I used to be a Royal Ranger....still am in many ways. What is that you ask? A Royal Ranger is Alert, Clean, Honest, Courageous, Loyal, Courteous, and Spiritual. That's the CODE, anyway. It's the "boy scout" type organization of the Assemblies of God that teaches everything from knot tying, to how to be a real servant for the Lord. But what I liked most was the motto: READY....ready to work, play, serve, obey, etc. No really, it has an etc., on the end that means a real Royal Ranger is ready for absolutely anything.
I use that motto now to ask if you are ready for what's next on the spiritual horizon. That doesn't mean what is next for lunch, or next on the HoneyDo; I'm talking spiritual here. Did you know that there is a list that awaits fulfilment in the hands of the Lord? A to do list that he is ready to get down and dirty with? Let me give you a short list of things, some done, some just about to be done, and things that are a little further off on the horizon. Are you ready? Well, here goes:
God's To Do List For The Last Days
1. The Return of the Jews to the PROMISED LAND..... done
Splattered all over scripture....e.g., Ezekiel 37, Joel 3, Zechariah 14, Matthew 24 is the renewal of Israel as a nation....even a world power player.
2. The Philistines Come Under Judgment for their persecution of ancient Israel.... done
Also check out Joel 3:4-8 The modern Palestinians are ancient Philistia and occupy the same territory.
3. The Dividing of the Land...... just about
Our President is on the hot path to see that a Palestinian state is officially ceded by Israel and that Jerusalem, the historic and current capitol of Israel is divided between Jew and Arab. Joel 3:3 says that action will be the trigger for the cataclysmic beginnings of the last days.
4. The Gathering of Nations against Israel.... just about
Ezekiel 38-39 give the chilling details of how Russia, Iran, Libya, the Sudan, and Turkey
decide to invade Israel. I believe the hook will be the destruction of Damascus, Syria when
Israel finds out they are about to do something nuclear. (Check out Isaiah 17)
5. The RAPTURE..... really close 1 Thess. 4: 13-18 I Cor. 15: 51-53, Matt. 24
Nothing is holding this moment back except the Lord's mercy to save as many people as will
answer his call. It will be the unprecedented arrival of the Bridegroom at the home of the Bride to call her out of her house and to his side.
6. The End of the Gentile Age.... at least 3 1/2 years from now.
Daniel 9 and 12, Matt. 24 1 Thess. 5, 2 Thess. 2 The end of the age is when God washes
his hands of the Gentile unbelieving world who is represented by the Son of Perdition, the
Anti-Christ, the false savior. He will enter the re-built temple in Jerusalem and set up an
image of himself in a wing of the temple. That will spell the end for the gentiles, and the
salvation of the Jews. But it will be by fire.
7. The RETURN OF CHRIST..... at least 7 years from now. (Unless you are a mid-tribist and
believe we are already part way through the Tribulation period. I don't mind at all. Just
means he's closer.) Rev. 19 - 20 Zechariah 14 When Christ descends from the Throne
Room and sets foot on the Mount of Olives. The result is the completion of number 6.....
commonly called Armageddon. The valley of Jehoshaphat, at the foot of Mount Carmel, will
be the site of the greatest moment of annihilation in all of history. The millennium will begin
45 days later.
In the meantime.....Joel 2 tells us that a spiritual awakening must happen in the world before the end comes.....that means a renewal of the moving of the HOLY SPIRIT in the church....which in most cases in our culture....is nearly lifeless. I believe that will happen between numbers 4 and 5. It will happen right now if you really seek Jesus with all of your heart. The Spirit of God is ready to move in you and through you to touch a dying and condemned world. ARE YOU READY for it to begin in you? Hope so!
Pastor Jim
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Why Israel Feels Isolated
This is an interesting article from THE JERUSALEM POST, written by American evangelist, Mike Evans (An evangelical Jew)
We just don't get it. The Left in America is screaming to high heaven that the mess we are in in Iraq and the war on terrorism has been caused by the right-wing and that George W. Bush, the so-called "dim-witted cowboy," has created the entire mess.
The truth is the entire nightmare can be traced back to the liberal democratic policies of the leftist Jimmy Carter, who created a firestorm that destabilized our greatest ally in the Muslim world, the shah of Iran, in favor of a religious fanatic, the ayatollah Khomeini.
Carter viewed Khomeini as more of a religious holy man in a grassroots revolution than a founding father of modern terrorism. Carter's ambassador to the UN, Andrew Young, said "Khomeini will eventually be hailed as a saint." Carter's Iranian ambassador, William Sullivan, said, "Khomeini is a Gandhi-like figure." Carter adviser James Bill proclaimed in a Newsweek interview on February 12, 1979, that Khomeini was not a mad, but a man of "impeccable integrity and honesty."
The shah was terrified of Carter. He told his personal confidant, "Who knows what sort of calamity he [Carter] may unleash on the world?"
Let's look at the results of Carter's misguided liberal policies: the Islamic Revolution in Iran; the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (Carter's response was to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics); the birth of bin Laden's terrorist organization; the Iran-Iraq War, which cost the lives of millions dead and wounded; and yes, the present war on terrorism and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
WHEN CARTER entered the political fray in 1976, America was still riding the liberal wave of anti-Vietnam War emotion. Carter asked for an in-depth report on Iran even before he assumed the reins of government and was persuaded that the shah was not fit to rule Iran. 1976 was a banner year for pacifism: Carter was elected president, Bill Clinton became attorney-general of Arkansas, and Albert Gore won a place in the Tennessee House of Representatives.
In his anti-war pacifism, Carter never got it that Khomeini, a cleric exiled to Najaf in Iraq from 1965-1978, was preparing Iran for revolution. Proclaiming "the West killed God and wants us to bury him," Khomeini's weapon of choice was not the sword but the media. Using tape cassettes smuggled by Iranian pilgrims returning from the holy city of Najaf, he fueled disdain for what he called ("the plague of Western culture").
Carter pressured the shah to make what he termed human rights concessions by releasing political prisoners and relaxing press censorship. Khomeini could never have succeeded without Carter. The Islamic Revolution would have been stillborn.
Gen. Robert Huyser, Carter's military liaison to Iran, once told me in tears: "The president could have publicly condemned Khomeini and even kidnapped him and then bartered for an exchange with the [American Embassy] hostages, but the president was indignant. 'One cannot do that to a holy man,' he said."
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has donned the mantle of Ayatollah Khomeini, taken up bin Laden's call, and is fostering an Islamic apocalyptic revolution in Iraq with the intent of taking over the Middle East and the world.
Jimmy Carter became the poster boy for the ideological revolution of the 1960s in the West, hell bent on killing the soul of America. The bottom line: Carter believed then and still does now is that evil really does not exist; people are basically good; America should embrace the perpetrators and castigate the victims.
IN THE '60S it was mass rebellion after the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. When humanity confronts eternity, the response is always rebellion or repentance. The same ideologues who fought to destroy the soul of America with the "God is dead" movement in the 1960s are now running the arts, the universities, the media, the State Department, Congress, and Senate, determined more then ever to kill the soul of America while the East attempts to kill the body. Carter's world view defines the core ideology of the Democratic Party.
What is going on in Iraq is no mystery to those of us who have had our fingers on the pulse of both Iran and Iraq for decades. The Iran-Iraq war was a war of ideologies. Saddam Hussein saw himself as an Arab leader who would defeat the non-Arab Persians. Khomeini saw it as an opportunity to export his Islamic Revolution across the borders to the Shi'ites in Iraq and then beyond to the Arab countries.
Throughout the war both leaders did everything possible to incite the inhabitants of each country to rebel - precisely what Iran is doing in Iraq today. Khomeini encouraged the Shi'ites across the border to remove Saddam from power and establish an Islamic republic like in Iran.
Carter's belief that every crisis can be resolved with diplomacy - and nothing but diplomacy - now permeates the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, Carter is wrong.
There are times when evil must be openly confronted and defeated.
KHOMEINI HAD the help of the PLO in Iran. They supplied weapons and terrorists to murder Iranians and incite mobs in the streets. No wonder Yasser Arafat was hailed as a friend of Khomeini after he seized control of Iran and was given the Israeli Embassy in Teheran with the PLO flag flying overhead.
The Carter administration scrambled to assure the new regime that the United States would maintain diplomatic ties with Iran. But on April 1, 1979, the greatest April Fools' joke of all time was played, as Khomeini proclaimed it the first day of the government of God.
In February 1979 Khomeini had boarded an Air France flight to return toTeheran with the blessing of Jimmy Carter. The moment he arrived, he proclaimed: "I will kick his teeth in" - referring to then prime minister, Shapour Bakhtiar, who was left in power with a US pledge of support. He was assassinated in Paris by Iranian agents in 1991.
I sat in the home of Gen. Huyser who told me the shah feared he would lose the country if he implemented Carter's polices. Carter had no desire to see the shah remain in power. He really believed that a cleric - whose Islamist fanaticism he did not understand in the least - would be better for human rights and Iran.
He could have changed history by condemning Khomeini and getting the support of our allies to keep him out of Iran.
Pastor Jim here.....Former President Carter returned last week to the Gaza strip and West Bank in order to have a kissy-face meeting with the terrorist organization, that now controls most of the politics for the Palestinians. He did it over obvious protests from the Israelis and basically thumbed his nose at them. It is time for the church to earnestly pray for Israel. Though Carter is basically a fool...(my words)....George W. Bush is heading that direction with his continuing push to divide Jerusalem. Mark the Word of God from Joel 3, when that happens, all hell is going to break loose. America will come under judgment and it will not be pleasant.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!!
Pastor Jim
We just don't get it. The Left in America is screaming to high heaven that the mess we are in in Iraq and the war on terrorism has been caused by the right-wing and that George W. Bush, the so-called "dim-witted cowboy," has created the entire mess.
The truth is the entire nightmare can be traced back to the liberal democratic policies of the leftist Jimmy Carter, who created a firestorm that destabilized our greatest ally in the Muslim world, the shah of Iran, in favor of a religious fanatic, the ayatollah Khomeini.
Carter viewed Khomeini as more of a religious holy man in a grassroots revolution than a founding father of modern terrorism. Carter's ambassador to the UN, Andrew Young, said "Khomeini will eventually be hailed as a saint." Carter's Iranian ambassador, William Sullivan, said, "Khomeini is a Gandhi-like figure." Carter adviser James Bill proclaimed in a Newsweek interview on February 12, 1979, that Khomeini was not a mad, but a man of "impeccable integrity and honesty."
The shah was terrified of Carter. He told his personal confidant, "Who knows what sort of calamity he [Carter] may unleash on the world?"
Let's look at the results of Carter's misguided liberal policies: the Islamic Revolution in Iran; the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (Carter's response was to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics); the birth of bin Laden's terrorist organization; the Iran-Iraq War, which cost the lives of millions dead and wounded; and yes, the present war on terrorism and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
WHEN CARTER entered the political fray in 1976, America was still riding the liberal wave of anti-Vietnam War emotion. Carter asked for an in-depth report on Iran even before he assumed the reins of government and was persuaded that the shah was not fit to rule Iran. 1976 was a banner year for pacifism: Carter was elected president, Bill Clinton became attorney-general of Arkansas, and Albert Gore won a place in the Tennessee House of Representatives.
In his anti-war pacifism, Carter never got it that Khomeini, a cleric exiled to Najaf in Iraq from 1965-1978, was preparing Iran for revolution. Proclaiming "the West killed God and wants us to bury him," Khomeini's weapon of choice was not the sword but the media. Using tape cassettes smuggled by Iranian pilgrims returning from the holy city of Najaf, he fueled disdain for what he called ("the plague of Western culture").
Carter pressured the shah to make what he termed human rights concessions by releasing political prisoners and relaxing press censorship. Khomeini could never have succeeded without Carter. The Islamic Revolution would have been stillborn.
Gen. Robert Huyser, Carter's military liaison to Iran, once told me in tears: "The president could have publicly condemned Khomeini and even kidnapped him and then bartered for an exchange with the [American Embassy] hostages, but the president was indignant. 'One cannot do that to a holy man,' he said."
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has donned the mantle of Ayatollah Khomeini, taken up bin Laden's call, and is fostering an Islamic apocalyptic revolution in Iraq with the intent of taking over the Middle East and the world.
Jimmy Carter became the poster boy for the ideological revolution of the 1960s in the West, hell bent on killing the soul of America. The bottom line: Carter believed then and still does now is that evil really does not exist; people are basically good; America should embrace the perpetrators and castigate the victims.
IN THE '60S it was mass rebellion after the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. When humanity confronts eternity, the response is always rebellion or repentance. The same ideologues who fought to destroy the soul of America with the "God is dead" movement in the 1960s are now running the arts, the universities, the media, the State Department, Congress, and Senate, determined more then ever to kill the soul of America while the East attempts to kill the body. Carter's world view defines the core ideology of the Democratic Party.
What is going on in Iraq is no mystery to those of us who have had our fingers on the pulse of both Iran and Iraq for decades. The Iran-Iraq war was a war of ideologies. Saddam Hussein saw himself as an Arab leader who would defeat the non-Arab Persians. Khomeini saw it as an opportunity to export his Islamic Revolution across the borders to the Shi'ites in Iraq and then beyond to the Arab countries.
Throughout the war both leaders did everything possible to incite the inhabitants of each country to rebel - precisely what Iran is doing in Iraq today. Khomeini encouraged the Shi'ites across the border to remove Saddam from power and establish an Islamic republic like in Iran.
Carter's belief that every crisis can be resolved with diplomacy - and nothing but diplomacy - now permeates the Democratic Party. Unfortunately, Carter is wrong.
There are times when evil must be openly confronted and defeated.
KHOMEINI HAD the help of the PLO in Iran. They supplied weapons and terrorists to murder Iranians and incite mobs in the streets. No wonder Yasser Arafat was hailed as a friend of Khomeini after he seized control of Iran and was given the Israeli Embassy in Teheran with the PLO flag flying overhead.
The Carter administration scrambled to assure the new regime that the United States would maintain diplomatic ties with Iran. But on April 1, 1979, the greatest April Fools' joke of all time was played, as Khomeini proclaimed it the first day of the government of God.
In February 1979 Khomeini had boarded an Air France flight to return toTeheran with the blessing of Jimmy Carter. The moment he arrived, he proclaimed: "I will kick his teeth in" - referring to then prime minister, Shapour Bakhtiar, who was left in power with a US pledge of support. He was assassinated in Paris by Iranian agents in 1991.
I sat in the home of Gen. Huyser who told me the shah feared he would lose the country if he implemented Carter's polices. Carter had no desire to see the shah remain in power. He really believed that a cleric - whose Islamist fanaticism he did not understand in the least - would be better for human rights and Iran.
He could have changed history by condemning Khomeini and getting the support of our allies to keep him out of Iran.
Pastor Jim here.....Former President Carter returned last week to the Gaza strip and West Bank in order to have a kissy-face meeting with the terrorist organization, that now controls most of the politics for the Palestinians. He did it over obvious protests from the Israelis and basically thumbed his nose at them. It is time for the church to earnestly pray for Israel. Though Carter is basically a fool...(my words)....George W. Bush is heading that direction with his continuing push to divide Jerusalem. Mark the Word of God from Joel 3, when that happens, all hell is going to break loose. America will come under judgment and it will not be pleasant.
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!!
Pastor Jim
Monday, April 28, 2008
The Church In Peril? Not the true one!
I recommend to all a movie that is driving the scientific establishment into extreme irritation: "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" by Ben Stein is a masterpiece in revealing how a lie can become so entrenched within a society that basic freedoms erode without the knowledge of the populace.
The movie shatters the foundations of Darwinian Evolution. It destroys every premise expounded, not by giving proof of a creator or intelligent design, but by persistently asking the simple questions over and over until the utter lack of substance in the theory is revealed. I loved it!
However, what reached out and grabbed me by the scruff of the neck was a variety of statements made by leading scientists with the Academy of Modern Science, headquartered in the Smithsonian Institute. The statements expose a grand design to eventually stifle all religious thought and replace the 'warped' thinking of ignorant creationists with clear-minded science. In other words, science has gone beyond exploration and taken on the role of the social change agent. Stein asked a simple question: "Do you believe those who practice religion or believe in God are ignorant?" The answer was revelatory: "Religion is something that people do to bring them comfort, but it has no place in reality or science. Our goal is to diminish the role of religion to being a weekend activity where people get together to have fun; something that no longer affects the way science is done." Sounds a bit like a recent quote by Barrack Obama....how bigots and the societal downtrodden grab onto guns and religion to get them through.
The scary aspect, to me anyway, is that fact that for much of modern Christianity in America, the goal has already been reached. Bear with me here! The act of Christian living has been replaced, to a large extent, by market mentality. The 'believer' looks for the best weekend church experience he can find, one that meets all his desires and the needs of his family. Once he finds that illusive place, he basically 'goes to market' every Sunday (maybe an occasional Wednesday) and gets what he needs. It is a 'GIVE ME' mentality. He doesn't participate sacrificially in making the presence of God a change-agent in himself. No, getting to close to God might actually demand sacrifice. It may hurt....at least hurt his 'style.' How do I come to that conclusion? Simple: I look at the size of a Sunday morning crowd and compare that to the number of people who show up to simply bask in the presence of God. In the basking comes the changing.....change isn't always pleasant, but with God, change is always beneficial. The gaming mentality of the church is also seen in the number of people who come to the real 'disciple building' opportunities, i.e., Sunday School. Nope...its not just for kids! Again, the scientific socialists have half the work done for them. For many, it is already just a weekend sport.
Now, remember to keep loving me as I ramble through this. I am not angry or disgusted at anything other than the work of the kingdom of darkness. However, I do know of that which I speak. I am quite aware of who is really hungry to dig deeper into God and who isn't. It is plain as daylight. What I am really working at is wrapped up in making myself the "LIVING SACRIFICE" that Paul demands of the Romans. (See Romans 12:1-2) Am I conforming to the mind set of the culture....with all its secular aspects and dogmas? Or, am I being transformed by the continual renewing of my mind (in the Word of God) so that I can know God's will for my life? There's the question.
So, the movie will awaken you to the realities of the Darwin's lie. It will also challenge you in your walk with Christ. We are living in perilous days and it will soon be impossible to live for Jesus without an all-out commitment to being his disciples....sacrifice and all. Are you ready?
I hope so, because the day is approaching quickly! If you are reading this and thinking about it, know this: I love you, but God does it better:-)
Pastor Jim
The movie shatters the foundations of Darwinian Evolution. It destroys every premise expounded, not by giving proof of a creator or intelligent design, but by persistently asking the simple questions over and over until the utter lack of substance in the theory is revealed. I loved it!
However, what reached out and grabbed me by the scruff of the neck was a variety of statements made by leading scientists with the Academy of Modern Science, headquartered in the Smithsonian Institute. The statements expose a grand design to eventually stifle all religious thought and replace the 'warped' thinking of ignorant creationists with clear-minded science. In other words, science has gone beyond exploration and taken on the role of the social change agent. Stein asked a simple question: "Do you believe those who practice religion or believe in God are ignorant?" The answer was revelatory: "Religion is something that people do to bring them comfort, but it has no place in reality or science. Our goal is to diminish the role of religion to being a weekend activity where people get together to have fun; something that no longer affects the way science is done." Sounds a bit like a recent quote by Barrack Obama....how bigots and the societal downtrodden grab onto guns and religion to get them through.
The scary aspect, to me anyway, is that fact that for much of modern Christianity in America, the goal has already been reached. Bear with me here! The act of Christian living has been replaced, to a large extent, by market mentality. The 'believer' looks for the best weekend church experience he can find, one that meets all his desires and the needs of his family. Once he finds that illusive place, he basically 'goes to market' every Sunday (maybe an occasional Wednesday) and gets what he needs. It is a 'GIVE ME' mentality. He doesn't participate sacrificially in making the presence of God a change-agent in himself. No, getting to close to God might actually demand sacrifice. It may hurt....at least hurt his 'style.' How do I come to that conclusion? Simple: I look at the size of a Sunday morning crowd and compare that to the number of people who show up to simply bask in the presence of God. In the basking comes the changing.....change isn't always pleasant, but with God, change is always beneficial. The gaming mentality of the church is also seen in the number of people who come to the real 'disciple building' opportunities, i.e., Sunday School. Nope...its not just for kids! Again, the scientific socialists have half the work done for them. For many, it is already just a weekend sport.
Now, remember to keep loving me as I ramble through this. I am not angry or disgusted at anything other than the work of the kingdom of darkness. However, I do know of that which I speak. I am quite aware of who is really hungry to dig deeper into God and who isn't. It is plain as daylight. What I am really working at is wrapped up in making myself the "LIVING SACRIFICE" that Paul demands of the Romans. (See Romans 12:1-2) Am I conforming to the mind set of the culture....with all its secular aspects and dogmas? Or, am I being transformed by the continual renewing of my mind (in the Word of God) so that I can know God's will for my life? There's the question.
So, the movie will awaken you to the realities of the Darwin's lie. It will also challenge you in your walk with Christ. We are living in perilous days and it will soon be impossible to live for Jesus without an all-out commitment to being his disciples....sacrifice and all. Are you ready?
I hope so, because the day is approaching quickly! If you are reading this and thinking about it, know this: I love you, but God does it better:-)
Pastor Jim
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