THE ANTICHRIST, THE IMAGE, AND THE MARK OF THE BEAST

One of the major events to occur just before the return of Christ as Conquering King is the appear­ance of an indi­vid­ual called the Antichrist. Most peo­ple who have stud­ied the per­son­al­i­ty and deeds of this indi­vid­ual have total­ly mis­un­der­stood the essen­tial fac­tors asso­ci­at­ed with this person.

Many view the Antichrist, the image, the mark of the Beast, and the Beast’s alliance of nations as things that will be eas­i­ly rec­og­nized as evil and sin­is­ter. The real­i­ty is that the Antichrist and his reli­gious sys­tem of gov­ern­ment will look like the great­est and most won­der­ful reli­gious, polit­i­cal, and eco­nom­ic sys­tem the world has ever seen. The leader of this alliance of nations will appear as a dynam­ic and charis­mat­ic indi­vid­ual who will lead his alliance of nations and the world into a time of unpar­al­leled peace and prosperity.

A Great Deception

Jesus said that the decep­tion sur­round­ing the Antichrist will be so clever that only the elect of God will rec­og­nize him and under­stand his true intent and purpose:

“And they that dwell on the earth shall won­der, whose names have not been writ­ten in the book of life from the foun­da­tion of the world, see­ing the beast, that it was a thing, and is not and yet now is” (Rev.17:8 Para.). See also Dan.12:9 – 10; Rev.1:1 – 8.

All oth­ers on earth will be deceived into think­ing that this per­son is indeed a sav­ior of human­i­ty. Therefore, it is extreme­ly impor­tant to be able to rec­og­nize some of the char­ac­ter­is­tics and pow­ers that this per­son may exhib­it as he impos­es his will on the world. One must real­ize that deceived peo­ple do not know that they are deceived, and that a per­son will remain deceived unless they dili­gent­ly and hon­est­ly put forth the effort to search for and accept truth. No one on earth is immune to being deceived or caus­ing decep­tion. In fact, the Bible says that the whole world has been deceived except for the elect of God. The truth is that, there is not a per­son alive who knows every bib­li­cal truth in exact detail. Therefore, no one can total­ly rely upon anoth­er per­son for their under­stand­ing of God’s word. This is why the elect are instruct­ed to study to show them­selves approved before God and to work out their own sal­va­tion in fear and trem­bling. See 2.Tim.2:14 – 16; Eph.2:12 – 13.

Who is the Antichrist?

First let us remove some of the mys­tique about the name Antichrist. Simply put the Antichrist is an indi­vid­ual who is against the true Christ and/​or is attempt­ing to pass him­self off as the true Christ. In either case this indi­vid­ual is in oppo­si­tion to God the Father and Jesus Christ and their teach­ings. The Antichrist is the same dynam­ic and charis­mat­ic indi­vid­ual described else­where in the Bible as the Beast who is the leader of a pow­er­ful reli­gious gov­ern­men­tal sys­tem that con­trols an alliance of nations called the Beast. The Antichrist is the indi­vid­ual who has absolute author­i­ty, pow­er, and con­trol over all reli­gious, philo­soph­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, and polit­i­cal aspects of peo­ple who live under his control.

It is very impor­tant to under­stand that this indi­vid­ual called the Antichrist and the Beast is not Satan the Devil, but is in Satan’s ser­vice and is a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Satan’s demon­ic spir­i­tu­al gov­ern­ment, just like the False Prophet (Rev.16:13; 20:10). The Bible clear­ly states that Satan the Devil is a mas­ter at the art of decep­tion: “He is that old ser­pent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceives the whole world” (Rev. 12:9). He has been a liar from the very begin­ning (Jn.8:44). The Antichrist is one of his most cleaver decep­tions of all time, which will deceive all but the elect of God.

Signs and Miracles

The Antichrist, who is the leader of the alliance of nations called the Beast, will ascend to pow­er accom­pa­nied by super­nat­ur­al signs and mir­a­cles and will be accept­ed as a god in the flesh by most peo­ple on earth. Notice what Jesus says about the false christs and prophets who will pre­cede his arrival as King of kings and Lord of lords.

Matthew 24:23 – 31 Paraphrased

“Then if any­one says to you, Behold, here is the Christ; or, Here he is! Do not believe it. For false christs will rise up, and false prophets. And they will give great signs and won­ders, so as to lead astray, if pos­si­ble, even the elect. Behold, I tell you before­hand. Then if they say to you, Behold, he is in the wilder­ness; do not go out. Behold, he is in the inner rooms; do not believe” (vs.23 – 26). See also Mk.13:21 – 22.

Throughout the cen­turies, many false Messiahs and false prophets have come and gone. During the time of trou­ble, at the end of the age, reli­gious decep­tion will be so intense that the only ones who will not be deceived are the elect of God who dili­gent­ly fol­low the true God. In the fol­low­ing scrip­tures Jesus describes the major events that will accom­pa­ny his arrival on earth. Jesus says that his return will not be a silent or incon­spic­u­ous occur­rence; it will be as light­ning, which is always accom­pa­nied by a loud thun­der­ous noise:

“For as light­ing comes out of the east and shines as far as the west so also will be the com­ing of the Son of man” (v27).

Jesus also describes the cat­a­clysmic celes­tial events that will take place before his return and the gath­er­ing of the elect:

“And imme­di­ate­ly after the afflic­tion of those days the sun will be dark­ened, and the moon will not give her light, and the stars will fall from the heav­en, and the pow­ers of the heav­ens will be shak­en. And then the sign of the Son of man will appear in the heav­ens. And then all the tribes of the land will wail. And they will see the Son of man com­ing on the clouds of heav­en with pow­er and much glo­ry. And he will send his angels with a great sound of a trum­pet, and they will gath­er his elect from the four winds; from one end of the heav­ens to the oth­er” (vs.29 – 31).

The signs that pre­cede Christ’s return are awe­some events that will occur in the heav­ens. The sun will become dark (Mk.13:24 – 26), the moon will not reflect sun­light to the earth, and the stars (Greek ‘aster’) will be moved out of their orbits. These signs will be appar­ent to every­one on earth. When Jesus returns in all his glo­ry and pow­er, his very pres­ence will dis­rupt the phys­i­cal uni­verse. See Ex.19:16 – 18; 24:17; Isa.13:9 – 13; 24:1 – 5; Joel 2:10 – 12, 30; Hag.2:6 – 7.

Every per­son alive on earth at the time of Christ’s return will be aware of these events that will occur in the heav­ens. Most peo­ple will be ter­ri­fied and fear for their lives. Some will be ter­ri­fied because they know that Christ is return­ing to destroy them, and oth­ers will be in fear because they think that the world is com­ing to an end. The mag­ni­tude of the events that will accom­pa­ny Christ’s return will be far from secret or silent; they will be ter­ri­fy­ing! All of the scrip­tures that speak of the appear­ance of the Beast leader and his Beast alliance of nations tell us that he will arrive before the events that pre­cede Christ’s com­ing. He will be alive as Christ pours destruc­tion upon the earth and its inhab­i­tants for their great wicked­ness and rebel­lion against God.

John, Peter, and Paul

The apos­tles John, Paul, and Peter warned of teach­ers and prophets who would come teach­ing here­sies and they fore­told that many peo­ple would fol­low these peo­ple and their lies. At the time John, Paul, and Peter were inspired to write their let­ters, most of the elect of God thought that the return of Christ was immi­nent. Because this was not the case, the things these apos­tles said con­cern­ing peo­ple and con­di­tions that would exist just before the return of Christ were most­ly prophetic.

John

At the close of the first age of the church and before he was shown the things that per­tained to the end of the age, the apos­tle John spoke about those who opposed Christ and what he taught about his rela­tion­ship to God the Father and the elect chil­dren of God. As we review what John says about the Antichrist, notice that he says the Spirit of God resid­ing with­in the chil­dren of God will sep­a­rate a child of God from the world, make a child of God sin­less, and reveal those who oppose and reject Christ and the Father:

“Young ones, it is the last time: and as you have heard that the Antichrist shall come, even now there are many antichrists; where­by we know that it is the last time. They went out from us, but were not a part of us, if they had been one of us, they would have con­tin­ued with us. But they went out that it should be known that they were not a part of us”(1.Jn.2:18 – 19 Para.).

John speaks of a prophe­cy that those to whom he was writ­ing already knew about. He tells the elect of God that the ful­fill­ment of this prophe­cy was already in progress at that time. He goes on to say that those who were against Christ at that time were nev­er true sons of God, and that they had revealed their true nature and pur­pose by leav­ing the true body of Christ.

“And you have an anoint­ing from the Holy One, and you know all things. I did not write to you because you did not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth” (1.Jn.2:20 – 21 Para.).

John con­firms that those who have the spir­it of God have the knowl­edge and abil­i­ty to dis­cern truth from error in spir­i­tu­al mat­ters, and that those who are liars and deceivers will be known by those who have the spir­it of God with­in them, because the spir­it of God reveals truth. See Jn.14:17, 15:26, 16:12 – 13; 1.Cor.2:12 – 13.

Because the spir­it of God reveals truth, it is extreme­ly impor­tant that each child of God dur­ing the end of this age lis­ten very care­ful­ly to what the spir­it says con­cern­ing the Antichrist and his reli­gion and gov­ern­men­tal system.

Who is a Liar?

Those who oppose Christ do not teach the truth con­cern­ing Jesus as the Creator God and Savior of human­i­ty. These peo­ple also deny the indi­vid­u­al­i­ty of the Father and the Son and they are liars in the eyes of God. The scrip­tures clear­ly show that the Antichrist will not teach the truth of God, but he will teach a lie:

“Who is the liar, but he that denies that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denies the Father and the Son. Every one that denies the Son does not have the Father. The one who con­fess­es the Son, tru­ly has the Father also” (1.Jn.2:22 – 23 Para.).

The tru­ly con­vert­ed of the first age of the church under­stood exact­ly what John was say­ing con­cern­ing the Father, Christ, and the spir­it of God, because they were taught the mys­ter­ies con­cern­ing the plan of God by the apos­tles. However, this knowl­edge was lost when the ear­ly church dis­ap­peared short­ly after the apos­tle John’s death. See our study papers about the spir­it of God and Christ that resides with­in the elect of God and our stud­ies con­cern­ing the demise of the ear­ly church.

The Seed

“Everyone being begot­ten of God [the Father] does not sin, because his [the Father’s] seed [spir­it of God] abides in him, and he is not able to sin, because he has been born of God. By this the chil­dren of God and the chil­dren of the Devil are revealed: Everyone fail­ing to prac­tice right­eous­ness or love his broth­er is not of God” (1.Jn.3:9 – 10 Para.).

It is impos­si­ble to under­stand what John is say­ing here, unless one under­stands that the spir­it of God with­in a child of God keeps them in a sin­less con­di­tion before God the Father. As long as a child of God is seek­ing to live a right­eous life and does not will­ful­ly and habit­u­al­ly prac­tice sin, no sin is imput­ed to him. It is this same spir­it of God that reveals to the elect of God who is and who is not of God. One of the major signs of the Antichrist/​Beast is that he is a sin­ner accord­ing to the bib­li­cal def­i­n­i­tion of sin; there­fore, it is nec­es­sary for all who are called of God to ful­ly under­stand what sin is and is not, so that they will not be deceived by the Antichrist or his state reli­gion which is led by the False Prophet.

Good and Evil Spirits

In the first three vers­es of 1. John, chap­ter 4, John speaks of test­ing for evil influ­ence and he shows that a major key in this test­ing process is the under­stand­ing that Christ’s spir­it resides with­in the chil­dren of God:

“Beloved, do not believe every spir­it, but test the spir­its, whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone forth into the world. By this know the spir­it of God: Every spir­it that acknowl­edges that Jesus has come in the flesh is from God. And every spir­it which does not acknowl­edge that Jesus has come in the flesh is not from God: and this is the antichrist which you heard is com­ing, and now is already in the world” (1.Jn.4:1 – 3 Para.). See also 2.Jn.v.7; Matt.24:4 – 5.

Almost all oppo­si­tion to God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the chil­dren of God comes from the evil influ­ence of spir­it-beings. Therefore, it is extreme­ly impor­tant for God’s chil­dren to be able to dis­cern the dif­fer­ence between a good and an evil spir­i­tu­al influ­ence. John says that a child of God can deter­mine if a spir­it (i.e., a spir­it being or spir­i­tu­al influ­ence) is from God or not. If a spir­it acknowl­edges that Christ has come in the flesh, it is good. If this acknowl­edg­ment is not made, this spir­it or spir­i­tu­al influ­ence is evil and it is in oppo­si­tion to God the Father and Jesus Christ.

On the sur­face it seems that the for­mu­la John gives to deter­mine the char­ac­ter of a spir­it-being or spir­i­tu­al influ­ence is sim­ple and direct, and it is. However, the key to under­stand­ing John’s instruc­tions is to under­stand what he means when he says, “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.” Most peo­ple will admit that the per­son Jesus lived and was a reli­gious leader. Some will acknowl­edge that he was a prophet, and some will acknowl­edge him as the prophet­ic Savior of human­i­ty. However, very few tru­ly under­stand or will acknowl­edge him as the Creator God who became the Savior, died, was res­ur­rect­ed, and now lives in the flesh of the chil­dren of God. Another impor­tant iden­ti­fy­ing sign of the Antichrist is that he will not acknowl­edge that Christ has come in the flesh in the same man­ner as the scrip­tures teach.

Peter

“But there were false prophets also among the peo­ple, even as there shall be false teach­ers among you, who shall priv­i­ly bring in damnable here­sies, even deny­ing the Lord that bought them, and bring upon them­selves swift destruc­tion. And many [the major­i­ty of peo­ple] shall fol­low their per­ni­cious ways; by rea­son of whom the way of truth shall be evil spo­ken of” (2.Pet.2:1 – 2 KJV).

There are many things that peo­ple con­sid­er to be truth; how­ev­er, what God reveals as the way of truth is not what most peo­ple believe as truth. It is God’s way of truth that most peo­ple hate and ridicule. A num­ber of prophe­cies tell us that the Antichrist will speak blas­phe­mous things against God and his teachings.

Paul

2. Corinthians 11:3 – 4; 13 – 15

“But I fear, lest by any means, as the ser­pent deceived Eve through his sub­tle­ty, so your minds should be cor­rupt­ed from the sim­plic­i­ty that is in Christ. If any­one comes preach­ing anoth­er Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if you receive anoth­er spir­it [an evil, lying spir­it], which you have not received, or a dif­fer­ent gospel, than the one you accept­ed” (vs.3 – 4 Para.).

During the life­time of the apos­tle Paul, those who opposed Jesus Christ were preach­ing anoth­er Jesus and anoth­er gospel. This same false Jesus and mes­sage is still being preached and taught today. The Antichrist as the leader of the Beast alliance of nations will exist just before Christ’s return and he will pro­mote him­self as a sav­ior of human­i­ty, but he will have his own decep­tive good news mes­sage for humanity.

“For such are false apos­tles, deceit­ful work­ers, trans­form­ing them­selves into the apos­tles of Christ. And no mar­vel; for Satan him­self is trans­formed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his min­is­ters also be trans­formed as min­is­ters of right­eous­ness; whose end shall be accord­ing to their works” (vs.13 – 15 KJV).

Although vers­es 13 – 15 speak of those who are coun­ter­feit min­is­ters of Christ, the same basic con­cepts apply to the Antichrist/​Beast, the False Prophet, and those who are in ser­vice to them as their representatives.

The Man of Sin

2.Thessalonians 2:3 – 11 Paraphrased

“Do not let any­one deceive you in any way: because that day will not come unless there first comes a falling away [depar­ture from the faith], and the man of sin is revealed, who is the son of perdi­tion” (v3).

An inter­est­ing thing about this man of sin is that Paul also calls him the son of perdi­tion. The word trans­lat­ed into English as ‘perdi­tion’ is from the Greek word ‘apoleia’ which refers to an ever­last­ing state of tor­ment in this con­text. The Bible clear­ly shows that wicked humans will have their life ter­mi­nat­ed with fire. No human is going to be tor­ment­ed in the lake of fire for­ev­er; there­fore, the being who inhab­its the phys­i­cal body of the Man of Sin (Son of Perdition) is not human. It is a spir­it-being who will try to deceive peo­ple into believ­ing that he is a god-being.

Deception and Arrogance

“This is the one who oppos­es and exalts him­self over every­thing being called God, or object of wor­ship; and he is to sit in the tem­ple of God, as God; in order to show that he is a god” (v4).

In his arro­gance, this pow­er­ful spir­it-being mas­querad­ing as a human will des­e­crate the tem­ple of the true God in Jerusalem by enter­ing into it and sit­ting there in defi­ance of the true God in order to prove to the world that he is indeed a god, and that the true God is no god.

“Do you not remem­ber, that, I told you these things when I was with you? And now you know the thing hold­ing him [Man of Sin/​Son of Perdition/​Antichrist] back from being revealed. For the mys­tery of law­less­ness already works: only he is hold­ing back [being held back] now, until it comes out of the midst” (vs.5 – 7).

Paul had already talked with them about the Antichrist and told them that this indi­vid­ual was being restrained from com­ing out of the mid­dle of some­thing. The thing that this indi­vid­ual comes out of, accord­ing to visions of Daniel and the apos­tle John, is the alliance of nations sym­bol­ized by the beast that came out of the sea. Therefore, it is very clear that wher­ev­er this pow­er­ful and fierce beast-like alliance of nations is locat­ed in the end of the age, the Antichrist will be there as its supreme leader.

“And then the law­less one [Man of Sin/​Son of Perdition/​Antichrist] will be revealed, whom the Lord will con­sume with the spir­it of his mouth, and he will be brought to noth­ing by the bright­ness of his [Christ’s] com­ing” (v8).

Christ will remove this law­less indi­vid­ual from pow­er when he comes to rule the earth. This is the same evil spir­it men­tioned in Daniel 7:11 who will have his phys­i­cal body destroyed and will be cast into a lake of fire in his spir­it form.

“His [the Antichrist’s] com­ing is accord­ing to the work­ing of Satan with all pow­er and mir­a­cles and lying won­ders, And all deceit of unright­eous­ness of those being lost; because they did not receive the love of the truth in order for them to be saved. And because of this God will send to them, a work­ing of error, for them to believe a lie” (vs.9 – 11).

Based on God’s word, those whom God has called to sal­va­tion should know the dif­fer­ence between good and evil; how­ev­er, many have already been delud­ed by a false Christianity and many will be deceived by Satan’s Antichrist and his reli­gious and polit­i­cal sys­tem of government.

Paul gives a dire warn­ing not to allow one’s love for the truth of God to erode. Make no mis­take, the mes­sage of the Antichrist and Satan’s reli­gious and polit­i­cal sys­tem is not truth; it is great decep­tion designed to destroy one’s oppor­tu­ni­ty to enter the Family and Kingdom of God. His mir­a­cles, signs, and won­ders will not be from the Sovereign God; they will be from Satan the Devil and are designed to deceive humanity.

The major­i­ty of peo­ple will believe the Antichrist’s mes­sage and his great super­nat­ur­al works, think­ing that they are a part of God’s plan for the sal­va­tion of human­i­ty; how­ev­er, just the oppo­site will be true.

Ten Religious Deceptions

It is high­ly like­ly that the Antichrist will come as a sav­ior of human­i­ty and attempt to coun­ter­feit some or all of the things that are proph­e­sied about the com­ing of the true Messiah. Listed below are ten things he may do to attempt to deceive humanity:

1. Demonstrate that he is the prophet­ic descen­dant of King David who is sup­posed to come to rule the world as described in Psalm 2
2. Send a false Elijah to speak of his com­ing (Mal.4:5, 6).
3. Appear to glo­ri­ous­ly return in the flesh after being fatal­ly wounded(Matt.25:31, 32; Acts 1:11; Rev.1:7).
4. Return in the clouds of heav­en accom­pa­nied by oth­er beings (1.Thes.3:13; 2.Thes.1:7).
5. Attempt to make Jerusalem the cap­i­tal of his world-rul­ing gov­ern­ment (Isa.11 & 12).
6. Establish his rule with decep­tive mir­a­cles and won­ders (Psa.69).
7. Attempt to make an alliance of nations out of the mod­ern ten tribes of Israel and the Jewish nation of Israel (Ezk.37).
8. Institute his own inter­pre­ta­tion of the Mosaic Law (Isa.66: 22,23).
9. Proclaim that he has come to bring world pros­per­i­ty (Isa.11;12).
10. Proclaim that he has come to bring world peace (Psa.96;98).

These are all things that would add valid­i­ty to his claims in the reli­gious cir­cles of qua­si-Christians and Jews. The Antichrist may attempt to coun­ter­feit some or all of the real prophet­ic signs of the return of Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords, in order to deceive these peo­ple and accom­plish his goal of world dom­i­na­tion for his mas­ter Satan the Devil.

Because Satan appears as a glo­ri­ous right­eous angel and his evil ser­vants mim­ic this same false right­eous­ness (2.Cor.11:14 – 15), the appear­ance of the Antichrist will fool those who do not under­stand the true mean­ing of the scrip­tures that speak about the return of Christ and the estab­lish­ment of the Kingdom of God on earth.

Because the cen­tral focus of Satan’s plan is to deceive peo­ple into giv­ing their alle­giance and wor­ship to him, his ser­vant the Antichrist will claim to be god in the flesh (2.Thes.2:4). Another ser­vant of Satan, the False Prophet, will force those who are under the con­trol of the Beast’s alliance of nations to wor­ship the Antichrist/​Beast and his image; there­by, they will actu­al­ly be wor­ship­ing Satan the Devil by proxy.

There is lit­tle doubt that on the sur­face Satan’s reli­gious and gov­ern­men­tal sys­tem under the lead­er­ship of the Antichrist and the False Prophet will look very good to most peo­ple. This is why they will be very unhap­py when they see it being destroyed by Jesus Christ (Rev.18:4 – 20).

HOW TO IDENTIFY THE ANTICHRIST

This sec­tion shows a num­ber of ways by which any­one who under­stands the wor­ship sys­tem of the true God will be able to iden­ti­fy the Antichrist and his wor­ship system.

Oppressive Rule and Forced Idolatry

Although Jesus Christ and the elect of God will rule from Jerusalem with a rod of iron and exer­cise judge­ment upon the rebel­lious nations of the world (Rev. 12:5), the Kingdom of God will not be cru­el or oppres­sive, nor will Jesus or those who serve him force any­one to wor­ship God by bow­ing down before an image or rep­re­sen­ta­tion of him­self or God the Father.

God the Father’s Worship System

The scrip­tures clear­ly show that, after Jesus Christ returns, he will estab­lish his Father’s true wor­ship sys­tem. Conversely, the Antichrist and the False Prophet will oppose any attempt of the Jews or any­one else to wor­ship God as instruct­ed under his covenant with nation­al Israel and the elect of God. See Jer.31:30 – 37 and our stud­ies con­cern­ing the var­i­ous covenants and the com­mand­ed obser­vances of God.

In regard to the Father’s wor­ship sys­tem, there are some bib­li­cal facts that will help one to under­stand God’s new agree­ment with nation­al Israel:

The prophe­cies of Ezekiel and Zechariah clear­ly show that, dur­ing Christ’s rule, a tem­ple wor­ship sys­tem with a priest­hood and ani­mal sac­ri­fices will exist in Jerusalem and will be offi­ci­at­ed over by the male descen­dants of Zadok who is descend­ed from Eleazar, Aaron’s third son. See Ezk.40 – 46; Zech.14:16 – 20.

• The sac­ri­fi­cial sys­tem con­tained with­in the agree­ment with nation­al Israel and the rest of human­i­ty will be per­formed in a way that is sim­i­lar to how it was per­formed under the first agree­ment with Israel.
• The com­mand­ed obser­vances and holy con­vo­ca­tions of God will be observed by all the peo­ple on earth.

The Antichrist will do just the oppo­site of what the Creator God promis­es to do when he returns as the Messiah to insti­tute a new agree­ment with nation­al Israel. The Antichrist will stop the Jews from sac­ri­fic­ing at the tem­ple in Jerusalem and will attempt to change and/​or elim­i­nate the com­mand­ed obser­vance and holy con­vo­ca­tions of God.

THE IMAGE OF THE BEAST

In order to under­stand the wor­ship of the image of the Antichrist/​Beast we need to keep in mind that the Antichrist/​Beast and the reli­gious leader (the False Prophet) of the alliance of nations are both ser­vants of Satan the Devil and are both com­mit­ted to the goal of sub­ject­ing all human­i­ty to his absolute control.

The Wounded Head

“And I saw one of its heads as if it had been wound­ed to death; and its fatal wound was healed. And the earth admired the beast. And wor­shiped the drag­on who gave author­i­ty to the beast, say­ing, Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with it?” (Rev.13:3 – 4 Para.).

After the Beast alliance of nations has been solid­i­fied, its pow­er base has been estab­lished, and the Antichrist/​Beast has secured his posi­tion of author­i­ty as the undis­put­ed leader of this alliance, some­thing extra­or­di­nary will hap­pen to either this alliance of nations or its leader. One or the oth­er will sus­tain a fatal wound.

The cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the death and res­ur­rec­tion of the alliance of nations or the Antichrist/​Beast will be an incred­i­bly decep­tive event. When peo­ple see this res­ur­rec­tion they will be aston­ished and believe that the Antichrist/​Beast is a god in the flesh.

Editor’s Note:

It is dif­fi­cult at this point in time to deter­mine exact­ly what or who the head in Revelation 13:3 sym­bol­izes, because the heads of the beast rep­re­sent both a sys­tem of gov­ern­ment as well as the evil spir­its who con­trol the sys­tem through indi­vid­u­als. What is impor­tant to rec­og­nize is that an extra­or­di­nary event will occur sur­round­ing the fatal wound of either the Antichrist/​Beast or the Beast’s alliance of nations. When this hap­pens, the leader of the state reli­gion who is the False Prophet will ini­ti­ate and enforce the wor­ship of Satan the Devil (the drag­on) through the Antichrist/​Beast and his sys­tem of government.

A State Religion

“And I saw anoth­er beast com­ing up out of the earth; and it had two horns like a lamb, but spoke like a drag­on. And it exe­cutes all the author­i­ty of the first beast before it. And it makes the earth and those dwelling in it to wor­ship the first beast, that was healed of its dead­ly wound” (Rev.13:11 – 12 Para.).

There are a num­ber of impor­tant things revealed in vers­es 11 – 12 con­cern­ing the rela­tion­ship between the Beast alliance of nations, its supreme leader (the Antichrist/​Beast), and its reli­gious leader (the False Prophet):

♦The two horns like a lamb are sym­bol­ic of reli­gious authority.

• Its reli­gious teach­ings and poli­cies are that of Satan the Devil, because it speaks like the dragon.
• The sec­ond beast is sym­bol­ic of an evil state reli­gion and its leader.

Supernatural Power

“And it [the False Prophet] does great signs and even makes fire to come down out of heav­en upon the earth before men ” (Rev.13:13 Para.).

It is impor­tant to under­stand that the False Prophet and the reli­gious sys­tem that he leads will have tremen­dous super­nat­ur­al pow­ers with which to deceive peo­ple and counter the super­nat­ur­al works that the elect of God will be doing as they pro­claim God the Father’s good news message.

“And it [the False Prophet] deceives those dwelling on the earth, because of the signs which were giv­en to it before the beast; say­ing to those on the earth to make an image of the beast who has the wound of the sword, and lived. And it was giv­en author­i­ty to give a spir­it to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast could speak, and might cause as many as would not wor­ship the image of the beast to be killed” (Rev.13:14 – 15 Para.).

The False Prophet has an image made that is either sym­bol­ic of the alliance of nations (the beast), its leader (the Beast), or both. This reli­gious leader empow­ers the image so that it has the abil­i­ty to speak. Then, he forces peo­ple to wor­ship it or suf­fer death for dis­obe­di­ence. This enforced wor­ship is rem­i­nis­cent of king Nebuchadnezzar’s forced wor­ship of the image that he had made.

There are many rea­sons why intel­li­gent peo­ple will wor­ship this image. The first is that if any­one does not wor­ship it they will be killed. The sec­ond is that peo­ple will actu­al­ly believe that the image is a god, a rep­re­sen­ta­tion of their god (Antichrist/​Beast), or a method through which they may com­mu­ni­cate with their god (who is real­ly Satan the Devil).

It is inter­est­ing that, when one care­ful­ly reads Daniel 3:1 – 30, it appears that only the lead­ers of the peo­ple were com­pelled to wor­ship Nebuchadnezzar’s image. However, in John’s vision, it seems that every­one under the con­trol of the beast alliance of nations must wor­ship the image.

The Plagues and the Image

“And the rest of the men which were not killed by these plagues yet repent­ed not of the works of their hands, that they should not wor­ship dev­ils, and idols of gold, and sil­ver, and brass, and stone, and of wood: which nei­ther can see, nor walk” (Rev.9:20 KJV).

One of the rea­sons that Christ pours out plagues upon human­i­ty is to bring them to the real­iza­tion that they are rebelling against God as they prac­tice their idol wor­ship, and that they must stop this prac­tice and wor­ship the true God.

Anyone who seri­ous­ly stud­ies the Bible should under­stand that the forced wor­ship of the image(s) of the Antichrist/​Beast con­sti­tutes idol­a­try. Upon see­ing or hear­ing of this forced idol­a­try, the elect of God should under­stand that this alliance of nations and its wor­ship sys­tem is indeed the Beast of the books of Daniel and Revelation.

THE MARK AND NAME OF THE BEAST

Many who study the Book of Revelation are over­ly con­cerned with know­ing exact­ly what the mark and the name of the Beast is and how one will receive this mark and name. However, this infor­ma­tion is not essen­tial for sal­va­tion from eter­nal death. It real­ly does not mat­ter whether the mark or name is a com­put­er chip implant, a tat­too, or some oth­er thing. The impor­tant thing is to be able to rec­og­nize the Antichrist/​Beast and his state reli­gion and gov­ern­men­tal sys­tem for what it is.

It must be clear­ly under­stood that those who are called of God can­not accept the mark or give their alle­giance to the Beast so that they can par­tic­i­pate in the eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits of the Beast sys­tem, because this autho­riza­tion requires a reli­gious com­mit­ment to wor­ship the image of the Beast.

THE MARK, NAME, AND NUMBER

“And the small and the great, and the rich and the poor, and the freemen and the slaves, allow it [the Antichrist’s state reli­gion] to give them a mark on their right hand, or on their fore­heads: so that none can buy or sell, except they have the mark, or the name of the beast, or the num­ber of its name. Here is wis­dom. Let him hav­ing rea­son count the num­ber of the beast: for it is the num­ber of a man; and its num­ber is six hun­dred and six­ty-six” (Rev.13:16 – 18 Para.).

Throughout his­to­ry, many who have stud­ied the Bible and sec­u­lar his­to­ry have tried to deter­mine the name of the indi­vid­ual that is rep­re­sent­ed by the num­ber 666. The num­ber 666 is even record­ed as being asso­ci­at­ed with king Solomon and the amount of gold that he received as trib­ute dur­ing the height of his reign (1.Kgs.10:14; 2.Chron.9:13). There seems to be no end to the indi­vid­u­als and things that have been found to have this numer­i­cal ref­er­ence attached to them.

Even though the num­ber 666 can be attached to peo­ple, places, and things in the past, present, and future, is a full under­stand­ing of the prophet­ic num­ber 666 nec­es­sary before the appear­ance of the Antichrist and his reli­gious and polit­i­cal form of gov­ern­ment? Actually, it is more impor­tant to under­stand the prophet­ic events sur­round­ing the Antichrist and to be pre­pared to be loy­al to God and his way of life to the very end.

People have assumed that, because verse 18 says that the num­ber 666 is the num­ber of a man, this num­ber can only be attached to an indi­vid­ual. The real­i­ty is that in the Greek lan­guage, “the num­ber of a man” can also mean “a human num­ber” or “a num­ber of human­i­ty”. Although the num­ber 666 may very well iden­ti­fy a spe­cif­ic indi­vid­ual, it may also iden­ti­fy and be asso­ci­at­ed with the Beast’s sys­tem of reli­gion and gov­ern­ment. The num­ber 666 could very well rep­re­sent the apex of human per­fec­tion, because under the lead­er­ship of the Antichrist/​Beast, the mag­nif­i­cent reli­gious, gov­ern­men­tal, and eco­nom­ic sys­tem of the beast alliance of nations will appear to be the best sys­tem ever devised.

In the study of the numer­i­cal sym­bol­ism of the Bible, the num­ber 6 is clear­ly asso­ci­at­ed with human­i­ty; there­fore, the num­ber 666 appears to be the num­ber of human­i­ty. Because God the Father allows an evil glob­al sys­tem to exist before his Son’s return, the num­ber 666 could very well be viewed in the con­text of the entire reli­gious, eco­nom­ic, and gov­ern­men­tal sys­tem that is led by the Antichrist who is in the ser­vice of Satan (2.Thes 2:4).

WHAT IS IN A NAME?

It is well known in bib­li­cal and rab­bini­cal teach­ings that the phrase, “in the name of,” is used to con­nect the one hav­ing author­i­ty to the one from whom the author­i­ty comes. It is also used to con­nect a teacher with the author­i­ty and respect of his own teacher. Therefore, it is log­i­cal to assume that this same mean­ing is attached to the name of the Beast and its reli­gious gov­ern­men­tal sys­tem. The same asso­ci­a­tion will exist between the Antichrist/​Beast and those hav­ing its name or mark. See our study paper con­cern­ing the phrase “in the name of,” for details about those who have the name of God the Father and Jesus Christ.

A Sign of Allegiance

Refusal to take the mark of the Antichrist con­sti­tutes rebel­lion against him and his reli­gious and gov­ern­men­tal sys­tem, and this will not be tol­er­at­ed. All who are found guilty of this type of rebel­lion will be put to death. Everyone must com­ply with the wor­ship sys­tem that the Antichrist will insti­tute through the False Prophet, and they must wor­ship the image of the Beast. In addi­tion, every­one will have to reg­is­ter with the sys­tem and receive the mark or name of the Beast. Without the iden­ti­fy­ing mark, a per­son will not be able buy or sell or par­tic­i­pate in the eco­nom­ic sys­tem of the Antichrist’s alliance of nations. Therefore, the mark or name of the beast is a sign of one’s alle­giance to this evil per­son and his reli­gious gov­ern­men­tal system.

It is obvi­ous that there will be many unde­sir­able phys­i­cal con­se­quences for not accept­ing this mark. For those who wor­ship the true God, the threat of phys­i­cal pun­ish­ment and hard­ships for not accept­ing the mark are min­i­mal com­pared to the loss of eter­nal life for accept­ing it.

Only Two Options

“And the third angel fol­lowed them, say­ing with a loud voice, If any man wor­ship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his fore­head, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out with­out mix­ture into the cup of his indig­na­tion; and he shall be tor­ment­ed with fire and brim­stone in the pres­ence of the holy angels, and in the pres­ence of the Lamb: And the smoke of their tor­ment ascends for ever and ever: and they shall have no rest day or night, who wor­ship the beast and his image, and who­ev­er receives the mark of his name” (Rev.14:9 – 11 KJV).

When the mark of the Antichrist/​Beast is insti­tut­ed, there are only two options that a per­son who is liv­ing with­in the geo­graph­i­cal areas con­trolled by the beast sys­tem will have con­cern­ing the tak­ing of this mark. Either one takes the mark and wor­ships and serves the Beast and his image, or one does not take the mark and does not wor­ship the Beast and his image. Anyone who are in the sit­u­a­tion of mak­ing a choice con­cern­ing the mark must con­sid­er the following:

If one does not wor­ship the Beast and his image, he will be per­se­cut­ed and prob­a­bly killed. If one does wor­ship the Beast, God will per­se­cute him and prob­a­bly kill him. And if a child of God wor­ships the Beast and his image, he will lose his eter­nal life. Most of the world will be deceived by the pow­er and charis­ma of the Antichrist/​Beast and the obvi­ous ben­e­fits of his reli­gious sys­tem of gov­ern­ment. Therefore, most will will­ing­ly wor­ship his image, and take his mark that will sig­ni­fy their alle­giance to him and his sys­tem of gov­ern­ment. This will be espe­cial­ly easy to do because the death penal­ty will hang over the heads of any who refuse to wor­ship him and take his mark. Although the prospect of one sur­viv­ing the refusal to wor­ship the image and take the mark seems min­i­mal, there is hope for those who place their trust in the true God and seek his pro­tec­tion. See Rev.3:7 – 13; 7:1 – 17; 12:6, 14 – 16.

God’s Punishment

“And I heard a great voice out of the tem­ple say­ing to the sev­en angels, Go your ways, and pour out your vials of the wrath of God upon the earth. And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noi­some and griev­ous sore upon the men that had the mark of the beast, and upon them which wor­shiped his image” (Rev.16:1 – 2 KJV).

Remember that, dur­ing the rule of the Antichrist and his reli­gious sys­tem, the peo­ple of God will be pro­claim­ing the true gospel and Jesus Christ will be send­ing dev­as­tat­ing plagues upon those who take part in the Antichrist’s alliance of nations and have his mark and wor­ship his image.

“And the beast was tak­en, and with him the false prophet that wrought mir­a­cles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that had wor­shiped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burn­ing with brim­stone” (Rev.19:20 KJV).

The two evil spir­its that enforce the wor­ship of the image and the mark­ing of those who con­sent to be marked as a sign of their alle­giance to Satan’s sys­tem of wor­ship and gov­ern­ment will be cast into a lake of fire after the return of Jesus Christ.

The Victorious Elect

“And I saw anoth­er sign in heav­en, great and mar­velous, sev­en angels hav­ing the sev­en plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God. And I saw as it were a sea of glass min­gled with fire: and them that had got­ten the vic­to­ry over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the num­ber of his name, stand on the sea of glass, hav­ing the harps of God” (Rev.15:1 – 2 KJV).

Those who are called of God to sal­va­tion dur­ing the ter­ri­fy­ing times of the Antichrist’s rule and remain true to their great call­ing will receive tremen­dous rewards in the Kingdom of God:

“And I saw thrones, and they that sat upon them, and judge­ment was giv­en to them: and I saw the souls of them that were behead­ed for the wit­ness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not wor­shiped the beast, nei­ther his image, nei­ther had received his mark upon their fore­heads or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thou­sand years” (Rev.20:4 Para.).

The Important Names

During the end of the age, there are two extreme­ly impor­tant names that will have a more dra­mat­ic impact on the lives of the chil­dren of God than the name or mark of the Antichrist/​Beast. These are the names of the Father and his Son. Notice what is said about these two names:

“And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on mount Zion, and with him an hun­dred forty and four thou­sand, hav­ing his Father’s name writ­ten in their fore­heads” (Rev.14:1 KJV).

There are only a cer­tain num­ber of peo­ple that will have the name of the Father writ­ten in their fore­heads when Christ returns.

“And to the angel [mes­sen­ger] of the church in Philadelphia write; These things says he [Jesus Christ] that is holy, he that is true, he that has the key of David, he that opens, and no man shuts; and shuts, and no man opens; I know your works: behold, I have set before you an open door, and no man can shut it: for you have a lit­tle strength, and have kept my word, and have not denied my name ” (Rev.3:7 – 8 Para.).

Notice the empha­sis upon hav­ing kept Christ’s word and not deny­ing Christ’s name. It is for this rea­son that God will empow­er and use those of the Philadelphia church to per­form a great work for him in the end of the age.

SUMMARY

Although it is extreme­ly impor­tant to be able to rec­og­nize the Antichrist, his image and mark, the False Prophet, and the reli­gious gov­ern­men­tal sys­tem which they admin­is­ter for Satan the Devil when they appear on the worlds scene, it is even more impor­tant for one to be com­mit­ted to mak­ing the right deci­sions con­cern­ing one’s alle­giance to God the Father.

By B. L. Cocherell and Charles E. Barrett

File b2w11 ⁷⁄₀₇

We have been talk­ing about this Pope Francis . Not just about his American vis­it but his teach­ings and com­ments since his ascen­dan­cy to the Papacy. We make our obser­va­tions in the con­text of Biblical teach­ings and more impor­tant­ly Biblical Prophesy.
We believe it is impor­tant that we observe the Books of Daniel and Revelation as the very words of these the penul­ti­mate and ulti­mate books of the Bible are unfold­ing in front our very eyes today
We also look at this Pope in the con­text of the debate rag­ing on the issue so called “mar­riage equality” .
We believe and as such we have artic­u­lat­ed that in the con­text the next assault on the Church of Jesus Christ will be that the Powers of the Beast will go after hous­es of wor­ship demand­ing that they pay tax­es. We have argued we believe that that will be the next front in this war being waged against the Church of God.
Do not be con­fused when we say the Church of God . We do not believe the Catholic Church is of the Lord. We do not believe the Catholic Church is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Conversely we believe the Beast of the Books of Daniel and Revelation are not what many Christians believe it to be. Many Christians may very well be sur­prised to find that the very place to which they are run­ning is not a place of refuge against the calami­ty to come but may very well be the head of that calamity.
The Lord Commands us not to be deceived by the Beast. But to come out of Babylon which is the fall­en Church. 
Could it be that the fall­en Church , the very place to which many will run will be the very place from which we should run?
We have argued that after Gays and Lesbians are allowed to legal­ly get mar­ried the next front would be the strip­ping away of the tax-exempt sta­tus from Churches which refus­es to mar­ry Gays and Lesbians in their Sanctuaries , It will how­ev­er come under the guise that they refuse to take care of the poor.

After all many will agree with that con­cept right ? Who does­n’t believe the poor should be the bene­fac­tor of our largess? But see the dev­il will nev­er come and say I am the dev­il he comes in dis­guise as a do-good­er look­ing out for the poor. 
How else to deceive but gain your confidence? 
As the argu­ment goes Kim Davis the Kentucky clerk should fol­low the law and issue those mar­riage licences to homo­sex­u­al cou­ples against her chris­t­ian beliefs because of course it is the law right?
We said they will take the Churches tax-exempt next>
And then they will begin lock­ing up the few Pastors who dare to refuse to mar­ry gays in their churches.

SO WHAT DOES THE PONTIFF FEEL SHOULD HAPPEN NOW ?

On the eve of his vis­it to the United States, Pope Francis blast­ed reli­gious insti­tu­tions who are exploit­ing tax loop­holes to make mon­ey instead of help­ing the needy. In an inter­view with a Portuguese Catholic broad­cast­er, the Pope dis­cussed the need for Christians to fight the temp­ta­tion of the ‘God of mon­ey’, into which many reli­gious insti­tu­tions often fall. He then called out those insti­tu­tions that have opt­ed to enter into the hos­pi­tal­i­ty indus­try while exploit­ing a legal loop­hole to keep from pay­ing tax­es on their busi­ness enter­prise oper­at­ing under the guise of doing “God’s work.”

“Some reli­gious orders say ‘No, now that the con­vent is emp­ty we are going to make a hotel and we can have guests, and sup­port our­selves that way, or make mon­ey.’ Well, if that is what you want to do, then pay tax­es! A reli­gious school is tax-exempt because it is reli­gious, but if it is func­tion­ing as a hotel, then it should pay tax­es just like its neigh­bor. Otherwise it is not fair business.”

This state­ment from the leader of the Catholic Church is part of his con­tin­u­ing call for the Church to set an exam­ple and cre­ate change in what he has con­tin­u­ous­ly referred to as a “bad and unjust eco­nom­ic sys­tem,” that con­tin­ues to max­i­mize prof­its at the expense of the masses.

In Italy, which the Pope is using as a lit­mus test for the rest of the world, the Church owns more than 100,000 build­ings with an esti­mat­ed worth exceed­ing $10 bil­lion. In 2013 the Italian Church start­ed pay­ing tax­es on those facil­i­ties which are sole­ly com­mer­cial, but still avoid tax­a­tion on any build­ing that con­tains a chapel. In America, it is esti­mat­ed that church­es would gen­er­ate $83.5 bil­lion in annu­al tax rev­enue if the exemp­tion was lift­ed on the ir $600 bil­lion in un-taxed properties.

We hate to say we told you so but even I am sur­prised at how quick­ly this sug­ges­tion came behind my pre­dic­tions. The truth is the Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is clos­er than we think . The Children of the Lord must under­stand and not be deceived . It is impor­tant that Christians see these events hap­pen­ing dai­ly and under­stand what they mean going forward.
If you do not know the Lord find a Bible preach­ing Church which teach­es end time Gospel . Find a Church which is in the busi­ness of prepar­ing Souls for God’s kingdom. 

One of con­tem­po­rary man’s great­est idio­cy once he has been exposed to a lit­tle edu­ca­tion is the belief that the new knowl­edge he is exposed to reveals the non-exis­tence of God.
Hence he begins a cru­sade against his Creator while he strug­gles might­i­ly yet unsuc­cess­ful­ly to come up with a plau­si­ble alter­na­tive expla­na­tion for his mis­er­able existence.
Some Education can do that to a fool.
Noted Apologist Dr. Ravi Zachariah in com­ment­ing on this idio­cy , point­ed out that Liberalism in the Halls of acad­e­mia have turned knowl­edge into an Anti-God phe­nom­e­non in recent times.
Dr. Zachariah point­ed to the fact that his­tor­i­cal­ly the ‚most edu­cat­ed peo­ple were the most Religious until recent­ly when Liberalism invad­ed Academic spaces advanc­ing a view that sci­ence dis­proves God.
Unfortunately for these hea­thens Science and God are not mutu­al­ly exclu­sive. Science explains God’s great­ness not dis­prove his existence.

Nowadays it’s almost impos­si­ble to hear good old Christian Hymns/​songs, songs which just caused unsaved to get up out of their seats and walk up to the Altar so that their lives may be altered. In many cas­es tears stream­ing down their faces.
Whatever hap­pened to the good old songs we loved ?
I know , I know these are con­tem­po­rary times but has God changed ? Do we sim­ply throw out every­thing old and good for every­thing. new? We can enjoy the new songs at the same time we remem­ber the old can’t we? I believe so.

Christians are cowardly …
You are hypocrites ..
Many of you are into the newest sec­u­lar movies to hit the Theaters but when we post issues which goes straight to Bible Prophecies you are all silent>
Because many of you secret­ly sup­port and con­done immorality.
I will con­tin­ue to speak out on top­i­cal issues. 
Going to Church on Sunday is not serv­ing God.
Serving God is serv­ing your fel­low man .
◄ Matthew 25:40 ►39’When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40“The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these broth­ers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’ 41“Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eter­nal fire which has been pre­pared for the dev­il and his angels;…
IF THE LIFE YOU LIVE IS LIVED SOLELY FOR YOUR OWN WHAT WAS THE PURPOSE OF YOUR LIFE?
I want to reg­is­ter my sup­port for Tennessee coun­ty Clerk Kim Davis for stand­ing on her Christian faith.
For stand­ing as Daniel did, by refus­ing to bow because of a new law.
A new law which was designed to trap Daniel for pray­ing to his God .
So too was this igno­ble law of Sodomy designed to trap Christians into renounc­ing their faith.
GOD BLESS YOU KIM DAVIS.
◄ Matthew 24:9 ►“Then they will deliv­er you to tribu­la­tion, and will kill you, and you will be hat­ed by all nations because of My name. 10“At that time many will fall away and will betray one anoth­er and hate one another.…
Thus sayeth the Lord…

Type amen and watch mon­ey flow into your bank account. Expect a mir­a­cle and watch it hap­pen. Name it and claim it.
We hear these state­ments all the time .We see them on social media too. And yes we even hear them in our churches.
But is this sound doc­trine anchored in scrip­tur­al teach­ings? Will we see mon­ey in our bank accounts sim­ply by typ­ing amen to a post on Facebook? Are we assured wealth if we like, share or sim­ple type Amen?
Can we sim­ply “name it and claim it” as some min­is­ters of the gospel tell their con­gre­ga­tions? Is this kind of doc­trine anchored in real­i­ty or are min­is­ters of the Gospel preach­ing their own gospel?

The God of the Universe cre­at­ed this world and he designed the prin­ci­ples by which we should live . He tells us in his word the things we should do and he also tells us what we should not do . By those very prin­ci­ples the word of God out­lines cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly what will hap­pen when we devi­ate from the path he laid out for our direction.

So is God Almighty sit­ting above the clouds with a wand direct­ing our paths mag­i­cal­ly or are our direc­tions influ­enced by our very own actions? There are numer­ous sto­ries of sup­posed min­is­ters of the gospel who say the Lord will pro­tect them from snake bites. Unfortunately snakes do bite and the bit­ten does die if those snakes are venomous.
Some who pro­fess to be Christians jump into deep waters and claim the Lord will save them even though they nev­er learned to swim. If you do jump in and nev­er learned to swim know this, you will cer­tain­ly drown.
So when they drown does that mean that the Lord does not exist ? Does it mean that the Lord is not in the mir­a­cle work­ing business?
The Temptation of Jesus
Matthew 4:3
…2And after He had fast­ed forty days and forty nights, He then became hun­gry. 3And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, com­mand that these stones become bread.” 4But He answered and said, “It is writ­ten, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.’ ”…
The Temptation of Jesus
Matthew 4:6
…5Then the dev­il took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pin­na­cle of the tem­ple, 6and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is writ­ten, ‘HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS CONCERNING YOU’; and ‘ON their HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, SO THAT YOU WILL NOT STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.’ ” 7Jesus said to him, “On the oth­er hand, it is writ­ten, ‘YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.’ ”…

So accord­ing to the Scriptures we should not put the Lord our God to the test !
How then do we rec­on­cile telling oth­ers to type Amen and watch mon­ey appear in our bank accounts? What is the foun­da­tion or the basis for the name it and claim it doctrine?
If I say I want to be President of the United States and pray that I become President with all my heart will I be President?
I sin­cere­ly doubt that . There is a sig­nif­i­cant amount of hur­dles I would have to first over­come in the process of becom­ing President and pret­ty much all of those hur­dles requires sig­nif­i­cant input from me.

So then how do we attain the bless­ings God has in store for us here in earth ? Is there no way for us to live blessed lives ?
Matthew 25:14 – 30

The Parable of the Talents

¹⁴ “For it will be like a man going on a jour­ney, who called his ser­vants^[a] and entrust­ed to them his prop­er­ty. ¹⁵ To one he gave five tal­ents,^[b] to anoth­er two, to anoth­er one, to each accord­ing to his abil­i­ty. Then he went away. ¹⁶ He who had received the five tal­ents went at once and trad­ed with them, and he made five tal­ents more. ¹⁷ So also he who had the two tal­ents made two tal­ents more. ¹⁸ But he who had received the one tal­ent went and dug in the ground and hid his mas­ter’s mon­ey. ¹⁹ Now after a long time the mas­ter of those ser­vants came and set­tled accounts with them. ²⁰ And he who had received the five tal­ents came for­ward, bring­ing five tal­ents more, say­ing, ‘Master, you deliv­ered to me five tal­ents; here I have made five tal­ents more.’ ²¹ His mas­ter said to him, ‘Well done, good and faith­ful ser­vant.^[c] You have been faith­ful over a lit­tle; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your mas­ter.’ ²² And he also who had the two tal­ents came for­ward, say­ing, ‘Master, you deliv­ered to me two tal­ents; here I have made two tal­ents more.’ ²³ His mas­ter said to him, ‘Well done, good and faith­ful ser­vant. You have been faith­ful over a lit­tle; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your mas­ter.’ ²⁴ He also who had received the one tal­ent came for­ward, say­ing, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reap­ing where you did not sow, and gath­er­ing where you scat­tered no seed, ²⁵ so I was afraid, and I went and hid your tal­ent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ ²⁶ But his mas­ter answered him, ‘You wicked and sloth­ful ser­vant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gath­er where I scat­tered no seed? ²⁷ Then you ought to have invest­ed my mon­ey with the bankers, and at my com­ing I should have received what was my own with inter­est. ²⁸ So take the tal­ent from him and give it to him who has the ten tal­ents. ²⁹ For to every­one who has will more be giv­en, and he will have an abun­dance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be tak­en away. ³⁰ And cast the worth­less ser­vant into the out­er dark­ness. In that place there will be weep­ing and gnash­ing of teeth.’

Bible​.org said quote: We should care­ful­ly note the out­come of faith­ful ser­vice, and of unfaith­ful ser­vice, in this para­ble. Faithful ser­vice led to increased respon­si­bil­i­ties in the king­dom of heav­en, and eter­nal joy in the pres­ence of the Master, Jesus Christ. Unfaithful ser­vice led to con­dem­na­tion, the removal of one’s stew­ard­ship, and an eter­ni­ty of weep­ing and gnash­ing of teeth in out­er dark­ness, away from the pres­ence of our Lord.

I believe fun­da­men­tal­ly that there is anoth­er mes­sage for us right here on earth> As Jesus told this para­ble it is inter­est­ing to note that in the para­ble Jesus stat­ed that the mas­ter gave the tal­ents to his ser­vants accord­ing to their abil­i­ties. How often do we hear some­one lament not hav­ing the abil­i­ty to dunk a bas­ket­ball or jump 7 feet into the air which would bring them millions?
How often do we hear friends and even fam­i­ly mem­bers wish they had the means to be rich like some­one else? God gave all of us gifts accord­ing to our abil­i­ties. Our abil­i­ties may not make us mil­lions but they cer­tain­ly make us enough for us to live by.

You may not be the next tech bil­lion­aire but you may be able to knit, sew , or cro­chet, find a way to mon­e­tize that gift the Lord gave you and not watch and lament the immense gifts of your neigh­bor. Do not curse your Lord as that wicked ser­vant did, make use of the gifts he gave you.
Some Pastors and teach­ers of the gospel tell their con­gre­ga­tions to expect a mir­a­cle in their lives. Well Christians should not expect to live on mir­a­cles . Miracles are enough to tide us over for a lit­tle while . Christians should live blessed lives. We can only live blessed lives when we uti­lize the gifts God has giv­en us. That means look­ing deep with­in us and find­ing out what it is that we are gift­ed at doing. What it is that we love to do and do it , do it well and find a way to make a liv­ing doing it.
If you are a great talk­er don’t just chat away, use that gift to improve lives , learn to be a moti­va­tion­al speak­er . If you are good with babies and lit­tle chil­dren and absolute­ly love them start a day-care center.
If you love to cook or bake learn how to start and oper­ate a restaurant.
If you love the wild out­doors , offer guid­ed tours , There are myr­i­ad ways that God has blessed us which will enrich our lives.
Sitting around wait­ing for a mir­a­cle will not bring pros­per­i­ty to your life. Those who are preach­ing pros­per­i­ty are sell­ing you short by not telling you how you should live a blessed life by exploit­ing the gifts God gave you. They are liv­ing their pur­pose and so should you.

At a time when we are pay­ing atten­tion to sym­bols, this flag, that flag, this sym­bol that sym­bol . Important though it is that we do, It is impor­tant that we do not lose sight of some recent events which are hap­pen­ing that could eas­i­ly slip by unnoticed.
Satan the ene­my comes to steal , kill and destroy. That’s what the word of our Lord says. In recent times I believe every­one, even the blind can see that the Enemy is doing a lot of steal­ing , killing and caus­ing a lot of destruction.
God cre­at­ed this beau­ti­ful world for us to enjoy , he cre­at­ed every­thing in it and placed it at our disposal.
Whether you believe in him or not, you must be in awe at the bril­liance, beau­ty and mag­nif­i­cence of this plan­et we call home.
You do not have to give him praise for it.
I will give him praise for me , and for you, until you wise up and rec­og­nize him for his love and kindness.
Satan cre­at­ed nothing, .….
Nothing..
Yet it is impor­tant to note just how the forces of dark­ness is unashamed, hijacked sym­bols of Gods greatness. ?
God’s beau­ti­ful Rainbow, a sign that the storm is past, the sun is shin­ing all is well …
This most beau­ti­ful cre­ation, now hijacked to sym­bol­ize the most demon­ic sex­u­al perversion.…..
Where are our voic­es as Christians.
Are we blind or are we too immersed in the trap­pings the Devil waves in front our eyes?
Satan offered the World to Jesus Christ, our Lord cor­rect­ly told him“get thee behind me Satan”.
Satan could not offer our Lord what already belonged to him.
Satan can­not offer you a world the Lord already designed and cre­at­ed for you.
It is not his to give.
It is yours to give away.

Rediscovering His Truth in an Age of Mass Marketed Spirituality

Why Jesus?

Ravi Zacharias believes that over the past forty years move­ments like New Age spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and soci­ety’s obsession

with human poten­tial have com­bined like a “per­fect storm” to rede­fine for pop­u­lar cul­ture what has been for cen­turies the clas­sic bib­li­cal def­i­n­i­tion of the per­son, work, and teach­ing of Jesus Christ. In Why Jesus?, Ravi Zacharias looks at the impact of this “storm” by dis­cussing the 60s-70s “Age of Aquarius,” actor Shirley MacLaine’s book and TV series Out on a Limb, author James Redfield (The Celestine Prophecy), Rhonda Byrne (The Secret), Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code), and oth­er books by Eckart Tolle, Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, the Dali Lama, and Marianne Williamson.

Special atten­tion will be giv­en to the influ­ence of Oprah Winfrey’s media plat­form in reshap­ing soci­ety by intro­duc­ing and pro­mot­ing cer­tain books and authors. Major New Age and human poten­tial tenets will be dis­cussed like: the belief that we are all gods and have to dis­cov­er our divin­i­ty; Jesus was only a good teacher; Christianity is but one among many ways to eter­nal life; rein­car­na­tion is real; Jesus was mar­ried; truth is rel­a­tive; there is no sin; and per­fec­tion is possible.

The truth of and the argu­ments for the bod­i­ly res­ur­rec­tion of Jesus will be pre­sent­ed as the most impor­tant argu­ment for the exclu­sive claims about Jesus and Christianity.

Evacuations and mil­i­tary train­ing great­ly harmed live­stock and res­i­dents’ farmland

B’Tselem’s research indi­cates that on 29 and 30 April 2015 rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Civil Administration (CA) served tem­po­rary evac­u­a­tion orders to some six­ty fam­i­lies, num­ber­ing some 410 peo­ple includ­ing approx­i­mate­ly 120 minors, in sev­en Palestinian com­mu­ni­ties in the north­ern Jordan Valley. The orders required some fam­i­lies to leave their homes and prop­er­ty for peri­ods of three to twelve hours. Other fam­i­lies were required to evac­u­ate their homes for sev­er­al hours a day, for sev­er­al days run­ning. The evac­u­a­tion was ordered for a mil­i­tary maneu­ver in the area.

The fam­i­lies were giv­en only a few days to pre­pare for the evac­u­a­tion. Some of the res­i­dents received writ­ten orders from the CA, while oth­ers were noti­fied of the evac­u­a­tion only through the Tubas District of the Palestinian Authority. The com­mu­ni­ties required to evac­u­ate: Ibziq, Khirbet Humsah, Khirbet a‑Ras al-Ahmar, Zra’ ‘Awad, al-Burj, ‘Ein al-Meyteh and Khirbet al-Malih. Residents were required to stay out of their homes for part of the day, some­times allowed to return home only in the evening. The evac­u­a­tion process began on 3 May 2015 and con­tin­ued in some com­mu­ni­ties through 9 May. The com­mu­ni­ty of Khirbet Humsah was par­tic­u­lar­ly hard hit, as some sev­en­ty of its res­i­dents had to leave their homes for sev­er­al hours a day for a full week. The 110 or so res­i­dents of Khirbet a‑Ras al-Ahmar and Zra’ ‘Awad had to evac­u­ate their homes one day for sev­er­al hours. The 230 or so res­i­dents of Ibziq, al-Burj, ‘Ein al-Meyteh and Khirbet al-Malih had to do so for sev­er­al hours on two days.

It is extreme­ly dif­fi­cult for whole fam­i­lies, includ­ing chil­dren, to be evac­u­at­ed on such short notice. With no prop­er­ly arranged place to stay, they must find a way to ensure shel­ter, food and drink away from home in the intense, gru­el­ing heat of the Jordan Valley.

Heijar Abu Zahu, 59, of al-Ibziq, relat­ed the fol­low­ing to B’Tselem researcher ‘Aref Daraghmeh on 12 May 2015:

We went through a few rough hours when we were evac­u­at­ed from our home. We could take almost noth­ing with us, nei­ther tents nor any­thing else. The place they told us to go to was far away and we had no shel­ter, no tent or any­thing, only the shade of the trac­tors and a few carts. We had almost no water and food. We took only a few things with us and they ran out. There was noth­ing near­by. It was awk­ward, because I and the oth­er women and girls couldn’t go to the toi­let, because there was noth­ing we could use to screen or con­ceal us. I have high blood pres­sure and res­pi­ra­to­ry prob­lems. I took my med­ica­tion in the morn­ing, but I for­got it at home and couldn’t go back for it.

The evac­u­at­ed com­mu­ni­ties live sole­ly off farm­ing and shep­herd­ing. Evacuating them and hold­ing mil­i­tary maneu­vers on their land and in the vicin­i­ty is high­ly detri­men­tal to their liveli­hood. During the evac­u­a­tions, the res­i­dents had to leave their live­stock behind, and the ani­mals remained untend­ed in the extreme heat. B’Tselem’s research has found that over the course of the mil­i­tary maneu­ver, ten sheep and goats died in the evac­u­at­ed com­mu­ni­ties. In addi­tion, ammu­ni­tion rem­nants from the mil­i­tary train­ing caused fires. Reports from the local coun­cils of the Jordan Valley com­mu­ni­ties stat­ed that dozens of hectares of pas­ture and cul­ti­vat­ed agri­cul­tur­al went up in flames. The maneu­vers also includ­ed troops cross­ing farm­land, and cul­ti­vat­ed plots in Ibziq and a‑Ras al-Ahmar were trampled.

Amineh ‘Abd al-‘Aziz Abu Kabash, 66, of Khirbet Humsah, told B’Tselem researcher ‘Aref Daraghmeh on 4 May 2015:

The mil­i­tary has been train­ing more fre­quent­ly in the Jordan Valley over the last three years. The increased fre­quen­cy fol­lows an offi­cial pol­i­cy one of whose declared goals is to pre­vent Palestinians from liv­ing on land declared by Israel as fir­ing zones. These parcels of land cov­er rough­ly 46% of the Jordan Valley (see map). Declaring areas as fir­ing zones is one of sev­er­al meth­ods that Israel employs to pre­vent Palestinians from access­ing land in the Jordan Valley.

The min­utes of a meet­ing of the Subcommittee for Judea and Samaria of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, held on 27 April 2014 and pub­lished by Israeli dai­ly Ha’aretz, clear­ly show that one goal of the mil­i­tary maneu­vers held in the area is to remove Palestinians from land there. Colonel Einav Shalev, an Operations Branch Officer at Central Command, said in the meet­ing: “I think that one of the good steps that could fall between the cracks is restor­ing fir­ing zones in places where they are meant to be and still are not. [That is] one of the main rea­sons that we, as a mil­i­tary sys­tem, send a lot of the train­ing maneu­vers to the Jordan Valley… When the troops march, peo­ple moved aside, and I’m mak­ing no dis­tinc­tion between Jews and Palestinians here, I’m speak­ing gen­er­al­ly… There are some places [where] we sig­nif­i­cant­ly less­ened the amount of train­ing, and weeds cropped up”.

Under inter­na­tion­al human­i­tar­i­an law, an occu­py­ing state is per­mit­ted to oper­ate with­in the occu­pied ter­ri­to­ry for two rea­sons only: the ben­e­fit of the local pop­u­la­tion and imme­di­ate mil­i­tary con­cerns relat­ing to the military’s actions in the occu­pied ter­ri­to­ry. As an occu­py­ing pow­er in the West Bank, Israel is not allowed to use land there for gen­er­al mil­i­tary pur­pos­es such as train­ing for war­fare, tvs pow­er semi­con­duc­tor and gen­er­al maneu­vers. It cer­tain­ly is not allowed to use such a pre­text to harm the liveli­hood of pro­tect­ed per­sons, nor take steps to expel them from their homes.

Israel must imme­di­ate­ly stop the tem­po­rary evac­u­a­tion of Palestinian com­mu­ni­ties in the West Bank for the pur­pose of mil­i­tary train­ing, and must cease all oth­er actions tak­en in an attempt to force Palestinians out of the area. Israel is duty-bound to enable local res­i­dents to live their lives, includ­ing allow­ing them to build their homes legal­ly and use local water sources.
Military forces 7 Palestinian com­mu­ni­ties in Jordan Valley to evac­u­ate homes for maneuvers

The vil­lages of a‑Sheikh Sa’ed and a‑Sawahrah a‑Sharqiyah have been arti­fi­cial­ly cut off from East Jerusalem by an eight-meter-high wall. Before this par­ti­tion was built, the two vil­lages formed a con­tigu­ous urban bloc with East Jerusalem and, in par­tic­u­lar, with the vil­lages of Jabal al-Mukabber and a‑Sawahrah al-Gharbiyah to its south with which they shared exten­sive fam­i­ly, com­mer­cial and cul­tur­al ties. A‑Sheikh Sa’ed is home to some 2,000 res­i­dents, and a‑Sawahrah a‑Sharqiyah, sit­u­at­ed some two kilo­me­ters to its north, has a pop­u­la­tion of approx­i­mate­ly 6,000.

In 1967, imme­di­ate­ly after Israel occu­pied the West Bank, it annexed exten­sive areas east of these vil­lages to the munic­i­pal area of Jerusalem. Although the two vil­lages were not includ­ed in the area annexed, dur­ing the first few decades after annex­a­tion this dis­tinc­tion had no impact on the res­i­dents’ lives. Passage between the annexed area and the remain­der of the West Bank was rou­tine and unre­mark­able. East Jerusalem served as the urban cen­ter for the res­i­dents of these two vil­lages, with many of them work­ing in the city. It also pro­vid­ed the res­i­dents’ health and edu­ca­tion ser­vices. In addi­tion, peo­ple who lived in the annexed area would some­times move into these villages.

This real­i­ty changed in the mid-1990s, when Israel began to sep­a­rate the vil­lages from the area of East Jerusalem by means of obstruc­tions and check­points. In 2003, a route for the Separation Barrier in the area was decid­ed, and on 26 August 2003 work began or erect­ing a tem­po­rary barbed wire fence. The res­i­dents of Sheikh Sa’ed appealed the course fixed, and in March 2006 the Appellate Committee for the Separation Barrier accept­ed their appeal. The com­mit­tee found that “in his­tor­i­cal terms, Sheikh Sa’ed forms a part of Jabal al-Mukabber, which lies with­in the area of Jerusalem”, and the route of the bar­ri­er was dis­pro­por­tion­ate and vio­lat­ed the rights of Sheik Sa’ed’s res­i­dents to life, lib­er­ty and dig­ni­ty. The Appellate Committee instruct­ed the state to reex­am­ine the course of the bar­ri­er in the area. However, the state appealed this deci­sion to the High Court of Justice, argu­ing that the com­mit­tee had ignored the secu­ri­ty-relat­ed ram­i­fi­ca­tions inher­ent in an alter­na­tive course that would annex the vil­lage to the area of Jerusalem. In 2010 the High Court of Justice accept­ed the state’s peti­tion, there­by approv­ing the course of the Separation Barrier in the area.

The con­struc­tion of the Separation Barrier sep­a­rat­ed the two pop­u­la­tions in one fell swoop, leav­ing Jerusalem res­i­dents east of the bar­ri­er and the res­i­dents of a‑Sawahrah a‑Sharqiyah and a‑Sheikh Sa’ed to its west. Nearly a decade lat­er, the res­i­dents of the vil­lages remain iso­lat­ed and dis­con­nect­ed from their fam­i­lies, places of work and ser­vice cen­ters on the oth­er side of the Separation Barrier.

After the con­struc­tion of the Separation Barrier and check­points in the area, Israeli author­i­ties imposed a series of arbi­trary restric­tions on the res­i­dents of the vil­lages, exac­er­bat­ing the forced iso­la­tion, clas­si­fy­ing the res­i­dents into four sep­a­rate categories:

1. 1,300 res­i­dents of a‑Sawahrah a‑Sharqiyah who hold Israeli iden­ti­ty cards, live adja­cent to the a‑Sawahrah a‑Sharqiyah Checkpoint, or work in inter­na­tion­al orga­ni­za­tions: The names of these res­i­dents are on a list main­tained at a‑Sawahrah a‑Sharqiyah Checkpoint. For the past year or so, they have been per­mit­ted to cross this check­point by car to go into East Jerusalem and return home. This arrange­ment is valid only from 6:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M.
2. Residents of a‑Sawahrah a‑Sharqiyah and a‑Sheikh Sa’ed who hold Israeli iden­ti­ty cards (with a reg­is­tered address in Jabal al-Mukabber): These res­i­dents are per­mit­ted to cross a‑Sheikh Sa’ed Checkpoint as pedes­tri­ans (in both direc­tions) as well as a‑Sawahrah a‑Sharqiyah Checkpoint (only in one direc­tion – out of East Jerusalem). Alternatively, to trav­el by car, they must take a long, hour-long detour and cross at a‑Za’ayem Checkpoint.
3. Residents of a‑Sawahrah a‑Sharqiyah who hold West Bank iden­ti­ty cards and entry per­mits to Israel can enter the city sole­ly through a‑Zaytun or a‑Za’ayem Checkpoints. They are pro­hib­it­ed to cross via a‑Sawahrah a‑Sharqiyah Checkpoint.
4. Residents of a‑Sheikh Sa’ed who hold West Bank iden­ti­ty cards and entry per­mits to Israel are per­mit­ted to cross only at a‑Sheikh Sa’ed Checkpoint and only on foot.

Residents of East Jerusalem who live in the city and wish to vis­it a‑Sawahrah a‑Sharqiyah or a‑Sheikh Sa’ed by car may do so sole­ly via a‑Za’ayem Checkpoint. Alternatively, on foot, they can leave Jerusalem via a‑Sheikh Sa’ed Checkpoint; how­ev­er, they can­not re-enter the city through this checkpoint.

These dra­con­ian, con­vo­lut­ed restric­tions severe­ly ham­per dai­ly life and main­tain­ing rela­tion­ships between the res­i­dents of the vil­lages and their rel­a­tives on the oth­er side of the Separation Barrier. Brothers and sis­ters, par­ents and chil­dren have been sep­a­rat­ed from each oth­er. Due to the con­sid­er­able dif­fi­cul­ties in cross­ing, many of them meet only rarely, on reli­gious hol­i­days or for fam­i­ly cel­e­bra­tions or mile­stones. Moreover, many res­i­dents have lost their jobs and find it dif­fi­cult to obtain the ser­vices they once received in Jerusalem.

The Separation Barrier has also cre­at­ed a prob­lem con­cern­ing bur­ial. The ceme­tery serv­ing both vil­lages is sit­u­at­ed in Jabal al-Mukabber, on the oth­er side of the Separation Barrier. In order to attend the funer­al of a res­i­dent of a‑Sawahrah a‑Sharqiyah or a‑Sheikh Sa’ed, vil­lage res­i­dents must enter East Jerusalem. Security forces at the check­point allow only fifty res­i­dents, includ­ing rel­a­tives of the deceased, to cross the check­point and take part in the funer­al. After the funer­al, rel­a­tives find it dif­fi­cult to vis­it the grave due to the restric­tions detailed above.

S.G., a mar­ried moth­er of five who lives in a‑Sawahrah a‑Sharqiyah, recount­ed the fol­low­ing to B’Tselem field researcher ‘Amer ‘Aruri:

I was born in Jabal al-Mukabber, East Jerusalem. In 1991 I mar­ried a man from a‑Sawahrah a‑Sharqiyah with a Palestinian iden­ti­ty card. At that time, a‑Sawahrah a‑Sharqiyah and Jabal al-Mukabber formed a sin­gle geo­graph­i­cal area. There were no mil­i­tary check­points and no Separation Barrier divid­ing rel­a­tives and peo­ple. Residents in both areas belonged to the same fam­i­lies. I gave birth to my five daugh­ters at hos­pi­tals in East Jerusalem…

Before mil­i­tary army check­points were put in place, I used to vis­it my fam­i­ly in Jabal al-Mukabber once a week. It took five min­utes to get from y home to theirs… Today I vis­it my fam­i­ly once every three months. Naturally, every vis­it involves delays at the check­point and ques­tions and answers about my iden­ti­ty card. Also my rel­a­tives, who used to vis­it me every week before there was a check­point, now come only on spe­cial occa­sions, such as reli­gious hol­i­days or dur­ing the month of Ramadan. My mom and dad are elder­ly and they can’t walk across the a‑Sawahrah a‑Sharqiyah Checkpoint to get to my home. They pre­fer to come by car, and that means they have to trav­el via a‑Za’ayem Checkpoint, and that’s a long trip.

N.G. was also born in Jabal al-Mukabber and lives with her hus­band in a‑Sawahrah a‑Sharqiyah:

The check­point sep­a­rates me from my fam­i­ly. My mom is elder­ly and she’s gone blind. She can’t come to vis­it me on her own by cross­ing the check­point on foot. It’s too hard for her. So usu­al­ly one of my broth­ers dri­ves her through a‑Za’ayem Checkpoint – it takes them about an hour instead of being a five minute-dri­ve. It’s become so vis­its are only on hol­i­days, spe­cial occa­sions, and dur­ing Ramadan. Their most recent vis­it was on the hol­i­day of ‘Id al-Adha – eight months ago. Before the check­point was put in place, I’d just call them and invite them to pop over because I’d made one of their favorite dish­es, and they’d be here with­in five minutes.

The arbi­trary restric­tions imposed by the author­i­ties on the res­i­dents’ move­ments dis­rupt almost every aspect of their lives. They keep fam­i­lies apart and make it dif­fi­cult for res­i­dents to pur­sue their every­day lives. There is no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for these restric­tions, secu­ri­ty or oth­er­wise. It is also dif­fi­cult to under­stand their under­ly­ing log­ic: Why was the num­ber fifty fixed as the num­ber of peo­ple allowed to attend a funer­al? Why can some­one use a par­tic­u­lar check­point only in order to return home, but is pro­hib­it­ed from using the same check­point to go to work?

Israel must remove the bar­ri­er, which arti­fi­cial­ly sev­ers an urban, his­tor­i­cal, and cul­tur­al con­tin­uüm and great­ly dis­rupts the lives of tens of thou­sands of peo­ple. Until it does so, Israel must per­mit reg­u­lar pas­sage between these vil­lages and East Jerusalem in such a way as to allow the res­i­dents of the iso­lat­ed vil­lages lead nor­mal lives.
A‑Sawahrah a‑Sharqiyah and a‑Sheikh Sa’ed iso­lat­ed from rest of East Jerusalem

The big news out of the new Pew poll on Americans and reli­gion was the pre­cip­i­tous drop in the num­ber of Americans call­ing them­selves “Christian” and its poten­tial impact on the Christian Right and future reli­gion itself in the U.S. But there’s anoth­er num­ber lurk­ing in the poll that may prove just as con­se­quen­tial: there are 3 mil­lion few­er peo­ple call­ing them­selves Catholic today than in 2007, the last time Pew con­duct­ed their exten­sive poll. As a result, the share of the U.S. pop­u­la­tion that iden­ti­fies as Catholic dropped from approx­i­mate­ly 24 per­cent to 21 percent.

Why is this such big news? Because despite unpop­u­lar popes and still-sim­mer­ing pedophil­ia scan­dals, the per­cent­age of Catholics in the U.S. has remained remark­ably steady for decades. The rel­a­tive sta­bil­i­ty of the Catholic pop­u­la­tion allowed many on the Catholic right to dis­miss calls for reform in the church and gave the Catholic bish­ops polit­i­cal clout when it came to oppos­ing things like no-cost con­tra­cep­tion in the Affordable Care Act in the name of “Catholics.”

But now it appears that the Catholic Church is in a demo­graph­ic free-fall, as it sheds adher­ents faster than any faith oth­er than the main­line Protestant denom­i­na­tions, which have been in decline for decades. Nearly one-third of all American adults were raised Catholic, but a stun­ning 41 per­cent — four in ten of those who marched to the alter in their lit­tle white First Communion dress­es and suits — no longer iden­ti­fy with Catholicism.

Why is the Catholic Church sud­den­ly crash­ing? The real­i­ty is that the Catholic Church has been shed­ding adher­ents for a long time. But it was gain­ing new parish­ioners just as fast, thanks to the dra­mat­ic increase in Hispanic migra­tion to the U.S. The influx of Hispanics, who are over­whelm­ing Catholic, helped make up for the depart­ing white, native-born parish­ioners and masked their con­tin­ued defec­tion from the church. As a result, one-third of Catholics in the pews today are Hispanic.

But now the Hispanic influx into the church has slowed, large­ly as a result of a decline in Hispanic migra­tion to the U.S., which since hit­ting a peak in 2007 has dropped as a result of the reces­sion. And Hispanics too are increas­ing­ly aban­don­ing the Catholic faith. The Pew sur­vey found the per­cent­age of Hispanics call­ing them­selves Catholic dropped below 50 per­cent for the first time, from 58 per­cent in 2007 to 48 per­cent today. And while near­ly 20 per­cent of Hispanics now iden­ti­fy as Evangelicals, that’s only up three points since 2007. The big jump is in the num­ber of unaf­fil­i­at­ed Hispanics, with 20 per­cent of Hispanics say­ing they don’t have a reli­gion, up six points since 2007.

Read more here:

http://​www​.salon​.com/​2​0​1​5​/​0​5​/​2​1​/​t​h​e​_​c​a​t​h​o​l​i​c​_​c​h​u​r​c​h​s​_​a​m​e​r​i​c​a​n​_​d​o​w​n​f​a​l​l​_​w​h​y​_​i​t​s​_​d​e​m​o​g​r​a​p​h​i​c​_​c​r​i​s​i​s​_​i​s​_​g​r​e​a​t​_​n​e​w​s​_​f​o​r​_​t​h​e​_​c​o​u​n​t​ry/

With 2.18 bil­lion adher­ents, Christianity has become a tru­ly glob­al reli­gion over the past cen­tu­ry as rapid growth in devel­op­ing nations off­set declines in Christianity’s tra­di­tion­al strong­holds, accord­ing to a report released Monday. Billed as the most com­pre­hen­sive and reli­able study to date, the Pew Research Center’s “Global Christianity” reports on self-iden­ti­fied Christian pop­u­la­tions based on more than 2,400 sources of infor­ma­tion, espe­cial­ly cen­sus and sur­vey data.

Findings illus­trate major shifts since 1910, when two-thirds of the world’s Christians lived in Europe. Now only one in four Christians live in Europe. Most of the rest are dis­trib­uted across the Americas (37 %), sub-Saharan Africa (24 %) and the Asia-Pacific region (13 %). “In two out of three coun­tries in the world, the major­i­ty of the pop­u­la­tion iden­ti­fies as Christian,” said Conrad Hackett, lead researcher on the “Global Christianity” report. “I had no idea about that. … I was surprised.”

The report con­firms Christianity’s stand­ing as the world’s largest reli­gion, with 32% of the glob­al pop­u­la­tion. Islam is sec­ond with about 23%, accord­ing to a 2009 Pew report.

A close look at the details reveals a few ironies:

• Although Christianity traces its begin­nings to the Middle East and North Africa, only 4% of res­i­dents in these regions claim the Christian faith today.

• Meanwhile, the faith has grown expo­nen­tial­ly in sub-Saharan Africa, from just 9% of the pop­u­la­tion in 1910 to 63% today. Nigeria, home to more than 80 mil­lion Christians, has more Protestants than Germany, where the Protestant Reformation began.

“As a result of his­toric mis­sion­ary activ­i­ty and indige­nous Christian move­ments by Africans, there has been this change from about one in 10 (sub-Saharan Africans) iden­ti­fy­ing with Christianity in 1910 to about six in 10 doing so today,” Hackett said.

For its part, Europe is more reli­gious­ly diverse than it was in 1910, when 94% was Christian. Still, Europe has­n’t aban­doned its Christian her­itage, accord­ing to the report. Today, 76% of Europeans self-iden­ti­fy as Christian.

“Many peo­ple may have the impres­sion that a small­er per­cent­age of Europe claims to be Christian” than is actu­al­ly the case, Hackett said.

The report also sheds light on the dif­fi­cult ques­tion of how many Chinese are Christians. Researchers have strug­gled to get reli­able num­bers since China’s poli­cies on reli­gion are thought to dis­cour­age Christians from self-iden­ti­fy­ing as such in offi­cial surveys.

Adjusting for such vari­ables, Pew researchers believe Christianity has flour­ished despite a pol­i­cy for­bid­ding Christianity among Communist Party mem­bers. Researchers esti­mate the Christian com­mu­ni­ty in China includes 5% of the pop­u­la­tion, or 67 million.

http://​usato​day30​.usato​day​.com/​n​e​w​s​/​r​e​l​i​g​i​o​n​/​s​t​o​r​y​/​2​011 – 12-20/chris­tian­i­ty-growth-africa-europe/52125920/1

The Vatican con­firmed it had con­clud­ed a treaty which effec­tive­ly recog­nis­es Palestinian state­hood, prompt­ing crit­i­cism from Israel, which says such recog­ni­tion pre­empts essen­tial peace negotiations.The treaty — which has yet to be signed — states that the Vatican has switched its diplo­mat­ic rela­tions from the Palestine Liberation Organisation to the “state of Palestine”, thus giv­ing fur­ther impe­tus to grow­ing inter­na­tion­al calls to rec­og­nize a Palestinian state.

An esti­mat­ed 2,000 pil­grims from the region, some wav­ing Palestinian flags, were on hand for the can­on­iza­tion of the first saints from the Holy Land since the ear­ly years of Christianity. The cer­e­mo­ny fol­lowed a meet­ing between Pope Francis — who vis­it­ed both Israel and the occu­pied West Bank a year ago — and Mr Abbas at the Vatican on Saturday. It comes days after the Vatican con­firmed it had con­clud­ed a treaty which effec­tive­ly recog­nis­es Palestinian state­hood, prompt­ing crit­i­cism from Israel, which says such recog­ni­tion pre­empts essen­tial peace nego­ti­a­tions. The treaty — which has yet to be signed — states that the Vatican has switched its diplo­mat­ic rela­tions from the Palestine Liberation Organisation to the “state of Palestine”, thus giv­ing fur­ther impe­tus to grow­ing inter­na­tion­al calls to rec­og­nize a Palestinian state.

While the sanc­ti­fi­ca­tion of the two 19^th cen­tu­ry nuns is intend­ed to be a pure­ly reli­gious, Mr Abbas hailed it as a land­mark in the Palestinian strug­gle for polit­i­cal recog­ni­tion. Their sto­ry pro­vid­ed “an inspi­ra­tional mes­sage which.…emphasizes our uni­ty, and affirms our deter­mi­na­tion to build a sov­er­eign, inde­pen­dent and free Palestine based on the prin­ci­ples of equal cit­i­zen­ship and the val­ues of spir­i­tu­al­i­ty and sub­lime human­i­ty”, he said before depart­ing for Rome at the head of a large del­e­ga­tion. The two nuns will be the first fig­ures from the Middle East to be rec­og­nized as saints since the ear­ly days of Christianity. They will also be the first Arabic-speak­ing Catholic saints.

Marie Alphonsine Ghattas — to be known as St Marie Alphonsine — was born in Jerusalem and ded­i­cat­ed her life to wom­en’s edu­ca­tion and left behind a net­work of con­vents, schools and reli­gious cen­tres, known as the Rosary Sisters. She died, aged 80, in British Mandate Palestine in 1927. Mariam Bauardy Haddad, was born in the vil­lage of Ibillin in what is now Israel’s Galilee region in 1846 and died in Bethlehem in1878. She estab­lished a Carmelite con­vent in Bethlehem which still exists today. Her body lies buried nearby.

Both women have been canon­ised in hon­our of mir­a­cles said to have been attrib­uted to prayers made to them after their deaths. Their recog­ni­tion comes at a time when hun­dreds of thou­sands of Christians in the wider Middle East have been flee­ing jihadist vio­lence car­ried out by groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).
Despite being the birth­place of Christianity, Christians make up less than two per cent of the pop­u­la­tion of Israel and the occu­pied Palestinian ter­ri­to­ries — with num­bers hav­ing dropped in recent decades because of emigration.

Welcome to Israel the land of white European peo­ple who prac­tice Zionism and Judaism >
A place where real African Jews are mar­gin­al­ized and dis­crim­i­nat­ed against in the land of their fore-fathers.

Events hap­pen­ing in the world today may be com­pared, and cross ref­er­enced with Biblical proph­e­sies so that even those in doubt may arrive at a spir­i­tu­al con­sen­sus that the sec­ond com­ing of Jesus Chris is imminent.
Christianity is the only Religion which is backed up with prophet­ic fore­telling of events to come.
It becomes nec­es­sary then, that Christians look up for when we see these things we know our Redemption is nigh.
We can­not be con­cerned about what insult, abuse or scorn the world choos­es to heap on us. After all Jesus Christ suf­fered it all on our behalf.
As chil­dren of God we must be pre­pared to extol the virtues of Jesus Christ and live with the consequences.
Truth and Justice, are uncom­pro­mis­ing and un-compromised.
I pray God’s grace on our Kenyan broth­ers and sis­ters who claimed their chris­t­ian faith, and died because of them.
Matthew 16:25
For who­ev­er wants to save their life will lose it, but who­ev­er los­es their life for me will find it.
May their souls rest in peace until Jesus returns to ush­er them onto himself.
The promise of God’s word is sure, you can bet on it.
The word of the Lord did say this day would come.
Matthew 24:9:9“Then they will deliv­er you to tribu­la­tion, and will kill you, and you will be hat­ed by all nations because of My name. 10“At that time many will fall away and will betray one anoth­er and hate one another.
Matthew 10:17
Be on your guard; you will be hand­ed over to the local coun­cils and be flogged in the synagogues.
John 15:19
If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have cho­sen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.

Where is the chris­t­ian church?
Is the church going to con­tin­ue to preach pros­per­i­ty gospel?
Are Christians going to go along to get along?
We have a choice to make, chose ye now whom ye shall serve>.
Peace be onto you…
See more in our inspi­ra­tion page on chatt​-​a​-box​.com and share it with your neighbors.

Islamist extrem­ists Al Shabaab shot dead 36 non-Muslims in an assault on a labour­ers’ camp in north-east Kenya last Tuesday.

Almost all of those killed were Christians; area church lead­ers believe that they were tar­get­ed for their faith.

The attack took place at about 1am at a quar­ry in Kormey, nine miles from Mandera on the Somali bor­der, where labour­ers were sleep­ing in tents. Most are said to have been from cen­tral and east­ern Kenya. The extrem­ists report­ed­ly sep­a­rat­ed out the non-Muslims then shot or behead­ed them.

Earlier that night, gun­men had stormed a social club in Wajir, about 60 miles from Mandera, killing one man and wound­ing 13 oth­ers. The club is asso­ci­at­ed with non-Muslims; most local
Muslims do not drink alco­hol. These attacks came just ten days after up to 28 Christians were killed in the same area (Prayer Alert, November 24).

Al Shabaab has admit­ted respon­si­bil­i­ty for Tuesday’s mas­sacre. In response, Kenya’s Interior Minister was dis­missed and the nation­al police chief resigned.

(Source: Morning Star News)

For more infor­ma­tion about per­se­cut­ed Christians in Kenya, read the lat­est Release mag­a­zine.

• Please pray for Christians in Kenya, amid mount­ing per­se­cu­tion. Pray that they will draw close to Jesus, ‘the author and per­fecter of our faith’ (Hebrews 12:2).
• Pray that God will com­fort rel­a­tives and friends of those killed at Kormey. Pray for wis­dom and firm resolve for Kenyan offi­cials try­ing to com­bat extremism.

NEWS UPDATE
The next hear­ing in the appeal of Egyptian Christian Bishoy Armia Boulos (for­mer­ly Mohammed Hegazy) is sched­uled for December 28, when a ver­dict is expect­ed. On November 23, his lawyers made a com­pelling defence against Bishoy’s five-year con­vic­tion for doc­u­ment­ing reli­gious per­se­cu­tion in Minya (Prayer Alert, November 14). After that hear­ing, Bishoy was held tem­porar­i­ly in soli­tary con­fine­ment in what has been described as an ‘exe­cu­tion cell’; he was lat­er returned to Tora Prison, south Cairo. Please pray that Bishoy will be acquit­ted. (Source: Release con­tacts)http://​www​.relea​sein​ter​na​tion​al​.org/​k​e​n​y​a​-​c​h​r​i​s​t​i​a​n​-​w​o​r​k​e​r​s​-​m​u​r​d​e​r​e​d​-​f​o​r​-​t​h​e​i​r​-​f​a​i​t​h​/​#​!​p​r​e​t​t​y​P​h​oto

A well-known tel­e­van­ge­list is attempt­ing to raise $60 mil­lion for the pur­chase of one of the most cov­et­ed pri­vate jets on the mar­ket — one that he and his min­istry will use to “con­tin­ue to spread the gospel of grace around the world.”

Pastor Creflo Dollar, founder of World Changers Church International, has launched Project G650, an effort to encour­age 200,000 peo­ple to donate $300 or more so that he can pur­chase a jet that Business Insider recent­ly called, the “biggest, fastest, and over­all best pri­vate jet mon­ey can buy.”

The Gulfstream G650 jet, which runs for around $65 mil­lion, would replace the cur­rent air­plane that the min­istry has been using, as it was built in 1984, and, accord­ing to a video accom­pa­ny­ing the fundrais­ing appeal, the plane, which Dollar has used since 1999, recent­ly expe­ri­enced seri­ous tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties that put Dollar and his fam­i­ly in danger.

“Recently on an over­seas trip to a glob­al con­fer­ence, one of the engines failed,” the web­site explains. “By the grace of God, the expert pilot, who’s flown with Creflo for almost 20 years, land­ed the plane safe­ly with­out injury or harm to any passengers.”

With the old air­plane offi­cial­ly out of ser­vice, the fundrais­ing appeal explains that it is time to replace the aircraft.

“We believe it is time to replace this air­craft so that our Pastors and staff can con­tin­ue to safe­ly and swift­ly share the Good News of the Gospel world­wide,” the expla­na­tion con­tin­ues. “We need your help to con­tin­ue reach­ing a lost and dying world for the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Watch the video appeal here.

The G650 was called a “gold stan­dard” in an October Business Insider report, which also said that the plane takes pas­sen­gers “faster and high­er than on any com­mer­cial jet” and fea­tures nat­ur­al light and rich­er air.

Dollar, who has been crit­i­cized in the past by some for preach­ing pros­per­i­ty ser­mons, reg­u­lar­ly trav­els the world to speak about bib­li­cal themes. Some, though, aren’t too hap­py about his cur­rent quest for a G650. What do you think? http://​www​.the​blaze​.com/​s​t​o​r​i​e​s​/​2​0​1​5​/​0​3​/​1​3​/​f​a​m​e​d​-​t​e​l​e​v​a​n​g​e​l​i​s​t​-​l​a​u​n​c​h​e​s​-​f​u​n​d​r​a​i​s​i​n​g​-​p​l​e​a​-​f​o​r​-​6​5​-​m​i​l​l​i​o​n​-​p​r​i​v​a​t​e​-​j​e​t​-​s​o​-​h​e​-​a​n​d​-​h​i​s​-​s​t​a​f​f​-​c​a​n​-​s​a​f​e​l​y​-​a​n​d​-​s​w​i​f​t​l​y​-​s​h​a​r​e​-​t​h​e​-​g​o​s​p​e​l​-​w​o​r​l​d​w​i​de/