Another week goes by

Hizballah has got hold of chemical weapons

For the first time in many years, voices in the US administration were criticizing the Israeli defense forces for under-reacting and, in this case, also underestimating the chemical weapons threat emanating from Syria and neglecting to pursue counter-measures. This is what visiting Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak heard when he met US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel at the Pentagon Tuesday, March 5, as the new defense secretary’s first foreign visitor.
DEBKAfile’s military and Washington sources disclose that Barak was berated for “inadequate and cursory” military preparations which failed to take into account that a chemical attack on Israel would make it necessary for the IDF to enter Syria – most likely for an offensive operation coordinated against the common threat with the Turkish and Jordanian armies.  The rest of the story here

 

Joint task force

A new US-led contingency headquarters for joint US, IsraelU, Jordanian and Turkish operations will go into action inside Syria if any or all these allies should come under chemical or biological attack. Agreement to establish this headquarters was finalized at the talks US Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel held with visiting Israeli defense Minister Ehud Barak at the Pentagon Tuesday, March 5.

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Hagel spoke of a chemical war in Syria in terms of an imminent and realistic eventuality. Washington expected the Syrian rebels close to al Qaeda to initiate this type of warfare and the Syria army to fight back in kind. Such an exchange could quickly spill over the Syrian borders to its neighbors, it was likewise predicted. Rest of the story here.

 

Egypt

When visiting US Secretary of State John Kerry sat one-on-one with Egyptian President Morsi in Cairo, Sunday, March 3, he talked at length about Egypt’s calamitous economic straits, relations with Israel, democratization and essential reforms. He had hoped to find the Egyptian president amenable to getting to grips with his country’s fast approaching bankruptcy. In the event, Morsi nodded politely but, DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources report, he was far more preoccupied with pushing forward the three-point plan he and the Muslim Brotherhood’s supreme leader Mohammed Badie have begun implementing. Details here

 

Iran

The continuing saga of “I will huff and puff and blow your house down” is here. Meanwhile Iran continues to march closer and closer to their ultimate goal.

 

2 cents:

What does the above stories reflect? The absence of actual leadership as well as the protection of the USA and its allies.

icubudLeave a comment

On eternal things v.2

I believe the second verse I memorized was for the Sunday school program when I was eight years old and in department 8. I am pretty sure my Sunday school teacher was a gentleman named Sonny Neal. 39 years have passed and he is still working for the Lord. He is a kind soul which each time I see him on Sunday morning brings a smile to my face and cheer to my heart. Like the first verse I memorized, this one I would not fully understand till much later in life. And the time that passed I took a very long and often frustrating path. For the sake of brevity I will summarize my experience to one point.

If you went into a Starbucks and order a tall coffee, paid for it and then took the hot beverage to your car and pulled away heading toward your next destination. If then – you raised the hot beverage to your mouth to sip your coffee and then realized it was simply hot water, what would you do? If you had enough time/the availability to turn around and go back to Starbucks to express your unsatisfaction and receive the beverage you paid for and ordered – you would. Let’s say that is what happens and after going back through the line you present what you received and explain what you ordered. The person remembers you and replies “oh you should have ordered a “red”; here I will make that for you.” And then turns away to make your order. You – standing perplexed – look around and see clearly on the menu board what you would expect. Coffee, tall, grande, venti and so on. You look at the signage and it all says what it usually does. The barista comes back with your coffee and you say, “Sorry but I am confused. When did ordering change? Why doesn’t the menu reflect the change?” The barista then goes on about the tradition and culture of the company etc.

Here is the point: There are those who are supposedly Christian leaders that lead people astray by their dishonest use of the vocabulary in the Bible. It even gets worse, because some so-called scholars and leaders have established boards with publishers to actually change the words from the Bible and even – preposterous as it may sound – remove words and whole verses (This phase of the problem will be for a future post). My writing today is about the dishonesty of vocabulary use and application. If you were to find out that your pastor/priest/clergy/elder/etc. meant one thing when they said another thing, how would you feel/react? Say for example when they used the word “love” they actually meant “hate”. If you asked questions in private or in class as to clarification they would talk about emotions and how they are God given and God uses this language to communicate to us in the Bible so we can understand. Where does that answer get you? Nowhere so you say “explain”. Then they take you through a Greek language primer explaining the Greek word and tenses and the use in that day and the expression is communicated differently today and in the end we have to translate to English and that brings us back to God communicating with us in our language so we can understand.  —- This scenario is not preposterous, it happens every single day.

Proof?

Ephesians 2:8&9 KJV: “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is a gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

Today supposed Christian leaders teach and preach that salvation must be earned. You see, grace is a work or sacrament one must repeatedly take part of and experience as a crucial element in the salvation plan. Please note grace cannot be a work – it is inconsistent with the actual vocabulary and definition of the word “grace”. In fact Paul plainly writes NOT OF WORKS in his explanation.  Unique mention? No.

“And if by grace, then [is it] no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if [it be] of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.” – Romans 11:6 KJV

“Who hath saved us, and called [us] with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,” – 2 Timothy 1:9 KJV

So not only is it ridiculous that someone would teach that grace is a work but also tragic. See unlike the customer from Starbucks who was able to go back and resolve the matter satisfactorily though at a cost of their time and patience the person who dies and stands before God trusting their works to enter into Heaven for eternity will be ushered to the lake of fire. All of the screaming and hollering that “it isn’t fair” and “I’m sorry…” will fall on deaf ears. He will simply point to the Scriptures and say something like “you thought you could earn your way into My Heaven when I sent My Son to pay for your sins?” “And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” Matthew 7:23 Matthew 25:41 KJV – “… Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:”

Grace is via God’s goodness toward human demerit. He provides mercy out of His goodness toward human guilt. The grace and mercy of God to all human beings was declared, revealed and realized via the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Romans 5:8&9: “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.”

John 3:15-18 KJV – “That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

“Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” – John 14:6 KJV

So what and whom are you trusting? Your answer has eternal implications.

 

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On eternal things v.1

This is the first post of which I hope will be several on the subject matter of favorite verses/portions of the Bible. My “faith” as we say today, is of exceptional importance to me. It is the eyeglasses which I view and perceive the different things and experiences of my life. My Christian walk is something that I strive to be effective and I guess more importantly – something which I hope to be walking on the right path of. I have got myself to such a way of thinking that it is very difficult to do things without checking if I think this is something that God would want me to do and to do “now”. People argue/debate if we – as adults – are the sum of nature or nurturing. At this time in my life I think for most people it is a mix/blend of the two. I don’t think nature (genetics) provides one a license to be something horrible/bad. We – human beings – are complex creatures which the strands of nurture and nature are also wrapped with the cords of freewill/choice. What is very sobering if not scary is the understanding/realization that these temporal lives we are living at this moment/life span have eternal ramifications for our individual souls, which is the “real us”. The soul is not some abstract mystical thing but our very consciousness. This consciousness has the fullest experience of our senses and the mind we have developed as well as the memories of all our experiences – hence this is why I write it is “the real us”. We – our souls – peer at temporal life through our eyes and are plugged in to our body via the flesh. The flesh is temporal. The soul is eternal. At the death of the physical body the soul is given an eternal body that it will experience/use for all of eternity. It can NOT die – period. Why mention all this as introduction to these new types of posts? Because I am of the firm believe that our decision on our relationship and understanding of the Lord Jesus Christ determines the “where” our eternal being will reside. If we believe that He alone is the way to heaven. He alone can forgive us of our sins. If He alone can provide our redemption and salvation. If we believe we cannot earn our way to heaven in any way. So that we have confessed our sins, asked God to forgive us and trust in the finished work of Jesus Christ as our payment for sin – then we will be saved. The where of our eternal being is settled forever and it will be in Heaven. Anything different means an eternity in the Lake of Fire with absolutely no parole.

The first Bible verse that I memorized was Romans 5:8. If my memory is correct I was seven years old and it was for a program our Sunday School department was going to present in the evening church service. I know that at the time I did not fully understand what the verses meant. I knew I was to memorize it so I could walk up to the microphone in front of about 600 adults and quote it into the microphone. As the years passed and I was probably around the age of 28 I finally understood what the verse was saying. From the KJV “But God commendeth his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Commendeth is an old English word which communicates the idea of displaying and proving. It is imperative that the second part of the definition is understood. So God proved how much he loved me and you that while we are sinners before Him, He sent His only begotten Son Jesus to die for us. Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection provides the atonement and redemption to all those who trust Him for their salvation. So God did not do this after we felt we were worthy or after we so-called cleaned up our lives. He did it knowing correctly that we were undeserving and unable to fully understand what He was doing. He did it because He loved us and does not want us to go to Hell which was originally created as the place for Satan and his angels to be punished and reside for all eternity.

 

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True colors

As I alluded to before in at least one post here and in many conversations with people on the subject matter of a nuclear Iran, it appears what I thought the CES would actually do is quite possibly going to become a reality.

Today’s article in DEBKA reveals that O’s administration is going to back Khamenei’s fatwa on nuclear weapons by bringing it to the UN. Impact? Exactly what I feared: Israel must come clean about its nuclear program and eventually rid themselves of unilateral ownership of such weapons. This then will shift the Iranian nuclear matter and spotlight onto pressure on the country of Israel. This of course will provide the valuable time needed for Iran to work on realizing its true nuclear aspirations. Why else work with North Korea on detonating nuclear weapons if your program’s aspirations are purely medicine and civil?

 

 

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Socialism is a failure

Article link

RUSH: … All of this that’s happening is going to implode, just like it imploded in the Soviet Union. Folks, socialism has never worked anywhere. It always implodes. It always fails. And Obama is nothing special. He’s not a messiah. He doesn’t have a magic wand that can turn a demonstrated failure of a system into a success. It is going to go the way of the dinosaur. The question is when, and how much damage is done in the process. It’s a question of timing.

 

It could be hastened if we had a little bit more political activism and leadership at the elected level, but this can’t be sustained. It can’t work. It never has worked. What’s going to happen is what Margaret Thatcher said: The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of the other guy’s money. You run out of other people’s money. Now, in our case, we can print money. Italy can’t print money; Greece can’t print money. We can. So we can continue this charade longer than other nations have been able to.

 

But at some point this is going to collapse on itself. The objective is to make sure the country is not permanently destroyed in the process of this happening. But this that Obama is trying, this that he wants to do cannot work. It cannot work mathematically. It cannot work politically. It cannot work ideologically. It never has. Nowhere has it ever worked at any time in human history. Obama’s way has never worked. What will happen eventually is that the beneficiaries — the people who think that they are the beneficiaries, the people who are totally relying on government — at some point (and it may not be my lifetime, I don’t know, but at some point) it’s gonna stop.

 

The gravy train is going to end. They’re in for a huge shock and surprise. The low-information people are going to be stunned into reality at some point. There’s no avoiding it. Now, hopefully we can hasten this with future elections. I know that looks bleak. But at some point, everything Obama believes in is gonna go down the tubes, because it always has. Call it whatever you want: Liberalism, progressivism. It is all built on a foundation of lies. The people who espouse it can’t be honest about it.

 

The people who believe in it cannot tell you what their real plans are. That’s why the Democrats have not done a budget. The reason, the sole reason Democrats have not done a budget is to hide their true intentions. There have been some other reasons. Not doing a budget allows them to accomplish more of what they want, because they’re doing it on the sly. You know, they’re doing it in the dark, under the cover of darkness, and they’re doing it crisis to crisis to crisis to crisis. But it’s dishonest. It’s like Reagan said about the Soviet Union. They’re gonna implode of their own immorality. And he was right.

 

It eventually will happen to every communist or socialist setup. Now, some last longer than others. Even North Korea, at some point — may not be in our lifetime — but that’s gonna blow up. Cuba’s gonna blow up. The ChiComs are engaged in a shell game right now. The ChiComs wouldn’t be where they are if it weren’t for capitalism. They can’t admit it so they’re trying to keep communist control over as much of their society as they can.

 

The biggest fear that the ChiComs have is the people that live out in the country want to move to the cities. The ChiCom challenge, they’ve gotta create jobs in the countryside to keep the peasants there. If they overrun the cities looking for work, there’s big trouble. But the ChiCom solution, the ChiCom route to economic power has been capitalism. So that’s why I’m not going anywhere. It is gonna happen. It is gonna implode. It can’t do anything other than that. As I say, it’s what happens in the meantime. Just how damaged is the country going to be? And the potential for damage is great. I mean, real havoc is being reeked here. This country is being divided purposely along racial lines and class lines.

 

I find it really stunning. We are going backwards in this country. We are separating people by class. We are separating people by race. We are not encouraging people to do better. We are not inspiring people to be the best they can be. We are essentially acknowledging that people are not very good and don’t have much hope. Well, not “we.” The Obama people are thriving by telling their voters who they ought to hate, who they ought to oppose, who they ought to try to eliminate, wipe out, in a political sense, and it’s all based on race or other forms of ethnicity. It’s terrible. And now the Gallup poll is out and we’ve lost our optimism. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence.

 

The level of optimism in this country is at a low not seen since 1979, Jimmy Carter. Only 39% of the people in this country are optimistic about the country. Now, I checked the e-mail when I mentioned this in the first hour or second hour. People sent me e-mail, “Well, how do you explain Obama being reelected?” It makes perfect sense. If you’re sitting out there and you’re in a defeatist frame of mind, and you have no hope for the future, then you vote for the guy who’s telling you that there’s a way of dealing with all this and that he’s in the process of fixing it or making it fair or what you have. But I think it makes perfect sense that the lowest level of optimism since 1979 would result in Obama being reelected.

 

There’s a lot of factors, by the way, that go into why Obama was reelected, and largely it’s not enough Romney voters turned out. It’s a whole ‘nother discussion for a whole ‘nother day. But we’re in the midst here of, I think, designed — I don’t say this lightly. We’re in the midst here of designed class and race wars. They’re brewing out there. The president, in an inaugural address, the president of the United States was filled with venom for his political opponents, and there are 60 some odd million of them who voted against him. It’s not just the Republicans in Washington. There’s 67 million Americans who voted against Obama. He declared war against them, too. He declared war against Republicans and, by extension, anybody who voted for them.

 

We’ve got the biggest domestic challenge this country’s faced in a long time, under the guise of fixing all of these horrors that went on in our past. We’re heading right back to them. We are reconstructing those horrors under the guise of fixing it all, finally. There’s a giant deception taking place, but my point here is that it has never worked, and it isn’t going to work here. And at some point — I don’t know what’s gonna cause it, and this is not rose-colored glass eyesight or any of that. I’m just telling you my instincts, gut instincts, prediction, future, what have you.

 

This country breeds people who want to be good, be the best, who want prosperity. It breeds them. And at some point people are going to awaken and demand better and realize that it’s gonna be up to them. Because the longer this goes on, the more it’s gonna be demonstrated that all these promises are empty, that all this talk about everybody getting a fair shot and hard work — not gonna happen. And it’s gonna get uglier before it gets better. But it’s what was elected. Anyway, sorry for the long dissertation, but in response to our last caller, that’s why I’m hanging in there, ’cause I want to be here when it bottoms out and rebounds.

 

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

 

RUSH: So if you think that we can’t do any better, why not vote for Obama? If you think, if you’re part of the new group of pessimists, you say, “What difference does it make? I’ll vote for Obama, what the hell. I’ll vote for the first black president. At least they won’t call me a racist. What the hell, I don’t want anybody new.” If you think that you can’t do any better, the whole thing’s over. “I’ll vote for Obama. Why not vote for Obama, what difference does it make anyway?” We were outnumbered by the takers in the last election. Makers didn’t show up.

 

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