The Militant Chipmunk

Last Days - the world's and mine

2011-04-07T20:11:00.000-07:00

Luke 21: 25,26: "On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world ..."

These are Jesus' own words. Thence, it's no surprise what is happening in the world, in particular in northern Africa and the Mid-East, or that calamities wrought by nature should increase in these last days.

What surprises me is the speed at which the domino effect of the political and social unrest taking place in northern Africa is having on the politcal landscapes of the Middle East that began first in Tunisia and was quckly followed by Egypt, then Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Libya. There's so much excitement in the news about the political changes that appear inevitable in these regions; most of the free world (USA especially) is eager to see these nations peacefully transition their economies into something resembling a democracy.

But unrest is everywhere, isn't it, and not just in the Mid-East. There are protests in Europe and in the USA as well for reforms of every kind. People everywhere appear to be in anguish and bewildered about the world's crises. So what in the world is going on?

The way I see it (putting on my tin foil hat at the same time) is that we are living in the days that the Lord Jesus speaks of, which will culminate in the rise of a New World Order leader on the world's stage to begin his reign. (The stage is set for people everywhere to welcome this false 'messiah' who will resolve their crises.) This will commence, I believe, after the rapture of the church and proceed through the seven years of the Tribulation. This leader is the one that Bible believing Christians (those who subscribe to the pre-mill eschatology in particular) call the Antichrist and Islamists call the Mahdi, whom the latter consider a good guy.

Therefore, what's taking place in the Mid East currently is really a natural progression before Antichrist begins his reign. (Yes, I believe he is waiting in the wings.) Ergo, these old dictators with their totalitarian regimes in the volatile east must be toppled to make clear the path of Antichrist's emergence. Ironically, the world will then be put under Antichrist's brand of totalitarianism.

The outcry by the Powers That Be (PTBs) against decades of political oppression, economic mismanagement and environmental assault, in many parts of the world, is simply a front to advance their globalist agenda and ultimately usher in a New World Order with its leader - Antichrist - at its helm. I wouldn't put it past these PTBs to have played a role in the crises taking place in northern Africa and the Mid East; ironically they will somehow emerge with a plan (perhaps by unveiling the Antichrist) to solve these crises that they themselves have manufactured. One plan is to have the IMF pledge assistance to these nations in crisis and place them under the former's debt. We see this coming to fruition with President Obama recently suggesting that the IMF participate in aiding those nations realise their goals of forming a democratic government. Indeed, what Obama hopes is that by placing those nations under the debt of the IMF, which is a globalist body, the PTBs will push through their globalist agenda which is world domination through economic dominance.

It is also a distraction by the PTBs to draw the world's attention away from what is happening in Israel. I hear that an attack on Israel by an Iran-backed Syria, Lebanon (Hezbollah) and Hamas in Gaza is imminent.

Who are these PTBs? Who can really know? Many believe, however, that among their ranks are dignitaries from all nations of the world: they are political and economic rulers that run the gamut - presidents of nations, prime ministers, politicians, international bankers, emperors, sultans, educationists and laureates.

What I do know for certain is that they are puppets of the real mischief maker - Satan, who knows his time is short and is desperate to be worshipped as god through the reign of Antichrist who will be empowered by him. But in order to succeed, he must dispose of all other despots, even possibly monarchs and, definitely, Israel. Why Israel? Because Israel belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ.

And Satan is using the Islamists and the globalists (in the political, economic and environmental spheres) to fulfill his dream. Not even the 'church' is spared. Lucifer is also recruiting globalists from among the 'Elect' to implement his New World Order. Thence you have church pastors and leaders who are engaged in cultural wars by participating in syncretism and ecumenicalism which attempt to unite all the religions of the world in order to solve the problems of the environment, food shortage, war and social instability. This, at the expense of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. How like Lucifer to draw the church's attention away from reaching the lost with the gospel. It's what he wants: as many as possible to languish in hell with him.

Not going to happen, folks! Because it is only the Lord Jesus Christ who will suceed in solving the world's problems when He returns to reign in the millennial kingdom. And this is my take.

Sidebar note: I will not be posting much from here on. Before I conceived of this blog, I hadn't come across the many sites that deal with issues similar to my interests - politics and prophecy. Noteworthy ones are Olive Tree Ministries, Worldview Weekend, PID Radio and Crosstalk. These days, my husband and I spend a lot of time tuning in to their radio broadcasts and that takes up a lot of my time. Those who regularly listen to these braodcasts must know what I'm talking about. They're just engrossing.

You gotta love these presenters. My favourite is Jan Markell (Understanding the Times) - she's knowledgeable, sure, but you get the feeling that she is also sincere about the salvation of the lost. This sincerity comes across in her messages and voice.

I look forward to Brannon Howse's daily missives on The Worldview Weekend Hour, too. He's dynamic, stands on his convictions and passionate.

And I love Ingrid Schlueter on Crosstalk. I think I'd have a lot of wonderful conversations with her if we were friends.

And listening to the husband and wife team of Derek and Sharon Gilbert (PID Radio) always puts a smile on my face. Sharon Gilbert is infectious. She seems to enjoy poking fun at herself.

With all these broadcasts on the www, I haven't anything to add that is not a regurgitation.

If you're not tuning in to their broadcasts yet, you're missing a lot of information about the issues that are pressing and important to Christians today. Do check out their sites - see my sidebar on the left.

God bless you, thank you for reading my articles and, look up, for our redemption draws nigh.

See you in the air!!!

Who will inherit the New Heaven, the New Earth and the Lake of Fire?

2010-12-16T16:53:00.000-08:00

By Paul Phelps

Two ways are pleasing to God: faith and righteousness. God plans the future so that both ways shall have reward. In this age faith is the greater way and has greater reward. The way of faith is prompted by love for God and the desire to follow him however he leads. The way of righteous good work is prompted by conscience. Both ways are good but they are different. Love for righteousness qualifies for life in earth. But love for God—with faith—even in paths unknown
qualifies for life in heaven. There is another way that often seems right to men, but the end thereof is the way of death (Prov. 14:12); it is the way of self-interest that does not trust in God, nor care for righteousness.

There will be three future destinies: the New Heaven, the New Earth, and the Lake of Fire. There will be people in all three places depending on their heart, the way of Godly faith, righteousness, or self-interest. The New Heaven will be home to angels that never rebelled nor ever left their own habitation (Jude 1:6), and it will also be home to Christian saints, the bride of Christ. The New Earth is this planet but renewed for a renewed humanity (Acts 3:19-21; Rom. 8:21-22). God’s kingdom removes the sin curse from humanity and from earth (Rev. 22:3).

Heaven will be joined to earth by a fabulous space-city called New Jerusalem (Rev. 21); this is “my Father’s house” containing the mansions of glory prepared for the saints (John 14:2-3). According to Rev. 21:16 this city is magnificent. It is the future city of the great King (Matt. 5:35). It is referred to in Isaiah 54:11-12; 60; 62:1-5; Zech. 8:3-8. In vision John saw New Jerusalem coming down to earth from heaven, and the city is prepared as a bride.

Rev. 21:2,9-11, v 2, And I saw the holy city, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

vv 9-11, Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb. And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.

The bride is the finished Church in glory, adorned for her heavenly marriage to Christ, just as his reign is about to begin. Rev. 19:6-7, ...‘Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready…’

At the correct time Christ comes to take his bride to heaven (1 Thes. 4:16-17), marking the end of this age. Soon afterwards the city of heaven comes to earth. That marks the start of the New Heaven—and the start of the New Earth as well. The passing away of the first heaven and earth (Rev. 21:1) is the removal of this present age of evil angels and evil men. The new heaven and earth is a time of new people as in Noah’s day; heaven is renewed first and earth soon afterward.

In Scripture heaven can be three things: the sky (earth’s atmosphere of wind, clouds, and birds); the material universe (including sun, moon and stars); and the spiritual universe (God, the angels and hosts of heaven), the ‘third heaven’ that Apostle Paul was shown. 2 Cor. 12:1-4, It is necessary to boast; nothing to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord. I knew a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows—was caught up into Paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat.

The saints in glory will rule all things but their home is the spiritual universe. God’s throne is surrounded by a vast throng of angels (Daniel 7:10; Heb. 12:22) but the saints are promised an authority above angels (1 Cor. 6:3).

Heb. 1:4, …“having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.”

Matt. 28:18, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”

Rev. 5:12, ...“Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing!”

1 John 3:2, “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.”

Angels had administrative responsibility to perform God’s directives in earth but that part of heaven’s rule fell into disorder. Many angels were ensnared in Satan’s revolt. Earth has suffered horribly under the misrule of corrupt angels. God hates the distress this has caused; he has promised to remove Satan’s rule and restore righteous rule. God accepts responsibility for all that went wrong. God accepts responsibility to put all things right. That is why He came to earth, as the man Jesus, to redeem and restore earthly humanity. From the foundation of the world God chose Himself as the sin sacrifice (John 1:29).

1 Peter 1:20, ... He was destined before the foundation of the world…

Restoration is more than payment for sin and redemption of earth. There is also the need to renew heaven’s rule and to replace the multitude of angels that rebelled. But God has said the new world cannot be ruled by angels (Heb. 2:5) and he is not creating more angels; he is instead saving elect people from earth in the Church age (between Christ’s first and second advents) and calling them for heaven. This is the Church call for heaven, the Church age New Covenant.

All overcoming believers from the Church age will inherit heaven and have the right of rule in the world to come. This is God’s remedy for Satan’s rebellion.

Eph. 1:3-5, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love.

He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will...

Rom. 8:28-30, We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family. And those whom he predestined he also called…

The New covenant has both earthly and heavenly provision and the fulfilment for each is different. In the Church age (between the first and second advents), Christians relate to God through the New covenant heavenly calling (Heb. 8-9). The Church age New covenant calls born again persons to follow Jesus by faith. It is Spiritual in nature and it has heavenly promises.

1 Pet. 1:4, ... into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you…

The heaven call was a mystery that Jesus only told his disciples; Luke 10:23-24, Then turning to the disciples, Jesus said to them privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.’

1 Pet. 1:10-12, Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that was to be yours made careful search and inquiry, inquiring about the person or time that the Spirit of Christ within them indicated, when it testified in advance to the sufferings destined for Christ and the subsequent glory. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves, but you, in regard to the things that have now been announced to you through those who brought you the good news by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things into which angels long to look.

Jesus expounded this new calling in parables, stories with a hidden meaning. He spoke of the heavenly call as a secret mystery. Mark 4:11, And he said to them, ‘To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside, everything comes in parables...’

The Church call for heaven is a mystery because it was never taught in Israel before Christ came. We know the call for heaven announced by Jesus was not familiar to Jews because the Pharisee master Nicodemus had never heard of it. The Spiritual new birth was a new doctrine to the Jews.

John 3:1-3… Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. He came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.’

Jesus answered him, ‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born anew from above. v 6, What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.

v 9-10, Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can these things be?’

Jesus answered him, ‘Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?’
v 12, ‘If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?’

The heavenly things that Jesus taught were new, not only to the Pharisees but to his disciples also. They did not understand until their own spiritual new birth on Pentecost Day, fifty days after Passover week and the death and resurrection of Jesus. Therefore the heavenly things that Jesus taught were a total mystery in Israel. This confirms that the call to heaven was not part of the Law covenant and it explains why Israel’s prophets did not understand their own prophecies.

The Church age is ‘an invitation to heaven,’ an age of grace for those in that calling. After Noah’s time, covenants were for special purposes and given only to the ‘few’—while the world is seemingly abandoned. The world is waiting for God to reclaim earth; that will be at Christ’s return, and the New covenant will then provide for normal earthly life and will be world-wide for everyone.

This world is a tragic place since the fall of Adam and Eve in Eden—a world of unending suffering under evil spirits. The whole world is in the power of the evil one (1 John 5:19); the only hopeful prospect is the promised Messianic age.

That will be a refreshment time for all people, for restoring humanity and earth.

Acts 3:19-21, Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, So that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus, who must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets.

The Messianic age is the time for the whole world to be God’s chosen people including past generations fallen in death that have deeds of good conscience. The Messianic age will bring a covenant of normal human life in the New Earth. The Bible does not call this earthly hope a mystery, for it was never concealed.

The Jewish hope was always for earth and the Law covenant is only about earth. That is the reason Moses’ Writings differ from New Testament Writings. The New Testament focuses on heaven as the priority call until Jesus returns, but the Old Testament focuses mainly on earthly life and the hope for a renewed earth.

For believers in the heavenly Church call, earthly hope has been ‘replaced’ by heavenly hope. Old Testament texts are therefore ‘spiritualised’ to serve the heavenly Church call. This mind view is called ‘Spiritualised Interpretation,’ or ‘Replacement Theology.’ But this theory can only apply during the Church age because the earthly realities of Old Testament texts cannot be replaced in fact; they may have been set aside only for a time, until the Church call is complete and the saints are taken home. The New Earth promises can never be changed or replaced. God’s promises are true as written—and his word abides forever. All the New Earth promises are true and will remain forever unchanged.

The plan for national Israel was put aside for the duration of the Church age, but it will be fulfilled in due time. Romans 11:7,28-29, v 7, What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened...

v 28… As regards the gospel they are enemies of God for your sake; but as regards election they are beloved, for the sake of their ancestors; for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

Some may see Israel as something of the past with no further application, but the plan for Israel pertains mainly to the future. The main goal of Israel’s calling and election has never been yet fulfilled and cannot until Messiah is present on earth as King. The Church age New covenant is a spiritual fulfilment of Jer. 31:31-34, but the earthly provisions for this New Covenant promise remain to be fulfilled.

The purpose of Jesus’ return is to establish his kingdom in earth. If an earthly New covenant is to succeed Jesus must be present in earth as King. The earthly Kingdom will operate globally from heaven’s rule. The glorified saints will be in New Jerusalem; heaven’s government will operate from this heavenly city. The main earthly focus then will not be religion but restoration of human wholeness.

At Christ’s return the earthly New covenant will be approved with Israel. But God alone decides who is in New Earth Israel—the “fleshly Israel” of the future. “For not all Israelites truly belong to Israel, and not all of Abraham’s children are his true descendants” (Romans 9:6-7). “For a person is not a Jew who is one outwardly... Rather, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly” (Rom. 2:28-29). This is true in the Church age, and true of the New Earth in the future Messianic age.

“Inwardly” has been interpreted as the ‘Spiritual new birth’ for believers in the Church call but it is not limited to that interpretation. The word “inwardly” has another meaning for the “fleshly Israel” of the earthly heritage. It may indicate ‘a secret identity,’ a secret destiny and heritage from Isaac and Jacob, which is only known to God. The complete identity of New Earth Israel is still a mystery.

The first covenant with Israel was cancelled because they turned to idolatry. “The LORD uprooted them from their land in anger, fury, and great wrath, and cast them into another land, as is now the case.” (Deut. 29:28). But all this was kept hid. Verse 29 continues, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the revealed things belong to us and to our children for ever.” Those Jews that observe Mosaic laws make their Jewish identity known wherever they are. But Israel’s forgotten descendants in “another land” are the unknown Israelites; they are part of the secret things only known to God.

God does not rely on tradition or religion to identify people. He identifies us from our genetic code and information in our souls: inherited destinies, curses, and blessings. The House of Israel taken captive to Assyria in 722 BCE was not lost to God and was never in danger of being lost, for God looks at the inward identity. Assimilation does not change the identities of successive generations because, in God’s view, the soul decides the identity (not the body). The soul has priority above physical genetics for deciding identity. Assimilation has not diminished the House of Israel. Rather the opposite; they have increased.

Assimilation alters the physical genetic code in favour of the majority group and can also affect the soulish nature of later generations. But the blessings or curses borne in the souls of the former generation are what decide the identity of successive generations. This reality affects our view of the world around us and also our view of Bible prophecy, for this enables us to identify people in the way that God identifies them, not in outward appearance but by inward reality.

The heaven-called Christians, reborn of the Spirit, are no more identified by their genetic code or their soul, but are identified by their new life in the Spirit. That is why in Christ there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, male and female, bond and free (1 Cor. 12:12-13; Gal. 3:28; Col. 3:11). But the earthly kingdom of God is not like that. Prophecy says that people of the New Earth will observe distinctions of honour and servitude. And there will continue to be distinction between males and females. And Israelis will differ from Gentiles in the new world, for covenant renewal shall be only with the House of Israel and the House of Judah (Jer. 31:31).

Human nature should not be mixed with spirit nature, or material things with spiritual things, or earthly values with heavenly values. They are not the same. There is a need for separate distinctions to help understand heaven and earth.

God’s mind is found in both Old and New Testaments but each has a different characteristic. The Old Testament reveals God’s mind for earth-bound people, but the New Testament reveals his mind for heaven-bound people, the Church. The highest priority in the New Testament is the call to heaven, but that will end. The New Testament also contains much information pertaining to earth because Jesus is Lord of both heaven and earth.

Jesus necessarily taught about both inheritance hopes (heaven and earth) for he is Lord of both! Jesus is God, and God speaks total truth. Jesus is the head of the Church but he is also God of the whole earth at his return. He therefore must necessarily speak for both portions of his kingdom.

It’s interesting that the people of God’s kingdom, of heaven and earth, are all originally from earth. Saints in the heavenly city go through a change of nature and are no longer earthy because they get a new body in the likeness of Christ, made for heaven. But people of the New Earth keep their earth nature because they are called to live on earth. Human nature in the Kingdom will not contain inherent sin, as now, because the curse on earth will be gone. Our flesh bodies are part of earth because we are made of earth dust. The inhabitants of heaven and earth will always be different but God does not want anyone to be envious of another lifestyle. Everybody in God’s kingdom will be glad where they are.

The new world will be fully satisfying for all.

Semitic origins of the Orientals

2010-12-08T15:28:00.000-08:00

There are pockets of people in genealogical scholarship and those among the lay who believe that the Oriental people of the world have roots traced to Shem and are thus Semitic peoples as opposed to the Hamitic origins that have been popularly ascribed to them and formally delineated in the Table of Nations. Thus belies the belief that Orientals have a deeply-rooted sense of camaraderie with and respect for the Jewish people.

According to the Biblical record, Shem is the original forefather of both the West Asian people and East Asian people. In the Genesis account, the ancestry of all the East Asian people can be traced to Shem.

Shem means honourable name, which fits well with East Asian cultural values. In the Hebrew Bible, God is referred to as ‘The Honourable Name’ (HA-SHÈM), thus associating God with the people of Shem. In Genesis 10:21, Shem is called “the father of all the children of Eber,” meaning the Hebrew people. The word Hebrew means ‘of Eber,’ or ‘descended from Eber.’ Gen. 10:25, 'To Eber were born two sons: the name of one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided, and his brother’s name was Joktan. '

The Hebrew race has thus descended from Eber in two branches: Peleg and Joktan. The name Peleg is division (a prophecy that humanity would be divided after the Great Flood, Gen. 11:7-9), and the name Joktan is diminish (a prophecy that human longevity would be diminished after the Great Flood, Gen. 6:3).

Joktan’s family of thirteen sons is the largest family of early Bible times. Only Joktan’s first-generation lineage was recorded: Gen. 10:26-29; I Chron. 1:19-23. (Even this much is unusual because Joktan’s descendants are not mentioned in later Bible history.) All later Bible history is based on Peleg’s lineage (Gen. 11), so readers have traditionally thought Peleg’s descendants are the only existing Hebrews. Peleg’s lineage has more visibility in the Bible because it led up to Abraham—and God took Abraham’s people to lead the Bible narrative. But the descendants of Joktan made another even larger branch of Hebrews. The total disappearance of Joktan’s people from the Bible narrative means that his family left west Asia entirely and migrated to another land far away.

For over a century Noah and the Flood survivors were migrating in the east (eastwards of the Euphrates River plain, which is Shinar). Gen. 11:2, 'And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there'.

The plain of Shinar was later renamed Babylon (see Gen. 11:9). The Hebrew phrase ‘from the east’ is MI-KÈDEM. A literal translation of MI is ‘coming from’ or ‘from’ (and it cannot be translated otherwise). KÈDEM is ‘the front of the east’ or ‘the orient.’ The root meaning of KÈDEM is ‘front’ —in the geographic sense referring to the east Asian coastlands facing sunrise. In a time sense it can also be ‘ancient beginnings’ (the front of time) and could sometimes be translated as ‘ancient orient.’ In Gen. 11:2, the word KÈDEM means that the Flood survivors had migrated from someplace farther east before entering the land of Babylon. (Many Bible versions have poor translations of KÈDEM.)

The earliest sojourn of the Flood survivors was eastwards of Babylon, across the Iranian plateau, requiring more than a century, according to Gen. 11:10-16. It could even have taken well beyond a century before Peleg entered Babylon.

We know that Peleg migrated to Babylon because his descendants dwelt there (including Abraham, Gen. 11); but Joktan did not go with Peleg into Babylon.

This pre-Babylonian sojourn is an important factor for it helps us to know the location of Joktan’s migration route. He must have separated from the caravan before they came to Babylon because he chose to go east. Gen. 10:30, 'The territory in which they lived extended from Mesha in the direction of Sephar, the hill country of the east'.

The caravan migrating westward towards Babylon was already in the east, so Joktan’s decision to go eastward means that he separated from the caravan and turned towards the orient (we have our own translation of Gen. 10:30 later on).

Some Bible scholars have offered an opinion that Joktan migrated into Arabia because two of his sons, Sheba and Havilah, have the same names as two tribes in Arabia. But those Arabian tribes are of Cushite descent in the lineage of Ham and are not in the lineage of Shem at all (see Gen. 10:6-7). Arabia is part of the migration route to Africa, the land of Cush; therefore, the first peoples in Arabia were Cushite. Many Bible names appear multiple times in various genealogies but that does not imply genealogical kinship; only the context can indicate that.

The separation of Peleg’s clan and Joktan’s clan made two Hebrew peoples, the Western Hebrews of western Asia and the Eastern Hebrews of eastern Asia. Most nations of eastern Asia have Hebrew ancestry.

Noah’s Flood erased pre-Flood place names but new names were given after the Flood. Biblical name meaning is important. In Genesis 10:30, Mesha means ‘departure,’ indicating Joktan’s place of departure from the caravan. His group took their departure from someplace on the Iranian plateau or central Asia and that place of departure (MÈSHA) was the starting point of Joktanite settlement.

Joktan’s clan must have been the first to scout the ancient Silk Road that later became the main road of migration into east Asia. Mesha (the departure point) was the start of the ancient Silk Road. The Silk Road had its start near the city of Mashhad, in north-eastern Iran. This name Mashhad may have originated from the ancient Hebrew name Mesha.

The phrase “in the direction of Sephar” is from the Hebrew word SEPHARÀH, and literally means ‘towards a numerous population.’ Instead of a name, if we take word meaning, this word is prophetic of the numerous population in China and throughout the orient.

The phrase “the hill country of the east” is from HAR HA-KÈDEM, and a literal translation is ‘the mountain of the orient.’ This is our own literal translation of Gen. 10:30, And their dwelling place shall be from the departure point, as you go towards a numerous population, the mountain of the orient (translation mine).

“The mountain of the orient” could be just a symbolic term for the numerous East Asian populations, or it may be a special mountain marking the far-eastern extent of the Joktanite populace; but either way it certainly means that Orientals are Joktan’s descendants. (Joktan is indicated from the context of Gen. 10:30.)

Chinese history says that the first migrations came into China’s eastern plains from the west, along the Silk Road. This verifies the accepted dating of the first settlements in China’s Yellow River valley. Hebrew Text Bible chronology puts this migration about 2200 BCE. Tribal diversity in the orient began with Joktan’s thirteen sons and their families. It may also come from the Patriarchal families.

East Asia was gradually populated by the descendants of these Semitic settlers. We conclude that East Asian mainland peoples are entirely Semitic and may be identified in Bible terms as Eastern Hebrews. Other west Asian tribes came to China later—such as Assyrians, the ten northern Israeli tribes and Persian Jews. These all were Semitic and eventually assimilated into China.

East Asian languages are apparently unrelated to the languages of west Asia such as Aramaic and Canaanite Hebrew; this apparent dissimilarity has caused many to conclude that the Orientals are not Semitic. But East Asian languages are unlinked to Hamitic languages and Japhetic Indo-European languages also.

This means that East Asian languages might not necessarily identify ancestry in easily recognisable ways. The Bible nowhere says that all Semitic people have related languages. This opinion of the past may need to be reviewed in light of continuing discovery.

The language that Noah brought over from the pre-Flood world apparently continued in this world for over two centuries and was a unifying influence until the speech of the Babylonians became confused; Gen. 11:1. The Bible does not say what happened to the original language. The only reason given us for the speech confusion is that God wanted the Babylonian people to disperse abroad (Gen. 11:8-9). Therefore God did not change the language of people that were not in Babylon because they were not part of the problem! The people that had earlier removed from the Babylon crowd and had chosen their migration routes would have continued speaking the language brought over by Noah.

This means that Joktan’s clan remained unaffected by the Babylon chaos, and kept the ancient original language brought over by Noah. Joktan went to China, which explains why Chinese is not related to languages that began in Babylon.

This also explains why China’s language does not identify ancestry in an easily recognisable way. Chinese legends indicate a great antiquity for the language and the findings of archaeology support this conclusion. Various non-Chinese peoples of east Asia have national languages that seem unrelated to Chinese, and unrelated to all other Babylon-originated languages.

God may have done a miracle in China, as in Babylon, to get people moving to other lands. The miracle of languages may have happened again, which could explain how the non-Chinese languages of east Asia came to be. Bible readers may be interested to read Zephaniah 3:9. It says that God will restore a pure language for people when he establishes his kingdom on earth.

The language from Eden probably continued until Noah, with no large changes. It was brought to China by Joktan and has remained China’s spoken language. It has gone through changes in the passing of time but much honour surrounds the Chinese language, because of its ancient origin.

Adapted from Paul Phelps' site.

Apostates rising

2010-10-12T01:58:00.000-07:00

This has not been a good year for me.

First, it was the Navigators, endorsing Contemplative Spirituality and its publications. NavPress, like many formerly respectable 'Christian' publications such as Zondervan, Baker Books and Tyndale, has sold out to the big corporations that are now, apparently, influenced by the Freemasons (I haven't been able to verify this allegation, so don't quote me). Thence the preponderance of heretical publications these publishers are churning out that teach such gnostic and New Age / New Spirituality heresies as The Shack. See here.

Then last week, I heard that Dr John Piper had joined up with Rick Warren to endorse his Purpose-driven interfaith movement. He had even cut off all ties and communication with anyone who might challenge him to the extent of setting up a line of communication for the sole purpose of bulk deletion without reading the complaints or queries about his actions.

Why do I care? For one, I was trained in discipleship and evangelism by the Navigators when I was at university in Australia. I learned to witness, share the gospel of Jesus' death on the cross for the salvation of sinners, follow up on new converts and teach them to make disciples.

For another, Dr Piper's books had been a comfort and source of encouragement to me during those years as a single working female living alone in Ipoh. Through his books I had gleaned new insights into the relationship God the Father has with His beloved Son, the Lord Jesus Christ - which in turn taught me to see my own relationship with the Father in a new light; the Father delights in His relationship with the Son even through His obedience in bearing the sins of the world on that dark day when He died on the cross. The Father delights in His relationship with us who are co-heirs with Christ because of our fellowship with Christ as His body of believers. My renewed love affair with God the Father and the Son was in no small way attributed to some of Dr Piper's books.

I am heart broken by Dr Piper's decision and that of the Navigators in following the path of evangelicalism and away from the truth of Scriptures.

I care because a part of my Christian identity had been shaped by my exposure to their witness and ministries. As, I'm certain, has been that of many others in the Body of Christ, who must now question if they ever held to the absolute truth of the Word of God in the first place.

To these people, I wish to encourage you with the fact that, yes, there is an objective God - the God of the Bible - and, by extension, there is absolute truth, and this truth is encrypted in God's revelation of His commands as handed to us in His Word. Just because some of the 'elect' have now been deceived by the spirit of this age, as foretold in the Word, God's truths are not nullified, for they stand apart from what human beings perceive or believe.

I pray that Dr Piper, who I heard has withdrawn into his 'cave', and those in NavPress, will return to the truth.

Apostasy rising (Part 2)

2010-09-11T14:39:00.000-07:00

Continued from Part 1.

By KT and The Whyman

Many members of the Laodicean apostate church have gone the way of liberals and libertines. Characteristic of the liberal church apostasy is the congregation's voting into their leadership practising homosexuals in addition to performing gay weddings in defilement of the Lord's house of worship.

Liberals are no different from atheists in their professed beliefs and included among their heretical pro-atheistic doctrines is the view that the Bible is not the inerrant and inspired Word of God but merely an instrument that points them to the possibility of God's existence. Therefore the liberal church leaders have a poor foundation in the Bible and consequently lack discernment when it comes to making decisions that govern their respective churches and teaching a miscellany of heresies from the pulpit. Their church is usually a social club that exalts self instead of an assembly of believers to glorify and honour God. The liberal church is in possession of the vertex of apostasy, which is the denial and arrogation of Jesus' divinity and like John Dominic Crossan and the Jesus Seminar, they question the Trinity and other core Christian beliefs. Most important but tragic of all, they question and deny Jesus Christ's substitutionary atonement for the sin of mankind which was completed once and for all when He died on Calvary's cross.

In addition, the apostate Evangelical and Charismatic churches teach doctrines that resemble New Age heresy and Emergent Church harlotry such as occult-like inner healing and birthing seminars. Their leaders inculcate in their assembly the notion that they can become a prophet by self appointment and self will, or by going to a prophetic school. These deny the biblical triune nature of God but teach that we are now gods and we have God-like power in our words, being able to assert things into existence.

Like Brian McLaren's Emerging church philosophy based on mystical experiences and a re-invention of Christianity in order to provide meaning for the younger generation, the apostate church undermines the authority of the Word of God in favour of a cloak-and-dagger method of relating to God that is conjured by their false prophets. They use coercion, peer pressure and emotionalism to lead the church into altered states of reality and ferret a cookie-cutter investiture into their cult-like institution. Their proselytes are pressured to conform to their leaders but soon are backslidden because their confessed conversion has never been a genuine one. These, having been led to believe that emotional experience is just as reliable as Scripture, return to their old life when their emotional high cannot be sustained.

Last but not least, an apostate church espouses a smörgåsbord of deviant doctrines that are not found in the Bible. For example, not a few of its acolytes profess that the King James translation is the only inerrant version and the only correct translation, and all other honest translations of the Bible are Satanic. Some attribute all the sins of the flesh to Satan without taking personal responsibility for sin in their life. Others twist the Word of God to support their deviant practices such as allowing women to be pastors and to rule over men contrary to Scripture. And many more deny the reality of hell as described in Scripture, preferring to teach instead that all damned souls will be annihilated. Worse than this is the apostate church that does not address the problem of sin and, therefore, salvation from sin is unnecessary. Countless numbers in their congregation will find themselves doomed to spend eternity in hell as a result.

Equally tragic are those who adopt theistic evolution, which teaches that death preceded sin and postulates a billions of years' evolutionary process. Their theory brings into disrepute the necessity and historicity of Jesus' physical death and bodily resurrection (since death did not result from sin), makes a myth out of the Genesis accounts of the 6-day Creation and Adam and Eve, and reduces the Noahic flood into a fable, albeit one that transcends a localised culture.

The apostate church of this Laodicean age has an off-kilter view of who God is, courtesy of the heretical and demonic doctrines of its leaders. And so we have in the place of the God of Mount Sinai and Mount Zion, one who is made over in the image of man-made ideas and personal preferences. What we have is the God-of-my-near-death-experience, the God-of-my-global-peace-plan, the God-of-my-feminine-mystique, and the God-of-my-liberal-mindset ~ to borrow some of Dr. Erwin Lutzer's eloquent epithets. Several have gone so far as to maintain that God is gay, female and black whereas some apostate leaders have reduced the living God to an anthropomorphic energy force. Now, this is quite a nasty assortment of made-over gods.

The apostate church is a post-modern obloquy of evangelicalism and churchianity. Failure of its disciples to realise their error results in their condemnation for they are just like any unbeliever who has rejected Jesus Christ's gift of salvation. They have twisted and denied the absolute truth of God's instructions for the philosophy of men; they have rejected the divinity of Christ, making themselves deities who ride on the coattails of their fortune – amassed from forcible tithing – which is their pantheon; and they have obeyed the Satanic and Antichrist spirit that resides in their churches rather than being led by the Holy Spirit who should reside in their body which is God's temple.

To the apostate Laodicean church, Jesus has given this admonition: repent. The Saviour of the world says, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hears my voice, and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne” (Rev.3:20).

Apostasy rising (Part 1)

2010-09-11T14:34:00.000-07:00

By KT and The Whyman

Scripture in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 says that there will be a great falling away from faith in Jesus Christ in the last days. This is the apostasy that Paul warns will take place before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. (Some scholars interpret the word Aposticia in this verse to be the falling out of the way of believers, i.e. in the Rapture, which is an alternative interpretation.)

The apostasy is characterised by people who will not endure sound doctrine but will have itching ears and heap to themselves teachers that will fulfill their own lusts. We are living in the last days where many in the mainstream and denominational churches are following doctrines of men rather than the Bible. Sadly, the apostate church is a reality even in Evangelical and Pentecostal churches today.

Jesus Christ calls the apostate church the church of the Laodiceans. In Revelation 3:14-19, He tells the apostle John, “And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot: I would that you were cold or hot. So then because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spit you out of my mouth. Because you say, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and know not that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel you to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that you may be rich; and white raiment, that you may be clothed, and that the shame of your nakedness does not appear; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.”

The following lists (but not exhaustively) the types of doctrines, practices and rituals that an apostate or Laodicean church teaches its congregation to follow.

First of all, success seminars are taught on the premises of some Evangelical churches as if they were the rosetta stone of biblical doctrine. Multicultural events are held on their church stages in support of the New Age interfaith unity and ecumenicism that are creeping surreptitiously into evangelicalism and churchianity. Thence, these churches compromise the essentials of the Christian faith for a watered-down ecumenical message of unity among denominations and religions. Prominent proponents of this New Age inter-faith unity are Rick Warren and Leonard Sweet.

Furthermore, by welcoming cross-cultural events into the Church premises, their leaders are permitting other religious rituals, prayer icons and worship vestures that contain demonic symbolisms and origins that will desecrate God's holy place of worship. These are also the churches that tend to teach a social gospel (doing good works like feeding the poor and cooperating in community health, environmental and infrastructural projects) in place of, or to supplant, the gospel of salvation which is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ.

John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church, was very direct about the church's role in winning souls: "You have nothing to do but to save souls. Therefore spend and be spent in this work. And go always, not only to those that want you, but to those that want you most. Observe: It is not your business to preach so many times, and to take care of this or that society; but to save as many souls as you can; to bring them to repentance, and with all your power to build them up in holiness without which they cannot see the Lord."

Second, many who call themselves evangelicals embrace the Replacement theology that posits that the Church today fulfills the promises that have been given to natural Israel by God without condition. They say there is no future Kingdom on earth from Jerusalem and that natural Israel will not be restored on earth. This makes the God of the Bible a capricious one who doesn't keep His Word.

Then there are the churches that have embraced the Kingdom Now/Reconstruction/Dominion theology, which rejects the literal reading of unfulfilled prophetic Scripture and replaces it with a strange doctrine that is not taught in the Bible. For instance, they purport that the Church will rule on earth before Jesus can return. What's more, the Prosperity gospel believers worship the idol of money and care more about their building programs than the evangelism of the lost. These are known as the 'name it and claim it' prophets who teach with hubris that "if you believe it you will receive it". Among the proponents include the congregations belonging to the New Apostolic Reformation.

The apostate church is one that has bought into the seeker-friendly and Purpose-driven church growth movement. This is the third characteristic of a post-modern heretical church of the Laodicean age. Its reprobate leadership is frequently found using paraphrases of the Bible that twist Scripture and The Message Bible is a favourite. The leaders generally envisage the Church ruling on earth before Jesus' return, and they teach that studying future Bible prophecy is a distraction. To be all-inclusive and to reach non-believers, they have made their Sunday worship service a time to entertain with loud bands, mini skits and disco-style décor, instead of following the apostle Paul's instruction for them to feed the flock, worship God and provide the message of the true way to salvation to the lost.

Their Purpose-driven philosophy is a combination of Scripture mixed with Jungian Psychology and business success strategy hot on the heels of Napoleon Hill and Andrew Carnage. Creeds are replaced by deeds, God's purpose for our life by their man-made purpose in life, and sound doctrines by the goals of ecumenicalism. Their teaching of the Word is superficial and focuses on milk for babes just to fill their pews with a constant flow of new converts. In-depth and real Bible study is replaced with the study of quarterly magazines about Bible passages and applications for living, books by men like Charles Colson and Rick Warren, and The Prayer of Jabez, and courses like the Alpha course, The Dream Giver and the global P.E.A.C.E. Plan.

Twilight and other snippets

2010-08-22T15:40:00.000-07:00

The following were first posted on Facebook, dated between October, 2008 and January, 2009.

No scary bits!

My husband and I recently watched Twilight, which, in a nutshell, was dull – child's play, really – with nary a scary moment. Aside from the forced acting by the top-billed, and camp dialogue bordering on stage-struck from the minor cast, clichés abounded: figures in isolation thrust upon an isolated setting as helpless vampire prey, philosophical posturing by conflicted vampires bemoaning their unnatural bloodlust, unrealised longings that not even glorious immortals could obviate. To top it all was a thin plot lacking a focus, non sequiturs that evince logic sacrificed on the altar of immortality, a contrived but inchoate ending, and, most troubling, an adolescent vampire who, despite having sailed with the ebb and flow of centuries of pop culture, appeared time capsuled and unable to make the crossover from Debussy to Duffy. Oy vey – even the 500-year-old Lestat, of The Vampire Chronicles fame, could score himself a review in Hit Parade! And that's scary.

Beware of watermelons bearing gifts

They are deceptively innocuous, they are eye candy, and they promise a cleaner, greener environment. But for a while now the former Labour government, with Green leading the charge, had been foisting on the unsuspecting consumer products with the potential to inflict grievous harm. I am talking about energy-saving light bulbs, not watermelons. Research has uncovered the certainty of mercury leakage and poisoning when one unwittingly handles these bulbs after they break and are carelessly discarded. Now shouldn't there be a warning of this on the packaging and instructions for their correct disposal? Devoid of this is tantamount to acts of negligence by the hucksters. Yet the watermelons (red socialists in green environmentalists clothing) are trying to make the regular bulbs obsolete. When did coercion become an ism of free market economies? Just ask China.

Apparel Angst (a.k.a. 'What's eating KT?')

New Year is a time for that once-a-year wardrobe weeding and airing of unmentionables that have become unwearable. I feel that I should streamline my apparel some more to keep it simple and maintain a uniform style for all occasions. I'm leaning towards revisiting the 60s (I've been inspired by my favourite Twist 'n' Turn Barbie), but the mini can be vicious towards ample thighs and knees (although the problem isn't something opaques can't camouflage, is it?). And so hard to part with my dandy blazer and last season's leggings – I mean, how do you meld these with a 60s portmanteau? The thing is that you can update a throwback but it's harder to retrograde a classic. I may just have to let menopause segue me out of these outfits until they're rife for the recycling bin. Only problem is, by this time I'd look pitiful in vintage Mary Quant. And this, folks, is what's eating KT.

Can the scientist and the priest be best friends?

That religion and science are mutually exclusive is a false dichotomy. The fact is that science (both operational and origins) as we know it today owes its foundation and flourish to dozens of individuals who professed their belief in the Word of God and saw no contradiction between holy writ and their observations of the universe. Among these luminaries are Newton, Pascal, Morse and Fleming. Today, we can read about many hundreds of qualified specialists in their respective fields – biochemistry, archaeology, geology, cosmology, paleontology, et. al. – who are rejecting Darwinian evolution in favour of their observations of nature which corroborate the Genesis record that God created the universe less than ten thousand years ago. It is now also science that has put the final nail in the coffin of the evolution-vs-creation debate. The discovery of the DNA has shown conclusively that mutation causes loss of information which would necessarily entail a devolution, and not an evolution, of the species.

Refuting Janet Porter and Dominionism

2010-06-10T20:08:00.000-07:00

This is written in reference to Janet Porter's article.

By KT and The Whyman

Half-truths, strawman arguments, ad hominem attacks and even projection abound in this article, which is a shame given the usual standard of work by Janet Porter. Either it is poorly researched or more realistically, there is a conflict of interest on her part, so she is bound to write in less than accurate terms. To top it off, Janet Porter insinuates that those who disagree with her aren't actual Christians at all by putting quotation marks around the label, as if she were qualified to judge the salvation of another.

First of all, contrary to Porter's accusations, many of us on the Christian Right -- who are not caught up in the Dominionist, New Apostolic Reformation and Emergent Church Movements -- are not 'Cultural Nazis' who are passive about the decay of culture as evidenced by gay marriage, abortion, euthanasia, the assault on God's precepts and values in education, in the judiciary, and in what goes on in the public square, caused by Darwinism and moral relativism. Neither is Sarah Leslie, had Porter bothered to investigate into her credentials. For one only needs to survey several blogs and sites to realize that Porter is deceived and deceiving with her deliberate misrepresentation.

Therefore, her assertion that the Christian Right are 'Cultural Nazis' is an inflammatory ad hominem and without merit. If that were true, what are we, then, to make of Dominionism, which, according to its own agenda, entails the change of society through coercion and manipulation, and even force, as opposed to the biblical directive of the peaceful preaching of the Gospel through reason and persuasion. In all honesty, then, who are the real Cultural Fascists?

Second, Porter wrote: "Being salt and light in a dark and decaying culture isn't their concern: Let the culture and the Constitution rot, for all they care; they're awaiting the rapture." This is ignorance of Scripture, Discernment Ministries and many on the Christian Right, at best, and an utter fabrication, at worst.

The Bible says, "Seek first the Kingdom of God" and "Go ye into the world and make disciples of all nations." Christians who obey the above commands (to teach about sin, repentance and salvation) come under the Dominionist's verbal assault with claims that they do not care about the prevailing cultural and constitutional rot. In fact, Porter makes an eisegetical overreach by asserting that we must show we care about the prevailing social ills by participating in their remedy, not realizing that we already do this since the root cause is always sin. On the other hand, participating in cultural change aside from preaching the true Gospel (1 Corinthians 15:1-4) is an example of a 'social gospel' which is the agenda of the Dominionist and the Emergent Church Movements such as the P.E.A.C.E. plan of Rick Warren. They seem to be averse to the idea of Jesus' literal return to establish a kingdom by His rule and culture, as taught in Scripture, and vehemently attack anyone who teaches this.

Contrary to Porter's assertions, and the beliefs of Dominionists, the New Apostolic Reformation, and their ilk, it is Christ who will set up His own Kingdom with a new culture based on His character. We cannot change culture by engaging in a war on the public square unless we impart the message of sin and salvation in the death and resurrection of Christ, which is the Gospel message. By teaching the Gospel message, we can address the root of the problems of society, which is sin, and individuals can then repent of their sin, which in turn leads to changed lives, and this results in cultural change. However, what Porter is advocating is treating the symptoms through engaging in a cultural revolution, and ignoring the cause, that is sin. Apart from attaching a Jesus-label on it, how is this different from the humanist or naturalist approach to addressing the problems of society?

Therefore, cultural change begins through the transformational power of the Holy Spirit in the repentant individual.

Last, but not least, Porter's assessment that those opposed to Dominionism are "legalists" rings hollow and smacks of, not just irony, but also, hypocrisy. For consider the Dominionists' aim, which is to establish the Kingdom of God through their own efforts as opposed to the Grace of God bought for us by the blood of the Lord, Jesus Christ.

Indeed, the Bible doesn't teach us to engage in cultural imperialism and world domination as Janet Porter appears to pride herself for doing. The Bible does, however, teach that a special crown awaits those who look forward to Christ's return. In light of this, it is a better preoccupation to invest some of our time in the latter - and this includes "waiting for the rapture" (Titus 2:13). Yet, Porter's implication that we are resting on our eternal laurels "awaiting the rapture" is, like the rest of her rant, mere histrionic that has no basis in reality. Excluding the cultists and whackos, most Bible-believing Christians are not all sitting on their laurels on some remote mountain in the Himalayas waiting for the Lord to snatch them away: on the contrary, it has been documented that many Christians who adhere to the imminence of the Coming of Jesus are more likely to be invested in people's souls and eternal destiny, especially among the Jewish people, making the Great Commission a priority in their lives.

Therefore, let us please dispense with the fallacious strawmen that only result in further misinformation, fracturing and division within the body of Christ, which is precisely what the enemy wants?

On the plus side, Janet Porter did supply a link so that people can weigh and consider for themselves. Nevertheless, it would do well for her (and others) to look into the actual claims - in context - before jumping to conclusions and making knee-jerk comments based on half-grasped data.

It isn't uncommon for dominionists to (erroneously) claim that "we are so heavenly minded, that we are of no earthly worth" - but even if this were true, it would be preferable than to be so worldly minded that it is of no heavenly worth; it's something to ponder.

Now for the other side of the story, Sarah Leslie addresses this "'Christians' for the Separation of Church and State?" article here and in an audio interview here.

Also, for more on Dominionism and the New Apostolic Reformation, click here.

Making Israel look bad from the PR standpoint

2010-06-08T16:01:00.000-07:00

The incident aboard the Mavi Marmara on the pretext of humanitarian activism, was ostensibly a set up to draw sympathy for the Palestinian cause and solidify international hatred of Israel, further isolating this tiny nation state that is the apple of God's eye.

This is our take on why there exists a global hatred for Israel (this is edited from a previous post in this blog).

A universal disdain for Israel
by KT and The Whyman

The world has hated Israel from antiquity for Satan has hated Israel from her beginning. This hatred was spawned in antediluvian times at the Garden of Eden, where in a serpent's disguise, he first tempted man and caused the first sin to be committed. It was immediately after the first rebellion that God foretold of the devil's destruction with the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ who would defeat him on the cross. God had told the serpent, the devil: “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Gen. 3:15).

However, the devil in his prideful conceit believed that he could yet foil God's prophetic plans by destroying the ancient Israelites. For if he could destroy Israel, the promised seed, Jesus Christ, who was to come out of Israel's loins, would not germinate. Of course, Satan lost. Because the Israelites, with God's protection, could not be annihilated despite the barrage of attempts by the devil to do so, first, in the form of the Nephilim, that tried to contaminate the human gene pool through the interbreeding of fallen angles and daughters of men; next in the form of the Amalekites, who tried to prevent the Jews from settling in the Promised Land by slaughtering their women and children and polluting them with their false idolatry and child sacrifices; and later in the form of the series of battles with tribes such as the Philistines, Hittites and Edomites that tried unsuccessfully to suppress her civilisation and culture from thriving. Finally in the intertestament centuries preceding Jesus' birth, Satan tried but failed yet again to destroy Israel through her captivity by the Babylonians, the Medo-Persians and the Romans that had exiled her from the Promised Land.

Throughout history Israel has been the object of the devil's mission of annihilation and the world's nations have been the unknowing pawns. The mission to destroy Israel continued in the modern century in the devil's use of Hitler's Jewish pogrom and holocaust. However, if anything, the Jewish diaspora vivified their leaders to form the Zionist movement which would lead to the nation's rebirth in 1948. Today the devil is using the Arabs and their Islamist jihad to prevent God's prophecies for Israel and the world from coming to pass.

Satan has been defeated by Jesus on the cross, but his final defeat is yet to come. And he knows it too well for he hears the footsteps of the Messiah's Second Coming only too loudly. Prophecy foretells of the Messiah's Second Coming who will descend on the Holy Land (on the Mount of Olives) to destroy Satan's armies. This is the reason the devil is leaving no stones unturned to annihilate Israel, for without Israel's existence as a nation, he believes that the Messiah will not be able to fulfill His prophetic Second Coming. But once again Satan will realise how nutty he is to think he can foil Almighty God's foolproof prophecy.

Israel may be under worldwide condemnation but the worst is still to come, in which the world and Israel will become embroiled in an extended Middle East conflict. Prophecy tells of a coming war that consists of an Arab confederacy of nations against Israel which will see the tiny Jewish nation record a resounding victory and expand her borders after many of these Arab territories will be ceded to her (Psalm 83). After that will come the Russian-Iranian led showdown with Israel called the Gog-Magog war (Ezekiel 38). All these must take place first before the final battle at Armageddon is waged between the armies of Jesus Christ and those of the world led by Satan, and this time the devil will be thoroughly defeated once and for all (Revelation 16).

It's true that Israel is not perfect. Secular Israel too are sinners and in need of the Lord Jesus – their Meshiach Nagid's forgiveness. These coming conflicts are a part of God's plans to bring them to repentance and recognition of Jesus as their Messiah. For it is written that Jesus will only return when the Jews call upon their Messiah.The Jews are the ones through whom God has chosen to give us the Bible and have provided many scientific breakthroughs for the benefit of the whole earth. God prophesied that Israel has a vital role to play in these last days culminating in the defeat of Satan, death and sin, and so the devil hates the Jews with a passion.

It is written that Satan influences world trends including the lies and distortion of facts that most media groups tell the public about God's chosen people. Major news groups are guilty of fabricating and altering footage to make Israel look bad (in this case, as evident from the IHH release of photos of IDF commandos being assailed by the passengers aboard the Mavi Marmara).

There is no other logical reason why the Jews are hated and misrepresented this much in spite of their history, temerity, and world contribution, than that these demonically-controlled nations and people share the devil's hatred of Israel, and so ignore, distort and re-write history to make the Jews out to be a nation deserving condemnation and extinction.

For a history of the Gaza blockade, see here.

Evidence against 'Annihilationism'

2010-04-26T00:58:00.000-07:00

By The Whyman

“He is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him” (Luke 20:38).

There are two extremes that are used by Satan to distort the Biblical doctrine of the afterlife:

Spiritism teaches everyone has an afterlife in heaven, so it doesn't matter at all what you believe here on earth. Within this is the belief that we can contact the dead. Those who die have not really passed on into another place away from earth, but they are living in the spirit world, a world which is a dimension right here on earth which we cannot see. In other words, they are among us, they are watching and helping us. The Bible clearly denies this by showing that there are two destinations in the afterlife, and makes it absolutely clear that we cannot contact them and they cannot contact us (Luke 16 & Deuteronomy 18:10-12).

The other extreme is Darwinian evolution, that this is all there is and that there is no afterlife, so we needn't consider what happens when we die. This is what atheism teaches, that there is no eternality to our soul and we all just go back to the ground since that's what we're made of and there is no spirit or soul in man.

The Jehovah's Witnesses' teaching is quite similar to this since they believe that when you die both the soul and body are extinguished, the body taking longer to cease to exist, yet the soul is immediately snuffed out. Atheism also believes in annihilationism. The Devil, who invents these views, will use both ends to distort the truth with just a hint of truth to make it palatable.

First, let's look at annihilationism; the general idea is that when someone dies their personality and life is (somehow) inseparably united with the body so that it ceases to exist. This occurs not only with believers, but also with non-believers and even with Jesus, so God has to re-fashion everyone by memory. This view doesn't see the distinction between body, soul and spirit.

What we're actually dealing with here is re-creation. What they have is not a resurrection, because the individual's body and soul are carbon copied to exist later. The original person no longer exists and instead a cloned being has taken his place! Of course, none of this is a biblical answer for how God deals with the after life of the soul, the spirit and the body.

Mysteries Revealed

We need to understand that there are a number of mysteries in the Bible that were not fully revealed until Christ came. This doctrine comes under the heading of 'progressive revelation'. There are a great many things concealed in the Old Testament, being given only in part and revealed in more complete detail the New Testament. What most people do is look to the Old Testament Scriptures to validate annihilationism such as "For the living know they shall die: but the dead know not any thing"; or Psalm 146:4, "His spirit departs, he returns to the earth; in that very day his thoughts perish"; or Psalm 115:17, "The dead do not praise the Lord, nor any who go down into silence"; or Psalm 6:5, "For in death there is no remembrance of Thee; in the grave who shall give Thee thanks? And of course, Ezekiel 18:4, "the soul that sinneth, it shall die.”

By isolating these Old Testament scriptures from the rest of the Word of God some people make their case that death is a “sleep” for the soul.

When someone does a study on this or any other subject, they need to take all the body of literature and weigh it out and see which covenant these things were spoken under: is it a metaphor, is it a hyperbole, is it poetic? To make biblical sense out of this serious issue, we need to look at all of the relevant scriptures of that particular subject.

Because this is not just a spirit sleeping, waiting for the resurrection that is being promoted, this doctrine actually affects other crucial doctrines, such as eternal punishment and eternal life.

Soul-Sleep

Let's look at the word “sleep”, because that's what's crucial here. What does sleep mean? The Bible uses this term when speaking of death in that the physical body, a dead body, looks very similar in this state. It's always referring to the physical body and never the soul. It is the appearance of the body that is sleeping, for no one is able to see the spirit . It is also a term used exclusively for believers.

This is a crucial point. The term sleeping, in reference to death, is not used for unbelievers. I find that to be crucial in understanding what the Bible is trying to portray to us when it says that the dead in Christ are “sleeping”.

Believers and unbelievers do not experience the same afterlife

Why would God allow a believers spirit to go to the same place as a non believer ? He didn’t do this before the resurrection of Christ (see Luke 16). Now we are told paradise is in heaven and we are to be with the Lord, so it is illogical, not to mention unbiblical to think that we are to all sleep in the grave until a resurrection - what “sleeps” therefore is the body, what stays alive is man's spirit which was created in God’s likeness and contains the qualities that God gave man to be similar to Himself.

The Bible is very clear that the spirit can live outside the body. Angels can and do function outside a body and yet, they can also function within a physical body. (Angels physically dragged Lot out of the city.) We see they (the fallen ones) can possess people and actually there can be more than one spirit or fallen angels inside a body. Although this alone does not make a strong case for a continuation of an afterlife, it does show that a spirit can operate and function outside the body.

Examples from Scripture

There are numerous passages that teach that humans are conscious after their death, such as Matthew 17:1-8 and Luke 9:28-36 where we find Moses and Elijah appearing on the Mount with Jesus and a few of His disciples. Elijah was taken to heaven alive while Moses died a physical death, yet, Moses is consciously alive just like Elijah. Moses couldn't have been resurrected because Christ is to be the firstfruits of the resurrection and He hadn't risen yet. While Christ raised many from the dead they were people that recently died, not old Testament saints dead for hundred of years. There were others raised to life on earth by Jesus only to die again later. (So technically these cases weren't a 'resurrection', but rather a 'resuscitation' since resurrection bodies are perfected and therefore immortal.) But, here is someone who is dead for 1,500 years, so it isn't Moses' decomposed body brought back out of the ground as a resurrection; this was a spiritual appearance.

Paul himself in 2 Corinthians 12:1-4 stated, fourteen years before, that he was caught up to the third heaven. This is the place where God dwells. He called this place Paradise and he was awed by the experience and the things that he heard but, he wasn't sure if this occurred in his body or without his body, so he wasn't sure if he was alive or dead when this event occurred. Now obviously, his corruptible body could not enter heaven since all must go through transformation to be able to function there. Mortal flesh is unable to enter heaven, as Jesus said; flesh and blood cannot enter, so there has to be some kind of transformation to enter in there.

Also in Philippians 1:23-24, Paul states that he desires to depart to be with Christ, which is far better. Then Paul goes on to say, “nevertheless, to be in the flesh is more needful for you,” so he wanted to stay to help out the saints in the church and fulfill his ministry.

We also find in 2 Peter 1:13, Peter talking about putting off his tabernacle, or tent, calling it a temporary dwelling place. James 2:26 tells us the body without the spirit is dead. He doesn't say the spirit also dies, he says the body without the spirit dies.

In Genesis 35:18, speaking of Rachel, it tells us, her soul was departing and she died. The spirit exists afterwards and gives us life, but when he leaves the body it dies. The body dies and goes back into the ground, yet the spirit continues on.

Ecclesiastes 12: 6-7 describes (in poetry) the shattering of life, that the dust returns to earth, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Yet context is important as earlier, in verse 5, Solomon writes, "Man goes to his eternal home and mourners go about the streets.”

So Solomon is speaking about those who turn to God as he started off this chapter, stating, "Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before difficult days come”. And then he speaks about our eternal home. If it is sleep in the grave, as people are claiming, then to be consistent that means we are going to stay in the grave, the ground, forever. Of course, that is not what it means or says.

In Hebrews 9:27 we read, “After death comes the judgment”; in other words one goes either to heaven or to hell, and it is determined at death, not afterwards. So we go to rewards, to rest, or to punishment and eternal separation. Death is not a “cessation” of existence, but a “separation” of existence; that is the very meaning of the word 'death' in fact.

We were made to be immortal

Paul writes, in 1 Corinthians 15: this mortal will put on immortality, speaking of the resurrection of our bodies, not our spirit. Likewise, in 1 Timothy 6:16, he's speaking of Jesus as the immortal God/man. Spirit, by its own nature, is a deathless entity. God is spirit, and so are angels. God fashioned man in the image of Himself, and, while God has always existed, no beginning or end, he has given mankind a limited similarity, like Himself, something that lives on.

While the body is described as mortal the soul is never described in these terms. Paul states this mortal must put on immortality, speaking of a resurrected body just as Peter said, in 2 Peter 1:13, to put off this tent as a temporary dwelling. In Romans 6:9 we learn: "Knowing that Christ having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over him." Therefore 1 Tim. 6:16 means he alone has immortality as his nature and being the first fruit raised in the resurrection.

In Revelation 6:9-10, we see souls who have been slain, under the altar of God, asking the Lord to avenge them. We find they are conscious and they are speaking. The soul and personality of each one of us lives on. Jesus taught, in Matthew 10:28, “Fear not those who kill the body but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Again the Bible teaches a distinction between the body, soul and spirit.)

1 Thessalonians 5:23 is also an important scripture in this regard: “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.)

Judgment results

The Greek word for “destruction”, aplollumi, has numerous meanings. We have to look at the context it's put in. It can mean perish, lost, destroy, to render useless, or to give over to eternal misery, and I believe that is the correct rendition when we look at where he's saying the soul will be in the afterlife of those who do not come to Christ in repentance for their sins.

In Matthew 25:46, there are those in the judgment who go into everlasting punishment and those who go into everlasting life. The same Greek word means eternal and forever. If there is no eternal punishment, then the same word that is applied for eternal life means there is no eternal life, ever. So the Greek, appropriated to both these places that are destined for those who either believe or not believe, means eternal. Likewise in Luke 16, that recounts the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Jesus always used real-life situations to illustrate His teachings. In this account it's not a mere parable, for the very reason that He actually names a person, which He does not do in His parables.

The New Covenant has revealed what was unclear in the Old Testament writings. 2 Corinthians 4:16 & 18 tell us that "though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." Now here, Paul applies the outer man to the temporal and the tabernacle we live in, and the inner man to the eternal. In the following verse he states, "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

Here is the scripture that is often neglected and, put in context, we find it fully elaborating on the continual existence of man (2 Corinthians 5:1-8). He sums it all up in verse 8 saying, we are always confident knowing that while we are home in the body we are absent from the Lord. And he goes on to say to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. When all our earthly tent is dissolved, we can be assured that we will be in the presence of the One we serve and we love here on earth We will be further clothed. This is the Scripture that is consistently neglected, ignored and overlooked unanswered by those who promote “soul-sleep.”

Likewise, in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17, we are told that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in Him. Then he states, those who are alive will not precede those who have fallen asleep. The Lord from heaven will come down with a trumpet call and the dead in Christ will rise first. And then those who are alive will be caught up together with them in the air with the Lord forever.

Since the resurrection did not occur before this event, who is Jesus bringing with him from heaven? They don't have bodies, the resurrection hasn't occurred, so they are immaterial souls that will be united with their perfected bodies at this resurrection event. They existed fellowshipping with the Lord in heaven. Jude says the Lord comes with ten thousands of His saints. Paul describes this event in 1 Corinthians 15:51, "Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed". When? At the last trump. The dead are raised incorruptible, and then he goes on to describe that mortal will put on immortality. So he's talking about our bodies. Then death, he states, is swallowed up in victory; our souls are not dead because we were made alive in Christ.

Romans 8:11 says, “But if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who dwells in you.”

There is a day of uniting with those who fell asleep in Christ, when their bodies will be transformed and live forever, and the hope of the believer is that, whether we live or die, we are to be with the Lord. It is stated in the Scriptures, “I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, death, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Is 'spirit' merely 'breath' or is taking

Text out of context pretext for prooftext?

Now let us address the argument that some claim the spirit is just another word for breath since this is what the Hebrew word Ruach means. That is, when someone dies, their breath leaves them. Let us substitute the word breath where Spirit is and see if it makes any sense scripturally?

Matthew 12:43 states: When an unclean Breath, (spirit) 'goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none.' Just as man can have the Holy Spirit live within him alongside his human Spirit so (the unsaved) can have an unclean spirit live in him.

Luke 4:36: “What a word this is! For with authority and power He commands the unclean Breaths, (spirit) and they come out.”

Acts 5:16: “Bringing sick people and those who were tormented by unclean Breath,” (spirit), and they were all healed.” Jesus cast out spirit entities not people's breath.

James 5:20: “Let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a Breath, (soul) from death and cover a multitude of sins.” Can breath be saved or a sentient person?

2 Peter 2:8: “... (for that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous Breath, [spirit] from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds)”.

Ezekiel 18:4: “Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine; the soul that sinneth, it shall die.” Can breath die? Obviously this means something other than just air in the lungs.

1 Samuel 30:6: “... because the soul (breath?) of all the people was grieved.”

Numbers 21:4: “... and the soul (breath?) of the people became very discouraged on the way.”

Proverbs 21:10: “The soul (breath?) of the wicked desires evil”. Can breath do any of these things, or rather is scripture communicating will, emotion, intelligence and personality?

Pnuema means wind in Greek; it also means breath and spirit. Ruach in Hebrew means wind; it too also can mean breath and spirit. Since Hebrew and Greek have only one word for wind breath and spirit one needs to discern what is meant by certain passages. The context defines the meaning.

Elaborating on 'death'

The term “death” which is “thanatas” in Greek, does not mean to be non-existent or unconscious, it rather means to be separated. Since this is the Biblical definition, any other application is erroneous and must be discarded as such. And as always, context is critical:

Colossians 2:13: “And when you were dead (separated from God-NOT “unconscious”) in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh ...”

Ephesians 2:1: “And he made you alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins.” This is addressing the spiritual state of someone who was in sin and then made alive spiritually in Christ. (Also Revelation 3:1.) The unregenerate are spiritually dead but they are not unconscious or non-existent.

The prodigal son, in Luke 15:24, is said by the Father that “this my son was dead and is alive again.” Jesus was not talking about a bodily or soul resurrection in this context but of one who left fellowship with the father.

Jesus in Matt. 26:38: Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death.” He was not saying his soul was going to die and go to sleep.

Jesus, in Luke 23:46, said to the Father, “Into your hands I commit my spirit”. This clearly shows He is having his spirit received into the Father's hands while his body is to be laid in the tomb. This is the very same thing Stephen states in Acts 7:59, “Stephen cried unto the Lord, saying, 'receive my spirit.'”

Revelation 6:9-11: “And when He broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained; and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, 'How long, O Lord, holy and true, wilt Thou refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?'And there was given to each of them a white robe; and they were told that they should rest for a while longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brethren who were to be killed even as they had been, should be completed also.” Notice the timing is at the fifth seal. God gave them white robes and they were told to wait for the rest of their brethren who would be killed. This consummates in Revelation 7:9-15, where they are gathered before the throne of God serving him day and night in his temple. Yet again, this would be impossible if one is asleep or out of existence.

The Bible therefore teaches “death” is not a cessation of existence, but a separation of existence. The soul is our intellect, our personality, our identity. The real person will live on.

“... For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, who formerly were disobedient ...” (1Peter 3: 18-20).

“... But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Therefore He says: "When He ascended on high, He led captivity captive, And gave gifts to men." (Now this expression, "He ascended" - what does it mean except that He also had descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things" - Ephesians 4: 7-10).

Conclusion

All the Old Testament passages need to be interpreted through the New Testament revelation. Without the New Testament teaching what was unrevealed in the Old Testament would stay a mystery as Paul states in 1 Corinthians 15:51: “Behold I tell you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.” He was speaking of the resurrection of the body.

Other revealed mysteries not made clear by isolating verses from the Old Covenant are found in Matthew 13:11, 35; Romans 16:25; I Corinthians 2:7; Ephesians 3:4-5 and 3:9 – these Scriptures give us a definition of a mystery as something that was unrevealed in the Old Testament and now revealed for the first time in the New Testament.

Heaven was not explained in the Old Testament, the immortality of man, the resurrection to eternal life, the forgiveness of sins as permanent. There is the New Testament mystery of the revelation of God in Christ, and the triune nature of God.

1 Timothy 3:16 - “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifested in the flesh.” None of these were explained until we had New Testament revelation. Likewise so is the revealing of what actually transpires after death through the teaching of Christ and the apostles.

Post Script

Deductive Reasoning

And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him [was] called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes [were] as a flame of fire, and on his head [were] many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he [was] clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses Revelation 19:11-14).

Who is this “army”? The Bible already gives the answer a few verses earlier:

"Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready. And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints” (Revelation 19:7-8).

Furthermore scripture gives other descriptions of the Second coming with corroborating details which remove all doubt: “Thus the LORD my God will come, And all the saints with You” (Zechariah 14:5).

“And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints” (Jude 1:14).

Now, logically, the only way the saints can come with Christ when He returns is if they were present with Him before He returned which necessarily entails that Christians upon physical death live on in disembodied spirit states to meet Him in heaven (awaiting the resurrection when we receive our resurrection bodies) - just as Stephen and Paul said (Acts 7:59 & 2 Corinthians 5:6-8).

P.P.S.

I have deliberately not gone into great detail about the nature of hell and the lake of fire (there is a difference between the two) since it is closely tied with the above. For if I can establish the biblical reality of consciousness after physical death from the Bible (which I believe I have), then it follows that to remain consistent with the rest of scriptures which deal with hell and the lake of fire, one must believe those accounts as saying what they mean and meaning what they say as well.

Denial of the existence of hell and the doctrine of eternal punishment, is actually denial of the teachings of Jesus. Jesus affirmed that Jonah was swallowed by a fish, and He also affirmed that there was a flood that covered the whole earth, and He said that Adam and Eve were really created. So to be consistent and honest we must take His affirmative teaching on Hell as literal, too, if all these other teachings are literal. Any objections at this point (as past experience has taught me) would therefore be based on emotion (e.g. the alleged “unfairness” of hell or the erroneous concept of hell being “tortuous”) and not logic and/or Biblical-fact based.

However, for the sake of interest, I'll give an example from Jesus who made a most revealing comment in Matthew 11:24: "Nevertheless I say to you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for you."

Also, Luke 12:46-48 tells us the difference between servants who obeyed and disobeyed, where one will be given few stripes, another will be given many in punishment. For the Pharisees who took advantage of widows and showed off their religion publicly they will receive the greater condemnation.

Let us follow this logic: Punishment necessarily entails suffering and suffering necessarily entails consciousness. And furthermore it is logically impossible for someone to be more or less in a state of annihilation than Sodom, or receive more or less punishment in the form of unconsciousness than those Pharisees. Thus there cannot logically be degrees of annihilation in hell, which therefore necessarily makes the Biblical account literal.

As the cardinal rule of deductive reasoning says: “Once you have eliminated that which is impossible, that which remains, no matter how improbable (or unpopular) must be true!”

(Edited by KT.)

The author acknowledges LetUsReason.org for the use of selected material in this article.

Are you ready for the Rapture and Second Coming? (The race towards globalism)

2009-10-01T23:14:00.000-07:00

By KT and The Whyman

Prooftexts: Revelation 13, Matthew 24.

So much has been written, and is still being written, about the rise of globalism and the globalists' agenda, here on my blog, and also elsewhere on the W.W.W. See here for our previous posts on this very important subject.

Indeed, no other time besides the present, dubbed the time of the signs by noted Bible scholar, Chuck Missler, are prospects for coordination among the world’s globalists achieving the potential of total domination. We are also witnessing the rapid pace at which the whole world is hurling towards a global One-world Order that characteristically will embody a global economy, government and religion. We have written about the latter in a number of posts such as the following: here and here.

As an adjunct to the above linked posts, this final post related to our examination of end-times signs that point towards the imminence of the Rapture and Christ's Second Coming, will provide an update on current developments in economic and political globalism. A short instruction concerning the implication of these recent developments will conclude each point of this study.

Recent developments in economic globalism

We have no doubt the leaders of the developed world, the likes of U.S. President Barack Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and other leaders that are promoting a globalist agenda such as current and former U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton and Henry Kissinger respectively, are knowingly or unknowingly allowing themselves to be supernaturally used by the Spirit of Antichrist to move the world towards a New World Order (NWO). This global world order will ultimately place all of humanity under the governance of the Satan-empowered Antichrist.

Scripture describes an aspect of the economic scenario of the last days, a time called the Great Tribulation, when the entire world will be ruled by a totalitarian called the Antichrist:

“And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: and that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name” (Revelation 13:16 - 17).

We hold fast to the belief that the major economic crises of the world since the 1920s have occurred in order to nudge the world closer to the Bible scenario of Revelation 13. We believe that these crises have been the result of the successful manipulation of the monetary systems and currencies of the world by members of the pecuniary elite and other globalists such as the International Bankers, oil barons and multinational corporations. This elite cadre that includes the Bilderbergers, the Trilateral Commission, the Council on Foreign Relations, the International Monetary Fund and other economic oligarchs, operate in a cloak and dagger manner and employ Machiavellian deceit to create a crisis in a nation with the aim of introducing a solution to the crisis that they themselves have contrived. In this way, the cartel of globalist conspirators will have their 'troops' in all major countries or strategic areas in order to facilitate a New World Order takeover.

One takeover strategy is to engineer false financial collapses and then call for economic reforms that would solidify the NWO cartel's influence and power over the monetary systems of the world. An example of an economic reform is the elimination of the different countries' currencies to be replaced by a single global currency. This appears to be on top of the NWO globalists' agenda. Those who are keeping abreast of current world developments in the newspapers and Internet must surely be astonished by the barrage of news concerning the proposed adoption of a new international currency, also known as the One-world currency, to replace the U.S. currency. Read the latest news reports here, here, here and here.

According to economic policy analyst, Paul Craig Roberts, “For globalism to work, there needs to be a single currency and a single tax system.”

He's not alone. Other than bankers, an increasing number of economists, politicians and the media back the idea of a global currency. Roberts, et. al., are in concert in their beliefs that a single currency would eliminate the present problems of speculation, instability and uncertainty in the market by reducing the costs and risks of doing business in our growing world economy. A global currency would go a long way towards placing everyone on a 'level' playing field by removing the advantage of a few favoured countries whose currency is seen as more secure and by preventing the poor from being negatively impacted by currency fluctuations. Globalists believe that this would usher in economic justice in the world.

What these oligarchs may not realise, but most eschatology scholars are aware of, is that the adoption of the proposed One-world currency would ease the way towards the adoption of the Antichrist's Mark of the Beast in a future cashless society, as prophesied in Revelation 13 (quoted above). Accordingly, during the reign of Antichrist (in the Tribulation hour after the Rapture) all earth-dwellers must wear a mark under their skin, and those who refuse will pay with their lives or suffer economic deprivation.

To the many scoffers of Bible prophecies, of course, the coming Mark of the Beast is another conspiracy theory of right-wing extremists and "tinfoil hat" doomsday sayers. However, a study of developments in, and proclaimed purposes of, the technology of RFID chip may debunk this as mere scare-mongering and elevate the idea from being conjectural "theory" to solid, documented fact. The following headlines say it all:

Next step in H1N1 scare: Microchip implants

Businesses use RFID to track workers, pay for fewer hours

RFID tags get an intelligence upgrade

Cashless society with implanted microchip by 2017

Hence, current media headlines adduce that no longer is it inconceivable that in the last days Antichrist will command everyone who wants to participate in buying and selling in the global market to be implanted with a mark under the skin of their right hand or on their forehead to consolidate their allegiance to him. This mark may be a refinement of the present RFID microchip already being used as a surveillance device in some stores, supermarkets, pets and offices. Plans are also in the pipeline to implant biometric microchips, or Verichips, in the infirm and elderly, as well as in youth up to age 18, for tracking purposes. (How one is supposed to remove the tracking device after that age is a mystery.)

Recent developments in political globalism

Another reform gaining momentum is the race towards accepting or adopting a socialist system of government in place of the capitalist system. Ayn Rand's “Atlas Shrugged” (1957) predicts the demise of capitalists and industrialists culminating in societal collapse as governments increasingly assert control over all industry. But way before Rand's progressive magnum opus, the Bible in Revelation 13 already has foretold of a time when government coercion under a single dictator would temper not just industry but every aspect of life. This is the time of the Antichrist's worldwide reign:

“And the dragon stood on the sand of the seashore. Then I saw a beast coming up out of the sea, having ten horns and seven heads, and on his horns were ten diadems, and on his heads were blasphemous names. And the beast which I saw was like a leopard, and his feet were like those of a bear, and his mouth like the mouth of a lion And the dragon gave him his power and his throne and great authority. I saw one of his heads as if it had been slain, and his fatal wound was healed And the whole earth was amazed and followed after the beast; they worshiped the dragon because he gave his authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, 'Who is like the beast, and who is able to wage war with him?' There was given to him a mouth speaking arrogant words and blasphemies, and authority to act for forty-two months was given to him. And he opened his mouth in blasphemies against God, to blaspheme His name and His tabernacle, that is, those who dwell in heaven. It was also given to him to make war with the saints and to overcome them, and authority over every tribe and people and tongue and nation was given to him. All who dwell on the earth will worship him, everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain” (Revelation 13: 1-8).

The beast is the name given to the Antichrist in the Book of Revelation. During the latter half of the last seven years known as The Great Tribulation, which will take place after the Rapture of the church, Antichrist will unveil himself and for 3 1/2 years, he will assume world rule but one of a dictatorship. He will have enormous power since he will be endowed with Satan's authority, and he will be worshiped by a great many of the earth-dwellers left behind during that great and terrible Day of the Lord. He is also described as making war with the saints of Jesus Christ who will number in the millions; these are the Tribulation Saints who have converted to Christianity after the Rapture and refused to accept the Mark of the Beast. However, most of these saints will be beheaded for their belief.

Perhaps ten years ago it may have seemed like the imaginings of a schizophrenic mind to posit that the majority of the world's citizens would readily accept the rule of a coercive government over their lives. Today the story is vastly different. Individuals and nations for fear of terrorism have surrendered privacy and sovereignty for the sake of (perceived) security. If what we read in the news is any indication, the world's citizenry - bar those who regard themselves of the Right, lovers of freedom and liberty, and followers of Christ - would happily embrace Antichrist owing to his promises of security, prosperity and (false) world peace.

As a precursor, consider the unbridled manner in which so many sycophantic Americans today are fawning over their elected President, and applauding his socialist policies without critical scrutiny of the ramifications of passing these policies through Congress; consider also the left-leaning media that are willfully feigning ignorance of the dangers of those policies as they choose to be complicit in their implementation. Why, this socialist idolatry is taking grip of the rest of the world, too!

And we know, don't we, that the ideologies of the socialist mandate aren't too far removed from totalitarianism: surrendering of the individual will, of economic resources and rationalisation, and of ownership of private property and wealth, to a centralised government. We can picture Antichrist gleefully administering his narcissistic brand of interventionism and control over his Satan-deceived dominion when the time comes.

What this means for the world

Change is in the air. People have been feeling this and talking about it for the last two years. Unfortunately, as more and more are beginning to realise, this change has not been for the better but for the worse.

Globalism, increase in cataclysmic incidents such as hurricanes, tsunamis and earthquakes, wars and rumours of wars, the climate in a state of flux – these are signs that the God of this earth, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, has said in Matthew 24 would take place before His return.

The Meshiach-Nagid, Yeshua (Messiah-King, Jesus) is coming back, first to rapture the true church and then to establish His Millennial Kingdom on earth. We have no doubt about this - it will happen in the generation which witnesses these signs taking place.

Are you ready for Messiah's return?

Call on Jesus' name for the forgiveness of your sins and be counted among the myriads whose names are found in the Lamb's Book of Life.

On the other hand, it will be exceedingly difficult to be a follower of Jesus Christ during the Great Tribulation for there is a strong likelihood that converts to Christ during the tribulation hour will be martyred under Antichrist's demonic reign: “And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed" (Revelation 13:15).

Maranatha!

Read more about Antichrist and the EU here.

Are you ready for the Rapture and Second Coming? (False prophets and religious globalism)

2009-09-13T01:58:00.000-07:00

Prooftexts: Matthew 24, Revelation 19 and 20, Revelation 3, John 14:6.

This millennium has unveiled several 'new' heretical movements led by popular 'Christian' leaders and authors, who in reality are false prophets masquerading as shepherds of the Body of Christ. Honing their heretical trades since the 1970s, these movements with their false prophets, who teach a gospel antithetical to the gospel of Jesus Christ, have been predicted in the Bible to spin a mighty deceptive web that will ensnare millions in the last days: "But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies" (2 Peter 2:1), and “For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect—if that were possible” (Matthew 24:24).

This is what the Word of God foretold about the popularity of false prophets:

“For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths” (2 Timothy 4:3 - 4).

In other words, false prophets teach unbiblical doctrines that stray from Scriptural principles. They teach heresies that are anathema to God's Word and truth. Some even make predictions about the future of the world that are proven to be false. Nevertheless, they are more popular than Biblical orthodoxy, particularly among the youth, the moral relativists and the liberal Christians who prefer a gospel that lends credence to their deviant lifestyle.

The heresies that are popular today are simply variations of the same heresies that have arisen throughout the history of the Church, from the time of the first-century church when the apostle Peter accurately observed her slide into heresy, and predicted that she would continue down through the Church Age to present times. Among the false doctrines and heresies prevalent this century are Gnosticism, Arianism, Universalism, Ecumenicism, and New Spirituality. Indeed many in today's mainstream and evangelical churches (Lutheran, Methodist, Calvary, Presbyterian, Anglican, et. al.) are voting to abandon Christian orthodoxy in favour of embracing the doctrines of demons including ordaining homosexuals into their leadership and allowing gays and women to teach from the pulpits.

In this article, I am going to delineate the heresies of the ecumenical and New Spirituality movements, which are the preponderance of post-modern movements responsible for infiltrating into many of today's churches their seductive and insidious false gospels and post-modern approach to truth and godliness that removes historic scriptural authority from their teachings. As well, I will mention the names of the leading false prophets of these movements. Finally, I will conclude with an exposition of the heretical movement known as the 'Mission of Maitreya'.

The Ecumenical and New Spirituality / Emerging Church Movements

In the guise of Christianity, these movements are being promoted and embraced in the Christian church by professing Christian teachers and authors such as Leonard Sweet, Brian McLaren and Rick Warren. Lately, even popular authors like Greg Laurie and Chuck Smith have been reported to have lent their support to the Emerging church / New Spirituality causes. Many of these Emerging church advocates, calling themselves leaders of the 'New Spirituality' (which has replaced the term 'New Age') or 'New Light', teach their congregations the belief that God is in everything – a New Age / New Spirituality teaching that has panentheistic tenets as its core apologetic.

The New Spirituality's latest assault on the Church is the farce of ecumenism which is promoted and glorified throughout the world. A Satanic system of lies built on the lie that all religions are equal and worship the same God, ecumenism is the post-modern substitute for Christian charity and teaches that all faiths should join together in unity regardless of doctrinal integrity. What used to be a Christian movement to unite all Christian denominations has become a worldwide interfaith campaign to fulfill the ecumenical efforts predicted in the Book of Revelation. Therefore cathedrals, stadiums and conferences are filling up with Muslim, Christian, Catholic, Baha'i, Jewish, Buddhist, and Hindu clerics, all praying together under one roof for a common worldwide peace and anti-terrorism initiative (perhaps I should use the PC term "Overseas Contingency Operation").

A leading proponent of this interfaith unity is Saddleback Church pastor, Rick Warren, and like the New Spirituality leaders who promote the 'all paths lead to the same God' credo, he is known to speak at conferences of interfaith leaders to implement his global P.E.A.C.E. plan, a plan not unlike the New Spirituality P.E.A.C.E. plan, and a plan that any discerning Christian will realise is sympathetic to a humanistic dominionist's aspiration. What's more, Warren doesn't appear to realize that salvation is not possible with God out of the picture, for Scriptures teach that only Jesus is the way to God.

Aside from teaching a poor theology, Rick Warren's Purpose-Driven Church Growth plan is also one of the avenues through which the heresy of New Spirituality is entering the Church. This movement borrows heavily from the meditative ideologies and practice of Buddhism and other practices of eastern mysticism, such as contemplative prayer, meditation and yoga.

The attempts of ecumenism, New Spirituality and the Emerging movement to build a bridge to all faiths and incorporate eastern mysticism in the Church are anathema to Christ for Jesus never taught that doctrine was unimportant or that there were many paths and they all led to the same God. In fact, Jesus taught that He was the only way to God (John 14:6). Jesus also taught that there would be a strong delusion before His Second Coming and this delusion is manifested in the movements of Brian McLaren, Rick Warren and Leonard Sweet.

The Mission of Maitreya

There is another movement deluding the world and it has been bringing together individuals from diverse denominations including Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, Oral Roberts University, the Roman Catholic Church and the Word-Faith Movement. This movement is in the process of syncretizing all denominational/religious groups via 'signs and wonders' to form a One-World church. It has been suggested that the leader of this movement will proclaim himself to be 'Christ returned' to lead this church of the New World Order. To many of his followers, his name is Lord Maitreya. The Buddhist Maitreya is variously known as the Muslim Mahdi, the Jewish Messiah and the Christian Christ, who is the one the world's religions await to usher in world peace.

To discerning believers, however, Maitreya is another false prophet; nevertheless there are scholars who opine that he is the perfect candidate to be the Antichrist or the False Prophet of Revelation 19 and 20. One reason for this is his purported new seal (see my central image above). The seal of Maitreya consists of the 666 (the number of the Beast) elements and is emblazoned with icons of some of the main religions of the world: the I-Ching, the Star of David, the Cross, the crescent moon, a nine-armed star, another Star of David with a rising sun, and a seventh sign meaning 'Pure Consciousness' with a swastika symbol in its center. The entire logo is called the Greatest Sign and belies an ambitious endeavour of Maitreya's followers to syncretize all the world's leading religious systems.

The Mission of Maitreya teaches that Jesus was simply one of a long line of prophets pointing a way to God, which is the reason the mission is embraced wholeheartedly by the New Age/ New Spirituality movement. Maitreya is credited for many of the world's sightings of wonders and signs such as weeping statues, crop circles, crosses of light and milk-drinking waters!

The leading proponent of the Maitreya Movement is Benjamin Creme.

What this means for the world

I have no doubt that we are living in the age the Lord Jesus Christ has called the Laodicean age (Revelation 3:14 - 17), which is the final Church Age characterised by the great apostasy. Total apostasy from God is a sign of the last days and it is inextricably bound with false prophets and the religions of cults and heresies. I fervently believe that the above are movements that are inexorably leading up to a universal religious system which will usher in a period of false peace, love and brotherhood under the leadership of a personality that they call the Christ, but we know from the Word of God is the Antichrist. In the last days Antichrist will assume totalitarian power in the world's political landscape to lead its global One-World government alongside his sidekick, the False Prophet, who will be the leader of the false One-World church (Revelation 19 and 20).

Therefore, we believers in the Body of Christ are exhorted to try every spirit to discern if it is true or false lest we are led to believe the lie of the spirit of this age: “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1).

Maranatha!

Are you ready for the Rapture and Second Coming? (Increase in knowledge)

2009-09-11T20:56:00.000-07:00

Prooftexts: Matthew 24, Daniel 12.

An aficionado of biblical Endtimes Theology since an adolescent, I have always held a fascination for the following prophecies which concern some last-days events.

In Matthew 24:23 - 31, Jesus described His Second Coming as an event witnessed by all the nations of the earth:

"At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'There he is!' do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time.

"So if anyone tells you, 'There he is, out in the desert,' do not go out; or, 'Here he is, in the inner rooms,' do not believe it. For as lightning that comes from the east is visible even in the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.

"Immediately after the distress of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other."

In the eleventh chapter of Revelation, during the period after the rapture of the church known as the Great Tribulation, God will send two witnesses to minister to the Jewish nation. Scholars of the Bible have variously speculated that the two witnesses may be Moses and Elijah. The two witnesses are foretold to die in the hands of Antichrist and their death witnessed by men from every tribe, nation and language.

In this chapter of Revelation we read: "'I (Jesus Christ) will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.'

"These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. If anyone tries to harm them, fire comes from their mouths and devours their enemies. This is how anyone who wants to harm them must die. These men have power to shut up the sky so that it will not rain during the time they are prophesying; and they have power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want.

"Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast (Antichrist) that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them. Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. For three and a half days men from every people, tribe, language and nation will gaze on their bodies and refuse them burial.

"The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and will celebrate by sending each other gifts, because these two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth.

"But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror struck those who saw them. Then they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, 'Come up here.' And they went up to heaven in a cloud, while their enemies looked on" (Revelation 11:3 - 12).

My fascination with these verses stemmed from my perplexity concerning the possibility of the whole earth's denizens' witnessing the Lord Jesus' coming in the clouds at the same time. Similarly how could it be possible for all the nations of the earth to witness the murder of the two witnesses of God, and then to gaze on the dead cadavers for three days? Is everyone alive during that time going to travel to Israel and become voyeuristic onlookers of this morbid event? Was the prophet John who penned the Revelation of the Lord being literal? Likewise, was Jesus Himself speaking in literal terms and not using allegory or hyberbole?

It wasn't until the dawning of the Computer Age that it all started to make sense, that the possibility of a literal understanding of these verses appeared less remote. It is also no coincidence that Daniel prophesied that during the time of the end, there would be an increase in knowledge:

"But you, Daniel, close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge" (Daniel 12:4).

I believe this is the time of the end according to the prophet, Daniel. This is the time of the increase of knowledge written about by Daniel thousands of years ago. Why has this increase in knowledge come about? The answer lies in the discovery of digital technology.

The onset of ICT due to the Computer Age has given us such technological wonders as the World Wide Web, Blackberry and the nano technology of the micro-handheld computer, so that we are able to access information on any topic at the touch of a finger. According to the President of Nokia Mobile phones, the new communications technologies and content services as well as the convergence of the Internet and mobile phone create freedom and possibilities as never seen before in the world. Add to this the barrage of information provided by the media on the Internet, radio and television on a daily basis, and we have become a people that rely on external digital and electronic sources of information to build our knowledge of the world around us. In addition, owing to continuing developments in technology we are also experiencing the convenience of rapid information access and the diversity of information available to us.

We have arrived at a brave new world of computer technology as never before has there been such an information overload that can be stored into a disk drive, some so tiny that we have a mobile library which we can carry around in the palm of our hand. Aside from these portable Internet libraries, the invention of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, means that we can be privy to an event happening anywhere in the world, and hear about or witness this event occurring in real time, usually without ever needing to get up from our armchairs. What's more, the emergence of networking information technology makes it possible for us to disseminate an array of information speedily and easily simply by uploading it to live feeds or podcasts in social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo. This has fewer administrative policy, bureaucratic protocol and corporate sponsorship restrictions than satellite television (back in the 70s prophecy scholars taught that this medium was the channel of information for the last days) since it is operated 24/7 by end-users and not professionals.

Why then is increase in knowledge useful in understanding the prophecies of Jesus Christ and Daniel? What does it mean for us?

Daniel's prophecy was to have remained sealed up until the time of the end. As delineated in Scripture, it is during the time of the end that there would be a knowledge explosion, the likes of which we are experiencing in this Computer and ICT Age, and this knowledge explosion will expedite the fulfillment of God's many prophecies given in the books of Daniel, Matthew and Revelation. Now more than in any other decade, modern information and communications technology is assisting the Body of Christ in our understanding of the literal fulfillment of prophecies.

Which means that it is not impossible to envisage that every remaining person on earth left behind during the Great Tribulation will witness the two prophets of God slain by Antichrist and rejoicing at their murder, only to wonder at their resurrection by God, three and a half days later. Neither is it a stretch of the imagination to envision the whole world witnessing the Lord Jesus' Second Coming all at the same time.

Whether it is via YouTube or Twitter, or through video images captured on your mobile phone, or as the result of some new technology yet to be foisted upon us, no one will be left in the dark when these prophecies come to pass. Images will be caught on some existing newfangled invention, one way or another. Dotcom technology, with God as its CEO, will see to that.

Maranatha!

Are you ready for the Rapture and Second Coming? (Anti-Semitism on the rise)

2009-08-19T01:37:00.000-07:00

By KT and The Whyman

Prooftexts: Psalm 83, Isaiah 8:13-15

Not since the end of the First World War have we seen such a panoply of anti-Semitic sentiment around the globe. Jewish people are increasingly the targets of violence in the forms of physical aggression, verbal abuse and undercurrents of prejudice and discrimination towards them. A Tel Aviv University in Israel said, in findings published in April, that the numbers of attacks against Jews had doubled worldwide last year compared with 2005. Most of the rise in violence was reported in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and France.

Abraham Foxman, director of the Washington-based Anti-Defamation League, has warned that anti-Semitism is at its worst level in Britain since he fled here from Germany in 1936. He said, "A large number of Europeans continue to be infected with anti-Jewish attitudes, holding on to classic anti-Semitic canards and conspiracy theories. These attitudes help legitimize anti-Semitism, including violence against Jews, and give us great concern."

Among the anti-Semitic attitudes are the beliefs that the Holocaust is a myth and Israel is an evil regime that is to blame for the woes of the world. A leading proponent of the Holocaust myth is Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has claimed that the Jewish state is a Western creation to undermine the security of Muslim nations and, therefore, desires that Israel be wiped off the face of the map. Daring the West to end its support of the tiny Jewish nation, he has reportedly said that if the West does not support Israel, its regime will be toppled and consequently Israel will be annihilated.

Ahmadinejad's threat against Israel echoes the Psalmist's prophecy: 'O God, do not keep silent; be not quiet, O God, be not still. See how your enemies are astir, how your foes rear their heads. With cunning they conspire against your people; they plot against those you cherish. "Come," they say, "let us destroy them as a nation, that the name of Israel be remembered no more." With one mind they plot together; they form an alliance against you' (Psalm 83:1-5).

It isn't just Iran; many in all parts of the world today deny the holocaust ever happened. They also blame Israel for the woes of the world such as the water shortage and chaos in Palestine. In the West Bank and Gaza, natural, clean water is a rarity and many Palestinians survive on less than 50 litres of water a day. The World Bank is said to have pointed the blame finger at Israel, maintaining that Israel not only controls the supply and distribution of water but also takes more than its equitable share of the resources from the West Bank. It also argues that the Gaza Palestinians lack hope and blame their situation on Israel.

Ironically a Palestinian poll has shown otherwise. According to the poll, most Gaza residents are hopeful, and most of them blame the Palestinian Authority—not Israel—for the existing lawlessness in Gaza that is harming its economy.

Of late, Israel's greatest ally has been turning its back on the Jewish state. So-called experts of U.S. and Mideast policy, such as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, who co-authored The Israel Lobby, insist that supporting Israel is not in America's best interests. The thrust of the U.S. Mideast policy has been long been its relationship with Israel but the authors claim that the combination of unwavering support for Israel and the related effort to spread ‘democracy’ throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and jeopardised not only U.S. security but that of much of the rest of the world. The view is that America's effort to deal with terrorism and rogue states is hampered by their close alliance with Israel, which they see a liability in their war against terror.

However these experts have ignored the reality of global Islamic hatred for the U.S. and its Christian-based values, claiming that open belligerence from Iran, Iraq, Syria and the terrorist proxies directed by those states would simply not be an issue for America if it weren't for Israel. Mearsheimer and Walt even go so far as to accuse Israel of not being a true democracy, and, therefore, not a suitable ally for the U.S.

The global hatred for the Jews and Israel reminds us of Zechariah's prophetic pronouncement: “Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah (former name of Israel) and against Jerusalem” (Zechariah 12:2).

Why the rise in anti-Semitism worldwide? We venture to postulate the view that the hatred is demonically-spawned from antediluvian times when God put a judgment on Satan who tempted Eve: The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field; on your belly you will go, and dust you will eat all the days of your life; and I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel." (Genesis 3:14 and 15).

From this prophetic judgment, Satan understood that a time would come when the seed of a woman, Jesus Christ Himself, would be born and would destroy him and his evil devices against humanity to undermine the perfect creation and plan of God. Ever since God's judgment on him, the devil had been behind the attempts of the world's populace to destroy the Jews to prevent Christ from being born. However, every attempt had failed, and each time, the Jews had returned from their conquest or exile stronger and more resolute to survive as a people.

Fast forward six thousand or so years, and Satan is althogether aware that his end is nigh at hand - for we are in the time of the end - when his final defeat will be fulfilled according to Scriptures. This will likely take place at the culmination of the Great Tribulation and after the Millennial Reign of Christ, when he will meet his end within the Lake of Fire, which is the final place Jesus Christ will have him in fetters.

It is for this reason that the hearts of unbelievers and people, who hate Christ, are hardened and deceived to hate the Jews and Israel's existence. Little do these blinded masses realise that their hatred underpins the reality that the Jews' miraculous survival throughout the thousands of years of their diaspora is evidence of a God who came to this earth 2000 years ago in Jesus Christ and will come again to sit on the throne of this world from the land of His birth - Israel.

Meanwhile the whole world unknowingly is fulfilling prophecy when they continue to hate Israel and the Jews; for thus says the prophet Ezekiel: "Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say to Gog*, 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: In that day, when my people Israel are living in safety, will you not take notice of it? You will come from your place in the far north, you and many nations with you, all of them riding on horses, a great horde, a mighty army. You will advance against my people Israel like a cloud that covers the land. In days to come, O Gog, I will bring you against my land, so that the nations may know me when I show myself holy through you before their eyes'" (Ezekiel 38:14 - 16).

Indeed, we believe that this hatred will culminate in the coming Gog-Magog War (1), in which the armies of the world will be engaged in a battle with Israel before the Great Tribulation eventuates, the latter of which is a time when the world will experience the outpouring of God's wrath.

Here are the nations mentioned in Ezekiel whose armies will come against Israel (and the modern names that parallel them):

The land of Magog : Russia

Meshech and Tubal : Somewhere in Russia

Persia : Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan

Ethiopia : Ethiopia and Sudan

Libya : Libya

Ashkenaz : Austria and Germany

Gomer : Eastern Europe

Togarmah : Southeastern Europe - Turkey

“Many peoples with thee” : Various other Arab/Muslim nations allied with Russia.

This war is made all the more possible with the U.S.' withdrawal of its support of Israel as we are seeing in the changing attitude of the Obama administration. However, the war is doomed to failure for Scriptures prophesy that even before Israels' enemies reach her borders, God Himself will intervene and destroy them with fire from the sky.

Maranatha!

* Gog is a title given to the leader of the Russian army just as Pharaoh was the title given to an Egyptian leader, the name of whom we will not know till the Gog-Magog war happens.

(1) Read alternative understanding of the Gog Magog identity here.

Are you ready for the Rapture and Second Coming? (The rebuilding of the Jewish Temple - Addendum)

2009-08-06T01:17:00.000-07:00

This just in from WND - could this be the peace process that could lead to freedom for Israel to build the third Temple in Jerusalem?

See report.

Are you ready for the Rapture and Second Coming? (The rebuilding of the Jewish Temple)

2009-08-03T01:09:00.000-07:00

Prooftexts: Ezekiel 37, Daniel 9, Matthew 24.

This is an update on my previous post concerning the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. See here.

Spearheaded by the Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement, the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple and restoration of the ancient Jewish sacrificial system are making great strides in Israel's progress towards the fulfillment of her prophesied redemption. According to the former's website, 'Israel's redemption will proceed in an orderly fashion according to God's plan. First, is the foundation of the modern state of Israel and the miraculous victories that God gave the people of Israel in the wars against 22 Arab enemy states. Second is the regathering of the people of Israel from all over the world to the Promised Land. Third is the liberation and consecration of the Temple Mount and fourth is the building of the third Temple. The final step is the coming of the King of Israel, Messiah Ben David.'

On June 17, Sheikh Salah, leader of Islamic Movement's northern branch, issued a warning to Muslim students at Haifa University that Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had fully intended to complete plans to gain control of the Temple Mount from his first tenure. He went on to suggest that the Prime Minister's desire was complete during his current term what he did not complete during his first one – “to dig additional tunnels under al-Aqsa and rebuild the Temple on the Temple Mount.”

Netanyahu was quite ostensibly echoing the sentiment of millions of Jews who reside within and without Israel. I might add that this sentiment represents, as well, the desire of the majority of Bible-believing, Israel-supporting evangelical Christians around the world.

Jerusalem had seen the destruction of two Jewish Temples prior to the rebirth of Israel in 1948. The first Temple, built by King Solomon, was destroyed by the armies of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. The second, which was built by King Zerubbabel, was destroyed by the armies of the Romans in 70 AD, as foretold by Jesus Christ before His death on the cross.

From the time of the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD, the world's Jews, both out in the diaspora and back in Eretz Israel, have lamented the loss of their holy place of worship and longed to rebuild their Temple. This is, thence, a 1900-year-old desire. A recent report by the Ynet-Gesher survey apprised that nearly two-thirds of Israelis believed that the time was right to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple, and half of non-religious Jews favored rebuilding the Holy Temple. [1]

However, from a political perspective the idea of a restored Jewish Temple has been unthinkable, even impossible – at least, it appears, until this millennium. The site of the most sacred of Jewish holy places, which is the Temple Mount area, has been in Arab hands under the Waqf, a Jordanian-controlled Muslim trust, since Moshe Dayan handed it to the Arabs. Touted the most prized real estate on earth, the Temple Mount is untouchable without the permission of the Waqf – what a bane to the devout Jews who are still longing for a third Temple. What's more, the Western Wall, the last remaining remnant of Solomon's Temple, and sacred to Jews for over 2000 years, has been in Jordanian-controlled Jerusalem since 1949.

Nevertheless, Scriptures imply that the political balance of power must shift some time soon, within this generation, I believe, and the Temple Mount will be dramatically seized from Islamic control and assured for Israel. This shift is imperative; nevertheless, a Mideast peace is a necessary requisite for Israel to go ahead with the building of the Temple on the oft-fought-over Temple Mount area. Which begs the question: how will this peace come about? (Possible answer in a moment. Also see this link.)

The prophet, Isaiah, foretold that in the last days God would regather His people from all the lands where He had scattered them (Isaiah 43:6 - 7). Israel's redemption was initiated with the first wave of Aliyah in the 1800s, and the Jewish people started returning to, and rebuilding, Zion. This has been happening for the past one hundred years. This tiny nation's redemption will be complete when the Jews seize control of the Temple Mount and all of Jerusalem and, as prophesied in Scripture, are once again worshiping God in their Holy of Holies. And current events in the Mideast, as well as the ongoing development of Temple affairs, all point toward this coming to pass.

(For the latest update on the progress of the third Temple, see here.)

The rebuilt Temple – or Temples – will have a significant role to play in prophecy and endtimes scenario. For one, the new Jewish Temple has to be in place and functioning in order for the Antichrist to enter and defile it. This event is known biblically as the Abomination of Desolation and will occur, in the Dispensational view, before the seven-year Great Tribulation, but after the Rapture of the church. In Daniel 9:27 we read: “He (Antichrist) will confirm a covenant with many for one 'seven' (year period). In the middle of the 'seven' he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on a wing of the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him."

Antichrist is prophesied to sign a peace covenant with Israel, bringing about the period called the Great Tribulation. Midway through the Tribulation he will enter the Holy of Holies of the Temple and proclaim himself as God, setting up an image of himself there and making it mandatory for the whole world to worship it. This is the defilement known as the Abomination of Desolation.

The Jerusalem Temple will also be the scene of worship during the Millennial Kingdom of Jesus Christ. Ezekiel is one of many Old Testament prophets who have described the Millennial Temple in Jerusalem as the seat of the Messiah and it is upon this seat that Messiah will reign on the throne of David in Jerusalem forever and sit in judgment of the world during the Millennium to come: “I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and increase their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them forever. My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people. Then the nations will know that I the LORD make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is among them forever.” (See Ezekiel 37:26 - 28; and 40 - 48.)

At this juncture, let me qualify the above by explaining that the Millennium Temple may be a different one from the third Temple; it is one that that will be built by the Messiah, and apparently not by unsaved Jews since, according to Ezekiel 43:7 and 44:9, "no foreigner uncircumcised in heart or in flesh shall enter My sanctuary." Therefore, probably, the Antichrist cannot have set foot on the Millennial Temple.

In any case, I have no doubt that the third Jewish Temple will be built in this generation and this is one of the prominent signs of the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, first for His church at the Rapture, and then on His blessed Second Coming, as a Warrior King to battle and destroy the armies of the Antichrist. Many believe that the Messiah will return to Jerusalem via the eastern gate of the Temple, for His Second Coming has been prophesied to be in the direction from Edom and Bozrah, which are areas to the east (Isaiah 63:1 - 6).

In the meantime, as mentioned above, a number of events must be actualised to propel the Mideast peace process forward: someone must arise on the scene, possibly presenting himself as pro-Israel and with much political clout, in order to broker this Mideast peace so that the foundation stone of the third Temple may be laid on the Temple Mount. It is quite likely that the Roadmap to Peace, which sets incremental steps on a path toward Middle East peace, is this process that will successfully lead to some semblance of Mideast peace – albeit a false compromising peace – being brokered between Israel and the Arabs. It is also not farfetched to predict that some conflict, or threat of conflict, will have to be waged in order for peace to be forcibly secured in the Middle East.

For the Lord Himself told His disciples that wars and rumours of wars are yet another sign of the last days: "You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end" (Matthew 24:6).

Maranatha!

Footnote:

1. Survey and report excerpted from World Net Daily.

Are you ready for the Rapture and Second Coming? (The re-birth of Israel)

2009-07-18T21:34:00.000-07:00

One of the signs of the end-times and Jesus' Second Coming is the re-birth of Israel as a nation, in itself a miracle considering the history of Jewry long-suffering and persecution. Besides the restoration of the nation of Israel, the Bible also foretells of the recovery of the use of the ancient language of Hebrew by the people who call themselves Jews.

The re-birth of Israel

The prophecies ~

Prooftexts: Matthew 24, Isaiah 66, Ezekiel 37

The Bible foretold a long time ago by the prophets and the Lord Jesus Christ that Israel would be scattered among the nations where she would be taken into captivity. Much later, the LORD would re-gather them from the four corners of the world and the nation would be re-born in a single day.

The prophet Ezekiel said: “I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land” (Eze. 37:21).

In Isaiah 66:7 - 8 we read: “Hear that uproar from the city, hear that noise from the temple! It is the sound of the LORD repaying his enemies all they deserve. Before she goes into labor, she gives birth; before the pains come upon her, she delivers a son. Who has ever heard of such a thing? Who has ever seen such things? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment? Yet no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children.”

The fulfillment ~

First, the dispersal

As stated above, Scriptures prophesied that Israel would be dispersed among the nations. The Jewish Diaspora began with the Assyrian conquest (722 BC), which scattered the Hebrews throughout the Middle East.

Thereafter King Nebuchadnezzar exiled the Judaeans in 597 and 586 BC, to Babylon in which they were to remain for hundreds of years. A group of Judaeans fled to Egypt, where they settled in the Nile delta. From 597 BC, there were three distinct groups of Hebrews: one in Babylon and other parts of the Middle East, another in Judaea, and the last in Egypt. Although in exile in foreign lands, the Jews retained their religion, identity, and social customs, and even their own laws during the reign of the Medo-Persians and Greeks.

In 63 BC, Judaea became a protectorate of Rome. The Roman governors heavily taxed the inhabitants of Judaea and living under them was like wearing a yoke around the Hebrews' necks. Consequently, in 70 AD, the Jews revolted, but it was a desperate revolt that ended tragically. In 73 AD, the last of the revolutionaries were holed up in a mountain fort called Masada; the Romans had besieged the fort for two years, and the 1000 men, women, and children inside starved. The Romans successfully destroyed Jerusalem, annexed Judaea as a Roman province, and systematically drove the Jews from Palestine. From 73 AD, the Diaspora continued as the Jews settled in lands in various parts of Africa, Asia, and Europe.

Next, the re-gathering and re-birth

Scriptures foretold that Israel would be dispersed as a nation but later brought out from among the nations of the world in a gradual process that would culminate in the establishment of Israel as a nation in a single day.

The prophet Isaiah foretold of the re-birth of Israel, which would happen in a single day. (Refer to prooftext from Isaiah provided above.) The woman giving birth before going into labor represents Israel. This accurately describes what happened on May 14, 1948, when the Jews declared independence for Israel as a united and sovereign nation for the first time in 2,900 years.

During that same day, the United States issued a statement recognising Israel's sovereignty. And, only hours beforehand, a United Nations mandate expired, ending British control of the land. Within 24 hours, foreign control of the land of Israel formally ceased, and Israel declared its independence, which was acknowledged by other nations. Modern Israel was literally born in a single day.

Isaiah said the birth would take place before there would be labor pains. And that too was fulfilled when a movement, called Zionism, commenced in the 1800s which resulted in the first wave of Jewish Aliyah into Israel.

Fulfilling every letter of the Word with precision, Israel's status as a sovereign nation was established and re-affirmed during the course of a single day*, and that it was born of a movement called Zionism, not as the result of a war but of the Zionist cause.

(*The Bible has also foretold the exact year in which this would happen.)

The restoration of the Hebrew language

Israel's re-birth is truly a miracle but equally miraculous is the restoration of the Hebrew language to everyday usage. Hebrew was considered a dead language, not a commonly spoken language and limited to study, prayer, communal observances or ritual purposes. That was until Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (1858 – 1922). Eliezer was one of the first Zionists and is credited with the revival of Hebrew as a modern tongue spoken by a renascent Jewish nation. After marrying his childhood sweetheart, Deborah Jonas, they established the first Hebrew-speaking home in Eretz Yisrael, and their son, Ben-Zion was the first child in modern times to be nurtured with Hebrew as his native language.

His was an apparent divine calling; as Eliezer described it in his own words: "Suddenly the sky seemed to open up, a bright light shone in my eyes, and a strong inner voice rang in my ears, 'Rebirth of Israel in the land of their forefathers.' After a soul searching inner struggle, a new idea took sway and the words which captured all my life were, "Israel in its land and its language.'"

Soon after his arrival in Jerusalem, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda accepted a teaching position at the Alliance School, which became the first school where some courses were taught in Hebrew, due to Eliezer's insistence that Hebrew be the official language of instruction for Jewish subjects.

Eliezer wrote for "Hakhavatzelet" (The Lily), a Hebrew literary periodical, and launched "Hatzvi" - The Deer - a weekly newspaper. "Hatzvi" was the first Hebrew paper to report what was happening throughout the land. For this paper Eliezer needed to coin new Hebrew words for objects and verbs that did not exist in the days of the last Hebrew commonwealth.

Through his newspaper and by other means, he persevered in his determination to make Hebrew a spoken language once again. Fortunately, he lived to see the day when the Palestine census was taken, and virtually every Jew in the land listed "Hebrew" as his language.

Eliezer travelled far and wide to gather materials and to research the world's libraries for lost Hebrew roots. He founded and presided over Va'ad Halashon, the forerunner of the Hebrew Language Academy, and worked 18 hours a day on his "Complete Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Hebrew." In 1910 he published the first of six volumes and after his death in 1922 his widow and son Ehud continued publishing his manuscript, a task which was completed in 1959. The dictionary lists all the words used in Hebrew literature from the time of Abraham to modern times. Eliezer Ben-Yehuda was able to see his dream become reality: a modern nation speaking an ancient tongue - Yisrael be'artzo uvilshono.

All this happened in fulfillment of the prophecy written in Zephaniah 3:9: "For then I will restore to the peoples a pure language, that they all may call on the name of the LORD, to serve Him with one accord."

What this means for the world

In Matthew 24:32 – 35, Jesus Himself, when His disciples asked Him when the end would come, attested to the fact that Israel's re-birth would be an important sign of the end of this age and His return: "Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.”

Israel is symbolically referred to as a fig tree in Scripture. The Lord Jesus' own promises concerning Israel's restoration are a re-iteration of the prophecies of Ezekiel and Isaiah, which foretell that Israel's restoration as a nation will point towards the coming of the Messiah, and this will be followed by the end of the age (as we know it). In Jesus' own words, the generation that witnesses the prophetic fulfillment of the re-birth and restoration of Israel as a nation will also witness His return.

A generation is about 70 years. Israel was re-born as a nation in 1948. Ergo, many scholars believe that this is the millennium that will see the return of Jesus Christ and the culmination of history.

Maranatha!

Are you ready for the Rapture and Second Coming? (The Rapture)

2009-07-17T14:25:00.000-07:00

In the first of our series of didactic on the end times, including the Rapture and Christ's Second Coming, we will provide an explanation of the meaning and origin of the term, Rapture. The Rapture is popularly referred to by Bible-believing Christians as the snatching away into heaven of the Church, or Body of Christ, by the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Rapture is real and has been foretold in the Word of God as one of God's prophetic end-times events. This event, translated from the Greek, Harpazo, will precede the Great Tribulation, a time when God's wrath will be poured out on earth dwellers - those left behind - for judgment before the Second Coming of Christ to defeat the evil wrought by the Anti-Christ and destroy the world systems that he (Anti-Christ) will have put in place, including his global totalitarian reign and false world religion.

Subsequent posts will attempt to delineate the significance of world events that are taking, and will take, place in the light of Bible prophecy and these world events will be presented as proof that we are living in the last days prior to the Rapture and Great Tribulation. These events are signs that also herald Christ's soon return. As noted prophecy teacher and author, Chuck Missler (Strategic Trends, The Cosmic Codes), has aptly put it, we are living in the times of the (last-days) signs. These signs are evidence we will put forward for the imminence of the Rapture and return of the Messiah, Christ Jesus.

Introduction - What is "The Rapture" exactly? [1]

By The Whyman

The rapture is an event that will take place sometime in the near future. Jesus will come in the air, catch up the Church from the earth, and then return to heaven with the Church.

The Apostle Paul gave a clear description of the rapture event in his letters to the Thessalonians and Corinthians.

"For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words." (1 Thess. 4:16 - 18).

"Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal [must] put on immortality" (1 Cor. 15:51 - 53).

The timing of the rapture is not known. However, from the Word of God and from sound reasoning -- something Jesus used quite frequently -- the reality of the pre-tribulation rapture can be proven.

The word "rapture" comes from the phrase "caught up" in verse 17. The phrase is translated from the Greek word harpazo, which means "to carry off," "snatch up," or "grasp hastily." The translation from harpazo to "rapture" involved two steps: first, harpazo became the Latin word raptus; second, raptus became the English word "rapture."

Therefore, despite the claims of the ignorant, the doctrine of "the rapture" is indeed biblical.

In our posts to follow (God willing, and when time permits, we hope to post one of these a month), we will discuss some world events that the Bible states are prophetic signs of the imminence of the Rapture and Second Coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Included are signs such as the re-birth of Israel (next post); the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple and upcoming war in the Mideast and the Roadmap to Peace; antisemitism on the rise; climate change; the rise of globalism; the information explosion of Daniel 12:4; and false prophets and apostasy. Since several of these topics have briefly been discussed in previous posts interested readers should follow the links to peruse the articles as the topics may be precluded from this series.

Footnote:

1. Introductory material adapted from Todd Strandberg.

The fall and fall of humanity

2009-06-25T22:18:00.000-07:00

as we know it.

Here's a film you cannot miss if you want to make sense of the global economic crisis and the devices of the oligarchs of Wall Street and globalists that have manipulated the global financial circumstances for their own gain. What has happened to the 9 trillion dollars in bailout money handed out to the banks? What is U.S. President Barack Obama's secret agenda? How and why have all the U.S. Presidents since John F. Kennedy become puppets to the elite of Wall Street? This film will initiate you into the machinations of:

The Trilateral Commission
The Bilderbergers
The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
The International Bankers
The IMF
The Federal Reserve

This is not a tin-foil hat "conspiracy theory", as those suffering from cognitive dissonance will have you believe. Whether you are a conservative or liberal, democrat or republican, you need to watch this film. It's one of the most non-partisan films made that concern the destiny of humanity. Most important, watch it because it concerns you, even though it's America-based.

Warning: film is longish - just short of 2 hours, so make sure you have enough bandwidth.

Start film here.

The G20 global agenda and beyond

2009-04-05T14:22:00.000-07:00

Whoa! This interjection was issued from my husband's and my lungs in near-unison the evening of April 2.

Hearing the G20 leaders like British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, advocate the benefits of a New World Order, and afterwards the newsreaders on Prime and TV1 ingeminate the same, was downright creepy – it absolutely raised my goose bumps. (I didn't check my husband's skin, in case you're wondering.)

Prior to this millennium, the New World Order was something uttered behind closed doors and whispered in the corridors of clandestine quarters because of its negative associations with conspiracy theorists. Today it's the catchphrase and buzz word of the initiated. The objective of the New World Order is world governance by one ruler, whose framework of universal membership or regional organisation, with the European Union as a possible model, will be pursued.

The globalist agenda of the G20 was explained loudly and clearly by economic analysts post-Summit, and it was hard to miss the tacit socialist content embodied in its policy reforms for preventing the world's slide into an economic depression. Billions of dollars were promised to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in aid of developing nations and the poor, which would see these nations and individuals enslaved by, and subservient to, the world body. Banks and their executives must toe the line of the new financial reforms, which, in the case of the United States, would shift the economic balance of power in the Federal Reserve's favour. The world is playing into the hands of these conspirators of reform who are gleefully planning a worldwide political and economic takeover that will allow the coming Satan-empowered Antichrist to reign as the titular head of the approaching One-World or global government.

Also playing right into the hands of these conspirators are the United States of America and her President, Barack Obama. Historically, the U.S. has been resistant to global governance and the ideology of world governance. When it comes to protecting freedom of action and guarding their sovereign prerogatives, few nations are as jealous and zealous about them as the United States of America. The United States has had a longstanding tradition of liberal 'exceptionalism' which stirs the nation into faithfully protecting her domestic sovereignty and institutions from the incursions of international bodies. Hence, for decades, the United States has been a deterrent to the agenda of these conspirators of globalism and global governance. However, with the global economic crisis (which has been orchestrated by the same conspirators), the elite of globalism appear to be gaining ground in their attempts at weakening the United States by approximating blame for this crisis to the United States.

The demonising of the United States, caused by the global credit crunch, will serve globalist interests since it will bring about the surrender of the country's sovereignty and national independence. For even the superpowers of the world must be subject to the rule of Antichrist. Hard at work to bring the United States to her knees is the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) whose members want the country and the rest of the world deeply mired in its debt. This is because, according to Rear Admiral Chester Ward, former member of the CFR, the international members of the CFR, which comprise the Wall Street International Bankers and their elite cartel, including the Federal Reserve Bank, want the world banking monopoly from the power that ends up controlling the global government.

In addition, unlike the unilateralism of the Bush years, the Obama administration is expected to embrace multilateral co-operation and engage in sustained diplomacy within the framework of the United Nations. Indeed, we have seen in the first 100 days of the Obama administration that the thrust of its foreign policy is multilateral, evidenced by the President's vow of co-operation with the United Kingdom, China and the Middle East in addressing the economic crisis, climate change and terrorism. According to former U.S. Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, a leading proponent of globalism since the 1970s, President Obama will “give new impetus to American foreign policy partly because the reception of him is so extraordinary around the world.” Kissinger is optimistic that this is the era that a New World Order can be realised by Mr. Obama.

Mr. Obama is no respecter of the U.S. Constitution, as some of us have seen in regards to his refusal to provide evidence of his citizenship, and his lifting of the bans on federal funding for overseas abortion agencies and embryonic stem cell research. The U.S. Constitution, along with the U.S. Congress, used to stand in the way of the United States assuming new international obligations such as the ratification of international treaties and endorsement of global institutions. Under Obama, the U.S. Constitution will easily be amputated, and the Democrat-leaning Congress will be readily persuaded to pass the President's new bills. Political watchdogs around the world believe that the U.S. administration under Obama will push for global governance since his administration is filled with CFR members which include CFR President, Richard Haass (see here), who serves as a top adviser to the Obama administration. The attitude of the United States is doubtlessly changing towards one of multilateral and international co-operation.

The globalist conspirators are making great strides towards globalism with calls for reforms in key areas of the world's economies and polities that will re-shape its future and subject all its systems and institutions under a One-World government. They include calls for a global currency to address the financial crisis, and solutions to combat climate change, terrorism, and food and energy shortage at a global level. I have little doubt that the spate of gun-related shooting resulting in mass carnage in the United States – such as in New York, Pennsylvania and most recently Seattle – is also the work of these conspirators. Their motive is the ban on the private possession of firearms and tighter controls on an individual's right to bear arms. Here's yet another reason for Mr. Obama to consign the U.S. Constitution to the Museum of Antiquities.

But then, come to think of it, a nation of citizens that are free to bear arms will be such a pain in the neck for Antichrist, won't it?

For posterity

2009-04-05T14:15:00.000-07:00

These are some (revised and updated) imports from my Facebook. Since I may be removing myself from the former (it's a matter of principle and because I loathe its new format), I thought it would be a good idea to save these entries to my blog for posterity and future reference.

Balancing the equation
During, and in the weeks following, the Israeli-Hamas conflict late last year, we were forced to ingest much disingenuous brouhaha from the media which dishonorably dubbed the former the War of Propaganda. We were also regularly served up editorials and commentaries from the Arab and international community, which predictably accused Israel of war crimes and the slaughter of innocents.

However, sorely missing from the equation was the voice of the Israelis, particularly the denizens of Sderot, the town that had borne the brunt of Hamas' offensive the last eight years before Israel launched a strike-back. It was this voice that counted among the regnant noises of the real propagandists that make up the liberal media and the anti-Israel demonstrators.

During an airing of the programme, This Is Your Day on TTV, the Mayor of Sderot went on the record to attest to the facts of the Hamas aggression. According to him, Sderot with a population of 23,000, had been hit by 9,000 missiles until Israel's ground strike, which translated to an average of 1,100 rockets a year or 3 shellings a day. The munition, smuggled into the Gaza city of tunnels from Egypt, was sponsored by Teheran under the aegis of the Iranian demagogue, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

The question the media and the world needed to ask themselves was: why didn't we hear of this deplorable action by Israel's enemies the last eight years? Why didn't the media report on the Hamas' crimes against the Israeli community? Why were there no demonstrations on behalf of the citizens of Sderot by the world's humanitarian and civil rights groups?

Which brings me to this unassailable truth – where Israel is concerned, few care to push the envelope.

Oh puhlleez!
Equality in the workplace is a fragmented reality. Ironically, it's often another woman who is fortifying the glass ceiling's relentless defenses. I've also to struggle with the stereotype of the Asian woman foreigner who's seen as a mail-order bride.

These struggles were accented late last year when a co-worker, who initiated our verbal volley in the first place, asked me if I had a rich husband after I'd told her that I was considering retirement. Needless to say, my competitive instincts reviled at her effrontery and were egging me on with the riposte (rendered in a mock-patrician tone): “Oh, daaahling, see this? It's my $2,200.00 Prada shift, which I bought ten years ago when the dollar wasn't inflated. The wages of my own labour are quite capable of maintaining my lifestyle.”

Had it not been for my caveat, which is the Beatitudes, I would have yielded to my instincts to retaliate; instead it was all I could do to wonder at her, my mouth agape.

Another tenuous world view collapses
Among the myriad of untenable world views in existence, pantheism, atheism, New Ageism, dualism, and naturalism, I find solipsism and its adherents the most riddled with inconsistencies. Obviously the solipsist, believing his own existence is all that he can be certain of, does not believe in God, miracles and angels; in fact, he believes that except for the self everything else may be a dream or figment of someone's imagination. This includes the existence of his parents, his house, his offspring, his job, his pet Chihuahua, the cafeteria he likes to frequent to eat his favourite chicken croissant. With deference to the solipsist, if his existence is all he can be sure of, why not dive in front of a moving car to test if it exists? Ironically, one will note that the solipsist looks both ways before crossing the road ...

The anti-multiculturalism of the Nationalist Alliance
If I've given the impression that I'm anti-multiculturalism, it's because I am. I simply don't believe that race exists. Race is a Darwinian invention which postulates that some ethnicities are less evolved and therefore less human than others. On the other hand, the Bible describes only two kinds of people: Jews and Gentiles. At the same time, it also teaches that all men are equal. Hence I must distance my brand of anti-multiculturalism, which tries to bleed across imaginary ethnic and cultural borders, from that of Kyle Chapman, which attempts to create an exclusive community of like-minded white Europeans with the goal of expanding the community to all NZ. For these people are doing exactly what I find abhorrent – play the race card and legitimise white supremacy. Their brand of anti-multiculturalism is more dangerous and anti-Christian than pluralism. It's thinly-veiled neo-fascism in the making.

For posterity 2

2009-04-05T14:10:00.000-07:00

More entries imported from my Facebook:

It's not teenage boys!
You can blame the purist in me, and it's not teenage girls, either. It is teenage culture – the culture of teenagers. It is teenage fashion – the fashion of teenagers. And it is teenage crime – the crime of teenagers. However, it is teenaged boy and teenaged girl – persons of ages between 13 and 20. At least that's how my dusty lexicons used to define the terminology. These were the differences in usage teachers of yore taught me to distinguish. Not today, however; today headlines scream 'Teenage Boy Saves Drowning Man' and 'Teenage Girl Wins Jackpot', and no one bats an eyelid.

It bothers me that ads and most schoolteachers today do not accurately use, or teach the usage of, words like everyday vs. every day, its vs. it's, and uninterested vs. disinterested.

The apparent adulteration of the English language is today haloed as acceptable by our new dictionaries and Spellcheck! Now, I realise languages evolve to accommodate a dumbed-down one-size-fits-all generation* but let's restore the real McCoy to everyday usage lest we start on a slippery slope to senseless 'text language' finding its way into the lexicon as well.

*An aside: if you get a chance to read Eve's Bite [by Ian Wishart, Howling At the Moon Publishing Ltd, NZ, 2007] do not pass it up.

Yet another hard sell for location, location, location
I was once asked if I'd buy the best house in the worst neighbourhood or the worst house in the best neighbourhood. My answer was, and still is, the latter. But let me modify the rubric – I'd buy a second-rate house in a swanky neighbourhood, and then hope that my modesty wouldn't be lost on criminals on the lurk.

Yet what lurks on the other side of the tracks is more dire – squalor and its concomitant noise, domestic violence, gang-associated activities, overcrowding. Furthermore, should you be the wealthiest real estate owner there, you'd probably find thieves regarding the hub caps of your Audi, and burglars your Plasma TV, theirs for the taking. All because violating you and yours is a pastime embittered minds and desperate felons will find irresistible. Now, I'm not superimposing a pedigreed attitude on others just because I recognise the advantages of a good location, am I?

Missing my hearth
A gathering with my husband's family at Christmas or a birthday party always occasions a sense of nostalgia for familial events in KL. There's the usual jubilating, playing catch-up and laughter swelling in synchrony to the quantity of Sauvignon Blanc consumed. After the gamut of food, drink and conversation, the parents adjourn for their post-celebration mahjong-playing and the youth for the club or karaoke. The children left behind will be succumbing to ennui at the elders' regaling the Japanese occupation, the 60s' tumult and the 70s' plenitude. Finally we all wind down in the wee hours of a new day with the feeling that we have the best family in the whole world and will never trade it for any other. And I believe this feeling is universal to families of all cultures that have a reason to gather together.

Life's paradoxes
'So near and yet so far' – that's a paradox, simply put. Over the years I've found many of life's serial Catch-22s insanely befuddling: the bank won't extend to you a loan unless you have a credit history, which you can't create until you're given a bank loan. In order to feel sufficiently comfortable to talk to people, you need to know them, which comes from talking to them. You try to convince your atheist friend that God exists by describing your experiences, but he dismisses your experiences as subjective reasoning, and when you appeal to objective evidence for God's existence, he rejects it as he wants empirical evidence. You don't qualify for the job unless you possess the requisite experience, but that comes from being offered the job. Finally, you try to lose weight by eating less but that results in a lower metabolism, which causes you to gain weight. Yeah, you get the picture.

The marriage bed is undefiled
When my husband's first cousin got married, I started thinking about my own marriage and the approaching 7-year itch. I don't doubt our ability to cross that milestone because, if my husband and I have learned anything, it is that committing to our contractual terms for a lifelong co-existence is a matter of choice.

Continuing to love our spouse is a choice we make every day: love otherwise atrophies since chemistry is a myth and moods are ephemeral. Chemistry doesn't count for much when your significant other habitually leaves the toilet seat up, routinely squeezes the toothpaste in the middle of the tube, uncannily smells like rancorous salted fish first thing in the morning, and every Sunday before church thoughtlessly compels you to marinate in your juices while your patience is tested by her obsessive compulsive need to colour co-ordinate her shoes to her gloves.

However, Marriage is Forever is a very real rather than imagined concept if we make the choice to be the first to extend a truce after an altercation, to remember to issue compliments for that delicious roast or perfect cup of Moccachino, and to keep surprising our spouses with handmade gifts, love notes or just the simple things we can do for them such as giving him a back massage or, if not too shabby in the notions department, offer to fix her hem or re-sew the button on her favourite shirt.

If both husband and wife make the choice to put the other's needs first, meeting each other halfway would come sooner on the paper divide, and this inevitably will always bridge the divide.

Requiem for Generation Y
~ to be delivered in the year 2020
“I stand before you, amid an equal distribution of yawns and tears, to deliver my elegy for Gen-Y. Yours was a generation forged in the crucible of secular humanism. You stood for everything antithetical to God while you made relativism your god.

“You regarded the top job your entitlement, and wondered 'Y' you must rise through the rank and file for it. You coveted instant gratification: the latest Playstation, VW convertible, Marc Jacobs bag – you wanted them all and you wanted them ten minutes ago. You lived it up by partying, boozing and sowing your wild oats, and your legacy is a face deprived of the details of character, a life devoid of soul and that unborn child denied a life because he cramped your style.

“And now as you go into the pale, all that remains of you is the detritus of your debauched life which will continue to fall in a heap all around you long after the last dust has settled on your headstone.

“Rest in peace, Gen-Y. You shan't be missed.”

Towards the formation of a New World Order 1

2009-03-29T17:20:00.000-07:00

This is an addendum to my 5-part post on the Mystery of Iniquity which concluded with my treatise on the credit crunch and global financial crisis.

Concerning the ramification of the global credit crunch for the world, I wrote: (Quote) “The conspirators behind the current U.S. financial crisis caused by the credit crunch want to see America weakened which will affect the rest of the world, for this is their route to the New World Order being established. A weakened America paves the way for the European Union to take over as the dominant economic power. It is from the core ten EU economic powers that the Antichrist, empowered by the devil, has been prophesied in the Bible to arise. Therefore, from the big-picture perspective of Satan's grand designs, the current credit crunch and global financial crisis have been two millennia in the making.

“The cycle of crisis and reform is a trend that can be traced as far back as to the early 1920s. Back then, when the elite cartel of bankers created rumours of insolvency of the smaller banks, the international bank moved for a White House support of a congressional bank reform. The reform that resulted was the passing into law of the Federal Reserve Act, which consolidated the power of the International Bankers to dictate the wealth and economy of America.

“Reforms are very much a ploy of the Mystery of Iniquity to move the world towards a new socio-economic order. Now reforms are also being fructified on the lips of President Barack Obama, and Prime Ministers Gordon Brown and Kevin Rudd, as well as French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and the rulers of the European Union. These reforms include:
1. A cashless society – a new monetary order and One-World currency that replaces gold and all the world's currencies. This is to pave the way for the realisation of the Mark of the Beast whereby every one who wants to participate in the global economy must carry a mark on the forehead or right hand. Also to make way for the realisation of a post-Orwellian surveillance society whereby the Antichrist can determine a dissident's whereabouts as quickly as the swipe of a card or a scanning of codes from an implanted computer chip, read from his or her mobile phone.
2. A socialist revival – this has been happening since the late 70s and is gaining ground today. Make no mistake – the reforms called by the governments in the forms of their bail-out plans to rescue private corporations, banks and industries from total collapse are transforming previously free market capitalist economies into socialist ones. Socialism is just a small step away from total communism or dictatorship, in which an individual's sovereignty is surrendered to his government. It makes it easy to ease the masses into a surrendering of their wills, sovereignty, rights and freedom to the Antichrist” (unquote).

This post, which continues in Part 2, is an update on the progress of the world towards the institutionalizing of a global cashless and surveillance society. In chapter 13 of the book of Revelation, verses 16-18, God gave the apostle, John, this vision of an end-time economic scenario of the global community: “And he (Antichrist) causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred threescore and six.”

The above verses foretell of the new One-World currency imposed by the Antichrist, which is known as the Mark or Number of the Beast (Antichrist). An axiom of the new cashless society, this Mark will be the sole legal economic tender in a global village that will soon be governed by a One-World leader known as the Antichrist. Scripture prophesies that everyone must carry in his right hand or forehead this Mark or Number (666) in order to buy and sell in the global economy. This is going to take place during the Great Tribulation and without the number or mark, a person will not be permitted to acquire commodities or effect any financial transaction. It is going to be a time when individual privacy will be a thing of the past, and for those citizens who refuse to comply with Antichrist's decrees, they will be subject to round-the-clock surveillance by the Antichrist's police and military forces.

The Bible prophesies that the Great Tribulation will be a time of the widespread martyrdom of many new converts, known as the Tribulation Saints, who will be beheaded for their refusal to carry the Mark of the Beast. “And I (John) saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and [I saw] the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither had received [his] mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands” (Revelation 20:4).

A month ago, I had finished reading the latest book in my collection, Countdown to the Apocalypse by Grant R. Jeffrey [1], (whose incisive weekly TBN broadcast, Bible Prophecy Revealed, is aired Friday nights on TTV at 10.30 pm). Jeffrey's book corroborates, in addition to providing an update on, my didactic. Part 2 will include an excerpt of this corroboration.

Footnote:
1. Grant R. Jeffrey, Countdown to the Apocalyse, Waterbrook, USA, 2008.

Towards the formation of a New World Order 2

2009-03-29T17:12:00.000-07:00

The New World Order is an economic and political reform which many leaders of the G20 believe will unite the world in its bid to overcome the financial crisis that has beset us. As a new form of government it is characterised by a socialist economic and political system that will be governed by a potentate or a collective that comprises a core group of powerful rulers. One of its objectives will be to eliminate all the world's many currencies and replace them with one common currency used globally and universally for trade, commerce and all manner of personal and public business transaction. Prophecy scholars believe that this will be a harbinger for the realisation of the Mark or Number of the Beast, a cashless form of currency, foretold in the Bible in Revelation 13:16-18, which the Antichrist will compel the world's citizens to bear in their body in order to buy and sell in the global economy.

The following is an excerpt from Grant R. Jeffrey's newest tome, Countdown to the Apocalypse, which provides an update on world trends towards the institutionalizing of the Mark of the Beast and the onset of the cashless and post-Orwellian surveillance society.

According to Grant Jeffrey, the Mark of the Beast that will be implanted beneath the skin of the hand or forehead is “invasive but not far from being reality.” There exist several companies today that are on course to perfecting technology that uses radio-frequency identification chips (RFID), so tiny they can be embedded in the skin, but will be sophisticated enough to be a repository for the data and records of an individual's complete identity. These chips, according to the initiated, are capable of storing biometric ID and one's medical and financial records.

To quote Mr. Jeffrey, “A miniature computer chip, the size of a large grain of rice, that can hold up to five gigabytes of information, already exists.” Jeffrey compares the storage ability of this ID chip to that of thirty sets of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, within which an individual's complete financial, medical, legal, and personal records can be held, accessed and read from a distance by electronic scanners. A report in Businessweek magazine has attested to the fact that MasterCard International has been testing a 'smart card' computer chip which includes information about a person's private identity and fingerprints that can be encrypted in a credit card. [1]

Regarding the loss of privacy and individuals placed under surveillance, Jeffrey intones: “The new VeriChip, a beneath-the-skin radio frequency chip, can be implanted and will contain comprehensive information about an individual, together with a GPS locator system that will allow an interested party or institution not only to locate an individual but to identify the person, along with his or her financial, medical, and even criminal records.” Jeffrey goes on to maintain that there are already some banks and stores that have the technology and are using it to scan a customer's fingerprint, comparing it to the information stored on certain credit cards. This is done to prevent credit-card fraud and identify theft. [2]

This is a highly fascinating piece of exposition by Grant Jeffrey. Scary but fascinating all the same – and how exciting that this is the century Bible-believing Christians are witnessing, and at the centre of, the fulfillment of events prophesied thousands of years ago by the prophets Daniel, Isaiah, Ezekiel and John. It's no wonder that other heavyweights in the field of eschatology – Hal Lindsey, John Walvoord, Tim LaHaye, Arnold Fruchtenbaum, Arthur Bloomfield and Chuck Missler – recognize that the major current world events we are observing unfolding in our volatile economic landscape, and those that involve the nation of Israel, are the signs of the time of the end.

As a counterpoint to all of life's vagaries – the changeable weather, market and property prices in a state of flux, friends that come and go, and relationships that are built and destroyed – the prophecies of God are a source of stability and comfort because they have remained, and will remain, a constant. The call to action towards globalism and the realization of the New World Order by the world's leaders such as former U.S. Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and U.S President Barack Obama, is pointing towards the culmination of God's prophetic calendar of last-days events which will climax in the terrible 42-month reign of Antichrist and his defeat in the hands of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. Then will come the Lord Jesus' Millennial Reign and Day of Judgment.

For the meek and humble who have placed their trust and hope in Jesus Christ, and for the patient and persecuted but righteous ones, those who are saved by the blood of Jesus Christ, I believe that the Millennial Kingdom of Christ is something to look forward to. Sir Thomas More's Utopia fails to envision the kind of peace, truth and justice that will prevail during Christ's thousand-year rule of iron: “And out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should smite the nations: and He shall rule them with a rod of iron: and He treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God” (Revelation 19:15 – 16).

However, the Day of Judgment is a day to dread for those who have chosen to deny Christ and His absolute Word. On that day, nothing will be hidden – including all vain motives, malicious thoughts and malevolent lies. Every thought and deed will be revealed since all must give an account of their deeds to Christ who will judge their hearts. Woe betide the lost whose names are struck off the Book of Life for they will have their place in the Lake of Fire together with Antichrist, Satan and death. The Bible says, “But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: which is the second death” (Revelation 21:7).

This place of fire and brimstone can be avoided with a sincere repentance of sin and commitment to making Jesus Christ the Lord of our lives. And that's the blessed gospel of Jesus Christ.

Maranatha! And may Israel too be blessed.

Footnotes:
1. Grant R. Jeffrey, Countdown to the Apocalyse, Waterbrook, USA, 2008, p. 167.
2. ibid.

The best and worst cast

2009-03-29T16:39:00.000-07:00

I'm one of many fans of comic book and book characters that have grown up with the latter harbouring a secret notion about who we think would be most suited for playing these characters in a film. Making these characters into a form larger than life, particularly in a leading role, requires someone of the calibre of Brad Pitt who can carry a film.

Some directors have been spot on, in my opinion, in their casting of suitable thespians in the roles of their respective superhero persona, but others must have had a bad meal during the casting calls. For instance, Kelsey Grammer epitomised the dignified Hank McCoy (or The Beast in X-Men, The Last Stand) and the verities of the Fantastic Four were perfectly captured by Ion Gruffud (Reed Richards), Michael Chiklis (The Thing) and Chris Evans (Johnny Storm). Brad Pitt was a plausible vampire Louis, despite (or because of) the sanguinary mandible, simian stares and constipated countenance. On the other hand, Ben Affleck was a dismal and wooden Matt Murdoch, while Eric Bana, I believe, was the wrong man to play Bruce Banner (the Hulk) - it needed suspension of disbelief to conceive of the troubled 5'9" 127-lb. scientist within Bana's bulk. Marvel had wanted Steve Buscemi (of Armageddon fame) in this role which, I personally feel, was tailor-made for Johnny Depp.

My almost-complete list of best and worst cast actors in a superhero or book-adapted role:

Most aptly cast
Kelsey Grammer (Beast, X-Men)
Hugh Jackman (Wolverine, X-Men)
Ron Perlman (Hellboy)
Willem Dafoe (Green Goblin, in Spiderman)
Helen Slater (Supergirl)
Jennifer Garner (Elektra)
Olivia Hussey (Juliet, in Romeo & Juliet)
Brad Pitt (the vampire, Louis)
Brandon Lee (The Crow)
Angelina Jolie (Lara Croft, Tomb Raider)
Robert Downey Jr (Tony Stark or Iron Man)
Michael Chiklis (Ben Grimm or The Thing, Fantastic Four)
Alan Rickman (Sheriff of Nottingham, in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves)
Taylor Kitsch (Gambit, X-Men Origins)
Patrick Stewart (Professor Xavier, in X-Men)
Stuart Townsend (Dorian Grey, in League of Xtraordinary Gentlemen)

Most wrongly cast
(with recommendation for alternative actors if ever there’s going to be a re-make)
Famke Janssen (Jean Grey, X-Men) ... Better choice: Lucy Lawless
Tobey Maguire (Peter Parker, Spiderman) ... Better choice: Chace Crawford
Eric Bana (Bruce Banner or the Hulk) ... Better choice: Johnny Depp
Kevin Costner (Robin Hood) ... Better choice: Orlando Bloom
Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (Maid Marian) ... Better choice: Emmy Rossum
Ben Affleck (Matt Murdoch or Daredevil) ... Better choice: Josh Hartnett
Halle Berry (Catwoman) ... Better choice: Summer Glau
Halle Berry (Storm, X-Men) ... Better choice: Jessica Alba or Grace Jones
Chris O'Donnell (Dick Grayson or Robin) ... Better choice: Emile Hirsch
Tommy Lee Jones (Two Face, in Batman) ... Better choice: Malcolm McDowell
Kirsten Dunst (Mary Jane, in Spiderman) ... Better choice: Mary Elizabeth Winstead
James Marsden (Scott Summers, X-Men) ... Better choice: Keanu Reeves
Anna Paquin (Rogue, X-Men) ... Better choice: Natalie Portman
Viggo Mortensen (Aragon, in LotR) ... Better choice: Stuart Townsend
Christian Bale (Bruce Wayne or Batman) ... Better choice: Timothy Olyphant
Jessica Alba (Sue Storm, Fantastic Four) ... Better choice: Scarlett Johansson or Julie Gonzalo
Ben Foster (Angel, X-Men) ... Better choice: Justin Hartley
Edward Norton (new Bruce Banner) ... Better choice: it's still Johnny Depp

Game, set and match

2009-03-04T15:02:00.000-08:00

There aren't many things I can truthfully say I know with one hundred percent certainty. For instance, I don't know with complete certainty that living in NZ is something God has always intended for me. However, ever since my husband and I made up our minds that we would be based here for a time – till God sees fit to uproot us – we have seen Him blessing our decision in many ways. Nevertheless there have been trials that have very often cast doubts my way. I don't know for sure that I want to carry on teaching next year – and I won't air my soiled linen here that's no one else's business. Suffice to say I don't see myself being a teacher by choice after this year. And I'm not certain if I want to go ahead and build our dream house in NZ after all; I am open to the possibility of relocating again. Maybe to Singapore. Or Dubai.

However, there is one thing I'm very certain of and that is being married to my present husband – my only husband for life – has always been in God's plans for me. I am amazed by the sheer number of things we have in common that is being revealed to me bit by bit and day by day. Without divulging too many personal secrets I will comment on just three.

My husband and I enjoy playing games with each other. I'm not talking about the kind of mind games some couples play to establish a leverage in their altercation with each other. Women are especially adept at these kinds of games, manipulating situations and their spouses' weaknesses to blackmail emotionally and up their ante. Some women play their mind games so well that they premeditate conflicts with their husbands because it becomes perversely comforting to be engaged in hostility which compensates for a vacuous matrimony. No, the games my husband and I enjoy playing are reminiscent of childhood ones such as Hide and Seek, where I would hide and my husband seek. There are just so many places in the house in which I can hide before they become overused and par for his guesses, but my husband indulges us by protracting the sport with pretensions that he has lost me or the Rapture has taken place. And we never tire of recreating our version of Truth or Dare with its improvised questions and answers, which are imbibed with a sense of deja vu because played ad nauseam.

In our youth, both my husband and I came fairly close to attaining celluloid notoriety that could have dictated the paths of our destinies very differently. I befriended Seattle when we were both waiting on tables at a friend's uptown diner in order to save up for our college tuition. One day after a tennis outing with Seattle, I was persuaded to accompany her to a movie audition en route to home. A local film production company was casting for its latest project and my friend was auditioning for a role. Still in our tennis gear, we proceeded to the audition site where Seattle was put through a grueling rigmarole of reading lines and being interviewed and screen tested. The producers invited me to do the screen test as well, which I obliged for the fun of it. To my astonishment, I received a call-back a month later and was informed that the producers had cast me in a minor part, and if I accepted I should turn up at the set for preliminary rehearsals the following week. My euphoria at the news was swiftly derailed by the discovery that Seattle hadn't been successful in her own audition, so this, and my VCE finals just around the corner, prevented me from accepting the role.

When my husband was about six years old, he was invited to attend a telethon because his school had been one of the benefactors of the charity event. On the set of the telethon were several well known American celebrities and sitcom stars. One of the cast members of the sitcom, Benson, the actor, René Auberjonois (who went on to play the alien, Odo, on Star Trek – Deep Space Nine and star in Boston Legal), must have detected traces of star quality in my husband for he approached him and, without beating about the bush, asked him if he wanted to be famous. Unfortunately, whatever Mr. Auberjonois' intention was at that time is irrelevant now because, recognising this luminary of the small screen, my husband was too astounded to utter a reply much less a meaningful repartee. Seconds ticked by when nothing ensued but my husband's realisation that he had lost his chance at stardom under Auberjonois' wing, for the gentleman had no sooner vanished without so much as a by your leave than a conclusive “I guess not” was issued from his lips in reply to his own question. Years later, my husband would impress the casting directors of The Lord of the Rings with his skills at swordsmanship, but whether or not he got a call-back to be an extra in Peter Jackson's box office triumph remains anybody's guess since he couldn't stay long enough in Napier to find out.

I've not been acquainted with any other man who can put up with my habits and quirks. I have an olfactory disorder which has led to my dependence on Vicks and Tiger Balm, and as a consequence I have burned my bridges with many a former boyfriend who vexed at my smelling of menthol instead of Chanel No. 5. My husband, on the other hand, is enamoured of menthol, especially that found in Tiger Balm. He lavishes it on his face as if it were an after-shave. Similarly, I don't know many other women who can appreciate a husband that habitually turns an opinion into a prospective moot for an impromptu debate. It's pretty intense – but my husband is a man on a mission and quest for accuracy, and it is this quality among many that has made a first and indelible impression on me. In addition, both my husband and I enjoy all things medieval – knights' tales, magical swords and the dulcet mood pan flutes bring out in Celtic music. Books and films depict few things with the florid of that era: peregrine troubadours, itinerant hucksters, bacchanalian jousts and flattering Princess lines. My husband once belonged to the Medieval Re-enaction Club and wants to ignite his passion for medieval sword fighting again by re-newing his membership in the club. I fancy the challenge of running through a gauntlet.

That both my husband and I are perfectly matched is undeniable. Concerning love we both believe it's a choice we make which consolidates a marriage. Concerning marriage we both believe it's a sacred institution between a man and a woman that originated with God. Concerning God we both believe He is the Author and Architect of all life. Concerning life we both believe its purpose is the glory of God. Having common life principles and objectives such as these has gone some way in equipping our marriage with the conviction to overcome a steady onslaught of clashing traits, habits and preferences.

What retail therapy?

2009-03-02T11:15:00.000-08:00

It's been said that the Consumer Rights and Protection laws in Malaysia are five years behind the United States. If this were the case, then New Zealand would need ten years to catch up with America. This story is going to grate on some raw nerves but the truth must be told. NZ's backward Customer Protection laws, an unethical trade and consumer culture and unprofessional sales personnel, all contribute to an unpleasant and burdensome shopping experience.

Those advertisements for sales and special offers that assail our TV screens on a daily basis truly boggle my senses. It's not the hard sell itself that's mind boggling but the condition that is attached to it, usually written in fine print. There can be no mitigating a sale or discount item that is contingent upon the quantity of stocks available, thence the arm-twisting condition that it's 'only while stocks last'. Recognising its shogunate repercussions for consumers, the Malaysian commerce ministry puts a ban on offers and sales of this nature. The law is clear: no retailer is permitted to announce an item on sale or offer unless stocks of said-item are ample and available for all customers until the end of the sale or offer period. The exception is bulky goods whose stock numbers are restricted by a manufacturer's quid pro quo like whiteware and furniture where a line or make has been discontinued. However, offers and sales by major stores here, such as The Warehouse, Countdown and Woolworths, always come with a caveat of stock availability, even of popular items with a high turnover and established brand names such as Dove Beauty Soap, Arnott's biscuits and KiwiSoft toilet paper. I mean, how difficult is it to re-stock these?

It irks me that their offers are slated to last until midnight of a certain day, but long before the deadline has expired, the items are already sold out. This is an old trade canard that lures consumers into a store with false promises. Against such a practice must consumers be protected because having already made the trip, they will inevitably concede to buying a substitute at the usual retail price since they are loath to return home empty-handed. If an item is sold out but the offer period is outstanding, compensation for the customer's loss of time and transport costs must be made at the retailer's expense. A retailer who skirts the issue of his lack of scruples with a fine print is crossing the line of decency and fair trade ethic. A sale promise that cannot be honoured with available stocks is entrapment of a consumer, for as long as he can be enticed to enter your store he can also be tempted to buy something he never needed to begin with. Besides, the act of buying something – anything – is dangerously alluring. And it's this prescribed psychology of consumerism that the marketing departments are privy to and peruse to the retailer's advantage, never mind the cost to a consumer. But then that's their stock-in-trade (pun intended), isn't that?

There is a tendency for several clothing stores here to dredge up merchandise from a few seasons ago and tout them in their end-of-season sale. 'Farmers' is especially guilty of this practice. Something in the back of my ethical mind tells me that has to be illegal? These retailers should just be honest and front them up as a retro-fashion sale. And why is there no regulatory body here to stem the tide of sales that has this country under their siege? Seasonal sales, weekend sales, one-day sales, special occasion sales – Waitangi Day sales, Mother's Day sales, Easter sales, Boxing Day sales, VIP sales, Closing-down sales, End-of-lease sales, Stock-liquidation sales, Sale-for-the-sake-of-having-a-sale sales, and The-sale-to-end-all-sales sales – every day seems to be a sale day in some retail stores. Our major TV networks earn advertising revenue from retail anchors such as Briscoes, Harvey Norman and No.1 Shoes, and to the informed these retail chains sponsor the most number of sales in a year, thence the overwhelming invasion of their ads in our living rooms. Ezibuy and Farmers are implacable with their commitment to their arbitrary one-day sales but I wouldn't be remiss in my suspicion that their prices will have been hiked up before the sale to create an appearance that customers are being offered a good deal. In Malaysia the number of sales per year that a retail store is allowed to have is regulated by the commerce commission and retailers must register their sales days or periods at the start of the business year. Renegade retailers risk a revoking of their operating licenses.

My husband has ownership of some aspects of this last rant since he routinely does the grocery shopping and comes home annoyed by discourteous and unfriendly cashiers. I see my husband's point, even if it's more relevant to his shopping experience. Still, having lived in a number of countries – Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, the USA, and my own country of origin, Malaysia, I believe I'm qualified to ratify his observation: New Zealand customer services personnel have the worst PR of any country in the free world. Go to that supermarket of ubiquity in any town and on any day in NZ and you're guaranteed to be met by hapless faces behind the cash registers. What disturbs us both is that many of these faces belong to young people – post-secondary school students, no less. Yet, these are people who know they aren't trapped in a dead-end job forever. Now, I appreciate the fact that all of us have our insecurities and employ different kinds of defense mechanism to avoid harm. After all, people tell me I put up walls, so who am I to judge? That said, I leave behind my insecurities before I enter the classroom. And I do appreciate the fact that sales assistants and customer services personnel have the right to be protected from irate and inebriated customers; but why a customer services job if you plan to be a daily foil to merry job productivity and gay consumer outlay? Suspicion of a customer's intent does not give you the right to be cold and terse to everyone, or to paint with your broad brush everybody as a mugger.

It's unfortunate but true: I've never felt the old adage that 'customers are always right' relevant in New Zealand. I'm seldom met by friendly sales personnel who appreciate my dropping in for a browse. I don't feel protected by a system of recourse and redress put in place here for consumers who have been on the receiving end of an unfair trade practice. But I guess if such a system existed, we wouldn't need Fair Go and Target to mediate for us now, would we?

The Golden Chipmunk Awards

2009-03-01T12:07:00.000-08:00

(All new and revised)

Awards season concluded with the noticeably scaled-down Oscar Ceremony last weekend. The emcee of the night, Hugh Jackman, was amazing, whose tour de force song and dance routine proved it was no fluke that he had been awarded a Tony some time ago.

Still reeling from Oscar fever, I have amended The Golden Chipmunk Awards to include a commentary as a preamble to each of my nine categories under music, film, and literary and culture.

The Golden Chipmunk Music Awards

2009-03-01T12:01:00.000-08:00

Best songs of their decades
Songs of the past are more memorable than the kind of music we hear from the present motley of singers and bands assailing our radio stations and billboard charts today. The best songs over the years have endured the test of time because of a message that represents the culture of the day. Bob Dylan and Paul Simon wrote poetic lyrics that described the collapse of communication and the culture of isolation and loneliness of the 1960s. Today their music has attained iconic status because of its nostalgic representation of that era. Since the 90s, however, chart hits have been comprised of repetitive music and lyrics that are non-descript and derivative – they are the lyrical equivalent of diazepam for the Prozac generation. Amid the conundrum of gimmicky R & B wannabes, Hip Hop has-beens and Rap also-rans that have come out in a rash of mass-marketed musicians, there exists a small breed of musicians whose art has stayed true to its integrity to communicate a worthy message to the world, such as U2 and Neil Diamond.

My favourite twenty songs of all time, in order of preference, have been voted for their instrumental arrangement, iconic representation of the mood and culture of their decades, lilting melodies, sublime harmonies, and/or ability to raise my goose bumps.

And the Golden Chipmunk goes to:
1. The Boxer – Simon & Garfunkel
2. You Raise Me Up – Josh Groban / Westlife
3. Pretty Amazing Grace – Neil Diamond
4. Love Me for a Reason – The Osmond Brothers / Boyzone
5. The Unforgettable Fire – U2
6. Smokey Mountain Memories – Dolly Parton
7. Mr. Tambourine Man – The Byrds
8. A Lover's Concerto – The Toys
9. Have You Ever Seen the Rain – CCR
10. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road – Elton John
11. God Bless the USA – Lee Greenwood
12. Clair – Gilbert O'Sullivan
13. Viva La Vida – Coldplay
14. Pride – U2
15. Wouldn't It Be Good – Nik Kershaw
16. Do They Know it's Christmas – Live Aid (Original)
17. Ring of Fire (Johnny Cash)
18. Through the Years – Kenny Rogers
19. The Reflex / Save a Prayer – Duran Duran
20. I Don't Like Mondays – The Boomtown Rats

Top 20 bands of all time
Bands come and go. Not many have the staying power of The Rolling Stones or The Bee Gees, and it is a disservice to the music industry that its new crop of producers is manufacturing a slew of girl- and boy-bands which are one-hit wonders who go into obscurity after releasing their formulaic maiden hits. It's a small elite of bands that manages to stick around for more than two years. In fact those that survive the sophomore curse that is known to plague a musician's second record usually will have the talent, drive, business acumen and star quality to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Since the 60s, bands that have been around for more than three years include The Moody Blues, Dire Straits, Duran Duran, The Osmonds, The Who, Motley Crue and Bon Jovi. It is such bands that have produced a body of work from which to ascertain their place in my top 20 bands of all time category.

The following vocal bands (including duos) have been voted my top twenty on the basis of their body of work. They are in order of preference.

And the Golden Chipmunk goes to:
1. U2
2. Aerosmith
3. Simon & Garfunkel
4. The Bee Gees
5. Abba
6. Slaughter
7. Bon Jovi
8. Journey
9. England Dan & John Ford Coley
10. Foreigner
11. Duran Duran
12. The Carpenters
13. Queen
14. Chicago
15. The Cars
16. America
17. The Osmonds
18. The Beach Boys
19. The Bangles
20. Styx

Best themes, soundtracks and music scores
The one thing that is most noticeable about television series of this millennium is the tendency of their producers to omit a signature or theme tune. Gone seem to be the days when a programme was as much associated with its stars as its themes. Think of Charlie's Angels, Starsky and Hutch and Bonanza, and often one breaks out into their ditty as one daydreams of Farah Fawcett's mane blowing in the wind or Michael Landon's eyes twinkling at the expansive prairie. Likewise, soundtracks are all-important to a movie for the right music score can create the mood that appropriately accompanies a scene. It was the mournful opus of Tan Dun that created the elegiac mood for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It was the lofty score of John Williams that carried the audience away with the gaudery of Darth Vader. And it was the saturnine refrains of Danny Elfman that set the tone for the unregeneracy of Batman's seedy Gotham City underbelly.

Therefore, the following top twenty TV and movie signature tunes or soundtracks have been voted for their congruity, arrangement and ability to support a scene.

And the Golden Chipmunk goes to:
1. Luke Skywalker's theme (Star Wars)
2. Mission Impossible
3. Star Wars
4. The Phantom of the Opera
5. Pirates of the Caribbean
6. St Elmo's Fire
7. MacGyver
8. L A Law
9. Romeo & Juliet (Original)
10. Dynasty
11. Titanic
12. The Deer Hunter
13. Mulan
14. Fame
15. Knight Rider (current version)
16. Climb Every Mountain (from The Sound of Music)
17. Staying Alive
18. The Breakfast Club
19. The Big Valley
20. American Idol

The Golden Chipmunk Film Awards

2009-03-01T11:56:00.000-08:00

Best movies of their genre
In light of the fact that I haven't watched all the world's films that have been released at the cineplexes or on DVD, this category presents a personal listing of what is arguably the best movies of their genre. A good movie must consist of a well-developed plot and plausible characters. However, that's only half the truth: movies today require more than just a convincing script and compelling characters to compete in a saturated market. The following winners of my top twenty films happen to have the whole package: characters that are accessible, storylines that are original and poignant, a script that contains defining moments of truth and echt humour, groundbreaking use of CGI, SFX and cinematography, aesthetic and entertainment value, style and substance (although in my book, style must supersede substance), a feel-good message or wake-up call, and/or the ability to blur the line between fantasy and reality.

Winners of this category are not in any particular order.

And the Golden Chipmunk goes to:

Sci-fi / Sci-fi horror
Star Wars
Alien
The Thing
The Fly

Thriller / Spine chiller
Wind Chill
The Eye
The Others
The Exorcism of Emily Rose

Action
The Sting
Three Days of the Condor
Die Hard
X-Men: the Last Stand (Comic book adaptation)
The Hitman (Video game adaptation)

Musical
The Sound of Music

Classics / Epics
Romeo & Juliet (Franco Zeffirelli's version)
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Last of the Mohicans (Original)
Jesus of Nazareth (Gospel)

Asian
Hero (Historical fantasy cum martial arts)
The Infernal Affairs

Best movie special effects or visual effects
I am partial towards the old-fashioned filmmaking method of relying on a camera and a good script. However, one must progress with the times. Although every movie genre today has embraced the advent of modern technology which has revolutionised filmmaking, there are some genres that especially depend on technology such as computer generated imagery to produce a half decent and credible film. Genres such as science fiction, horror, superhero and action thriller have attained credibility and a cult following owing to the special and visual effects technology of pioneering industries such as George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic. Hence you have vampire bats that morph into Count Dracula, Tie fighters that zigzag at light speed between enemy X-fighters in deep space, and buildings that get blown up leaving their trail of collateral damage on vehicles and petrol stations, all visually breathtaking and convincingly executed without the necessity of suspending disbelief.

In no particular order, the following films have been voted the best for their visionary use of SFX or Visual FX, originality, seamless execution, visual impact, leaving a blitzkrieg effect on my spine, pioneering technology and wow-factor.

And the Golden Chipmunk goes to:
1. Star Wars
2. Indiana Jones
3. Titanic
4. Die Hard
5. Hero
6. The Thing
7. The Matrix
8. Terminator 2
9. The House of Flying Daggers
10. The Chronicles of Riddick
11. Independence Day
12. The Fifth Element
13. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
14. Transformers
15. Elektra

Best movie sets / set pieces
They are the most ignored and underrated because seldom noticed. I'm referring to the movie sets and set pieces that only film critics have the smarts to include in their reviews. In an awards ceremony like the Oscars, movie sets and set pieces are encompassed within the category of Best Art Direction; however, this category fails to give adequate prominence to an aspect of filmmaking that plays a significant role in visually impacting a film audience. With the exception of breathtaking backdrops like the panoramic landscapes and vistas of the Sahara Desert or the Grand Canyon, we often overlook a movie's sets and set pieces, unless we are attentive to detail and it's a movie we return to watch over and over again. From my front and centre vantage point, it's the settings and set pieces that make many of my favourite movies unforgettable because gorgeous to behold. Hero rates as the movie with the most impressive set pieces that the directors have conceived for their quasi-epic, ensuring that they are the coeval of their culture and time period. Their aesthetic lies in their relevance, colour coordination and craftsmanship. The two Star Wars trilogies score for the most creative set pieces under the direction of Norman Reynolds and company.

These personal favourite movie sets or set pieces of all time have been voted for their creativity, innovation, visual impact and registering 10/10 in The-Chipmunk-gasp-o-meter. They are in no particular order; film titles are in parenthesis.

And the Golden Chipmunk goes to:
1. Millennium Falcon (Star Wars)
2. Alien monster (Alien)
3. Alien's cavern (Alien)
4. Tie fighters (Star Wars)
5. Partially completed new Death Star (The Return of the Jedi)
6. Haunted mansion (The Haunting)
7. The city in The Chronicles of Riddick
8. The city in Blade Runner
9. Coliseum (Gladiator)
10. Bamboo forests (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)
11. Temple courtyard (Hero)
12. Forbidden City (Hero)
13. Placid lake (Hero)
14. Emperor's chamber (Hero)
15. Narnia kingdom (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe)

Outing some skeletons

2009-02-25T13:32:00.000-08:00

Many secrets are best left closeted, but not the following. (Warning: some stories may be unsuitable for reading.)

The lure of the stage
Simon Cowell will gag but in my opinion, Karaoke is Japan's best export. My uncle and I used to spend our Friday nights at a Karaoke club engaging the attendees with our mind blowing sets; my uncle's repertoire was random and included songs from the 50s and 60s. Mine consisted usually of Bette Midler's Wind Beneath My Wings, The Carpenters’ Close to You and Rainy Days and Mondays, and Dionne Warwick's Woman In Love. Depending on the acoustics and mikes, sometimes we impressed, other times we blew. My uncle is an old-school crooner, reminiscent of Andy Williams and Frank Sinatra, and has won several regional Karaoke contests in the solo category. Which is why I'm not bashful to duet with him. I have taken part in a couple of inter-college Karaoke contests that pitted the academic and administrative staffs of various schools in KL. My interpretation of Saving All My Love couldn't hold a votive candle to the original, but the judges thought it was good enough for the third prize. For my second and last contest ever, my voice lost its vibro (I think it was the greasy dinner I had before I took possession of the proscenium) but to the judges, Olivia Newton John's Have You Never Been Mellow wasn't a bad song choice and I was once more placed overall third best in the competition. Long story short, I entered the contests to prove to my music teacher in school, Mrs W, that she had been wrong when she almost excluded me from the school choir because she thought my audition was only mediocre. I made the choir by the skin of my teeth, but never felt as though she valued my contribution.

Nice guys finish last
Life is an endless series of competition to determine our place in the food chain. From the playground to the classroom and tuck shop, and thence to the office and shops, we are engaged in competition with our fellowmen which subjects us to the law of the jungle. I realise that we can't eliminate competition from our lives without eliminating capitalism and without competition progress would halt. However, in this fallen and imperfect world, with all our imperfect habits, sensibilities and aspirations, competition is seldom accompanied by justice and fair play. It's not always the ones who compete fairly who win the prize. In school I lost often to my classmates who cheated in their assignments by copying my work or someone else's, but were the ones rewarded with the glory that had been others' dues. A smattering of us who worked hard, competed fairly, and shared our notes, because we were naïve enough to believe in the golden rule, was robbed of glory in that way many times.

Axis of evil
It’s not boastful pride when I say that I used to be a predator-magnet. I think it was a self-fulfilling prophecy when my relatives had used to describe me as someone who was going to grow up with a sex appeal. It used to so mortify me; when my mother would visit relations with her children in tow, the relations would squander the visit by fussing over how pretty my sister was and how Caucasian my brother’s features appeared; and turning to me they would opine that my sex appeal was going to bode well for me. I was all but ten or eleven at that time! Unfortunately this appeal would prove deadly instead. I have come close to being a statistic for the vice arm of Police a few times. My triumvirate of evil employed a copycat modus operandi – on the pretext of giving me a ride, they took me to a place of seclusion and no sooner had we arrived than they were all arms and legs. They represented an eclectic demographics: my first assailant was a teenager who didn’t seem to have a direction in life; my second was a wealthy 70 year-old proprietor of the largest travel agency in KL, and my third a blond-haired blue-eyed moustachioed Aussie in his 20s who drove a convertible. In each instance I was able to stave them off by exploiting my anger to my advantage and being more in control than they. They say rape is not about sex but power – but how empowering is it to know that you have been able to subjugate a puny 5'2, 103-pounder?

A mother’s intuition
My mother is the most generous person I know. I can't begin to keep track of the amount of money she has sent to my husband and me since we got married. Let's not even talk of repaying her. But I do know that it must add up to a sizeable amount by now: all the furniture in our house, save the bed, has been my mother's gift. Ditto the state-of-the-art colour printer in our office. On those two occasions that we have been back to Asia to see her, she has reimbursed our travel and other expenses. And for several past birthdays and Christmases to date she has wired generous ang pows to us – the latest has been wired to us at the beginning of this year and with it have been her instructions to “go and enjoy yourselves.” Enjoy ourselves. It's as though my mother knows that I haven't indulged in much material enjoyment, the kind I once took for granted, for some time now. I have never let on that we were struggling; I have never complained about our circumstances, never hinted that we were in need. Never will because never have to. For after all, we've always been comfortable and God has always provided through our church, friends and my husband's parents. But somehow Mom just knows the extra help will be handy. A mother always knows.

Culture shock Kiwi style

2009-02-24T13:36:00.000-08:00

My OfficeWriter Thesaurus defines culture shock as disorientation. Yeah, I'm disoriented, all right. But I didn't see it coming.

Having travelled widely and independently my whole life, I had dived headlong into the migrant fray believing that I was going to adapt to my new life in NZ in an instant. Was I ever mistaken. The past six years have taught me that adapting to a new country as a permanent resident presents very different challenges from the ones confronting an overseas student or tourist.

My picture-making mechanism recalls making swift and ready adjustment to Australia when I was a student there for four years. I remember hardly ever feeling homesick or a longing for everything Malaysian the way my peers had used to feel. If anything, I would be racked by guilt because I couldn't miss my family and country more. Uni work was my only challenge and source of stress. I made friends easily, participated in social and church activities with the faithfulness of an Abraham, and was successfully juggling uni with my various part-time jobs. I even found the insipid institution food quite palatable and, occasioned by our creaturely need for variety, I would treat myself to a night on the boulevard where I found bistro food and Scandinavian smörgåsbord delectable. And my only sickness was the perennial colds I contracted in winter, and migraines caused by the stress of meeting assignment deadlines and the monthly periods.

So why do I find acclimatising to NZ such an inviolable challenge? Why do I find its culture and lifestyle more demanding than I have the resources to cope? And is it just me or is the food here all that tasteless, greasy and apt to make one bloated and nauseated? Granted the nutrition here is very different, but I lived on meat pies, sausage rolls and dim sims in Melbourne, too.

Is it just me or does every other immigrant take ill with the perpetuity of infinite time, which is a given? In my last ten years in KL I had taken sick leave from work no more than five times. On the other hand, in my first year of returning to the workforce in NZ, I had taken five days of sick leave (which was my optimum before my pay got docked). But I had been sick more often than that. That's five times in a span of 12 months in NZ compared to five times in a span of 120 months in KL.

Right now I'm treating several itchy scabs that persist in darkening my world – all have been mosquito bites to begin with. But mozzie bites in Malaysia and Australia didn't leave scabs that were still itching after two years, forcryingoutloud! If even my GP is confounded and has no miracle cure for them (and mind you, my GP has been voted the best in his field by the Manawatu community), then these scabs ought to qualify as lab specimens for our scientists and researchers to get to the root of the problem.

Every year since my arrival in NZ I've had to deal with a different kind of malaise. In my first year it was painful chilblains that swelled up my extremities so that they resembled a pig's trotters. In my second year my eyelid twitched every day so that after a fortnight of suffering like old Job, I sought out a GP to sort out my confused eyelid. The GP said I might need Botox to sedate the nerves. However he prescribed oral medication for my initial nostrum, which thankfully worked, so I was spared the affliction of Botox. Then, my third year saw me going through five bouts of the 'flu in successive weeks and that awful stomach bug that had me so doubled over that my husband needed to carry me to the Emergency Ward; and in my fourth year, a superfluity of spotty rashes riddled my legs to the extent that I could have spent hours playing connect-the-dots with them. Last year I developed itchy skin syndrome on my neck, back and elbows – eczema, actually – so apparently my case manager informed me that I qualified for a disability benefit. Woo-hoo! But how befuddling that none of those maladies ever recurred in any other year.

With these odds threatening to make my life in NZ a caricature of normalcy, I am incredulously missing home and my mother – me a married woman, for Petey's sakes! I long to see my mother and taste and smell her cooking. And I long for all the food from home that I used to take for granted and of which I was spoiled for choice.

Now what aspects of the Kiwi culture are exposing me to the caboodle of maladies mentioned above? OK, so the people here have a different way of saying 'cervical' which creeps me out, and 'debut' which cracks me up. But they're just words. And, so Kiwis are fond of casting racial slurs at aliens – but I cast my looks of disdain with my slanty eyes at their bizarre slang and clothes, too, so why should I put myself on a higher moral ground? We are all snobby creatures given to our ethnocentric posturing. The weather also must take much of the blame – it's too hot or it's too cold, with nothing in between, which suits me better. That and my nutrition, which is nada, zilch, because what do I know about cooking with ginger, garlic, gingko and all the assorted goodness that you get from herbs and spices? For us it's take-outs or rotisserie chicken from the supermarket. And TV dinners and lots and lots of junk food. Because they're fast and easy, cheap and fill the stomachs.

Ultimately being a permanent resident or citizen in a foreign country when you're an adult presents you with greater challenges than being a transient student or tourist – there are bills to pay, dependents to feed, a car and house to maintain, a new workplace culture to which to adjust, income tax forms to file, and work and social taboos to unlearn and re-learn.

Moving, getting married, having a baby, losing the baby, getting a new job – all are examples of change that have been stressful. But compounded by the age factor and lack of support, a change of lifestyle – where failure is not an option – will contribute to an enormous toll on anyone's health and well-being.

Oh, did I mention bills to pay?

Towards the fulfillment of the land covenant

2009-02-16T11:02:00.000-08:00

An attempt at refuting the A-millennial and Post-millennial positions concerning the abrogation of God's Land Covenant to Israel is not unlike casting pearls at swine. Many have done so with theses, dissertations and essays, but their noteworthy prolix has had almost zero impact on these ideologues of Reconstructionism. Both A-mill and Post-mill adherents essentially embrace a Replacement theology which extrapolates that any covenant relationship God made with Israel has been annulled at the First Coming of Jesus Christ. Therefore, it is their view that God is finished with the Jewish people as a nation, and they regard as justified individuals and nations that hesitate to recognise the State of Israel as legitimate, now or in the future. In their opinion, no Temple of God is to be re-built in Jerusalem, and no Millennial Kingdom for Israel is to be established with Jerusalem as its capital, any time in the future. What's more, according to Replacement theology, all of God's promises to Israel have been transferred to the church, which is the spiritual Israel.

It's my turn now to fight with my fellow pre-millennialists in the pre-millennial futurist trenches. There is absolutely no foundation, Scriptural, pragmatic or lexical, for the assertions of the Replacement teachings. For one, the church comprises both Jewish and Gentile believers in Jesus Christ and, so, is neither a nation nor a theocracy. On the other hand, physical Israel has always referred to the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to whom God gave the Land Covenant. For another, the Promised Land was never extended to the church, which is a separate entity from Israel and is under the New Covenant which is the Covenant of Grace. Search the Scriptures and you'd be hard pressed to find the church ever having been offered a Land Covenant. Therefore, the church has not replaced Israel as far as God's promises to her as a nation, and her restoration and restitution. God's Land Covenant to Israel is, thus, a fulfillment that is yet in the future.

In Genesis 12, the Lord said to Abraham, “Now Yahweh said unto Abram, 'Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto the land that I will show thee.'"

The Lord promised Abraham that He would make a great nation from Abraham and to this nation He would give a land. The content of the Land Covenant is found in Deuteronomy 29:10-30. (See here.) As recorded in the book of Exodus, this covenant was first made between God and the people of Israel upon their release from Egyptian bondage under the leadership of Moses.

The Land Covenant, which has been expanded from the original Abrahamic Covenant, is an unconditional one. This fact cannot be adequately stressed. St. Augustine's fifth century AD support that gave leverage to the adherents of A-millennial Reconstructionism is a shameful indictment of western history's anti-semitic treatment of the Jews by the papacy and atrocities such as the Spanish Inquisition and Jewish Holocaust. The covenants that God made with Israel, which God swore to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, are eternal and are not in any way changed or altered by time. Neither are these unconditional covenants abrogated despite Israel's disobedience, even though she has failed to follow the Lord's commands that they be obedient to His laws. Time and again God has chastised His disobedient people, making it hard for them to enter the Promised Land, or exiling them, but God has never retracted His covenant with them. One of His promises is to re-gather them to Israel from wherever they are to be scattered in exile. This has been a recurrence: we read in the Old Testament several times God's fulfilling His promises of bringing the Israelites and Hebrews back to Israel after they had repented of their sin. God is immutable – He was faithful then, and He is faithful now. God will yet fulfill all His covenantal promises to Israel in the future.

In the 30th chapter of Deuteronomy, the Land Covenant stipulates the following promises from God: Israel will be re-gathered to the land (vs. 3-4), Israel is to possess all the Promised Land (vs. 5); Israel will be regenerated (vs. 6); and God will judge Israel's enemies (vs. 7). Only one of these has hitherto been fulfilled – Israel's regathering to her land from all the four corners of the world. However, this is a continuing effort requiring millions in funds and donations from Israel's allies and friends to bring all her exiles home from every part of the world.

Although the Jews today have been restored to their Promised Land, they are not in total possession of all the land as promised by God. Arabs today occupy the Gaza Strip and West Bank, and Jordanians on the eastern part of the land constantly threaten their security. Jerusalem is still trampled by Gentiles; in particular, the Temple Mount which is the site of the ancient Holy of Holies, is in Arab hands under the Waqf, a Jordanian-controlled Muslim trust.

All of God's promises to Abraham and His generations will be fulfilled in the same manner that prophecy concerning the re-birth of Israel, as foretold in Ezekiel 37, has been fulfilled in 1948. This restoration of the nation Israel, after nearly 2000 years of exile, is truly a miracle. Equally miraculous is the restoration of their ancient Hebrew language and script to common everyday usage. On the basis of God's faithfulness and Scripture's foolproof record of the fulfillment of its prophetic content, we can confidently deduce that another miraculous restoration is soon to happen in the near future: this is the rebuilding of the Temple of God in Jerusalem, which will no longer be just a dream of every devout Jewish individual.

There is evidence that God's third Temple will be built on the site of Solomon's Temple: the plans for re-creating God's holy sanctuary have been discovered and drawn up; the Levitical priesthood has been re-established and the priesthood's vesture in accordance with the Levitical mandate is being recreated; the Sanhedrin that is the highest court that rules on Temple worship is being reconvened; the utensils, sacred objects, Oil of Anointing and ancient temple treasures are being retrieved, as is the location of the Ark of the Covenant in the process of being found; the red heifer that's presented as a sacrifice has been recovered and is being prepared - all of these have been documented by other writers and researchers as the progress made by the Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement towards the inevitable re-building of the Temple. What now remains is the opportunity and signal to rebuild on the Temple Mount for this may be the present site of the Muslims' Dome of the Rock.

Just as foretold in Scripture, God has brought multitudes of exiled Jews back to their homeland, and many more are returning in waves from all the four corners of the world where they were scattered during the Jewish diaspora. However, the Jews will only truly enjoy complete occupation of all of the Promised Land, from the little River of Egypt to the great River Euphrates (Numbers 34), when they become a saved nation during their Millennial resurrection. Indeed, as prophesied, there will be a Millennial Kingdom for Israel where their Messiah, Christ Jesus, will sit on the promised throne of David and reign from Jerusalem.

God is obviously not done with Israel and the church has not replaced Israel. As a matter of fact, astute Biblical hermeneutics adduce that all the end times prophecies involve Israel one way or another and they are ineluctably coming to pass. Prophetic revelations are not given to instill fear but to provide an incentive to engage in some good housekeeping, for God has put the world on a countdown clock with a limited time to put their temples in order, recover their moral bearings, bridge their schism with the Jewish nation and make amends with their Creator.

A new take on the 'global warming' controversy

2009-02-15T16:54:00.000-08:00

Some time last year I read an interesting article that explained the cause of global warming. I thought I would re-produce the content (paraphrased) here. Note that this is a matter for deep and prayerful introspection and contents need to be cross-checked with the Bible and current scientific understanding. Do the research yourself and draw your own conclusion at the end of this reading.

For many, not unlike me, this may quite possibly be the most radical and controversial explanation they'll ever come across in support of the earth's temperatures heating up. Scientists, ecologists and agriculturalists claim that the rise in temperatures is caused by global warming owing to centuries of man's abuse of nature with industrial pollution, indiscriminate deforestation, the invention and use of plastics, refrigerants and hair sprays, burning of fossil fuels, and draining of the world's wetlands. Al Gore has intoned in his political rhetoric, An Inconvenient Truth, a dire need for change in the way we are treating our eco-system, and politicians all over the world are jumping on the conservationists' bandwagon to call for climate change summits in a bid to address the 'global warming' crisis. Indeed, 'global warming' is on everyone's lips.

However, many more scientists now say that experiments to prove 'global warming' are an inexact science. These represent the vocal minority who does not believe that either man or the environment is the cause of earth's heating up. In any case, while one day we may be seeing signs of earth's atmosphere warming up, the next we can just as easily be fooled by what appears to be earth's temperatures cooling down. Back in the 70s, only three decades ago, there was worldwide fear of earth's retrogressing to an ice age. How did a mere 30 years reverse the issue to the extent that we're experiencing a so-called global warming instead of global cooling? Unless the weather, by the sheer definition of the term, is really that whimsical and enjoys toying with our emotions? In case you have forgotten, scientists have been flip flopping several times already in the last three decades concerning what is really going on with our climate.

Yet we cannot deny that we are feeling hotter today. This notwithstanding, neither can we rely on the truisms of the scientific community, peer-reviewed notwithstanding, politicians or environmentalists, what with their assorted personal agenda engineered in support of scapegoating man-made climate change. Considering their personal dogma, to maintain that anyone of these 'luminaries' is above satisfying a self-aggrandising agenda is dishonest. Let the facts speak for themselves: Al Gore worships Gaia, the Earth Mother, and is pursuing a religious agenda; many environmentalists are socialists and, so, have a political agenda; scientists need grants to fund their research and maintain their livelihood, so theirs is a financial agenda.

Whereas it is true that temperatures have been increasing steadily in the last twenty years, the facts do not support the environment or climate change as the source. So what are these facts?

Consider just the glaciers on the mountain tops and ice caps near the poles which are melting at an alarming rate. Studies have determined that these glaciers and ice caps are melting from beneath the earth. (See here.) That seems to defy logic and conventional wisdom, for if rising temperatures are the cause of the heat that's resulting in global warming, then the glaciers and ice caps ought to be melting from the top. But they aren't. Thence we can discount the suspicion that the penguins are using too much deodorant.

If it's not the atmosphere that is heating up, causing global warming, then there is only one logical inference confronting us: it is earth's interior that's heating up. This cohesively explains why glaciers and ice caps are melting from beneath. But how and why is this happening? Since it is possible – no, probable – that God has left us codes in the Bible for unlocking some of life's many mysteries, Holy Writ may have the final word on the 'global warming' issue.

A study of last-days prophecies in Isaiah and Revelation unearths some gemstones concerning what's going to happen to our sun and moon. First, Isaiah 30:26 tells us: “Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days”. Revelation 16:8-9 says, “And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God”.

The above prophetic verses reveal that in the last days the sun will increase in its light (heat) by sevenfold and it will be the result of an outpouring of God's wrath on earth dwellers to punish them for their evil. Therefore, the source of the heating up of earth's interior or core is likely the prophesied increasing of the sun's light of the magnitude of seven days' of light. The above verses studied in the light of prophecy are a reference to one of seven of God's vial judgments that will occur during the Great Tribulation, also known as The Day of the Lord. The increase in the sun's light will be a gradual occurrence until the Day of the Lord is at hand. But why is this happening?

The Bible gives us many clues to understanding God's purpose for man, his world and his environment. The purpose behind God's creation of the heavenly bodies, including the sun, is stated in Genesis 1:14: “And God said, 'Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years'”.

Hence the sun's heating up is a prophetic sign that points to our living in the last days, the days before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ for the church after which the Great Tribulation will commence. It's therefore no coincidence that 'global warming' is happening at this moment. We are living in the last days and 'global warming' is a sign given to us as a warning to be prepared for the coming Day of God's Wrath.

From the biblical perspective, the implications of 'global warming' caused by the sun's heating up of earth's interior, or core, are twofold: one, hell is enlarging, and two, the Lake of Fire is going to break through the surface of earth.

In Isaiah 14: 9-12, we read: “Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!”

This verse prophesies of the moving of hell from beneath to meet the devil, Lucifer or Satan, who will be thrown down at his judgment. End times eschatology foretells of the rise of Antichrist during the Great Tribulation that is to come on the world scene after the rapture of the church. When Antichrist, who is indwelt by Satan, arises from the abyss he will literally break forth from the fires of hell and these will burn through the surface of earth. Earth dwellers will literally witness the Lake of Fire breaking through the surface of earth. For a time the Antichrist, through the power of the devil, will wreak havoc on earth dwellers who will suffer the worst trial of their lives as never before. However their reign of terror will last just 42 months. After this Jesus will defeat them and they will be judged and thrown into the Lake of Fire.

Isaiah 34 describes the Lake of Fire as visible on earth after the Great Tribulation when Satan, the devil, and Antichrist have been judged: “For it is the day of the LORD’S vengeance, and the year of recompense for the controversy of Zion. And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.”

In summary, the sun is heating up in preparation for the Day of the Lord, when the Lake of Fire will be visible to man, and God's enemies will be judged in hell in the presence of the saved Elect. It will be a testament of God's holiness and justice, for God will not allow evil to exist without recompense.

The anti-intellectualism of creationists

2009-02-15T16:48:00.000-08:00

By KT and The Whyman

Evolutionists and atheists pride themselves as 'brights'. Consequently, they make laughing stocks of creationists and traduce Bible-believers with their denigrating accusations of anti-intellectualism. Since many of them, such as Richard Dawkins, point blankly refuse to enter into any kind of meaningful dialogue with the latter, how they reach their libelous and disparaging conclusion defies history and reason. History itself decries their mockery for it testifies contrariwise of the great number of creationist scientists who were not only anti-anti-intellectual but also laureates in the fields of modern science such as geology, paleontology, physics, anatomy, thermodynamics, astronomy, cosmology, biochemisty and molecular biology. Most of the sciences we take for granted today stand on the shoulders of these great minds that just happened to take the Bible seriously. An example of an anti-anti-intellectual and Bible-believing scientist was Sir Isaac Newton.

Sir Isaac Newton has always been considered one of the two greatest scientists of the last 500 years. He clearly saw the implications of celestial mechanics and the intricately designed wonders in the sky.

One day, as Newton sat reading in his study with his mechanism on a large table near him, a friend, who saw things differently than he did, stepped in. Scientist that he was, he recognized at a glance what was before him. Stepping up to it, he slowly turned the crank, and with undisguised admiration watched the heavenly bodies all move in their relative speed in their orbits.

Standing off a few feet he exclaimed, ‘My! What an exquisite thing this is! Who made it?’ Without looking up from his book, Newton answered, ‘Nobody.’

Quickly turning to Newton, his friend said, ‘Evidently you did not understand my question. I asked who made this?’

Looking up now, Newton solemnly assured him that nobody made it, but that the apparatus had just happened to assume the form it was in.

The astonished man replied with some heat, ‘You must think I am a fool! Of course somebody made it, and he is a genius, and I’d like to know who he is!’

Laying his book aside, Newton arose and said, ‘This thing is but a puny imitation of a much grander system, whose laws you know,—and here I am not able to convince you that this mere toy before you is without a designer and maker!

‘Yet you profess to believe that the great original from which the design is taken, with its more massive and complicated orbital motions, has come into being without either designer or maker! Now tell me by what sort of reasoning do you reach such a conclusion?’ — The Minnesota Technolog, October 1957. [1]

Here is a laconic but partial overview of what true scientists were accomplishing in the 18th and 19th centuries. All of them were Creationists:
Louis Agassiz (1807-1873): glacial geology, ichthyology.
Charles Babbage (1792-1871): actuarial tables, calculating machine, foundations of computer science.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626): scientific method of research.
Robert Boyle (1627-1691): chemistry, gas dynamics.
Sir David Brewster (1781-1868): optical mineralogy, kaleidoscope.
Georges Cuvier (1769-1832): comparative anatomy, vertebrate paleontology.
Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829): thermokinetics.
Jean Henri Fabre (1823-1915): entomology of living insects.
Michael Faraday (1791-1867): electric generator, electro-magnetics, field theory.
Sir John A. Fleming (1849-1945): electronics, thermic valve.
Joseph Henry (1797-1878): electric motor, galvanometer.
Sir William Herschel (1738-1822): galactic astronomy, double stars.
James Joule (1818-1889): reversible thermodynamics.
Lord William Kelvin (1824-1907): absolute temperature scale, energetics, thermodynamics, transatlantic cable.
Johannes Kepler (1571-1630): celestial mechanics, ephemeris tables, physical astronomy.
Carolus Linnaeus (1707-1778): classification system, systematic biology.
Joseph Lister (1827-1912): antiseptic surgery.
Matthew Maury (1806-1873): hydrography, oceanography.
James C. Maxwell (1831-1879): electrical dynamics, statistical thermodynamics.
Gregor Mendel (1822-1884): genetics.
Samuel F.B. Morse (1791-1872): telegraph.
Isaac Newton (1642-1727): calculus, dynamics, law of gravity, reflecting telescopes.
Blaise Pascal (1623-1662): hydrostatics, barometer.
Louise Pasteur (1822-1895): bacteriology, biogenesis law, pasteurization, vaccination, and immunization.
Sir William Ramsey (1852-1916): inert gases, isotropic chemistry.
John Ray (1827-1705): natural history, classification of plants and animals.
John Rayleigh (1842-1919): dimensional analysis, model analysis.
Bernhard Riemann (1826-1866): non-Euclidean geometry.
Sir James Simpson (1811-1870): chloroform, gynecology.
Sir George Stokes (1819-1903): fluid mechanics.
Rudolph Virchow (1821-1902): pathology.

These were great minds of the past. But what about today?

Today there are hundreds of thousands of Bible-believing Creationist scientists who are continually sent to coventry for their audacious refusal to keep their scientific evidence in support of Creationism to themselves. Many go underground, but others conform to their colleagues for fear of losing their tenure and funding, as well as being ostracised by the mainstream scientific community. It's not because their findings do not pass the litmus test of scientific truth, but the Darwinists have their own philosophical reason for censoring the formers' evidence. Talk about dogmatic anti-intellectualism. Evolutionary theory is scientism, in its purest and simplest form, and together with atheism, is very much a religion that is an opiate for the Bible-haters and those willing to remain in their spiritual blindness.

Footnote:
1. Vance Ferrell, Evolution Buster, p.117.

Best and worst smells

2009-02-15T16:46:00.000-08:00

Best Smells
1. Leather
2. Dettol
3. 4711 cologne
4. Gripe Water
5. Coriander
6. Freshly-baked crumble
7. New books
8. A baby's head
9. Chocolate
10. Mint leaves

Worst Smells (that induce sneezing)
1. Cigarette smoke
2. Perfumes
3. Popcorn
4. Detergent
5. Musty cupboards
6. New paint
7. Newsprint
8. Fur
9. Grass / Flowers
10. Burning log and tinder (Achoo!)

Best and worst international bodies / organisations

2009-02-15T16:42:00.000-08:00

Best international bodies / organisations
1. Wycliffe Bible Translators International
2. The Gideons International
3. World Relief Corporation
4. Salvation Army
5. Samaritan's Purse

6. International Red Cross
7. ChildFund Alliance
8. World Net Daily

Worst international bodies / organisations
1. United Nations
2. Greenpeace
3. International Planned Parenthood Federation
4. McDonald's
5. Nestlé
6. Proctor & Gamble
7. Theosophical Society
8. International Humanist and Ethical Union
9. International Monetary Fund
10. World Council of Churches
Noteworthy: Special mention is made of the Cancer Research Society and SETI for years of swallowing up funds but making little progress.

Definitive icons of culture

2009-02-08T16:10:00.000-08:00

So voted for their enduring symbolisms; when I think of that decade reverberations of their imagery are consistently evoked.

1. 50s – James Dean, commies, Paddington Bear, Lego bricks
2. 60s – Mary Quant, Edie Sedgwick, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Bob Dylan, Vietnam, psychedelia, Manson family, sexual revolution, space travel

3. 70s – Bell bottoms, platform shoes, Saturday Night Fever, Abba, disco, The Exorcist, moral revolution, Farrah Fawcett
4. 80s – Madonna, U2, Dynasty, Live Aid, Berlin Wall's falling, falling, prime time soaps, big hair, arms race, political correctness, Princess Diana, spandex, body consciousness
5. 90s – grunge, the World Wide Web, deconstructionism, gaming console wars, cynicism, Y2K
6. '00s – war on terror, 9/11, relativism, war on 'intolerance', socialist revival
7. '10s – I predict the Rapture, the Great Tribulation, Antichrist, cashless society, wars, the Mark of the Beast (but don't trust me)

Still fundie after all these years

2009-01-29T13:42:00.000-08:00

A rash of bad publicity has been rolling off the press and Internet of late making 'fundamentalist' a dirty word. Bible-believers are running in spade to deny the label in favour of calling themselves evangelicals. It's a classic case of equivocation – they fear being associated with the militants of Islam who murder thousands of infidels in the name of religion.

I believe the label 'evangelical' has today even more negative associations and connotations in Christian circles. Evangelicalism and those in the Evangelical Left are at risk of being on the wayward path to first embracing 'all religions lead to God', an axiom of the emerging church movement; then liberalism of the Jesus Seminar ilk; after that, ecumenism, the ushering in of world peace through the unity of all faiths (anathema to Christ because of their mutually exclusive core tenets); and finally apostasy, the denial of Christ altogether, of which Paul prophesied in 2 Thessalonians 2:3.

It would be prudent at this juncture to disabuse the ignorant of fundamentalism by delineating the origin of the term. The word 'fundamentalist' was first employed in 1920 by Curtis Lee Laws in reference to a Christian who held to the historic core doctrines of the Christian faith: (1) the inerrancy of Scriptures, (2) the miracles of Christ (including His virgin birth), (3) the literal, bodily resurrection of Christ, (4) the substitutionary atonement of Christ, and (5) the deity of Christ.

From author David Robertson to TV news anchor, Bill O'Reilly, fundamentalists today are copping a motherlode of negative press. Fundamentalists are blamed for everything that's negative about religion, from hate crimes, anti-intellectualism and persecution of homosexuals, to the mass carnage of devotees of extremist cults and sects such as the Branch Davidian.

Many a time, this equivocation is unjustifiably set up as a strawman by amnesty and civil rights groups in order to discredit and silence the Body of Christ and browbeat the courts into according more rights and privileges to the fringe groups they represent. Reason? It's Christians, in particular of the fundamentalist right wing persuasion, who are standing in the way of gay rights and climate change protocol and New Ageism and pro-choice.

As for me, I'm proud to be called a fundamentalist for it's validation that my beliefs are balanced on the fulcrum of the 5 Biblical fundamentals. An aside, if you're going to call yourself a Right Wing evangelical, you might as well retain the label 'fundamentalist', because they aren't totally at variance. However, if your actions or beliefs contravene these, then, by definition, you don't pass the fundamentalist's muster, so dispense with the strawman arguments already!

Life begins at conception

2009-01-29T13:25:00.000-08:00

The dilemma of those in the pro-choice camp is the misconception that aborted and miscarried embryos are not human. On the contrary, I believe that life begins at conception. The Bible in Psalm 139:13 says, “You formed my delicate inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb; You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was being woven together in the dark of the womb; You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in Your book, every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.”

Even modern medical technology far superior to ultrasound has confirmed that babies do not go through the 'fetal' stage nor are they conceived as amorphous cells, but are miniature humans capable of thought and pain and play.

However, despite my knowledge of this, even I am disposed to forgetting that my miscarried babies are extant like everyone else, endowed with the gift of life, having a body (though a glorified one suited for heaven), soul and spirit. Acquaintances will ask my husband and me if we have children and our immediate instinct is to shake our heads in response.

The reality is that we do have children – two in fact. Christopher Israel and Genesis Tamsyn didn't make full term, sadly, but they are living in heaven now. I believe they're all grown up – and this is how we will see them when we meet them there. By God's power, we will be able to recognise them also.

I believe aborted and miscarried babies are given an automatic pass to heaven, since they haven't reached the age of accountability to be able to make their own decision whether to accept or reject Christ. My personal consolation in regard to my miscarried babies is that I am spared the anxiety and heartache of worrying about offspring who will one day autonomously deny Christ and forever forfeit grace and the gift of salvation.

As much as I ache for my husband, because he so loves children, and for myself for not being able to watch my babies grow up and guide them through their developmental stages, or watch Israel carried on Dad's shoulders, and go shopping for matching apparel with Tamsyn, I am heartened that they are with the Lord in heaven.

A heart in BBGS

2009-01-27T12:29:00.000-08:00

Student life in BBGS (Bukit Bintang Girls' Secondary School) was a roller-coaster ride of sentiments: gratitude for my teachers peppered with resentment at their myopic vision of what constituted an exemplary student; pride in my limited accomplishments – mainly in art and literature – laced with the deepest remorse at all the squandered opportunities.

I could have done better, but I had all but peaked at fourteen. At 14, I was mentally depleted. An interplay of circumstances outside my control, which included my chronically poor health (today they call it lactose- and gluten-intolerance), and upheaval on the home front, had shifted my focus from the mundane classroom to the escapist milieu of teen pop culture.

Consequently, textbooks were relegated under a heap of 16, Tiger Beat and Seventeen magazines, but so was my mastery of English riding on the crest of the rag trade. While I was hardly academically inclined, my fear of winding up on skid row effectively ousted a lifestyle choice that would be potentially without direction. I booked a passage to Australia and majored in literature at university.

Four years later, I returned to KL and promptly assumed teaching responsibilities at Taylor’s College, PJ. My floundering at adolescence would lead me to over-compensate in adulthood. I became ambitious and laboured in earnest to establish myself in the workplace. In the ensuing years I was Academic Director and Principal of several institutions of learning in Malaysia. During the course, I had revisited BBGS as a Sunday School teacher with JIC, had published my short stories and books, and had even dabbled in journalistic writing.

Today I am a citizen of New Zealand, my surrogate country. I teach English to international students at a local school and, whenever I can, I support my husband’s outreach ministry, which aims to bring the light of Jesus Christ to the world. You’re welcome to visit his site: http://www.thewhyman.jesusanswers.com/.

There is a heart in BBGS - mine. This, despite some of my worst trials being wrought in the school. Indeed, life did not always deal me a fair hand but it is because of the BBGS culture that I am what I am, high-achieving and single-minded but also empathetic and forgiving. And I pick up the litter I come across, straighten the wall hangings, and live a circumspect life – these are but some inconsequential residues of BBGS’ ample legacy that lives on in me.

Defining moments in BBGS

2009-01-27T12:23:00.000-08:00

This is a summary of the moments in BBGS that defined my character and outlook ~

Form 1
A new era was dawning. I had progressed to BBGS from her feeder school down the hill. I ran with a circle of girls who, one day, descended upon the class monitor like a flock of vultures to destroy her. There had been resentment at the absence of a democratic process in electing our class representative, and she bore the brunt of our resentment. Miss Cooke, our principal, was hastily summoned to defuse the situation and as I listened to her acerbic tirade, I decided unequivocally that I would never again be part of a clique, that I would not succumb to herd mentality without justification, and that I was always going to march to the beat of my own drummer.

Form 2
The tables were now turned and I understood the alienating effects of being ‘Teacher’s Pet’. The form teacher had ignored the process of election when she slapped the monitor tag on my uniform. The one to hate and pick on, I was in a lonely place. Carrying out my duties without the class’ support was akin to navigating an explosive minefield; my classmates were veritable emotional land mines, daring me to detonate them with every wrong word and action. I refused to surrender to their bullying tactics, resolving to win over my adversaries by seeking a common ground. As the year drew to a close, I found that common ground – a collective devotion to Donny Osmond.

Form 3
My relationship with my two best girl pals, whom I’d known since Form One, was deepening and they made school meaningful. The slender, tall and absolutely lovely Marilyn, with her gentle dotage, was a balm for the topsy-turvy condition of my home. Unbeknownst to her, she challenged me to up my ante at the academic stakes, mainly in English. Jennifer, whom I loved, greeted me every day with a kiss on my cheek. Jen had heard the myth that more weight was equated with extra height. We put the myth to the test, and packed on the pounds with rojak, chee cheong fun and ice cream every day. Well, our madcap exercise succeeded at debunking the myth and we were saddled with the excess weight while the promised height gain eluded us. We visited Joanne Drew to rid us of the excess but, shamefully, at last we chose laxatives and slimming pills for a quick fix.

Meanwhile, I was developing a keen awareness of my nascent talent at writing and aesthetics during English classes. I had won the first and third prizes in a national poetry writing contest. My teachers expressed their concern at my proclivity for daydreaming but little did they realise that during those moments when they had caught me with my eyes glazed over, I was making mental constructs of sweeping fictional landscapes and characters that were the basis of the short stories and novella I would later publish.

Forms 4 and 5
It was a frustrating time. The dreaded MCE was looming over the horizon. I was placed in the Arts stream, and since Form Two, I had suffered from cognitive dissonance, the acutely painful recognition that I was never going to be able to get my head around geometry, or distinguish atoms from molecules, or dissect frogs with ease. Nor did I see their relevance to my life.

The Careers Club room was my personal sanctum, where I spent my senior years reading about prospective careers. In the meantime, I was gaining a reputation among the staff as an artist. I was commissioned to design the programme cover for the school’s production of Aladdin, and posters for fund raisers and staff fun fairs. My ad poster for the Careers Club so impressed the treasurer that she made me her heir presumptive. And so I toyed with the idea of carving a career in the Arts while I half-heartedly swotted for my exams.

About this time, I was also being stalked by two girls from another class. They would giggle to each other whenever we locked eyes. It stroked my ego to have admirers but I learned to prolong the sport of the chase by being coy and playing hard to get.

MCE came and went and, somewhat predictably, I had obtained distinctions in all three of my English papers. It was also the end of my scholastic sojourn along the hallowed corridors of BBGS.

The ten toes (Eschatology 101)

2009-01-27T12:14:00.000-08:00

and the coming world leader called the Antichrist.

Several events unfolding in the geo-political landscape of this millennium are being watched closely by prophecy observers as signs that earth is being primed for history's culmination. The most ardently observed of these events are the preparation for the building of the third Temple of God in Jerusalem, the restoration of Russia to socialism, the confederation of Arab nations in the Mid East, the restoration of Babylon, and the rise of the European Union after the vein of the Roman empire. It's the rise of the EU that will be the focus of today's brief overview of events that are soon to be visited on earth dwellers.

The emergence of the EU was foretold in Nebuchadnezzar's dream which was interpreted for the Babylonian king by the exiled prophet Daniel, in the book of Daniel chapter 2 verses 42-43: “Whereas you saw the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, for as much as you saw the iron mixed with miry clay. And as the toes of the feet were part of iron, and part of clay, so the kingdom shall be partly strong, and partly broken.”

These toes of part iron and clay are resonated in the Lord Jesus' AD 90 revelation to the exiled apostle John concerning the end of days. In Revelation 7:17-18, John wrote, “And the angel said unto me ... I will tell you the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carries her, which has the seven heads and ten horns. The beast that you saw was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit.”

Since a 'horn' in Scripture symbolises a government or kingdom, and Daniel has also referred to the ten toes of Nebuchadnezzar's dream as symbolising a kingdom, bible scholars have long recognised both the ten toes and horns as representing the ten nations of the European Union whose emergence in world polity will pave the way for the creation of a New World Order. These ten kingdoms will become a world power that will take over the world's political, economic and social systems.

This One-World order comprising the ten core economic powers of the EU will also be the one from which a world leader, who is the Antichrist, will arise. His ascension to world prominence and dominance will be swift, whose transition to world wide acceptance and reverence will be eased by his charisma and promise of lasting peace and prosperity.

The oft-punted identity of the Antichrist will not be unveiled until the church of Jesus Christ has been snatched up into heaven by God (in the rapture) resulting in the Holy Spirit, hitherto the One who has been restraining the devil and abject evil from consuming mankind, being taken away as well. This will allow evil to be loosed unbridled on the world, and the Antichrist will arise from the abyss. The 7-year tribulation begins at this juncture.

Antichrist's dictatorial reign on earth will be for three and a half years, or 42 months, in what's called the Great Tribulation, during which time God will also unleash His judgment on rebellious man and sanctify the nation of Israel through the outpouring of His wrath. Plagues, pestilences and natural disasters are some of the manifestations of God's wrath. The trigger for the start of the Great Tribulation will be about the time Antichrist enters the temple of God that's been re-built in Jerusalem. There, in what's known as the Abomination of Desolation, he will set up an idol in his own image and the False Prophet, Antichrist's right hand man, will desecrate the holy temple by forcing man to worship this idol.

During the Great Tribulation, the False Prophet, who's the religious leader of the new world order, just as Antichrist is its political and military leader, will force man to bow before the latter who will make war on those who turn their lives over to Jesus. Many of these tribulation Christians will be martyred for their conversion and refusal to submit to their potentate. Antichrist will speak blasphemous things against God and Jesus Christ. The False Prophet will initiate the Mark of the Beast which man must carry on the forehead or right hand in order to engage in the global economy. Anyone who accepts this mark is doomed and condemned to hell forever where there's no turning back.

Antichrist and the False Prophet will be able to perform amazing wonders and signs by the empowering of the dragon of old, Satan. However, they will meet their end when Jesus Christ returns, at the consummation of their 42-month reign of terror and global domination, to destroy Antichrist and the manmade systems earth dwellers have put in place. This is at the Valley of Megiddo and the battle is the famed Armageddon. The Millennial Kingdom of Jesus Christ will thus be established in which Jesus will reign, and Satan be bound, for a thousand years. Read more here.

Life after KL (Kuala Lumpur)

2009-01-27T12:12:00.000-08:00

Life in NZ is a world apart from that of KL. There are three things that are glaringly amiss in my life as a Kiwi compared with my charmed life as a KLite.

Here, it's been impossible to get the job that comes close to what I had in KL. Starting over at this stage and age has been an uphill acclivity with my ankles manacled to a ball and chain. A far cry from my rank and upward mobility in KL - I had arrived at the pinnacle of my profession in that I was holding a top position in the educational arena. I was also in negotiation with some associates and investors to found and operate my own Language- and Computer-learning centre as well as author a series of children's books. On the other hand, here the employment terrain has been harsh. The scenario has been one of trying to shatter the glass ceiling afresh, but I'm straining against a ceiling whose defenses are made impregnable by a number of infrangible circumstances – employer prejudice tops the list, work culture is next and the lack of contacts is the third. I feel as if I've reached a plateau as a teacher and this is as good as it's ever going to get.

Owning a house is equally impossible. I used to dream of being able to afford a Frank Lloyd Wright house. Now, I daren't even dream of owning a kitset. Ditto imported luxe - not without consultation first with my co-dependent. I also used to be a woman of some means: years ago, living and playing in the KL merry-go-round, I was wearing Prada, Fendi and Moschino, three of my favourite labels. I could gratify my pursuit of beauty and surround myself with beautiful things – Barbie Collectibles, designer furniture, ersatz Constable and Turner. These days my husband and I must weigh our economic needs against one another and reconnoitre needs from wants before we commit to a purchase. Opportunity cost has never been more than just a textbook application. As is re-learning to budget and subsist in accordance with the Kiwi economic and consumer structure and banking system.

I have left behind some seriously close girl friends in KL and it's been a daunting task to build new friendships here. Maybe the problem is caused by the lack of bother, though it's brought to bear on me frequently. Maybe it's the acculturation process which I haven't quite completed and consequently, I haven't adapted to the divergent ways in which women conduct their affairs here. Or maybe at my age, it just isn't easy to build friendships that are profound, which requires an investment of one's time and energy. All the women I meet already are content with their exclusive cliques and niches. And so when I feel that my husband has had enough of my conversations, I go to my Facebook. Unlike other members who use Facebook as a social networking device, Facebook for me is really the substitute for the BFFs I left behind in KL, the one I go to for that necessary outlet for my pent-up emotions and ideas.

Whereas I enjoy a better quality of life here – clean air, fresh water, parks everywhere, and a godly and devoted husband, there's no doubt that I enjoyed a higher standard of living and more substantial social ties in KL.

Home is where the heart is

2009-01-22T12:31:00.001-08:00

and the heart is where our treasures are made manifest.

Home is the reason we work hard to climb the corporate ladder and for that fat pay cheque – to make our home resemble our ideal as closely as possible.

It's where we can truly feel relaxed, where we satisfy our visceral need to conduct ourselves with living-room manners and not be judged. In fact we can display our living-room manners anywhere in our home: guffaw crassly, wipe our mouths with our sleeves, pick our noses, scratch our armpits.

It's the place we can extend our personality and express it in all its accoutrements. Hence there is method to the madness in which my absent-minded husband's studio is allowed to come into its own form and identity. And hence the clothes in my wardrobe are hung four inches apart because their owner suffers from claustrophobia.

No other place is respected as our own private property more than our home so that even the cops can't touch us without the risk of trespassing. Unless they have a warrant, that is.

It's where we set the rules as to the division of labour smashing all the conventions of society if we like. So the husband routinely does the laundry while the wife services the car. And it's natural.

There's no other place on earth that gives us a salubrious rest after chugging along life's thoroughfares. And do so with our obliques hanging out and bare knees serially drawn up to our chin.

We're allowed to engage in diurnal activities at night and nocturnal ones in the day, and who's to say we're bonkers? So it's pancakes for dinner, bedtime at noon on a Saturday and wearing our PJs at all hours of the day.

Monopoly on a rainy day sounds really inviting and comforting if our home is not a cardboard box under a bridge we share with trolls.

We can preach our pro-Zionist beliefs to our heart's content and the walls won't punch us in the face because they are incensed by our scurrilous homily.

Harlequin checks on the bathroom walls? Sure, whatever floats our boat. As long as it's not a rental property, of course.

Because our home, our quirks.

Thank you, Darwin!

2009-01-22T12:27:00.000-08:00

I've been quite fortunate to have been spared excessive xenophobic aggression towards me in NZ. There was that one incident outside a supermarket when a crowd of cacophonous youngsters cast a slur on my meme, pronouncing that I wasn't as evolved as they of the Caucasoid stock. I wonder how this rowdy bunch with their pack mentality would respond to the scientific discovery that the dark-skinned Indians are also of Caucasoid stock?

I've also had several experiences with “racial” discrimination, all of which took place in the City library, of all places. One would have thought a place of knowledge and learning would be a people equaliser – but there goes the theory that education dispels prejudice. In fact, it was the Enlightenment, motivated by Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species, that witnessed science replacing Holy Writ as the Holy Grail of truth, and propagated the error of racialism. Ironically, the old bristled guy that turned his nose up at me was dressed like a skid row bum – maybe my being better-dressed left a bitter bile on his tongue.

That middle-aged Pakeha man who nearly cussed me out of the premises seemed of sound enough mind, but appearances are beguiling. There are so many varieties of mental disorders: bipolar, schizophrenia, delusion, dementia. But I'm being disrespectful of these genuine sufferers to lump him with their kind. No, I adjudge him to be completely in control of his mind, by his manner of poring rapaciously over his periodicals, so I can only impute his prejudice to an intensely religious devotion to Darwinism. For, according to my husband, prior to Darwin's theory of natural selection, people of other ethnicities were never regarded as less than human. Whereas I beg to differ - 'racism' is as old as the history of man - I will concede that Darwinism has become a platform to justify acts of 'racism'.

Finally that nice-smelling Maori lady who used her body English to indicate to me that I wasn't welcome to use the public facility – partly funded by taxpayers' money – must just have been on her period that day. Yes, that's what it was.

The way to hell

2009-01-22T12:22:00.002-08:00

You can't call yourself a disciple of Christ and not feel burdened about the world's eternal destination. Hence, my burden to write this piece. It's a topic rarely heard from the pews today because preachers have the idea that our fear tactics would not vivify unbelievers to avoid hell.

I'm not sure that's altogether true. After all, Jesus Christ's own teachings shed more light on hell than heaven. So must Christians not be intimidated by the politically correct and avoid warning unbelievers about hell. Today, there are Christians who go so far as to deny the reality of hell. Such is their pitfall for they unwittingly cause unbelievers to wind up in hell on account of appeasing the politically correct above pleasing God. In addition, a denial of the reality of hell is a denial of the gravity of sin and its consequence, which is why Jesus came to die.

The Bible warns us about two destinies that await every human being upon death: heaven and hell. There is no purgatory. There is no second chance. And there is no earth-bound wandering while your ghost seeks to settle some unfinished business. A minute - maybe even less - after you die, you will find yourself fully conscious in one of these two places. According to Jesus, who will judge the souls of all men and women, many will find themselves in hell: "Enter by the narrow gate for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matthew 7:13,14).

The reality of hell is validated by the Word of God. Hell is the generic name for the destination of all who die without Jesus Christ and is variously known as Hades, Gehenna, Tartarus and Sheol; it is described as a real place of torment, a place of fire that never quenches, and a place where the worm never dies (Matt. 11:23; Luke 16:23; 2 Pet. 2:4, and Mark 9:43). Although created originally for Satan and his rebellious angels, hell is the destination of all human beings past, present and future, who have chosen not to believe that God means what He says and says what He means. And what God says and means is that all of us are sinners, have done wrong, and deserve death and hell. What God says also is that we cannot earn our way out of hell by doing good deeds, which are like filthy rags to Him, or through man-made religion, which is a form of pride.

There is a sure way to go to hell – reject God's Son, Jesus Christ, which is the unforgivable sin (Mk 3:28). Presently the souls of those who have died without a faith in Jesus Christ are in Hades, awaiting their final Judgment, which will take place at the Great White Throne Judgment of God, during which all rebelliousness, the devil and his angels, hell and death will finally be thrown into the Lake of Fire. This is the final abode for all who reject God's gift of salvation in Jesus Christ.

God doesn't want anyone to end up in hell. However, He will not violate our free will by forcing us to choose heaven. Contrary to what many suppose, God is not fond of sending anyone to hell; He sends to hell those who have freely chosen hell.

Heaven is an equally real place. It is promised to all who claim Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. It is an eternity with God in a place where there will be no more sin, tears, pain and suffering. Salvation from sin and hell is possible through the shed blood of Jesus Christ who was the propitiation for our sin when He died on the cross. We will be raised from death into eternal life because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and just as Christ rose from the dead with a glorified body, so will we be raised to eternal life with glorified sinless bodies.

God's invitation to heaven is open to all; in John 14:6 Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except by me.”

It's simple and all-inclusive: heaven is assured for all who believe Jesus is the Son of God who died for their sins, and have received Him into their lives. John 1:12 and 13 say: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

You're a couple of breaths away from being a son of God: tell Jesus Christ you believe in Him and ask Him into your life. However, you're just one heartbeat away from hell.

Heaven or hell – it's your choice. And it could be where you'd find yourself tonight.

Heaven

2009-01-19T13:00:00.000-08:00

Understandably, less has been written about heaven than about hell because less is known about heaven than hell. Scriptural teachings on heaven are a rarity (though Jesus has taught many parables about the Kingdom of God) and writers are the elite few who have weighed in with their conjecture. And that's all we really can do – conjecture about a topic consigned to the mind of Almighty God alone. I have my own conjecture as well.

By now, many Christians must be aware that heaven is not a spot in the clouds where we spend eternity coaxing new tunes out of our gilded harps. Neither is heaven simply a condition or state of being that gives us a warm fuzzy feeling. I believe heaven is as real a place as earth but our eternity is going to be spent in a new earth that God will refurbish after the millennial reign of Jesus Christ and the Judgment of the Great White Throne, which are respectively the penultimate and ultimate events in God's prophetic calendar culminating in the conclusion of history.

Although the elect will spend eternity on the New Earth, Heaven will be close by - in fact, just a thought away. There'll be a nexus from heaven to earth which we can traverse at will. We will go about our business every day – work, leisure, learning – and on one of those days we will worship God in the New Jerusalem which is at the centre of the New Earth. In fact, the goal of all our business will be our worship of God. (Although I use the word 'day', time in eternity will differ from earthly time.)

Yes, I believe we will work, but we will always see our labour produce fruit. Our responsibilities will correspond to the faithful use of our gifts and talents, of which we have proven ourselves trusty stewards while on the old earth. The just will be arbiters, the erudite teachers, the pedants chroniclers. We will have variegated positions of administration and rule the New Earth and the creatures therein, which will live peaceably in our midst. We will enjoy play, sport and leisure activities between work.

One of our favourite leisure activities will still be travel – we will travel near and faraway places but never feel fatigued or jet lagged. We will even explore space and other planets safely. All the exotic vistas we've only viewed vicariously through travel writers, because occluded by opportunity or wherewithal, will now be disposed to us and these places will be made perfect as our Creator always intended.

In eternity, we will continue to create – art, music, poetry. We will plant flowers and tend our gardens but there will be no weeds and gratuitous toil. We will grow new species of plants and trees. We will continue exploration, which will be interminable, for God will keep regenerating avenues to explore beauty, knowledge, places and, perhaps, food. We will always be learning and every secret, mystery and cryptic idea that confounds us today will be revealed and made common knowledge. Grasping new knowledge will be facilitated by God who will give us perfect wisdom, cognition and perception. We will create food to remind ourselves of His bounty and the food we eat will be perfect – imagine biting into a slice of perfectly baked chocolate cheesecake from God's recipe book!

Scripture talks about our Father in heaven who has built us mansions to live in. I'm not certain if these are material houses, but it is a possibility. We will rest in our mansions, not because we need rest per se but because even God rested from His creation. Therefore God may re-institute the Sabbath for our reflection and our worship of Him. If these are literal mansions and not an allegory for our bodies, then they will indeed approach manor size and their architectonic splendour will surpass that of the most beautiful dwelling ever featured in “NZ House and Garden”.

Ultimately eternity will be spent with God as our Source and Resource that never depletes, never imposes and never pollutes, and creating and exploring new things will never become exhausted, repetitive or pedestrian. It's being home with our Lord and God who knows how to fill us completely.

Swords, pens and plowshares

2009-01-19T12:56:00.000-08:00

World peace is on most international leaders' agenda and civilians' wish list. But if the annals of history are a trustworthy barometer of man's accomplishments, world peace is at best a transient state of affairs, at worst a capricious castle in the air.

According to the Bible, only God will accomplish lasting peace on earth when Christ returns to reverse the damage caused by the Fall. Many of the world's problems are the oeuvre of unseen spiritual forces, since we are living under the ominous spectre of a spiritual warfare woven by the princes of the world systems that include religion, polity and the media. These princes are the angels in Satan's minion.

Therefore, we, the Body of Christ, can make this world a tad less distressing while we await the return of Messiah to defeat these dark forces. One thing the Body must do is wrest the Church back from the liberals, the evangelical left and the moral relativists. For they are the cause of the dissolution of orthodoxy and virtues founded on those Biblical principles which once were held up as a standard.

The Church must also distance itself from the accelerating influence of the Emergent Church movement with its antichrist deceptiveness, which is the seed of dark spirits, and those of Rick Warren's ilk. In the case of the latter, I believe that Rick Warren's Purpose-driven manifesto and books are heretical. Tomes have been filled about his heresies, so I'll simply link you to a good e-book already written for the Internet generation.

To read the e-book, click here.

Peace on earth will remain fleeting unless the press seize the media back from the liberal strongholds and their agenda. Thanks to the liberal slant of the western media and government much damage has been done in the last millennium, and this, to unravel the moral fabric of the world's western civilisations. I'm referring to the advancement of many insidious causes and the ethical dilemma they create: the civil union bill renders non-married couples de facto without community responsibility and raises the number of single mothers. The legalising of gay marriages, which is an abomination to God however much Ellen Degeneres would like to obfuscate the written Word or how adamant Hollywood is in featuring happy gay families, will destroy the family institution. The pro-choice agenda since Roe v. Wade will contribute to more babies being slaughtered and women suffering from guilt in the post-modern First World bloc than any other millennia. The passing of the anti-smacking bill, unless reversed right now, will create a nanny state in New Zealand not too far away in the future.

Of utmost urgency is the need for the media to fulfill their original agency as government watchdogs and whistleblowers without fomenting partisan interest. Failure to do this only serves to form public opinion as opposed to informing the public. In the past, reputable journalists presented viewers and readers with only what actually happened without having to dispense an editorial. It also wasn't acceptable for news anchors and readers to manipulate their facial registers in order to sway the public. Thus, a restoration of honest and disinterested reporting will emancipate the mass from the fetters of liberal one-sidedness and put them on the driver's seat of managing their own thoughts. A truly free press committed to the truth will also play a role in preventing corruption in officialdom.

Israel has the most important contribution to make towards some semblance of peace in the world. This land, that was promised to the Jews by the God of the Bible, is the apple of His eyes and Israel must resist surrendering to the whims of the European Union's anti-semitic bureaucrats by parcelling her land to her Arab neighbours. Doing so, contrary to counterfeit wisdom and pipe dreamers, will not convince the latter not to wipe her existence off the face of the map. For Israel's enemies, the Arabs, are sworn to keep Allah's commands in the Koran (Surah 5:51) and Hadiths (Sahih Bukhari 004.52.176) to kill every single infidel, who includes all Jews and Christians. What's more, proximity and opportunity will only give Hamas and Hezbollah the mandate to intensify their insurrection against a weakened and contracted Israel.

Almighty God is 'incensed' when the Promised Land is fractured: interestingly, several books have been published that have documented the incidences of calamity in an American state every time the USA tried to broker a peace treaty via a land deal between Israel and the PLO. Airplane crashes, tornadoes, flooding – these are just some examples of the calamitous events that have occurred immediately after, or in the interregnum of, the land deal, in the affected American states. So lucid and categorical is the Almighty's message in His intervention to save Eretz Israel for His chosen people that, whatever one's present dialectic, one should take the signals quite seriously as a clear warning to leave Israel well enough alone.

See here for more.

Signs in the heavens: An exciting time!

2009-01-15T12:38:00.001-08:00

“And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring” (Luke 21:25-26).

I've quoted this verse in a previous post, and it's a verse that pertains to the signs that are to proclaim the Second Coming of Messiah, Jesus Christ. Of particular interest is that of the planetary signs.

According to the New Testament synaptic gospels, the Magi (or Kings) from the East followed a conflagration in the sky, described as the brightest 'star' they could see that led them to the stable in Bethlehem where Jesus was born. Today astronomers have discovered compelling evidence that underpins the gospel record of a Bethlehem 'star'; vis a vis, in the months before the birth of Jesus, there were two planets moving along parallel trajectories which gradually met at a point. The confluence of these moving planets led to the conflagration in the sky which had indeed been the Magi's compass to the infant Jesus' manger. (See http://www.bethlehemstar.com/)

It is my belief that, just as there was a sign in the sky heralding the First Coming of the Messiah, so it is that God will give us a sign in the sky to herald Messiah's Second Coming.

Many prophecy observers believe we are living in the end times and signs pointing to this are already in the heavens: if you look east of your sunset on a clear night, you will see what appears to be an incredibly bright orb. You can't miss it – it's the brightest 'star' in the canopy.

This luminous orb is quite possibly the tenth planet, of which many doomsday sayers believe will cause cataclysmic events to occur aplenty in 2012. They support their position by referencing the Mayan and Chinese calendars which contain esoteric foreboding of the world's ending in the year 2012. However, there are just as many detractors who believe that their presage is just another example of a New Age delusion.

My own theory is that this 'tenth planet' that you can see in the sky even now may be the sign in the heavens, that the physician Luke is alluding to in the verse quoted above, that will trumpet Christ's return before the end of this age. Keep an eye on this orb – events are catapulting us towards another exciting and historic time for earth dwellers.

Signs in the heavens: A shocking exposé!

2009-01-14T12:21:00.000-08:00

There are numerous Bible verses which are of interest to eschatology students, one of which is found in Luke 21:27: “Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.”

For this particular story, the above verse will be exegeted alongside Matthew 24:37: “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so shall it be at the coming of the Son of Man”.

I believe these verses refer to the return of the Nephilim, the men of old and renown – the giants who were the product of the miscegenation between the angels of Genesis 6, who left their natural estate, and the women of earth, with whom they mated. This rebellion by the angels was the final straw for God who submerged His creation under a destructive deluge.

Tom Horn, the author of The Ahriman Gate, has spoken at length about these 'angelic' entities who have, from antiquity, visited mankind for the purpose of interbreeding with them. These fallen angels are believed to be returning in the last days in the form of aliens and UFOs from outer space.

Horn describes with startling evidence the alien agenda and its correlation to demonic activities such as alien abduction and the birthing of transgenic hybrid beings, which are the synthetic blending of alien-human, alien-animal or alien-plant species. His postulation is not confined to the realm of crackpots: there is universal testimony from ancient records and myths of gods and goddesses, such as Apollo, Hercules and Zeus, that evidence the reality of 'alien' visitation and interbreeding with humans.

However, the identity of these beings and UFOs as intelligent aliens from other planets is a deception of demonic spirits to draw many away from the Christian faith. These aliens are nothing more than the fallen angels of Genesis 6, who have returned to earth and have been harvesting human DNA in order to create a pathway to earth. Many Bible scholars believe the return of these malevolent dark spirits in the guise of our "interstellular brothers” and demonic seeding is another sign of the end times.

This is what the verse in Matthew means: just as it was in Noah's days, when the interbreeding between the rebellious angels and women led to the contamination of the human gene pool, so it shall be again in these last days before the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, returns to cleanse the earth of evil. And such is the cause of 'men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth' during the end times.

Listen to Horn's 5 one-hour interviews here. You may have to scroll the page till you find 'Sept 2008 Tom Horn – Timeline for Alien Deception'.

Debunking the Palestine myth

2009-01-13T12:39:00.000-08:00

Watching a news coverage on the ongoing Israeli-Palestine skirmish in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank confirms to me that nowhere else in my experience is the truth about Israel as willfully subverted, and the myth about Palestine as gleefully perpetuated, as in the liberal media. Here are the historical facts: the modern State of Israel is directly connected to biblical Israel, the land which God covenanted to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (the father of the Jews, later re-named Israel).

In AD 135, after crushing the last Jewish revolt, the Romans (under the Roman Empire) evicted the Jews from the holy land and applied to it the name 'Palaestina' to minimise Jewish identification with the land. The name was derived from the word Philistia, so chosen to insult the Jews whose ancient enemies were the Philistines.

History attests to the reality that there has never been a land known as 'Palestine' governed by Palestinians, nor has there ever been a people called Palestinians. 'Palestinians' are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians, Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc. As a matter of fact many of today's 'Palestinians' are related to Jordanians (of ancient Edom) who are descendants of Esau, the twin brother of Jacob, to whom his birthright was sold for stew. We shall see this later.

During the Turkish rule (Ottoman Empire, 1516-1917), 'Palestine' was sparsely populated, mostly by nomadic peoples. In the 1880s, in what was known as the first wave of Aliyah (Jewish immigration), Jewish leaders, moved by Theodore Herzl, formally organized the Zionist movement and called for the restoration of the Jewish National Home in 'Palestine' where Jews could have sanctuary, self-determination and the renascence of their ancient civilisation and culture.

On November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted for Israel to be a state and, on May 14, 1948, the new flag of Israel was raised. During the Second Aliyah in the early 1900s, as the Jewish immigrants, and those expelled from Arab territories, began to develop the region, Arabs from many parts of the indigent and decaying Ottoman Empire rushed into 'Palestine' to get jobs created by the returning Jews. As mentioned above, many of these Arabs are descendants of Esau, and are therefore brothers of the Arabs who today occupy the state of Jordan.

Beginning in 1914, the Middle East became embroiled in the first World War. In 1916, before Britain and France had conquered the Ottoman Empire, they set up an Anglo-French commission to submit an agreement for the post-war partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. This agreement, known as the Tripartite, effectively drew the borders of the new states of the Middle East. Most of the modern Arab states of the Middle East owe their borders to this agreement, as does Israel. Not surprisingly, no such border was drawn for a people called Palestinians.

So, the next time you watch a news report about the plight of the so-called 'Palestinians' being disenfranchised, ask yourself on what basis have they, as descendants of Arabs from the Ottoman Empire, to lay claim to a Palestinian state? Not to trivialise the suffering of the children and civilians caught in the Israeli-Hamas crossfire, but bear in mind also that historically the Arabs have always been the aggressor in the Middle East conflict.

More facts and myths about Israel here.

My peripatetic senses

2009-01-11T15:07:00.000-08:00

... are always lurking in off-beaten tracks, seeking a worthy story to regale. Here are my insights on

Aging
With aging come the nasty problems that have a way of creeping up on you when you least expect it. First there's the arthritic ankles, so you're no longer able to leap off the kitchen chair. Funny how you start to lean towards low furniture and change your interior décor to resemble a Japanese domicile.

Then you suddenly require reading glasses, but despite the glasses you can't get past the first page, so you convince yourself that 'you-won't-want-to-put-this-novel-down' is an advertising gimmick designed to defraud you of your money. Nevertheless, looking through a haze isn't altogether traumatising – you don't notice your wrinkles and crow's feet either.

And then your molars break off in parts, so you always appear tight-lipped when you're speaking and lock-jawed in photos. Staving off hard foods becomes necessary, as is embracing tiny morsels, so knives must be amply applied to food before it's cooked.

You don't expect these problems to beset you as you age because mental aging and physical aging do not proceed in tandem. Now, why didn't babies come with a standard issue warning that this would happen when they were born?

Being au courant
The fashion pendulum has swung back to the 80s – leggings, fringes, neons colours. I did all that in what's now known to be the era of excess – as well as shoulder pads, power suits, cameo pins. It was baroque reinvented with largesse.

When the 90s rolled around, I did ascetic – empire lines in dour noir accented by esoteric crucifixes with the simulacrum of goth. And I did grunge, a distant cousin of asceticism – Doc Martens boots, crushed velvet and deconstructed tops and skirts. Evidently whoever coined the moniker 'fashion victim' could have had me in mind.

Being wiser today, I no longer aspire to be current. These days I choose to wear what standing in a hall of mirrors, my reflection multiplied to infinity, won't intimidate me. At the turn of this millennium, I found what had come to be my style and I have stayed true to it through the rise and fall of fashion hemlines. The look of choice is minimalist mod: the shift dress, the trench or duffel coat, the turtleneck sweater – can't go wrong with these classics.

Don't get me wrong though – I eschew the fashionably au fait, but never fabric quality and design distinction. So, no, I don't do op shops. Because 20 extravagant investment pieces give me more wardrobe mileage than 60 thrift-shop duds.

Why I want to 'live to eat'
Contrary to the norm, I live to eat. Or at least it's what I'd like to tell people. Unfortunately, you indulge in epicurean folly with a huge ransom to your health and image.

Doctors, dietitians, nutritionists and personal trainers, all teach us to 'eat to live', but what a tragic truism to swear by. Because it is eating to stay alive. Because eating as an activity is divested of joy and legitimacy.

Which statement makes the more sense or gives a happier message? 'I eat therefore I live', which makes eating a means of survival and self-preservation? Or 'I live therefore I eat', which makes eating a metaphor for liberty: liberty from the tyranny of diets, the constrictions of size zero and the constraints of guilt?

And when did eating become a function of living rather than a celebration of being? Perhaps it was when the first parents ate the forbidden fruit, which went horribly wrong, and eating lost its original design.

Wishful thinking
If I could be anything I would like to be a working writer. I'd like to write like C S Lewis. Most of all, I'd like to be witty but my attempts at witticism invariably get eclipsed by sarcasm. They're like many American sitcoms - sarcasm masquerading as irony.

The demise of civility
Without equivocation, I simply abhor Kiwi soaps like Shortland Street. I'd like to know why writers of Kiwi television dramas feel that their characters mustn't put across their points of view without resorting to histrionics and being parodied as caterwauling banshees?

Let's not pretend that the ethical standards the medium is impressing upon this me-first and me-only generation aren't exacerbating the moral crisis of the nation. Do these writers really believe that they are portraying what is society's breakdown in communication and ethics, or are they really encouraging it? Small wonder the spiralling incidence of domestic violence in Kiwi neighbourhoods if all families ever know about communication, interaction and problem resolution is through raising your voice, the rolling pin and the roof. Those who wish to suggest, "If you don't like it, you can turn the TV off" are burying their heads in the sand, not to mention missing the point.

However, this bankruptcy in literary ingenuity among scriptwriters is not just the preserve of Kiwi soaps and dramas - Aussie and Malay ones fare no better. Hong Kong soaps, with their garden-variety themes, are rarely original. But their characters are also rarely in need of anger management classes.

Telling it as it is, calling it what it is

2009-01-09T13:10:00.000-08:00

Ascribing equal validity to everything in life – aesthetics, religion, truth – is what's gone wrong with today's post-modern euphemistic generation. Advocates of relativism want us to embrace, not merely tolerate, diversity.

This suggests that, in art, we should equate Caravaggio with Mapplethorpe. Many would defer to the beauty of a Caravaggio but porn is as close to describing Mapplethorpe's body of work as anyone could muster. And pardon this dilettante's simple ratiocination of art appreciation, but I believe critics would concur nem con that only someone with a philistine interest in art would equate the detailed complexity of the works of Renaissance masters such as Michelangelo with the abstract drivel of a post-modernist like Andy Warhol.

No two things are more egregiously dissimilar than the teachings of the world's main religions. In Christianity, Jesus calls Himself the Son of God. Conversely, Islam denies the divinity of Christ. Since Jesus says He is the way, the truth and the life (John 14:6), then all other beliefs that contradict His teaching must be realised for what they are – lies.

The New Age maxim that all paths lead to the same God must also be a lie. For no other religious founder has ever claimed to be the way to God and salvation, even if their devotees wish to teach otherwise. As well, all religious founders can't be teaching the truth if their core tenets are mutually exclusive. Either the one is telling the truth or the other a lie, but they can't all be truths.

Because of Christians' refusal to conform to the relativist's philosophy, we are called intolerant bigots. Yet, when you try to reason with a post-modernist, you can't help but be assailed with his inability to accept your philosophy, either. So much for diversity.

For our beliefs, New Agers and relativists call us deviants at the bottom of the evolutionary totem pole that have yet to evolve into a higher state of consciousness. For theirs, God calls them deceived.

These dangerous times

2009-01-08T12:55:00.001-08:00

It was during one of my meditations on selfhood that I felt urged on to write about these dangerous times. Yes, we are living in dangerous times. We are seeing the appearing of the signs prophesied in the Bible that point to the concluding of this age and world systems as we know them. Whatever a believer's eschatology may be, he must surely be riveted to the TV set and Internet for world events that Scripture says must take place before the soon return of Messiah, the Christ. And prior to this, the Body of Christ will be snatched away in what Scripture calls the harpazo (rapture).

What are the harbingers for end times observers that history is drawing to a close? Luke 21:25-27 describe them clearly: “And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken”. Yes, frighteningly real.

We are witnessing materialising before our very eyes nations in distress caused by war, famine, poverty and pestilences; and no other times in history has there been such a deluge of occurrences characterised by roaring waves and seas that decimate property and lives such as the 2005 S-E Asian Tsunami. There are continuing rippling effects of this up to the present from many parts of earth's shaken continental basins.

In regards to the end, 2 Peter 3:7 announces: “Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished. But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” I believe this is the reason temperatures are rising globally. It has nothing to do with man made and imaginary climate change, which is scientifically unverifiable. I believe earth is being braced for this prophetic cleansing by fire.

Just as in the days of Noah when God cleansed the earth of its widespread evil with water, so in these final days, He will cleanse it with fire. Evil, wickedness and ungodliness will be destroyed once and for all, and God will then restore the world to its perfect state. It would be as it had used to be before the Fall caused by sin.

The prophecies of God are laid down in a biblical bedrock of infallibility and have an airtight track record of being fulfilled to the letter and with pinpoint accuracy. We fail to heed these prophetic signs at our own peril because they portend of a coming Day of the Lord who will visit His judgment on all who deny Him.

Maranatha!

Read more here about the time line of events after the rapture.

Faith and doubt: not so strange bedfellows

2009-01-07T13:18:00.000-08:00

At least not from my eyrie as a Christian. I've ruminated on the semantics of faith and doubt for quite some time now, and I've arrived at the conclusion that faith and doubt are not on opposite ends of the theological spectrum. In fact they are complementary .

On the other hand, I believe that faith and unbelief are polar opposites. A person with a faith has a belief. In contrast one who doesn't hold to a faith is an unbeliever or has no belief (thence you get the term 'unbelief').

And what of doubt? Well, a thorough perusal of the lexicon apprises that the word 'doubt' means the lack of certainty or confidence that something is true. Let's speak with some candour here: every believer harbours some kind of doubt at some point in his faith. I sometimes doubt my salvation. I sometimes doubt God's existence. I sometimes doubt His beneficence – this comes usually when a prayer to resolve a crisis appears stonewalled.

But here's the difference between doubt and unbelief: my doubts do not nullify my identity or relationship with the Object of my faith – God. Because while I may question the doctrines and assurances sometimes, I still believe the rest of the time, and it is my belief that secures my faith in God.

However, unbelief has serious ramifications for one's soul and eternal destination. Not believing God exists; not believing Jesus is who He is – the Son of God; not believing Jesus is the only way to be saved from sin and hell – this is unbelief that impedes one from making the decision to put one's faith in God. This the Bible says is the unpardonable sin. And so unbelief not only nullifies one's identify with the God of the universe but also condemns one to an eternity without a relationship with Him.

Consequently, doubt is the lack of faith rather than the absence of faith.

I'm an old soul

2009-01-07T13:17:00.002-08:00

One of the things I enjoy in life is loafing and hanging out with my best girlfriends. Before my sojourn in KL ended, I used to pursue this hobby religiously once a week – my BFFs and I would hang at Coffee Bean, Starbucks or some five-star hotel like the PJ Hilton and Holiday Villa where we'd exploit an entire afternoon enjoying delectable high tea and smashing conversation.

In retrospect, I've come to realise that for most of my life I've always hung out, and preferred to hang out, with girlfriends a decade or so older than I. I'm an old soul like that.

Don't get me wrong: I've nothing against women my own age. However, all my socials with 20somethings in the past had consisted of comparing notes on baby's Firsts – first steps, first words, first teeth. Plus comparing nappy brands and griping about the Indonesian or Filipino maids. They were too lazy, or too rash with their tongues, or too strident with the children, or too loose about their morals.

None were all that stimulating to me, especially not for a single oriental woman who had altogether very different life experiences. I was at that time at the stage of carving a career niche and parlaying my interests into a healthy bank account. What's more, all that palaver about dirty nappies would only stimulate my olfactory mechanism to a barf-fest.

And then I met Bessie and Mary – older, more sophisticated and well-versed in a large spectrum of subject matter, and I found my new interlocutors matching my wits on comparative religions, politics and economic systems, and ways to double our investment portfolio in a year. Without sounding cocky, I was able to hold my own in any topic of conversation with them. I think it was also because they were voracious readers like me that I found myself gravitating towards them.

In the course, I have found that reading and pursuing knowledge are past times that can be lonesome and depressing if you don't have a friend with the same hunger for knowledge and passion for learning with whom you can sound off. Never mind if this friend is a decade older or younger than you. Knowledge is more worthy of pursuing if it can be shared.

Let me end this polemic with my modification of a well-known line from a musical: “Knowledge, like manure, must be scattered everywhere to encourage others to grow.”