UNSURVIVABLE - The Real Danger of Global Nuclear War - World War 3

Thoughts on Memorial Day and War

The Last Memorial Day

by Rev. Paul J. Bern

This weekend we are all celebrating the 2016 Memorial Day holiday. Unlike Veterans Day in November, which celebrates the end of World War One, Memorial Day celebrates those who gave their all during World War Two. This got me to thinking about what the name would be for the day that commemorates all who will be killed in World War Three. One possibility would be “Destruction Day”, the “Doomsday Grand Memorial” could be another. This, of course, is assuming there will be anyone around to name this hypothetical holiday at all. One thing is certain – the 3^rd world war, and it appears there is going to be one as I write this, will be a nuclear conflict with casualties in the hundreds of millions, or even billions, of people. This war, which will actually be two wars to be fought in rapid succession, is foretold in the Bible in Revelation chapter six, verse 8: “I looked, and before me was a pale horse! It's rider was named 'death', and Hades followed close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth, to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.”

 

Then a second war is prophesied to take place after that, as the Bible recounts just three chapters later: “The sixth angel sounded his trumpet, and I heard a voice coming from one of the horns of the golden altar that is before God. It said to to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, 'Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates'. And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind. The number of mounted troops was two hundred million. I heard their number.” [Revelation 9: 13-16, NIV] Neither of these wars has occurred as of this writing, but they can both be found in the Old Testament as well as the new. The first war in Revelation chapter six can be found in Psalm 83, and the later one can be found in Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39 (I encourage everyone reading this to read those three chapters; it takes less than 10 minutes combined, and it will give everyone a better perspective of what I'm writing about). There are currently 7.4 billion people living on the face of the earth, so if the Revelation Six war kills one fourth of humankind, that would come to 1.85 billion people. The second war in Revelation nine will kill fully one third of the people who are lucky enough to survive the first war, or an additional 1.85 billion more (I think it's more than a coincidence that the two figures for the two wars are exactly the same). So it is safe to say that these two wars combined will kill half of humankind, and possibly even more.

Will a 'memorial day' be created for these wars too? The meme for that last one in particular, the one that kills a third of mankind, could be “the war where we went insane”. Another possibility could be “The War That Made No Sense”. My country, the USA, has been at war in Iraq twice in the last 26 years for oil, a substance that should have been rendered obsolete as far as fuels are concerned after the Arab oil embargo of 1973. And yet, here we are in 2016 still using gasoline for a fuel while we asphyxiate our planet – and ourselves – one tankful at a time. Had America switched to, say, cleaner-burning natural gas back in the 1970's when we should have, our air would be proportionately cleaner and the planet that much better off as well. That's exactly why the American incursions in Iraq should never have occurred in the first place! Moreover, had the American military not gone in there then, we wouldn't be having the difficulties with Middle Eastern terrorism that we have been having since September of 2001!!

Albert Einstein once famously said, “I don't know what kind of weapons World War Three will be fought with, but if there's a fourth world war it will be fought with sticks and stones”. Einstein probably didn't realize at the time what a prophetic statement that truly was. With humankind possessing enough nuclear weapons to fry the entire planet hundreds of times over (something Albert Einstein probably never imagined considering that he died in 1955), a nuclear war would render nearly every living thing extinct, especially ourselves. I see no point in World War Three being fought for oil and other natural resources when, once victory is obtained, there is no one left to sell all that oil to! This is completely insane! The US military-industrial complex must stop in the name of God immediately! There are 7.4 billion lives at stake, and mine is one of them! End the insanity! Stop this madness of war for profit or we, the American people, will be compelled to force you to stop!! Moreover, if the US government had done its job by legislating an accelerated national program to replace fossil fuels back in the 1970's when the handwriting against fossil fuels first appeared on the proverbial wall, we would all be driving electric cars now and there would be few gas stations left, with all of them having gone the way of Route 66.

Let's not have to come up with yet another day of commemoration for all those who gave their lives in yet another pointless war. This has gone far enough, too far in my humble opinion. Moreover, Memorial Day commemorates only the soldiers who gave their lives, while ignoring all the untold hundreds of millions of innocent civilians who died in the crossfire. This is not to detract from the extreme importance we attach to those we commemorate this weekend – far from it! May God bless and remain with our fighting men and women, but all I'm saying is, let's make sure we don't ever have to set aside still another holiday like this one. We have Veterans Day and Memorial Day, plus the annual Confederate holiday here in Georgia where I live. Although I personally do not celebrate Confederate Memorial Day because I grew up in Cincinnati (just across the Mason-Dixon line), I respect those who do even if I don't think the same way as my Southern brothers and sisters do). But my point is, three Memorial Days are more than enough. Please, everyone, let's not ever have to create yet another holiday to honor the dead from yet another war. To quote Rodney King, “Why can't we all just get along?” Better still, to quote Jesus Christ, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called 'sons of the living God'” (Matthew 5: 9).

Jesus, the nitty-gritty, grungy, grimey Son of God

The Positive Side of Human Error

An email from God? That's right.

The positive side of error

Human Error And What It Can Teach Us

by Rev. Paul J. Bern

It has been my observation that people take a great deal of pride and personal satisfaction, not to mention their professional identity, in their educations and professional training. The existence of the Internet constantly reminds us that knowledge is power, but more importantly that knowledge is instantly available. Some self-righteous – even belligerent – individuals take this fact to its outer extreme by going through life with the attitude that unlimited Web access equals unlimited personal power and knowledge. This philosophy of no limitations is the seed from which human failure sprouts, having failed to recognize that human intelligence has its limits despite a wealth of available knowledge. King Solomon wrote in the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament, “The Lord catches the wise in their craftiness”, and the prophet Isaiah wrote, “The intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate”, and, “God had chosen the foolish things of the world, and the simple, to confound the wise”. So much for human intelligence.

The fact of the matter is that we do not learn anywhere near as much from formal education as we do from our own mistakes. For example, I will use the household cleaner known commercially as “Formula 409”. How did the inventor come up with this name? He had to make 408 different formulas that didn't work in order to come up with one that did. That means he/she had to make 408 mistakes in order to come up with the winning formula that we know today. Life experiences work exactly the same way. We learn and adapt from our experiences as we go along in life because that is how the human brain is wired. Our brains learn from constant modification based on our surroundings, our environment and the sum of our experiences. On the other hand, being right can also have its benefits. As pleasures go, it is, after all, a second-order one at best. Unlike many of life's other delights – chocolate, the great outdoors, movies, books – it doesn't enjoy any mainline access to our biochemistry: to our appetites, our adrenal glands, our sex drive, our emotions. And yet, the thrill of being right is undeniable, universal, and (perhaps most oddly) almost entirely undiscriminating. Nor does subject matter; we can be just as pleased about correctly identifying the model year of a vintage Corvette, or correctly identifying the sexual orientation of our co-worker. Stranger still, we're perfectly capable of deriving satisfaction from being right about disagreeable things: the downturn in the stock market, say, or the demise of a friend's relationship.

Like most delectable experiences, rightness isn't ours to enjoy all the time. As the apostle John wrote, “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar, and his Word has no place in our lives.” (1^st John chapter 1, verses 8-10, NIV) Clearly, humankind is prone to error because we're made that way. The time-worn phrase, “Nobody's perfect”, continues to be a gross understatement, and it always will. I think the biggest reason we enjoy being right is because it happens so relatively infrequently. Because when we're not, we're the one who loses the bet. And sometimes, too, we suffer grave doubts about the correct answer or course of action – an anxiety that, itself, reflects our desire to be right.

On the whole, though, and notwithstanding these lapses and qualms, our indiscriminate enjoyment of being right is matched by an almost equally indiscriminate and sometimes irrational feeling that we are right. At times, this feeling spills into the foreground, such as when we argue, evangelize, or make predictions. Often, though, it is just psychological backdrop. Most of us go through life assuming that we are basically right, basically all the time, about basically everything: about our political and intellectual convictions, our religious and moral beliefs, our assessment of other people, our memories, our grasp of facts. As absurd as it sounds when we stop to think about it, our steady state seems to be one of unconsciously assuming that we are very close to infallible. Most of us navigate day-to-day life fairly well, after all, which suggests that we are routinely right about a great many things. And sometimes we are not just routinely right but spectacularly right: right about the orbit of the planets (mathematically derived long before the technology existed to track them); right about the healing properties of aspirin (known since at least 3000 BC); right to track down that woman who smiled at you in the cafe (now your wife of 20 years). Taken together, these moments of rightness represent both the high-water marks of human endeavor and the source of countless small joys. They affirm our sense of being smart, competent, trustworthy, and in tune with our environment. More important, they keep us alive.

Individually and collectively, our very existence depends on our ability to reach accurate conclusions about the world around us. In short, the experience of being right is imperative for our survival, gratifying for our ego, and, overall, one of life's cheapest and keenest satisfactions. Yet even that can be an illusion (or a delusion, take your pick) as the apostle James, the half-brother of Jesus, wrote: “The brother in humble circumstances ought to take pride in his high position. But one who is rich should take pride in his low position, because he will pass away like a wild flower. For the sun rises with scorching heat and withers the plant; its blossom falls and its beauty is destroyed. In the same way, the rich man will fade away even while he goes about his business.” (James chapter 1, verses 9-11, NIV) But the ministry of Christ was aimed towards those who were willing to acknowledge their imperfections, just as Jesus said: “I have not called the righteous, but sinners to repentance”. As a minister myself, I am glad when I'm right, but more interested in how we as a culture think about error, what the Word of God says about it, and how we as individuals cope when our convictions collapse out from under us. If we relish being right and regard it as our natural state, then our feelings about being wrong are the exact opposite. For one thing, we tend to view it as rare and bizarre – an inexplicable aberration in the normal order of things. For another, it leaves us feeling idiotic and ashamed. Like the term paper returned to us covered in red ink, being wrong makes us cringe and slouch down in our seats; it makes our heart sink and our resentment rise. At best we regard it as a nuisance, at worst a nightmare, but in either case – and quite unlike the gleeful little rush of being right – we experience our errors as deflating and embarrassing. And it gets worse. In our collective imagination, error is associated not just with shame and stupidity but also with ignorance, lazyness, psychopathology, and moral degeneracy. It is the common view of oneself that our errors are evidence of our gravest social, intellectual, and moral failings.

Of all the things we are wrong about, this view of human error might well top the list. It is our mega-mistake: We are wrong about what it means to be wrong. Far from being a sign of intellectual inferiority, the capacity to err is crucial to human cognition. Far from being a moral flaw, it is inextricable from some of our most humane and honorable qualities: empathy, optimism, imagination, conviction and courage. And far from being a mark of indifference or intolerance, wrongness is a vital part of how we learn and change. Thanks to error, we can revise our understanding of ourselves and amend our ideas about the world. For those who refuse to acknowledge their errors, King Solomon wrote about people like them in the Book of Proverbs, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death”. (Proverbs 14: 12) People who insist on going their own way end up getting consumed by it. The lucky survivors wind up in jails, mental hospitals, rehab, or any combination thereof. Given this centrality to both our intellectual and emotional development, error shouldn't be an embarrassment, and cannot be an aberration. On the contrary, as Benjamin Franklin once observed, "the history of the errors of mankind, all things considered, is more valuable and interesting than that of their discoveries." I believe the healthiest and most productive attitude we can have about sin and error is that however disorienting, difficult or humbling our mistakes might be, it is ultimately wrongness, not rightness, that can teach us who we are. And in the end, it is that recognition of our own sinful, mistake-prone nature that ultimately leads us to the sole solution – Jesus Christ. Ask Him into your hearts today. Jesus came that we might have life, and have it to the full. Go ahead, just do it.

An Email From God. Seriously.

What If God Sent an Email To Organized Religion?

by Rev. Paul J. Bern

Given the state of affairs of organized religion throughout the world, and particularly here in the US with Johnny-come-lately “Christian” presidential candidates such as Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, I can't help but wonder what God must be thinking about all this. As you likely recall, Mitt Romney stated during his 2012 presidential bid that, if elected president, his first act as chief executive would be to launch an airstrike on Iran. Keep in mind that this is the same guy who is opposed to abortion and who calls himself “pro-life”. He fights for the rights of the unborn, but if you're already alive and living in Iran, you're toast. That doesn't seem quite right to me. On the other hand, if you live in Syria, where the government is slaughtering the governed, you're on your own. Yet in Iraq, where there is plenty of oil, we occupied that country while killing over 100,000 Iraqi civilians, over half of whom were women and children. But that war was supposed to be different because we toppled a terrible dictator. Never mind that that same dictator, none other than Saddam Hussein himself, was a former CIA collaborator and “asset”. So much for loyalty among allies. Yes, that's what our country has been doing in the Middle East since Gulf War 1 back in 1990-91. And it is the American military-industrial-incarceration complex that has been doing this same thing throughout the globe since the end of World War Two.

Meanwhile here at home, one person in five depends on food stamps to eat due to unemployment or inability to earn a living wage. People can't afford to get sick or hurt in an accident because if they do, the medical bills they are about to incur will bankrupt them. Twenty four million Americans can't find a job – but since they can't afford to go back to school and get retrained because of the staggering cost of America's for-profit higher education system, they remain stuck in their situation with no relief in sight. As I wrote in my first book, “The Middle and Working Class Manifesto”, our country has more than enough money to pay for lifetime medical care and higher education for every single American who wants either or both. All they have to do is call off all the wars and bring our troops home. As I explained in that same book, if the US government took all the money that is spent in just one day on the wars/occupations in the Middle East and Afghanistan and put it all into an interest-bearing bank account, there would be ample funding for 4-year college educations for every school kid in America from pre-K through high school, including tuition, books, housing, food and transportation. Yeah, just one day's war expenditures would do that. Besides, there is sufficient legal precedent doing this very thing in the form of the GI Bill that was passed by Congress after the end of World War 2. If they could reeducate us then, they can do it now. All that Congress has to do is make the G.I. Bill available to everyone.

But what do we have instead? Overseas military adventures purely for the sake of economic domination by the US against any country regardless of cost. This is not just unsustainable, it is sheer madness. Our government has been taken over by a bunch of sociopaths. They operate from behind the scenes bent on world conquest at any cost, and they are an integral part of the so-called “new world order”. Unless they are stopped they will take the world over the brink of the abyss of World War 3. Yet these people are, by and large, religious conservatives of one church denomination or another. Their counterparts in the Muslim world are similarly conservative religious fundamentalists. Only their names for God are different. Yet, as far as I am concerned, there is only one true God who is undoubtedly far greater than the sum of all the world's different religious faiths combined. If this very same almighty God, who is “The Great I Am” and who sacrificed his only Son so that we may all have eternal life, sent us an email about all this mess down here on earth, I think it would be worded something like this:

“My children, I appeal to you all to return to what you call the New Testament, the chronicles of the life of my only Son and the instructions he left behind. I offer this directly to the peoples of earth, without intermediary, cleric, or agent of any kind. Circumstances have compelled me to sever all ties, contracts and assignments with my representatives on this planet. You see, I have been completely dissatisfied with their performance of their duties for some time. Children get molested in some churches, adultery runs rampant in others, while still others have turned their churches into businesses and have enriched themselves with material possessions beyond all reason. You pastors and evangelists who drive around in cars with six-figure price tags while flying around in your own jets, you know who you are. There's nothing wrong with having a nice car and a comfortable house, but a good bit of that other money should have been used to feed the poor and house the homeless. But the rape of Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan, crimes committed in my name by the USA, not counting the additional war plans they have made, has forced my hand. The perversion of my will displayed by these despicable acts, and so many others, has left me no choice. I hereby fire my earthly representatives, they no longer speak for me.”

“Humankind, however, remains in my affections and you always will. We need to start again with the New Testament (not to discount or devalue the old) and work towards better days. But it would be remiss of me not to explain why I have taken such drastic measures. To put it bluntly, war displeases me. Five thousand years of war among the humans over the right way to pronounce my name has exhausted my patience. I will no longer be responsible for any murders committed under color of my authority. I much prefer that you who claim to believe in me should put some legs on your faith. It's good when you fast and pray, but it's far better to go and find someone in need and doing whatever you can to help him or her.”

“Someone who goes to church every Sunday but does nothing more during the week is a Christian in name only in my eyes. Someone who donates for a good cause to charity, who volunteers their free time without expectation of compensation or who is a role model for the fatherless, that person will find favor with me. Those who visit the sick, the elderly and the prisoner, and someone who is a defender of the widow, the orphan, the homeless, the mentally ill, and other vulnerable individuals, it is they who are truly following in my Son's footsteps. I created you with a divine Spirit in my image. But you persist in bastardizing that Spirit and ruining my image when those who don't agree with you about whether or not it is permitted to draw my face find themselves bombed back to the stone age! Until you prove you can worship the divine Spirit I put in all of you, and desist from the mayhem and slaughter that you love more than me, I shall summarily reject and disallow all claims to my providence.”

“You have banded yourselves into tribes, nations and races and the results have not been pleasing to my eye. I take some responsibility for this distressing development; I should not have given you an earth so large. But had I started with a smaller Eden, you would have corrupted and polluted it until it became uninhabitable many thousands of years ago. You have proven yourselves incapable of understanding the panoply of laws and wisdom I laid down for you, when I set you upon the earth. I have been mistranslated by your spirit guides and abused by your leaders. Perhaps I was too complex. Let us try to simplify. Respect my creation and all the inhabitants thereof. Any so-called religious leader who tells you otherwise is a false prophet and does not represent me, my brethren or any part of my Kingdom which is soon to come.”

“Those of you who find comfort in organized religion may feel free to continue to do so. I understand – I created you as vessels for love and love rejoices in the presence of others. Keep your churches, mosques and synagogues, but cease your bickering. And remember, when you engage in bloodletting, you commit blasphemy. I realize that in severing my ties with so many of the sects, denominations and "holy men" that you rely upon for moral guidance, I have created confusion where there was once certainty in your souls. But that cannot be helped. Your certainties were almost certainly wrong and most certainly misapplied.”

“But do not despair, my children, for I have not abandoned you. There is a little piece of me inside all of you, a fail-safe guide to good and evil, a moral compass that never leaves you, a true voice you can hear amid the storms of fire that drive you mad with hatred and confusion. It is called your conscience and it always points towards my Son; follow it and you will be walking in my Light, ignore it and you'll be lost in the darkness cast by your own shadow. So here is my 'new' first commandment to you: I have given you a conscience. Use it.”

“Sort that out to my satisfaction and maybe in another decade or so we can talk about the dietary laws.”

Illuminati 2017: Predictions!! We must reach mass awareness! WATCH NOW!!!

America is sick with greed, and I'm just plain sick and tired of it!!

Watch out that no one deceives you

Bogus Doomsday's, False Prophecies,

and the Real Returning of Christ

by Rev. Paul J. Bern

Over the last several years I have seen a lot of blog postings and also viewed a number of video's regarding Biblical end times prophecies, doomsday reports such as the impending start of World War Three, as well as predictions about catastrophes such as monstrous killer earthquakes and the planet Nibiru and so on. For example, just this past week I saw a video on You-tube titled, “Nibiru enters earth's orbit”. Undoubtedly the majority of you have already heard of this wayward planet, also called “Planet X”, or more recently “Planet 9”. Although it is factual that the presence of a large planet has been detected on the outer rim of the known solar system, NASA estimates this planet to be somewhere between Neptune and Pluto, or well over two and a quarter billion miles away. Moreover, this hypothetical new planet is estimated to be roughly two thirds the size of Jupiter, or approximately 60,000 miles in diameter. If this 9^th planet were to enter the earth's orbit, or be as close to earth as the earth is from the sun, it would be clearly visible in the sky, even during daytime. Enough said about Nibiru.

A California pastor and radio host named Harold Camping made what turned out to be a series of false prophecies dating back to the 1980's, the most recent (before his “retirement”) being that the “rapture of the church” would occur on Saturday May 21, 2011 at exactly 6PM. “Rev.” Camping and others like him have brought judgment down on themselves and their congregations (except for those individuals who left) by uttering prophecies that have turned out to be without substance. Such predictions give non-Christians one more reason to discount the Bible. In another example, many secularists dismiss the Bible because they assume that it teaches the world is only 6,000 years old. In reality, the Bible never makes such a claim about the Earth’s age. Instead, some well meaning Christians have misused the genealogies in the Bible to attempt to ascertain the date of creation. Second, predictions about the end of the world always lead some people to make foolish decisions. Just as every teacher knows how unproductive and unfocused students are the week before school lets out, God knows how tempted we would be to neglect the responsibilities he has entrusted to us if we knew the date we would be “raptured” into heaven. That is why God refuses to show us his calendar and instead instructs us to focus on our assignments. But the most harmful consequence of false predictions is that it discourages people from making the necessary preparation for the real event when it actually occurs. But some will be tempted to join the chorus of cynics whom the Bible predicts will mockingly say, “Where is the promise of Christ’s coming?” (2 Peter 3:3-4). Let's not forget that it was Jesus himself who said to his apostles that no one knows when he is coming back to the earth, not even himself, but only his heavenly Father. Let's pause and look up what He said about that. “As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. 'Tell us', they said, 'when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age?' Jesus answered, 'Watch out that no one deceives you. For many will come, claiming, 'I am the Christ', and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains.” [Matthew chapter 24, verses 3-8, NIV]

I'm sure you noticed the very first sentence of Christ's response, “Watch out that no one deceives you”. At this point it is easy to see that Jesus was talking about the times in which we are currently living. The increased number of earthquakes that have been recorded over the last decade or more are in the news almost on a daily basis. When it comes to famines, humankind has them in spades, starting with a 2014 United Nations report saying that 50,000 children per day, ages 5 and under, die from starvation globally. But these things, our Lord said, are just the beginning. There will be a lot of “false Christs” who will deceive an awful lot of people. Jesus wasn't only talking about people claiming to be Jesus Christ in the flesh, he was talking about entire churches or even denominations. 'Ours is the true way', one church might say, and yet another different from the first may say the same thing. Jesus was talking about divisions within the body of believers, as well as phony con artists operating without.

At this point, I really should add some additional background to add more clarity to this week's message. I'm going to mention three things here – the Great Tribulation, the coming of the Antichrist, and the “rapture” of the church. Whatever anyone has read or heard elsewhere, get ready to enjoy hearing and be warned about the truth about the world's future as the Bible tells it. Most everybody knows about the 7-year Great Tribulation that is prophesied elsewhere in the Bible, mainly in the books of Daniel and Revelation, and which were written many hundreds of years apart. This 7-year period will be the final seven years leading up to the return of Jesus Christ, who will proceed to rule the world from its new capital in Jerusalem for 1,000 years. The main argument revolves around the timing of this 7-year period. Some say it hasn't started yet, others insist we 're already in it. There are many details I could delve into regarding this matter, but it all boils down to what Jesus told his apostles: “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. I tell you the truth, 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. No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven nor the Son, but only the Father”. [Matthew 24: 32-36, NIV] Based on that last sentence, if anyone tells you orally, in writing, or on a You Tube video the exact date of Christ's return, you can be certain they are lying, and that's the nicest way I can put it. Many Biblical scholars and pastors, unfortunately, take the phrase, “this generation will not pass away until all these things have happened” and try to add something that isn't there. You probably know that the nation of Israel as founded on May 14, 1948. You likely also know that a 'generation' in the Bible was considered to be 40 years when it was originally written. For all you long-time Christians like myself, it was widely prophesied on the then-relatively-new Christian TV stations that Jesus would return one generation later on May 14, 1988. Much to the discredit of main stream Christianity, we all know what happened back then, and one of the purposes of this week's posting is to try and prevent this from happening a second time during these last days.

What am I talking about here? If 40 years isn't what Jesus meant, many Christians are saying, and the average life expectancy here in the 'end times' is a little over 70 for men, then 1948 plus 70 years equals 2018. Aha!! So that's when our Lord will return! Got it, now let's get ready! Wait, wait – stop. With slightly less than two years to go until this date, I can tell you without reservation that, like 1988, May 14, 2018 will most likely come and go without any major incidents. “No one knows the day or the hour”. Isn't that what the Lord said? Not even himself, He stated. Now let's look at this from another angle. If May 14^th, 2018 is the day of Christ's return, and since the Great Tribulation is of 7 years duration, then the 'tribulation' should have started back in the Spring of 2011, and the Antichrist should have come to power sometime last summer or so. Clearly, since none of these has occurred, those other “predictions” won't come true either. So, now let me move on to the second topic, and that is the coming of the Antichrist, who will come upon the world scene according to the prophet Daniel (see Daniel chapter 12 in the Old Testament), as well as the book of Revelation chapter 13. As before, without having you all plunge headfirst into the murky pool of end times prophecy, let me make a generalization or two. In the first place, World War Three and the Gog-Magog war of Ezekiel chapter 38 and 39 in the Old Testament are one and the same. Moreover, the Antichrist will not come to power until just after this war's conclusion. While I would be quick to agree that the stage for WW3 is currently being set, we aren't there just yet – but, continue to watch events unfold in the Middle East very closely, because that's where it's going to start. It will not be until the conclusion of that war that the Antichrist will come to power to enforce his own brand of peace, and that is when the countdown to the final 3.5 years will commence before Christ's return. The final event before our Savior's return in this context is the Battle of Armageddon, which is not the same as the God-Magog war of Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39. So, to dispel another myth or false teaching (take your pick), World War Three and Armageddon are two different battles set approximately seven years apart.

The final end-times issue I want to discuss is the so-called “rapture” of the church (I'm using quotes because the word 'rapture' isn't in the Bible). The “rapture” of the church is the abrupt taking away of Christ's Church, allegedly at the beginning of the 7-year tribulation prophesied in the Bible. Many modern pastors and nearly all TV evangelists are teaching this as being factual. Only our heavenly Father knows for sure, just as Jesus said above. A generation or two ago, few mainline Protestant churches discussed the second coming of Jesus Christ. Fifty years later, however, televangelists, network television programs, movies and books like the "Left Behind" series — which has sold more than 60 million copies — have succeeded in placing the return of Jesus Christ in the public consciousness. A 2004 Newsweek poll revealed that 55 percent of Americans believe in the “rapture”, the snatching away of all Christians prior to the end of the world and the return of Jesus Christ. Speaking as a Web pastor who preaches often about Bible prophecy, I am grateful for the general awareness people have of the promised return of Jesus Christ. My hunch is that the date God ultimately has chosen is one that will not be plastered on billboards around the country. Make no mistake about it, Jesus is coming back some day. Over 1,800 verses in the Old Testament and 300 verses in the New Testament prophesy of the Lord’s return. But I sometimes find some modern interpretations of Scripture leaving something to be desired, and the teaching about the “rapture” is one of them. To find out the truth, all we have to do is read a little farther in Matthew's gospel beyond where we were when we started. “Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and be put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and will deceive many people. Because of the increase in wickedness, the love of many will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” [Matthew 24: 9-14, NIV] 

 

Now let's go back to the Book of Revelation for some similar scripture: “The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise his authority forty-two months. He opened his mouth to blaspheme God, and to slander his name and his dwelling place and those who live in heaven. He was given the power to make war against the saints and to conquer them. And he was given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast – all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world. He who has an ear, let him hear. If anyone is to go into captivity, into captivity they will go. If anyone is to be killed with the sword, with the sword he will be killed. This calls for patience and endurance on the part of the saints.” [Revelation chapter 13, verses 5-10, NIV]

After reading through these two carefully chosen passages of Scripture, there should be no remaining doubt in the mind of every reader that there will be no 'get out of jail free' card for any of us. If you're watching a preacher on TV, or at the church you attend, and you find yourself hearing about a “pre-tribulation rapture”, stop watching that preacher or find a better church in your area, because I just proved with the two passages above that there is no “rapture”. I let the Bible do the talking for me, this isn't just my opinion. The rapture is a false teaching!! Of course, there will be many people who will cite 1^st Thessalonians chapter 4 (“behold, in the twinkling of an eye, we shall all be changed”). Problem is, that chapter isn't talking about the second coming of Christ, the apostle Paul was writing about what happens when we die. Go back and read First Thessalonians chapter four, verses 13-18, and chapter five, verses 1-6 in any Bible version you want, and you'll see what I mean. Those verses are about what happens when we die! The church will not escape the brutal rule of the Antichrist or the horrors of World War Three. We're going to be right in the middle of it, and many of us could even get killed. Moreover, this will be happening on a global scale, meaning the United States will not escape what's coming upon the whole world – the real Tribulation yet to come. I don't think we'll have much longer to wait. Prepare yourselves accordingly.

Our country is sick with greed, and I'm just plain sick of it

America's Sick Culture of Greed – the 7 Warning Signs

by Rev. Paul J. Bern

The apostle Paul, in his first letter to his deacon Timothy, admonished him to be wary of the pursuit of money and material wealth. About 1,950 years ago, Paul wrote, “But Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” (1^st Timothy chapter six, verses 6-10, NIV) The love of money for money’s sake, as in the days of the early Church, remains the social and societal disease of our time. We see it all around us; in the celebration of ill-gotten financial gain, public admiration for the heads of criminal banks, the lyrics to some popular songs, and in the commercialization of charity and spirituality. This adoration of wealth isn’t a new thing, of course. Back in elementary school I remember being sent to the principal's office for being moody, unfocused and temperamental – in other words, for being either a rebellious revolutionary, a writer in the making, or a trouble-maker. I still remember my report cards from elementary school that said I “failed to concentrate on the task at hand”, and that I had “too casual an attitude”. In other words, I was a misfit deemed to be a failure in life. That, of course, depends on how one defines the words 'misfit' and 'failure'.

In defense of my childhood self, the Beatles were famous for their Rolls-Royce's at that time and the Beatles seemed happy. A group called the “Dave Clark Five” went out and bought five matching Jaguar XKE convertibles (anybody else remember that?). Like any good consumer in the making, I had internalized these images of wealth and had come to equate them with happiness. The United States of the 1960s was a nation filled with optimism. For many (though definitely not all) Americans, it was a time of unparalleled opportunity. Education was affordable, families could live comfortably on a single adult income, and the country seem to be on an endless upward trajectory of prosperity. We were expanding in every way, so rapidly that only the depths of space seemed able to contain the people we were about to become. The fantasy of wealth seemed somehow different in that context. Today, we’re a nation being preached to by “bipartisan” corporate politicians who lecture us on the impossibility of expecting a livable Social Security income in our old age. Or a living wage in our working years. Or an affordable education, so our children can live a better life economically than we did. Yet we're more infatuated with the fruits of unproductive greed today, it seems, then we were back then. Here are seven signs that American culture is sick with greed.

1.) There’s still no public shame in profiting off Wall Street fraud.

Wall Street has been celebrating the investment opportunities created by the wave of criminality and fraud which has overtaken JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and others. JP Morgan Chase's epidemic of internal fraud has led to tens of billions in fines during the tenure of CEO Jamie Dimon. The investigation's report goes on to describe how JP Morgan's stock has risen despite the record fraud settlements against the bank and multiple ongoing civil and criminal investigations. What the report is saying is that banks are essential to the functioning of society, like a public utility. But unlike traditional public utilities, they’re entrusted to profit-driven executives with a long history of documented criminality. And yet there have been no indictments of senior Wall Street executives to date because senior government officials have made it clear they don’t want to endanger the banks by enforcing the law. Legal and political implications aside, what’s astonishing to me is the complete lack of shame associated with being a bank executive whose organization has committed so many crimes — or an investment analyst to openly celebrate those crimes as an opportunity to make money at society’s expense.

Even as the world was still learning of Wall Street’s extensive criminality, Dimon was the subject of a fawning profile several years ago in the New York Times Sunday magazine, which detailed at length Dimon’s hurt feelings and irritation toward those audacious enough to criticize him. Andrew Ross Sorkin did the same thing for the same newspaper three years later, dismissing as “blood lust” calls for Dimon’s resignation in the wake of yet more billion-dollar fraud revelations about his bank. Even now, after all the revelations of crimes which include investor fraud, shareholder fraud, perjury, forgery, violation of international sanctions laws and laws designed to protect members of the US Armed Forces — even now it’s possible to treat bank CEOs as victims in the pages of our country’s newspaper of record. Condemning that record isn’t blood lust. It’s morality.

2.) Greedy CEOs still have credibility in the media.

It’s not just Jamie Dimon, of course. Having shattered the middle class through their accumulation of wealth, the devastation they inflicted on the global economy, and their mistreatment of employee pension funds, Wall Street CEO's apparently still have enough credibility in some quarters to be treated as experts in fiscal responsibility. They’re using that credibility to suggest that America's middle-class accept cuts to Social Security and Medicare, two of the few programs left to protect them from the effects of runaway corporate greed. American news outlets accord these CEOs an extraordinary and unearned measure of respectability and authority. Very few articles about 'Fix the Debt' mention the massive fraud settlements and fines levied against these CEO's institutions. Although CEO's aren’t greedy by definition, most of the ones on 'Fix the Debt’s' list fit that description. Most of the ones who aren’t running Wall Street banks lead defense contracting firms that earn excessive profits from the US taxpayer, while lecturing those same taxpayers on the need for the middle class to cut back on its expectations of financial security when it reaches retirement age. 'Fix the Debt' is one of a number of interlocking organizations which are largely financed by right-wing billionaire Pete Peterson, who made his money in the hedge fund business and yet is treated by many journalists as if he were Mother Teresa.

3.) Corporate executives are now trained to rip people off.

This writer spent a number of years in the business world during the 1990s, as the owner of a small technology-based retail storefront operation. During this time, corporate America was transforming itself from a customer-driven set of industries to a greed-driven and conscience-less wealth extraction machine for the investor class. Let me use the Gillette Company as an example. As most bearded men know, the Gillette business model is a sneaky one. The company ropes customers in with low-cost razors and then charges an outrageous amount for replacement blades. This is obviously a deceptive business model. Another example from the 1990's and (to a lesser degree) 2000's is that of the pay phone industry, which wanted to increase turnover in the use of its phones. The allegedly 'brilliant' thinking of a junior executive taken directly from the minutes of board meetings (I will decline to name the company) proposed that bricks be put in the handsets of all their phones. In the same “brainstorming” session, which sometimes are innocuously called “meetings”, another executive suggested making the surfaces underneath the phones slanted, so that people couldn’t leave their things there while they spoke on the phone. The net result was that people paid a quarter to use a pay phone, but then grew uncomfortable and were unable to complete their calls. The beauty of it – from the company’s point of view – was that they didn’t even know why they were hanging up. They merely had an unsatisfying customer experience, while the phone company got to turn over customers more quickly and collect more quarters. Again, nobody back then objected that this was poor customer service, and an underhanded way to deal with customers. If you multiply those experiences ten thousandfold, you have an idea of the culture of corruption which is taking place every day in companies all across the country. That’s not to say there aren’t companies that still believe in customer service; there are, and I’m grateful every time I encounter one. But the corporate culture of America has become a culture of cheating, manipulation and greed. (The pay phone industry in this country is dead, by the way. Karma, as they say, is a bitch.)

4.) And then there’s the music recording industry.

Our idealization of greed isn’t confined to the business section of our newspapers. While white liberals decry the idealization of wealth, that’s not a new phenomenon either. In fact, it can be found in both lifestyles and the recordings of their own childhood musical heroes. “Money can’t buy everything it’s true, but what it can’t buy I can’t use...” There has always been a tension in popular music between the comfortable idealism of those who come from wealthy backgrounds and the aspiring materialism of pop musicians who were raised in poverty and/or financial insecurity. That latter list includes Elvis Presley, the Beatles, James Brown, and many of today’s hip-hop artists. As the seminal R&B producer, songwriter and performer Swamp Dogg put it in the 1970's: “I’m not selling out, I’m buying in.” The best of those artists — the Beatles, Brown, and more recently Kanye West — have struggled to reconcile the drive which helped them escape poverty with the idealism that made them gifted artists. Kanye ran into some controversy with his track “New Slaves.” Many people were offended that he equated his own wealth with slavery and Jim Crow laws. It’s Kanye’s charm, as well as his curse, to speak everything that comes into his mind. But I think he was onto something with his line about “throwing back the Maybach keys” and his lyrics about the expectation that African-American celebrities will be excessive spenders.

Self-made celebrities often act as ritualized consumers on behalf of the general public. Their job is to swallow up the most excessive luxuries the wealthy lifestyle has to offer. They inadvertently use their power and influence to reinforce the corporate-driven, consumerist tropes that keep us enslaved to our own material desires. By naming the phenomenon and ritually “throwing the keys,” Kanye West is trying to break a pattern that has stretched from Tupelo in Mississippi to Compton in California, from Liverpool in England to Bed-Sty and Brownsville in New York.

5.) Insight and spirituality are being commercialized.

One of the most notorious examples of the commercialization of faith and spirituality is the “prosperity gospel”, which is being propagated primarily in Protestant, catholic, and non- or- interdenominational churches here in the US. As the late and well-known televangelist pioneer Oral Roberts once said, “If you have a need, you must plant a seed”. In order to obtain, we must first give, or so they say. But when we examine the Scriptures, we find this is quite the reverse of what Christ taught us in the Sermon on the Mount: “So do not worry, saying 'What shall we eat?', or 'What shall we drink?', or 'What shall we wear'? For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” (Matthew 6: 31-33, NIV) So, instead of “planting a seed” to get our needs met, if we have a need we should be on our knees in prayer, not giving some crooked televangelist all your grocery money. Even Eastern spiritual traditions like Buddhism are being co-mingled with idealized visions of what it means to be a billionaire. From TED talks to mindfulness conferences like the Wisdom 2.0 conference, the search for individual and collective insight is becoming increasingly identified with the desire to accumulate wealth. “You can have it all,” these events seem to say. “You can gain peace of mind, unlock the mysteries of human existence, and become a billionaire, all at the same time.” Some of these events even seem to argue that they are one and the same journey, which is a complete fallacy. It’s heaven and Nirvana, all in one 'special' package — with corporate sponsorship.

6.) Kindness and thoughtfulness toward our fellow human beings has become a commodity.

The Clinton Global Initiative has continued to promote misleading deficit-reduction materials in partnership with the hedge fund billionaires. It featured a leader from Morgan Stanley — one of the institutions which was instrumental in causing the 2008 financial crisis — talking about how to recover from the financial crisis. It’s not just Bill and Hillary. In the midst of negotiating yet another multi-billion dollar fraud settlement, JP Morgan Chase was given the honor (and the public relations coup) of sponsoring the fund raising concert for victims of Hurricane Sandy headlined by the Rolling Stones. But then, the Stones have a relationship with big banks that goes back to their sponsorship deal with AmeriQuest, the mortgage company which was slammed for deceitful practices and discriminatory lending toward minorities. That’s not to say corporate charity, or for that matter the charity of billionaires, is a bad thing. Everyone should incorporate charity into their way of life, and those who are most fortunate should give the most in return. Nobody argues with that. The sickness comes when we allow certain types of charity to glorify the giver, or when it’s considered impolite to mention any relationship between, say, the excessive wealth accumulation of the givers and the need for charity in the first place.

7.) America's Soul Sickness

Today there are countless signs that our culture is sick with greed. You don’t need to be told that. Just look around. I never was able to afford the Rolls-Royce's and Jaguar roadsters of my childhood fantasies. But then, those things were only an expression of pain. They reflected a deep yearning to be somewhere else, to be someone else, to escape the daily trials of everyday existence and replace them with a fantasy bubble that kept me at a glittering distance from the sufferings of the real world. Today’s national culture of greed is also an expression of pain and fear. It’s more terrifying than ever to try to survive on a middle-class income. Most people live one or two paychecks away from utter disaster. Very few of us feel that we have any real control over our own fate. The lives of reality show stars, the Hollywood tabloids and dangerous drugs like 'meth' and 'spice' are some of the most obvious of our escapist fantasies. But as long as we live in a fantasy world, we won’t be working to change the real one. True happiness is found in a life lived with meaning. It’s not just that I can’t afford that car. We can’t afford it. We can’t afford to live in a world where our only aspiration is to accumulate wealth, regardless of how it’s accumulated – while ignoring the flourishing of the human spirit in its artistic, idealistic and intellectual aspects. The love of possessions is a sickness. People are losing their lives in the pursuit of wealth and possessions. They’re dying from gunshot wounds and heart attacks, in gang battles and in solitary hospital beds. And it’s getting worse. The symptoms are appearing, not just in ourselves, but in the planet we call home. If we don’t cure it soon, it could prove fatal for all of us.