

The record of the men who have held office as president of the most powerful nation is a remarkable confirmation that the source of political power is outside the men who themselves exercise it. From the writings of murdered President John F. Kennedy comes this well-illustrated passage:

This insight into the nature of governing affirms the lesson of our history that there is no program of vocational training for the presidency; no specific area of knowledge that is peculiarly relevant. Nor are qualities of great leadership drawn from any particular section of the country or section of society. Nine of our Presidents, among them some of the most brilliant in office, did not attend college; whereas Thomas Jefferson was one of the great scholars of the age and Woodrow Wilson the president of Princeton University.

We have had Presidents who were lawyers and soldiers and teachers. One was an engineer and another journalist. They had been drawn from the wealthiest and most distinguished families of the nation, and have come from poor and anonymous beginnings. Some, seemingly well endowed with great abilities and fine qualities, were unable to cope with demands of the office, while others rose to greatness far beyond any expectation.

When we turn to the records of the kings of Israel, we find none other than David who rose to greatness. Unlike other men who have achieved political greatness, David recognized the source of his greatness. In a prayer to God uttered near the end of his life, he acknowledged the true source of his power and ascribed his greatness solely to God:

Both riches and honor come from You, and You reign over all. In Your hands are power and might; in Your hands, it is to make great and to give strength to all (1 Chronicles 29:12).

Daniel and King Nebuchadnezzar

Daniel is another great prophet who discovered the true source of political power. Challenged by King Nebuchadnezzar to reveal both the king’s dream and interpretation, he and his companions sought God in earnest prayer and received the answer by direct revelation (Daniel 2:17-19). In response, Daniel offered his prayer of gratitude and acknowledgment:

Blessed be the name of God forever and ever! For wisdom and might are His! He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and sets up kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding! (Daniel 2:20-21).

In the fourth chapter of Daniel, the prophet is again called to interpret a dream for King Nebuchadnezzar. Concerning this dream, Daniel told the king:

This sentence is by the decree of the heavenly watchers and the decision is by the word of the holy ones, to the intent that the living may know that the Most High God rules the kingdom of mankind and gives it to whomever He will and sets over it the humblest and lowliest of men (Daniel 4:17 AMP).

God Uses Human Rulers as Instruments of Judgment

Why should God raise up base men as rulers? The answer is supplied by the case of Nebuchadnezzar. The Jewish nation had persistently offended God by religious backsliding and social injustice. After many warnings, God set over them a cruel and idolatrous king Nebuchadnezzar.

In a series of judgments that progressively increased in severity, Nebuchadnezzar first removed many of the Jews as captives to Babylon and brought the nation under tribute. Finally, he destroyed the city of Jerusalem, together with the temple, and uprooted the whole nation out of their own land.

When Daniel and his companions sought God in earnest prayer, God changed the heart of Nebuchadnezzar. On the account of the special wisdom given by God to Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar raised him and his companions to positions of highest power. Daniel’s three companions became rulers of the province of Babylon, while Daniel himself became the prime minister of the entire Babylonian empire with power only to that of Nebuchadnezzar himself.

The book of Daniel has a powerful message to offer about God’s sovereignty in human history. Israel is the specific focus of his dealings as he intervenes in the lives of the kings, dispensing blessing and punishment, open to their cries for help. We see how, on the whole, good kings last longer than bad ones.

In the same way, God rules over all nations. He chooses leaders and rulers and decides how much time and space each has. He can act in justice, giving the people the ruler they deserve, or in mercy, giving them the ruler they need. He still has the casting vote even in democratic elections.

His ability to overrule in no way reduces human responsibility. He can use even those who have no knowledge of him – a bad ruler like Nebuchadnezzar to take his people into Babylonian exile and a good ruler like the Persian Cyrus to restore them to their own land again.

Are Political Leaders Selected?

I understand many credible analysts point out in their publications that U.S. Presidents are not elected, they are chosen by the New World Order planners, but what we need to know is that the Lord raised up the most savage warriors on earth- the Chaldeans.

He told the prophet Habakkuk that they were going to sweep through the nation of Israel like a wind and destroy the people and the temple. “I am going to use the Chaldeans as a sword of my judgment” (Habakkuk 1:5-11).

When Habakkuk became concerned how justice could prevail when the wicked Chaldeans who were actually worse than the wicked Jews, are allowed by God to bring judgment upon God’s chosen people; God’s reply is that the just shall live by faith in God and have confidence that God is doing what is right.  In the book of Revelation, the apostle John records:

And the angel further said to me, the waters that you observed, where the harlot is seated, are races and multitudes and nations and dialects (languages). (Does this description sounds familiar?) And the ten horns which you saw on the beast, these will hate the harlot, make her desolate and naked, eat her flesh and burn her with fire.  For God has put it into their hearts to fulfil His purpose, to be of one mind, and to give their kingdom to the beast, until the words of God are fulfilled. And the woman whom you saw is that great city which dominates  and controls the rulers and leaders of the earth. (Revelation 17:16-17).

The woman cited in these verses rides a ‘beast’ with seven heads and ten horns, which clearly represent a federation of political figures. We are not told who they are, nor are we given many details about them. They are powerful men but without territory to rule. Their authority derives from the ‘beast’, presumably the antichrist, to whom they will devote absolute allegiance.

The woman riding the beast on the backs of kings which is a reversal of gender contrary to creation, means that economics will rule politics, and the power of money will override other authority. Since the year 2000 the bulk of the world’s business was in the hands of 300 corporations, most of them in America, therefore this scenario is not difficult to imagine. The rules are:

• Controlling energy they can control nations; by controlling food they can control individuals. By excessive rates, regulations and taxes destroy all small businesses.
• Merge all big business until about 6 companies control the commerce of each country. This is called centralization of control. Thus merge, merge, merge is the name of the game.

One ambitious politician hungry for power will resent this financial monopoly. He and other leaders will be prepared to bring about economic disaster if that will enable them to gain power. Remember the corporations used Hitler to destroy the Jews who controlled many Banks in Germany.

We are told that the ‘kings’ will be jealous of the ‘woman’ who rides them and will resolve to destroy her Revelation 17:16). The city will be razed by fire. It will be the biggest economic disaster the world will have seen.

Many, many people will ‘weep and mourn’ over the ruins. God will have caused the catastrophe, but not by any physical action. Keep in mind that God is sovereign and He is the source of all political power, even those ten kings mentioned in the Book of Revelation who are yet to receive power and authority as rulers for a single hour along with the beast (Revelation 17:12; Daniel 7:20-24).

He will have ‘put it into their hearts to accomplish His purpose’ (Revelation 17:17). He will have encouraged them to make an alliance with the beast against the city. The anti-Christ will have political control and the false prophet religious control; the ‘kings’ will now offer them economic control in return for delegated powers for themselves. But their enjoyment of such privileges will be extremely brief.

Those who are tied to the world’s system will lose everything when Mystery Babylon collapses. What they have worked for a lifetime to build will be destroyed in one hour. Those who work only for material rewards will have nothing when they die or when their possessions are destroyed.

Various corporations today are often based on greed, money, and power. But Christians are warned not to take part in Babylon’s sins (Revelation 18:4-5), or to love this world or the things that are in the world:

Do not love or cherish the world or the things that are in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh (craving for sensual gratification) and the lust of the eyes (greedy longings of the mind) and the pride of life (assurance in one’s own resources or in the stability of earthly things)—these do not come from the Father but are from the world itself. And the world passes away and disappears, and with it the forbidden cravings (the passionate desires, the lust) of it; but he who does the will of God and carries out His purposes in his life abides (remains) forever (1 John 2:15-17 AMP).

No matter what happens, we must trust that God is still in control. He overrules all the plans and intrigues of the evil one, and God’s plans will happen just as He says. God even uses people opposed to Him as tools to execute His will. Although he allows evil to permeate this present world, He controls the course of world events; he removes kings and sets up other kings. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the scholars. He reveals deep and mysterious things and knows what lies hidden in darkness, though He is surrounded by light (Daniel 2:21-22).

The safeguarding bandwagon in relation to home education rolled on throughout the Christmas break. Wales announced  consultation on compulsory registration – the significance of which was missed by the national media.

Eleanor Schooling, Ofsted’s National Director of Social Care, published an article on more effective safeguarding for home educated children – a thinly veiled attempt to coerce the government to agree to compulsory registration, which hung in the ether and appeared to have no purpose.

Hackney Council was next to jump on the bandwagon, publishing an article on unregistered educational settings (UES) in its borough. The report focuses exclusively on Jewish yeshivas and laments the lack of government urgency in introducing compulsory registration and in giving local authorities powers to inspect home education. The argument goes that because these settings are unregistered, they constitute home education and all home educators must therefore be controlled.

Having no education expertise but never a lobby group to miss an opportunity, Humanists UK weighed in, contributing to the report and adding to calls to control Jewish education. They took much of the credit for the Hackney report, presenting themselves as leaders of the national campaign against religious schools and, in passing, accusing Jewish schools of child abuse.

Why is the bandwagon gathering such momentum? Probably because those who want complete control of every child in the country under the guise of safeguarding sense that they may be losing the argument.

In a written answer, Lord Agnew (who recently replaced Lord Nash as Under-Secretary of State for Education) not only says that there will be no new legislative powers, he uses Amanda Spielman’s own comments on Ofsted’s success in dealing with UES to prove that existing legislation is effective.

He even states that there are far fewer unregistered schools than at first estimated. That’s not what supporters of Lord Soley’s private members bill wanted to hear.

Lord Soley’s bill aims to tighten controls on home education; it received its second reading in November. Adopting a warm, avuncular tone, Lord Soley says he wants to help home educators, as they are a much neglected group, often unsupported and with unacknowledged needs. That’s the warm, cuddly bit.

The truth is a little more ominous. He wants to balance the rights of the child against the rights of the parents, even though home educating parents are discharging their duty and responsibility, not exercising their rights.

In his speech, he thanks local authorities, two in particular, for their help in preparing the bill. And an FOI request to one of those authorities reveals, via transcribed emails, what that help actually looks like.

On the elective home education (EHE) lobby:

You are correct the EHE lobby is mobilising – already FOI requests…asking for copies of all emails between officers and yourself.’

On what they want to achieve:

Gov view is that LA’s need to stretch the guidance and they want case law to be tested’…’ Problem is that this needs to be communicated to EHE community’.‘That’s basically the trouble with all of this. Too much relies on parental permission’. ‘The core issues then are to establish clear statutory access to the children and having full details of all EHE’s’. ‘Hopefully our collective efforts will influence the DfE’s thinking.

On removing the words ‘emotional and physical development’ from the proposed wording in order to get legislation past the home ed lobby:

The starting point is to get access to educational provision. Looking at provision is firmer ground than trying to tackle emotional development’, ‘words “physical and emotional” could be left out not least because this will distract and allow the EHE lobby to be critical. The important issue is the duty to monitor the child’s “educational’ development”’

Once EHE professionals are under duty to monitor the “educational’ development” of the child by a visit to the home and a discussion with the parent and child, they will be in a better position to detect any safeguarding issues’ ‘the starting point is to get access to educational provision. Looking at provision is firmer ground than trying to tackle emotional development.

Lord Soley’s concern over the possible role of Lord Agnew:

I understand the new Minister is S T A [Sir Theo Agnew] – is that correct? The other problem here is the position of the new minister on this issue. If he is still sympathetic to co-operating with me on getting the Bill into a form that satisfies the Government and myself then obviously I will try and involve the Department at all stages. If there is not a willingness to co-operate then I will have to reconsider how I handle the Bill. Any ideas about this?

On sanctions for non-compliant parents:

Where a new statutory duty is created it is usual and good practice to create a sanction for non-compliance with the duty…[include] a provision that makes clear that where a parent fails to register a Local Authority may take this into account in determining whether to issue a notice under the Education Act 1996…case law has established that “if parents refuse to answer it could very easily conclude that prima facie the parents were in breach of their duty.

Lord Soley ends one email by saying that he needs to work out ‘how best to enlist public support as the opposition is now growing’. Oddly, I thought that was what living in democracy meant – legislation can be both proposed and opposed. Clearly he has temporarily lost sight of how democracy works.

He also observes that opposition is ‘still far less than it was some years ago’. Watch this space, Lord Soley and make no assumptions about using your power to get ‘clear statutory access’ to other people’s children. Parents are the guardians of their children’s welfare, not the state.

Copyright © 2018, Christians In Education-All rights reserved

Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz contends “The left is borrowing tactics from the old Soviet Union in an attempt to bring down President Trump….The charge that Trump is mentally unstable and should be removed from office is similar to what communist and Marxist leaders during the Cold War did to political dissidents they represented.”

It is well known that the communist dictators are hypocrites. They impose great programs of austerity on the population yet they themselves live in splendor beyond any stretch of the imagination.

What is the communism Karl Marx believed in? It is first of all atheism. At the core of its philosophy and conduct is the conviction and often-repeated announcement, “There is no God.” What a folly to the godless. The fool says in his heart, “There is no God” (Psalms 14:1).

The Ruling Principle

Karl Marx’s foolish ideas of state worship are increasingly being adopted in the West today and Marxism continues to have a profound influence upon its intellectuals. In fact most academicians in Germany, France, England, Canada, and the United States, as well as many other countries, are ideological communists/Marxists in their thinking. Philip Foner in his book, Karl Marx Remembered asserts:

Marxism is today the most influential body of thought in the world. Hundreds of millions live in societies whose fundamental principles–socialism were laid down over a century ago by Karl Marx and his collaborator friend Friedrich Engels. Both were Germans, but they propounded principles that were and remain universal and international.

Marx’s companion, Friedrich Engels, revealed the real Marx. On his funeral, Engels spoke to those who were assembled, and his words are considered one of the best presentations of the life and work of Karl Marx:

An immeasurable loss has been sustained, both by the militant proletariat of Europe and America, and by historical science, in the death of this man. The gap that has been left by the death of this mighty spirit will soon enough make itself felt….. Just as Darwin discovered the law of evolution in organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of evolution in human history.

For Marx was before all else a revolutionary. His real mission in life was to contribute in one way or another to the overthrow of capitalist society and of the forms of government which it had brought into being, to contribute to the liberation of the present-day proletariat, which he was the first to make conscious of its own position and its needs, of the conditions under which it could win its freedom.

We can therefore conclude that this eulogy represents the way Marx and his work was understood by his followers and the degree of influence he and his cohorts hoped would result in the world outside of their immediate circle.

Revolutionizing the Mode of Production

In the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx spoke of the steps by which the communists intended to bring to pass their goal of “revolutionizing the mode of production,” which in the end would destroy Christianity and eventually the family structure.

1. Abolition of property and land, and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all right of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralization of the means of communication and the means of transport in the hands of the state.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; bringing into cultivation of wastelands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to labor. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equitable distribution of population over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools.

After these steps were followed, he then promised:

When in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character.

Because of space and time, we can’t repeat all the promises made by Marx in his Manifesto, but let’s try to look at part of his famous conclusion:

The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but chains. They have a world to win! Working men of all countries unite!

The Individual Has no Value

In their scientific works, Marx and Engels were the first to explain that socialism is not the invention of dreamers, but the final aim and necessary result of the development of the productive forces in modern society. All recorded history hitherto has been a history of class struggle, of the succession of the rule and victory of certain social classes over others.

There has been no ideology in history that has caused more bloodshed of its own people than Marxism or Communism. This is because of one core precept of Marxism as stated by Karl Marx in The Capital: “the individual has no value.” Without any religious or moral basis other than the interests of the collective, it became not only acceptable, but a duty to kill as many as necessary to bring about total subjugation to the collective.

Karl Marx’s colleague, Friedrich Engels rationalized this wholesale murder by formulating the doctrine of how life expands by death. He used the illustration of the barley seed, which germinates at its own death to produce many new plants. He wrote, “out of this dynamic process of dying the energy is released to expand and produce many more entities of the same kind.” So the mass murder of millions was justified. This was the basic validation for Lenin’s purges.

False Promises of a Communist Utopia

Before his death in 1924, Lenin announced that the Communist conquest of Russia was just the beginning. Having begun, he said, “Communism would then move out across Europe, Asia, and the United States and would inevitably become the master forces of the world.”

Then government would wither away, police forces would no longer be needed, the family itself would become irrelevant, and the blessed society, the Communist utopia, would come to pass. Perfect happiness would come upon all men as the social contradictions of the world were resolved.

The communists failed to fulfill their promises of a better life to the masses. So bright with the promise of a changed world, there began under Lenin and Stalin who again took it to the next obvious level through the wholesale murder and starvation of over thirty million of his own people.  Communism has been responsible for the violent killing of at least 100 million people and has kept hundreds of millions more in the most totalitarian and slavery conditions known in human history.

Under the philosophy of Karl Marx, the communists announced that they were on their way to turning the world into a paradise. But did they keep their promise? Of course not. Instead, millions were slaughtered and his ideas contributed to the development of the prison system Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn described as Gulag Archipelago. These prisons worked millions of people to the point of disease, starvation, and even death. Thousands of churches were closed and others burned to the ground. Because individuals have no value, this was not even considered a crime, or evil, under Marxism.

In the following years, Communism conquered Eastern Europe, China, North Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, Ethiopia as well other helpless nations. They had promised a prosperous society on condition that all who resisted and disagreed with this utopia were murdered. Before the world woke up, one-third of the earth’s population was captured and fell under the control of the communist world dictatorship.

Controlling the Masses

Marx and Engels had their dark and perverted philosophy bolstered by the release of Origin of Species by their contemporary Charles Darwin. Darwin’s theory further reduced the value of the individual, making man just another animal species that happened to be a little more evolved.

Darwin’s law of “the survival of the fittest,” made it a natural process for the killing of the weak by the strong, or in the case of Marxism, those in power. It was even promoted as an obligation so that the species would not be corrupted by weakness. This became a key component in Marxist doctrine and was also adopted by the “National Socialist Party”—the Nazis, who also believed that the individual existed for the state, not the other way around.

Marxism is all about the collective and is based on the fundamental principle that the individual has “no value.” Therefore, under Marxism, it does not matter what happens to individuals—it’s all about power and control.

With the best of intentions many Western nations have sought to establish national socialist systems, and many people loved them until they had to use them. There is a lot of truth in the proverb that says, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Absurd as this may sound, none of these Marxists, communists, socialists with allegedly high IQs know the basics of what they are supporting just as many Christians have a superficial understanding of the basics of their own faith. It is significant to note that most people have been brainwashed that their intellectual processes with regard to spiritual, political, social and cultural issues often suggest a sort of mental retardation or apathy.

In the next Video, watch Dennis Prager’s account of communism’s horrific legacy and maybe you will understand why communism has caused more suffering than any other ideology.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUGkKKAogDs]

Final Thoughts

The illusion is now being presented to the world that Communism has collapsed, yet what is not clearly understood is that Communism was a test case by the New World Order advocates before setting up a repressive global system which will restrict everybody’s lifestyles and manner of living. George Orwell was right:

He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past…. And the most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s book on the Gulag Archipelago is quoted as saying:

Are we prepared to learn from the past? Are people living in freedom able to learn from those living in need? Can the lesson they have learned be taught to the free world? Yes it can, but who wants to learn? Our proud skyscrapers point heaven ward and they say: it will never happen here. But it will happen…. Tragically the free West will only believe it when it is no longer free. To quote a Russian proverb, “When it happens you will know it is true, but then it too late.

Here was Solzhenitsyn conclusion-something of the same may fairly be said of us today:

All you freedom-loving “left-wing” thinkers in the West! You left labourites! You progressive American, German, and French students! As far as you concerned, none of this amounts to much. As far as you are concerned, this whole book of mine is a waste of effort. You may suddenly understand it all someday—but when you yourselves hear “hands behind your backs there!” and step ashore on your Archipelago.

 

We might wish for more but we only get one life. Someone said, ‘If only we have two lives. The first in which to make one’s mistakes…..and the second in which to profit by them.’  But there are no dress rehearsals for life; we are on stage straightway. Time is our most valuable possession. The pressure on time tends to increase as life goes on and as we become older.

Moses reminds us that ‘A thousand years are like a day’ to God (Psalm 90: 4, quoted in 2 Peter 3: 8). Realizing that life is short helps us to use the time we have more wisely and for eternal good. Because of this brevity of life; we are told to ask the Lord to teach us to number our days so that we may get a heart of wisdom (Psalm 90:12). And because our days are numbered, we want our work to count, to be effective and productive.

We desire to see God’s eternal plan revealed now to reflect His eternal purposes. If we feel dissatisfied with this life and all its imperfections we must remember our desire to see our work established is placed there by God. Regardless of where you are in life-on good or bad days -we all wrestle with our purpose.

Solomon the writer of Ecclesiastes spent pretty much the entirety of the book wrestling with his purpose. He was the King of Israel! He had money, power, fame, love and unlimited resources-but these were some his conclusions:

He (God) has made everything beautiful in its time. He also has planted eternity in men’s hearts and minds a divinely implanted sense of a purpose working through the ages which nothing under the sun but God alone can satisfy, yet so that men cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

All has been heard; the end of the matter is: Fear God revere and worship Him, knowing that He is and keep His commandments, for this is the whole of man the full, original purpose of his creation, the object of God’s providence, the root of character, the foundation of all happiness, the adjustment to all inharmonious circumstances and conditions under the sun and the whole duty for every man (Ecclesiastes 12:13 AMP).

Real Wisdom

A person can be very clever, very rich, very attractive, very gifted, very powerful—and still be very foolish! Real wisdom is not first of all a store of accumulated knowledge or experience; the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 1:7).

It means revering and worshiping Him…obeying His commandments. “For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it is good or evil” (Ecclesiastes 12:14). Judgement will be individual, each person accountable to the Lord for his or her entire life. Lest any of us should think that God does not understand the pressures of living in this world, He has delegated the responsibility of judgment to one Man, Jesus Christ (Acts 17:31).

There so many commands in the Bible that should be obeyed but Jesus sums them succinctly:

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (intellect). This is the great (most important, principal) and first commandment.  And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as you do yourself. These two commandments sum up and upon them depend all the Law and the Prophets (Matthew 22: 37-40 AMP).

Communion with the Lord

We spend much of our lives seeking something that will give meaning and purpose to our lives. But in this passage, Jesus says our purpose is not rooted in ourselves-it is rooted in God. Our recognition of Who is He is and obedience to what He has said will always unlock our life’s purpose and meaning.

Your fulfillment as a human being flows out of communion with God. All things find their true meaning for existence in Him. For in Him we live, move and have our being (Acts 17:28). When we separate ourselves from Him, the purpose for which He created us is denied.

When you fulfill your purpose by spending time with Him, everything you need in order to accomplish your assignment in life is released.  Fellowship with God was Adam’s purpose; tending the Garden was His assignment. Out of communion with the Lord comes creativity.

The Search for Meaning and Purpose

Bernard Levin, who was not a Christian once, wrote an article called ‘Life’s Great Riddle, and No Time to Find Its Meaning’. In it he spoke of the fact that in spite of his great success as a columnist for over twenty years he feared that he might have ‘wasted reality in the chase of a dream.’ He wrote:

To put it bluntly, have I time to discover why I was born before I die?… I have not managed to answer the question yet, and however many years I have before me they are certainly not as many as there are behind. There is an obvious danger in leaving it too late…why do I have to know why I was born? Because, of course, I am unable to believe that it was an accident; and if it wasn’t one, it must have meaning.

Countries like ours are full of people who have all the material comforts they desire, together with such non-material blessings as a happy family, and yet lead lives of quiet, and at times noisy, desperation, understanding nothing but the fact that there is hole inside them and that however much food and drink they pour into it, however many motor cars and television sets they stuff it with, however many well balanced children and loyal friends they parade around the edges of it…it aches.

The Russian novelist and author of War and Peace Leo Tolstoy put it this way, “What is life for? To die? To kill myself at once? No, I am afraid. To wait for death till it comes? I fear that even more. Then I must live. But what for? In order to die? And I could not escape from that circle.’’

Tolstoy later wrote a book A Confession in 1897, in which he tells the story of his search for meaning and purpose in life. He had rejected Christianity as a child. When he left University he sought to get as much pleasure out of life as he could. He entered the social world of Moscow and Petersburg, drinking heavily, living promiscuously, gambling and leading a wild life. But it did not satisfy him.

Then he became ambitious for money. He had inherited an estate and made a large amount of money out of his books. Yet that did not satisfy him either. He sought success, fame and importance. These he also achieved. He wrote what the Encyclopaedia Britannica describes as ‘one of the two or three greatest novels in the world literature’. But he was left asking the question, ‘Well fine…so what?’ to which he had no answer.

Then he became ambitious for his family—to give them the best possible life. He married in 1862 and had a kind, loving wife and thirteen children (which, he says, distracted him from any search for the overall meaning of life!).

He had achieved all his ambitions and was surrounded by what appeared to be complete happiness. And yet one question brought him to the verge of suicide:

Is there any meaning in my life which will not be annihilated by the inevitability of death which awaits me?

He searched for the answer in every field of science and philosophy. The only answer he could find to the question ‘Why do I live?’ was that ‘in the infinity of space and the infinity of time infinitely small particles mutate with infinite complexity.’

As he looked round his contemporaries he saw that people were not facing up to the first order questions of life: , ‘Who am I?’’Why am I here?’’‘Where did I come from?’, ‘Where am I heading?’ ‘What is life about?’ ‘What was I made to do? ‘What am I doing wrong?’

Eventually he found that the peasant people of Russia had been able to answer these questions through their Christian faith and he came to realize that only in Jesus Christ do we find the answer.

Our Hearts are Restless

Have you noticed how hard it is to turn our thoughts to God when everything is going well with us? We have all we want is a terrible saying when ‘all’ does not include God. We find God to be an interruption. As Augustine says, ‘God wants to give us something, but cannot, because our hands are full-there is nowhere for Him to put it.’ Or as C.S Lewis said,

God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world….We regard God as an airman regards his parachute; it’s there for emergencies but he hopes he’ll never use it…. Now God who has made us, knows what we are and that our happiness lies in Him. Yet we will not seek it in Him as long as He leaves any other resort where it can even plausibly be looked for…What then can God do in our interests but make ’our own life’ less agreeable to us, and take away the plausible source of false happiness?’ I call this Divine humility because it is a poor thing to strike our colors to God when the ship is going down under us; a poor thing to come to Him as a last resort, to offer up ‘our own’ when it is no longer worth keeping.

Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of the rock group Queen, who died at the end of 1991 realized that his fame, fortune, and talents were no longer enough to sustain him; that beyond the darkness if his fears, shines a light far brighter than the star he was on Earth. He decided to seek redemption before a God unimpressed by his celebrity. He wrote in one of his last songs on The Miracle album, ‘Does anyone know what we are living for?’

In spite of the fact that he had amassed a huge fortune and had attracted thousands of fans, he admitted in an interview shortly before his death that he was desperately lonely. He said,

You can have everything in this world and still be the loneliest man, and that is the bitterest type of loneliness. Success has brought me world idolization and millions of pounds, but it’s prevented me from having the one thing we all need-a loving, ongoing relationship with Jesus Christ.

He was right to speak of an ‘ongoing relationship, as the one thing we all need. Yet no human relationship will satisfy entirely. Nor can it be completely ongoing. That is because we were created to live in a relationship with God.

It was Augustine who said, “O God! You have created us for Yourself and our hearts are restless unless they find rest in You.” The ultimate purpose of life is to know the one true God. To know Him means we perceive, recognize, become acquainted with, and understand Him intimately. Out of this knowledge, there comes eternal and divine life. Jesus said,

And this is eternal life: it means to know (to perceive, recognize, become acquainted with, and understand) You, the only true and real God, and likewise to know Him, Jesus as the Christ (the Anointed One, the Messiah), Whom You have sent” (John 17: 3 AMP). Jesus said “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except by (through) Me” (John 14:6).

Jesus is the only one who can bring us into that relationship that goes on into eternity. And again it was C. S. Lewis who wrote:

God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about a relationship with Him. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.

Paul’s Determined Purpose

The apostle Paul’s determined purpose was to know Jesus Christ….to become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly, and that he may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection which it exerts over believers, and that he may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed in spirit into His likeness… (see Philippians 3:10-11).

Paul understood his purpose and mission, which should be the personal mission of every believer in Jesus Christ. It can be reduced to three important characteristics:

1. To know Christ
2. To know and experience His power
3. To identify with His Suffering

It is the one summary statement that best describes the purpose of our existence on earth and the goal of our Christian experience.

In our previous post we looked at how to remain faithful and overcome the onslaught of wickedness that is increasing at a very fast pace. So another unshakable truth that will enable us to withstand the challenges that confront us, is to have an eternal perspective in everything we do.

It is easy for modern Western Christians to forget that heaven is real place and our final destiny. So many of us today live in such peace and affluence that we forget about heaven. We actually think that God’s purpose is to bless our lives here on earth.

Millions of immigrants work like possessed men, some of us amassing large fortunes, so that our kids can afford the things we never had. But over one-fourth of all U.S males die within two years after retirement because work is the only thing keeping them alive. It’s the reason too many of us-even dedicated Christians find heaven a topic of only minor interest because we consider it irrelevant to the challenges of this present life. Phillip Yancey writes:

The kingdom of heaven recasts life on this planet from Jesus’ own perspective, the perspective of two worlds. His words seem revolutionary to us only because we think like people who live an average of sixty or seventy years on a planet made of rocks and trees and soil. Jesus introduced a new way of thinking, raising sights to a life that extends into eternity and involves unseen worlds we have not the capacity to detect. He came to establish an alternate community centered on values from that invisible world, “on earth as it is in heaven.” Seen in that light, the kingdom of heaven prescribes a way of life that promotes what matters most and lasts longest.

Jonathan Edwards, one of America’s revivalists and leader of the Great Awakening took seriously Christ’s direction to “lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven” (Matthew 6:20). He determined that he would focus on ultimate success.

In early twenties Edwards complied a set of personal resolutions. Among them was this commitment: “Resolved, To endeavor to obtain for myself as much happiness in the other world, as I possibly can,with all the might, power, vigor, and vehemence…..

A Fanatic For Christ

Historians tell us a story of a Christian who was brought before the Roman emperor and was told to renounce his faith.

The emperor said to him, “Give up Christ, or I will banish you.”

The Christian said, “You can’t banish me from Christ, for God says, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’”

The ruler said, “I will confiscate your property.”

The Christian replied, “My treasures are laid up in heaven. You can’t touch them.”

Then emperor said, “I will kill you.”

The Christian answered, “I have been dead to the world in Christ for 40 years. My life is hid with Christ in God. You can’t touch it.”

The emperor turned to the members of his court and said in disgust, “What can you do with such a fanatic?”

The Story of Missionary C.T. Studd (1860–1931)

The missionary, famous British athlete, and founder of Worldwide Evangelization Crusade, C. T. Studd was saved in 1878 at the age of eighteen when a visiting preacher at their home caught him on his way to play cricket.

“Are you a Christian?” he asked. Studd’s answer was not convincing enough, so the guest pressed the point and Studd tells what happened as he acknowledged God’s gift of eternal life received through faith in Christ:

I got down on my knees and I did say ‘thank You’ to God. And right then and there joy and peace came into my soul. I knew then what it was to be ‘born again’ and the Bible which had been so dry to me before, became everything.

His two brothers were also saved the very same day. But there followed a period of six years in a backslidden state. C.T. Studd relates this time:

Instead of going and telling others of the love of Christ, I was selfish and kept the knowledge to myself. The result was that gradually my love began to grow cold, and the love of the world began to come in. I spent six years in that unhappy backslidden state.

In 1884 after his brother George was taken seriously ill, Studd was confronted by the question, “What is all this fame and flattery worth…when a man comes to face eternity?” He had to admit that since his conversion six years earlier, he had been in “an unhappy backslidden state.” As a result of the experience, he said,

I know that cricket would not last, and honour would not last, and nothing in this world would last, but it was worthwhile living for the world to come. Still further, and what was better than all, He set me to work for Him, and I began to try and persuade my friends to read the Gospel, and to speak to them individually about their souls. I cannot tell you what joy it gave me to bring the first soul to the Lord Jesus Christ. I have tasted almost all the pleasures that this world can give…but those pleasures were as nothing compared to the joy that the saving of that one soul gave me.

Studd gave up all his achievements in this life for Christ’s sake. He was challenged to his commitment by an article written by an atheist. That article, in part, said:

If I firmly believed, as millions say they do, that the knowledge and practice of religion in this life influences destiny in another, then religion would mean to me everything. I would cast away earthly enjoyments as dross, earthly cares as follies, and earthly thoughts and feelings as vanity. Religion would be my first waking thought and my last image before sleep sank me into unconsciousness. I should labor in its cause alone. I would take thought for the morrow of eternity alone. I would esteem one soul gained for heaven worth a life of suffering. Earthly consequences would never stay my hand, or seal my lips. Earth, its joys and its griefs, would occupy no moment of my thoughts. I would strive to look upon eternity alone, and on the immortal souls around me, soon to be everlastingly happy or everlastingly miserable. I would go forth to the world and preach to it in season and out of season, and my text would be: “WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT A MAN IF HE GAINS THE WHOLE WORLD AND LOSE HIS OWN SOUL.”

Citizens of Heaven

Augustine, one of the early church fathers, asked, “Why do we not know the country whose citizens we are? Because we have wandered so far away that we have forgotten about it”. There is a lot of disinformation about heaven. Yet Paul reminds us that we are citizens of the state (commonwealth, homeland) which is in heaven, and from it also we earnestly and patiently await the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah) as Savior (Philippians 3:20).

Many of us seem to have a concept of heaven where people go around all day long with a harp and sing forever and ever.  But for biblically informed believers, the life after this one is the eternal continuation and intensifying of the new life that began when we committed our lives to Christ. On that day we were genuinely converted-not just our souls, but also our values. Things we previously began to be unattractive, and things once disdained began to be embraced.

The readiness to meet the Lord when He returns is one of the great motivations of the Christian life and that is why every Christian must strive to be perfect in motive. No outward actions are acceptable to God, including religious practices, unless they are done from the heart to please God and with the right motives.

When we surrender our lives to Jesus Christ, our motives and motivations begin to change. No longer is our passion merely to please ourselves. Now we long to please Jesus:

Therefore, whether we are at home on earth away from Him or away from home and with Him, we are constantly ambitious and strive earnestly to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear and be revealed as we are before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive his pay according to what he has done in the body, whether good or evil considering what his purpose and motive have been, and what he has achieved, been busy with, and given himself and his attention to accomplishing (2 Corinthians 5:9-10).

It is right belief in Jesus Christ that gets us into heaven. Its right behaviour that qualifies us for eternal rewards. These eternal rewards are worth enduring all the suffering, false accusations, exclusion and hatred for (see Luke 6:22-23) Indeed, they are worth dying for (Revelation 2:10). The Bible teaches that Christians will one day stand before the Lord, not recoiling in fear of possible expulsion but to receive His affirmation.

We must remember, however, that this world is no friend to grace. As this age draws to a close, we should expect a continual moral decline in society.

The Bible reminds us that there will be an increase of wickedness and the love of the great body of people will grow cold because of the multiplied lawlessness and iniquity, and that in the last days will come (set in) perilous times of great stress and trouble hard to deal with and hard to bear (Matthew 24:12; 2 Timothy 3:1).

In the meantime, whatever success or seeming failure we have in this world must be measured and viewed in the light of our eternal destiny. If we make heaven our point of reference it will transform our relationship to everything that is temporal in this world. Every day is a new opportunity to discover what eternal business might be lurking in the ordinary business of being human. In view of this brevity of time, we should pray, as Moses did, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

C.S Lewis wrote: Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. There is no reason to let up now. Since we have no clear date for the termination of the present age, we must keep on loving and serving Christ until He comes.

An African Martyr

A young African martyr wrote these words in his prison cell before he died:

I am part of the fellowship of the unashamed, the die has been cast, I have stepped over the line, the decision has been made—I’m a disciple of Jesus Christ—I won’t look back, let up, slow down, back away or be still.

My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, my future is secure—I’m finished and done with low living. Sight walking, smooth knees, colourless dreams, tamed visions, worldly talking, cheap giving and dwarfed goals.

My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven, my road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions are few, my guide is reliable, my mission is clear. I won’t give up, shut up, let up, until I have stayed up, stored up, and prayed up for the cause of Jesus Christ.

I must go till He comes, give till I drop, preach till everyone knows, work till He stops me and when He comes for His own, He will have no trouble recognizing me because my banner will have been clear.