May 1, 2009

The SIGNS of the End-Time

“Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So you also, when you see all these things, KNOW that is near [real beginning of previous verses]—at the doors” (Matthew 24:32-34; Luke 21:29-32)

Dear Brethren,

For the comments this time, I am using two articles that are very meaningful to me and I hope they will be to all of you as well. Jesus Christ made known the signs to be watching for and writers such as these enable us to see from their perspective how they started and where they have led us in just a very few short years. And when we examine them in view of what Jesus Christ has said along with His prophets, we can well know summer is almost here.

The first one is by Pamela Geller. Her writing is both meaningful and very sobering; for what she wrote makes known the end of the House of Joseph and the others nations of Israel as nations are very rapidly coming to an end. The second one is by Ben Stein who makes known how what Pamela wrote began just a few short years ago. Very sobering indeed!!!

There are a few other speakers and writers like Pamela Geller and Ben Stein who are seeing the handwriting on the wall and are not afraid to try and wake people up before it is too late. The public at large and many in the Church of God seemingly are unmoved by it all. One hardly ever hears anyone even voicing any concern.

It has been said there are none so blind as those who refuse to see even when the facts are presented to them. This idiom clearly makes known why so many in the world and the Church turn their heads away refusing to see where we are in time.

Presently in this country we are in the Spring Time of the year and the trees are seen budding out making known summer is very close now. Looking at them should enable us to think about what Jesus said about them in reference to the close of this age. Hopefully we are not of those who refuse to see the signs. Our very lives could hang in the balance.

Your brother and servant in Christ Jesus our Lord,

Don Billingsley

About the author via Google...

Pamela "Atlas" Geller began her publishing career at The New York Daily News and subsequently took over operation of The New York Observer as Associate Publisher.  She left The Observer after the birth of her fourth child but remained involved in various projects including American Associates, Ben Gurion University and being Senior Vice-President Strategic Planning and Performance Evaluation at The Brandeis School.

After 9/11, Atlas had the veil of oblivion violently lifted from her consciousness and immersed herself in the education and understanding of geopolitics, Islam, terror, foreign affairs and imminent threats the mainstream media and the government wouldn't cover or discuss.

by Pam Geller

I am a student of history.  Professionally, I have written 15 books in six languages, and have studied history all my life.  I think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is just a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes, these exist but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus.

 Something of historic proportions is happening.  I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about 10 - 15 years.  The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.

We demand and then codified into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people whom we know could never pay back?  Why?   We  learned recently that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real  oversight by anyone, has "loaned" two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms.  That is our money.  Yours and mine.  And that is three times the $700B we all argued about so strenuously just this past September.

Who has this money?  Why do they have it?  Why are the terms unavailable to us?  Who asked for it?  Who authorized it?  I thought this was a government of "We the People," who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.

 We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy.  Why?

We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving.  Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate.  Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, school boards continue to back mediocrity.  Why?

We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (now violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it wants marriage to remain between one man and one woman.  Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?).  We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic.  To what purpose?

Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, Social Security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare and our entire government.  Our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and know precisely what I am talking about.)  The list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth.  It is potentially 1929 x 10.  And we are at war with an enemy we cannot name for fear of offending people of the same religion who cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.

And now we have elected a man no one knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla, Alaska . All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary (Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our borders?  No?  Oh, of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it. Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe is more important.)

 Mr. Obama's winning platform can be boiled down to one word: Change. Why?

I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now.  This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life.  In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure.  Change is indeed coming.  And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.

And that is only the beginning.

 I thought I would never be able to experience what the ordinary, moral German felt in the mid-1930s.  In those times, the savior was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing.  What they did know was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory and promises.  Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker.  And he smiled and waved a lot.  And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his "brown shirts" would bully them into submission.

And then he was duly elected to office, with a full-throttled economic crisis at hand [the Great Depression].  Slowly but surely he seized the controls of government power, department by department, person by person, bureaucracy by bureaucracy.  The kids joined a Youth Movement in his name, where they were taught what to think.  How did he get the people on his side?  He did it promising jobs to the jobless, money to the moneyless, and goodies for the military-industrial complex.  He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe, and across the world.

 He did it with a compliant media - Did you know that?  And he did this all in the name of justice and ... change.  And the people surely got what they voted for.  (Look it up if you think I am exaggerating.)  Read your history books.  Many people objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and made fun of.  When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker.  He was right, though.

 Don't forget that Germany was the most educated, cultured country in Europe.  It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities.  And in less than six years - a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency - it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors.  All with the best of intentions, of course.

The road to Hell is paved with them.

As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice:  I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong, close my eyes, have another latte and ignore what is transpiring around me.

Some people scoff at me; others laugh or think I am foolish, naive, or both.  Perhaps I am.  But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe - and why I believe it.  I pray I am wrong.  But, I do not think I am.

Remarks from CBS Sunday Morning - Ben Stein

 
 I Only hope we find GOD again before it is too late ! !

 The following was written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday

 Morning Commentary.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish.  And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees, Christmas trees.  I don't feel threatened.  I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are, Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, 'Merry Christmas' to me.  I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto.  In fact, I kind of like it.  It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu.  If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians.  I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period.  I have no idea where the concept came from, that America is an explicitly atheist country.  I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship celebrities and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him?  I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too.  But there are a lot of us who are wondering where these celebrities came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different:  This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her 'How could God let something like this happen?' (regarding Hurricane Katrina).  Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response.  She said, 'I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives.  And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out.  How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?'

In light of recent events... terrorists attack, school shootings, etc.  I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.  Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school.  The Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself.  And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide).  We said an expert should know what he's talking about.  And we said okay.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out.  I think it has a great deal to do with 'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell.  Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says. Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing.  Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing yet?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it. 

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit.

If not, then just discard it... no one will know you did.  But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.  

My Best Regards,  Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

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