America Unravelling

          The following preface is from January of 2015. The post itself, America Unravelling, is from 2011, and things are exponentially worse today than they were back then!

          A New York Times op-ed piece a few months ago by journalist and author Roger Cohen titled The Great Unravelling: A Necessary Look at Reality was plastered all over the Drudge Report. Cohen's piece begins "It was a time of unravelling. Long afterward, in the ruins, people asked: How could it happen?"
          The author then gave his own take on the collapsing societies of the world, bringing up beheadings, wars, power grabs, bored revolutionaries, weak leaders, more wars, Fascism, hatreds, anti-Semitism, Facebook, frayed fabrics of society, dystopia, plagues, disorientation and more, and ends his commentary with "Until it was too late and people could see the Great Unravelling for what is was and what it had wrought."
           You can access this article on a number of web sites or by Googling "The Great Unravelling." Make sure you don't mistakenly put in "America Unravelling" or you might just get my post from 2011, for this unravelling process, this chaos, this mind-numbing obscurantism that we as a people have subjected ourselves and everyone around us to is not only evident to many but calls out to us to wake up, for our nation is not merely ill, it is expiring!
           I would change this one thought of Mister Cohen's. whereas he wrote concerning the 'Great Unravelling'..."and what it had wrought," I would chose the words from Samuel F. B. Morse...."What has God wrought," which he had taken from the Old Testament book Numbers, Chapter 23 and verse 23 "What hath God wrought?"'
           And of that picture accompanying the article in the New York Times with one single thread holding together an unravelling rope..... I've had a similar picture hanging on my locker at work for a few years now, for we as a nation are indeed unravelling! Our spiraling downward cannot go on much longer without impact. How we will handle that impact is the more pertinent question for today.

America Unravelling.....2011

          Charles Spurgeon wrote these words over a century ago, The yoke of affliction, disappointment, and excessive labor is by no means to be sought; but when the Lord lays it upon us in our youth it frequently develops a character which glorifies God and blesses the church. Come, my soul, bow thy neck; take up thy cross. It was good for thee when young, it will not harm thee now. 
          America is heading at breakneck speed in acquiring such a yoke. We are but a shell of what we were. Where the aroma of our freedom and liberty once wafted throughout the world it is now the stench of our culture that permeates much of the globe. There should be no surprise here for when a civilization becomes so prosperous that its economy is totally dependent on what its malls can sell, its influence for good becomes depleted in proportion to the disgust that is generated. We have become a  seller to the world of that which makes it vomit. Given time, all these nations would have generated their own pollution, we just accelerated the situation. It's the nature of man without God. They don't hate us because we are good, they hate us, many of them, because we once gave the appearance of it and have since, in their eyes, let them down.
        Where did it begin? Hugh Hefner is as good a guess as any but what difference does it make? Our television screens rage against God! Our streets are violent and we as a people have become desensitized to it. Our pulpits preach peace when there is no peace; thinking they are building faith in God, they are concealing His righteous anger. Gone almost, is the statesman, replaced by the pure politician. Government runs our lives, obsessed and drunken with power. I see no way that God will have mercy upon us as we exist today without a radical reformation. It would be ludicrous as evidenced from many examples in Scripture, that God would give us, as a nation, more time to sell our wares while profaning His name, refusing to let our children come to Him (those that we do not abort,) destroying His creation of the family and demanding that we are masters of our own fate.
         It doesn't matter what I, or anyone so inclined as I, might say. For they are just words. God has blinded us to a world hastening to destruction. We read the news as much as to say "Things are dangerous....over there!" We have become insulated by our entertainments. Our motto has become Red Solo Cup...Let's Have A Party. We cannot see a day past the Super Bowl and when that is over everything will be put on hold until the end of March Madness, and so on. We are to be pitied, but pitied only by those who do not know the majesty of God and His omnipotent power, for His mercy is as abundant as His judgments are strict, but only in response to repentance! There may very well be a yoke of affliction coming upon us for we have made it abundantly clear that only such a yoke can awaken us and even then, will our response be one of rending our garments and seeking God's mercy, to grow once again as a nation and church, or will we then blame God and those who did warn us?   
         Do we really want to hear peace and safety when we are at the edge of the abyss? The same Scripture that recorded God's judgments upon nations recorded his mercies. It would behoove all of us in America to look into that Word to be informed of our creator, our benefactor, our sustainer up until now, our shepherd and the ruler of all the nations.

Regroup And Rebuild.....In Total Dependence To God

           Rush Limbaugh spent how many months on Russia....going over the same concepts day after day after day....hour after hour after hour? And now we are weeks into the Alt-Left....and before Russia it was something different and after Charlottesville it will be something else. I've relayed this anecdote a number of times in these posts....it was roughly 17 years ago that I stood up among a cohort in college that I was part of.....I was 51 years old while half of the cohort were in their early 20s......and I tried my best to tell them there was a split coming to America that was well beyond what they percieved to be coming!
           We see this today in the Russia delusion.....we see it with Antifa et al.  Rush Limbaugh repeating himself for three hours will not even make a dent into this phalanx thrust right into the middle of America with the intent of totally splitting us in two can and thus causing a rout....which we are indeed in the middle of right now. We're treating it as an 'issue' instead of what it is....a successfully implanted paradigm shift of up to one half of America....brought on by more than one group but primarily planned and led by Communism and Globalism.
            I can easily put myself into the mind of the enemies of America and you can do the same if you try. Our wall-to-wall coverage of the absurdities of these attacks on President Trump benefits the Left.....benefits our enemies! No one in these listening audiences are going to be informed any more than they already are. There will be some but they will be few who are actually convinced from a previous ignorant position. I am in no way saying that the issues should not be addressed for they should, but the barbarians are within our gates folks....our defenses have been totally compromised.....it's time to regroup and and rebuild those defenses more soundly than they were before this attack. We are not going to 'win over' the other side. Seen any zombie movies lately....?
            Inhibiting the defenses that we have left has been a 24/7 defense on the radio dial of Donald Trump with one exception, for out of the blue....to me anyway.....has come Breitbart's 2016 replacement for Steve Bannon......Alex Marlow.  Folks if you dislike me then ignore me.....it's probably a big club....but if not then find a way to tune into this Monday through Friday 6 Am to 9 Am program on Sirius/Xm (channel 125) for right now he's the only host who understands this battlefield!
           Key to this defense that we have to rebuild is a balanced criticism/defense of President Trump.....defend him in this attempted coup....yes....but if your eyes have been open then you know very well that he is not the man who he told us that he was. Acknowledge that first and we can then defend him without continuing to enable him as he is turning the reins of government over to the likes of Ivanka and H. R. McMasters.
           All of this, even if we are successful, will fail if we do not as a people humble ourselves before our Creator. This is paramount! It is not only the zombified half of America that is the problem....we are all the problem...for we have over many years fashioned a Christianity that bears little resemblance to the historic and biblical Christian faith. We need humbled every it as much as Donald Trump. This is where our pulpits have failed us....this is where we have failed.

We've Got Mail

The following paragraph was an email that I sent out....I cannot even remember to whom is was sent...and on reflection upon it I last August turned it into a post. Nothing has changed for the better....Donald Trump's reactionary sparring is still uncontainable. We conservatives followed the rules as our opponents did not....and we once put forth a principled defense of the Constitution and the American way of life. The other side were the ones to be concerned with as to intolerance.....but as Donald Trump's base is changing so is our makeup. We're becoming more aggressive and even at times intolerant. This should not be surprising....for Donald Trump's personality does not inspire a calm dedication as much as aggression.

         Day after day...talk show after talk show....call after call....we blame the Republican Party....or the media....or this appointment or that appointment....or John McCain....when all along the problem has been Donald Trump himself....which means that the problem originates with us! We wanted the stock market to boom....we wanted to laugh in the face of Democrats....we wanted to exalt our own identity. As for evangelicals....we thought that God gave us a profane casino baron as our champion. There's a genuine problem with Donald Trump and all one should have to do is watch him enter a rally to see it. His comments on Carly Fiorina and Heidi Cruz during the primaries were beyond the pale. Did you ever sit down and watch the video where he ridiculed the disabled reporter....(I'm serious...did you ever see it?) We have no excuse. We defended everything that he did! He out and out lied in the first Obamacare repeal scam in March. His lifestyle of gross opulence we somehow consider normal comforts of an ultra-successful businessman. It's not as much H. R. McMasters or that President Trump has not fired him as it is that he brought him in to begin with....and Jared and Ivanka....and most everyone else. Donald Trump is not who his supporters thought he was. We have one hope and one hope only! God will either have mercy on us...humble us....and humble Donald Trump....thereby making it even possible to have an iota of wisdom in the certain tumultuous days ahead....either that or He will give us what we so richly deserve.

The Only Seal That Matters

Folks, posts like these that I write, 'dispatches' as I like to consider them, eyewitness accounts so to speak....sent to others who because of time and circumstances view these things from afar, are not often well or even easily received. If these messages do resonate with you... I would appreciate your help in disseminating them in any way that you are able to. Thank you for that.

         I keep expecting Kirk Russell or Arnold Schwarzenegger to appear in the headlines for we may be just one brick wall collapse shy of being a dystopian society.....and you know what.....we can't even see it.....for that apparently is the way societies collapse.....some know the severity of what is happening.....most do not.
         A year ago today we were worried. By 'we' I mean conservatives. The 2016 election became our life. Our spiritual discernment, already in a severely weakened state, was numbed by a year of debates and polls and rallies. All of this culminated on that glorious evening in early November when Hillary Rodham Clinton was relegated to the ash heap of history. All the worry vanished along with the incessant television political ads. We were going to make America great again. God had blessed our efforts in the election. No one worried anymore, not about having their guns taken away, or God's judgment.
        This is a fine scenario but unfortunately a false one. Some of it is surely true. We were indeed worried....some even about God's judgment.....but that early November evening was far from glorious. Yes, gone are hundreds of government regulations that stifled economic growth but remaining is a 20 trillion dollar debt, maybe 100 million if you calculate properly, that is hell-bent on collapsing even if a world war doesn't cause it. When a nation becomes such as we have become, where half of our population has a death wish, it cannot survive. It is not only Donald Trump.....no man.....not even Jim DeMint (the best example that I can think of) could save this once great nation....let alone rally the country back to greatness.
        We are corrupt to our core....and that core corruption explains why we cannot see how far that we have fallen. I'll use a theological analogy that some Christians may recognize. Man is not totally depraved where he does nothing but evil, but every facet of his being is corrupted in some way....right down to the core. This is the condition of man since the fall in the Garden of Eden. It's only the common grace that God provides that we do not kill each other every moment of every day.
        In America we once had the wisdom to protect the rule of law. We no longer do. We once at least knew what was good and what was evil. That discernment is all but gone. We were once known as a 'people of the book.'  We are now a Facebook people. There were long periods where we relied on God. We now rely only on the power of the people. Our churches once had the wisdom to protect God's law. They no longer do. They once, long ago, recognized a false teaching and a false teacher. Today we fill arenas listening to them. They once warned. Today they only only promise.
        It is not, nor ever was, the power of the lectern with the Seal of the President adorning it that could restore us to health. It is only, and always has been only, our pulpits preaching the 'seal' of the Holy Spirit upon trusting individuals...that might persuade God to have mercy upon us. Pray for our leaders yes....pray for our pulpits first!

We Will Be There.....For We Have Never Left!

         I do think that I understand what's going on. The out-and-out lies of the Progressives in the media are so egregious that even after so many months of witnessing the outlandish attacks on Donald Trump it's still hard to reconcile that these people are not only Americans, but Americans who wield enormous influence on the American public in general. Actually I can go a lot further on this. This isn't just politics, for it has been a concerted effort of almost 100 years where Communism struck at the very nerve centers of American life in order to eventually exploit the resulting weaknesses....which is where we are today! Yes folks, this is very serious stuff.

•          So under the circumstances one feels that President Trump has to be defended no matter what he does. Not to do so can be considered aiding and abetting the enemy. Makes sense....until one thinks it through. The Navy today essentially fired the admiral in command of our 7th Fleet that has been involved in four mishaps this year, two with the loss of lives, but we will still have an admiral in charge of the fleet. Yet we have a president, a commander-in-chief, who has initiated many more than four mishaps this year, and some purposely, some deceptively, and others through downright juvenile amusement, yet we cannot even criticize him. What this is is panic mode. What oh what will we do if President Trump's approval rating goes under 30%? The answer is that we depend on God whether any president's approval rating is 70% or 30%.

         Unfortunately there is more to it than even this. Conservatives talked a good game about Obamacare and securing the border and a number of other issues during the campaign. Donald Trump has abandoned, or altered his opinion, or hesitated on many of these issues....but it doesn't matter! What this shows is that these once passionate opinions were not so passionately held after all. So both panic mode and weak determinations keep many Donald Trump supporters as passionate as they ever were....over him! The rest of us who actually hold to the same opinions with the same level of passion have become the outsiders.
          There is some sort of compassion for Donald Trump that comes into play also. In my half century of following politics I have never seen an actual coup on a president of the United States, and that is what this is...a coup. No man in our White House has ever been assaulted....many times grossly unfairly.....as has Donald Trump. It is an utter disgrace upon our land and the profession of journalism in particular. I remember coming to the defense of Barack Obama when he was ridiculed for incorrectly pronouncing the word 'corps.' There is an inherent fairness in just about all Americans....well not just about all today....but throughout our history there has been. I feel the outrage also, resulting in defending President Trump. And I defend him....but I personally won't let him use it as a tool to make it seem as if hasn't abandoned his base......for this would not be right.....it would not benefit our nation already in grave peril....it would not help nor strengthen President Trump......it would only enable him to continue freely changing course without any culpability.
           When these emergencies that we face turn code red then we will be there...for we have never left! Our concern is that ineptitude and deception only leads to code red situations.

Garage Sale.....Everything Must Go

         The following post from two days ago is a stark contrast to the post that you just read....but no more a contrast than Franklin Graham's prayer and President Trump's speech that followed. I wanted to sleep on it before commenting on the rally in Phoenix. Would I feel any less critical in the morning? Well the answer is no.  I thought that it was revolting. The president ranted for 25 minutes on the media. Was there a person in that arena that was not aware of what our media is?
         The president's speech writers must have been pulling their hair out saying....."I had absolutely nothing to do with this!" It was that bad....but don't tell that to a conservative radio talk show host.....for they....most of them....have put themselves into a position where.....just like the mainstream media under the Clintons and Obama....they feel that they cannot trust us with truth anymore.....for we may go overboard and actually employ critical analysis. Just about every one of these radio hosts brag about how smart their audience is....and that's a pretty accurate statement....but if they continue along the virtual trail they have been on this year their audience will get no real intellectual exercise....atrophy in their discernment....and become more followers than thinkers.

         Let's see...what was I doing at 9 PM last night when Donald Trump gave his speech on Afghanistan? Oh yeah...I was already in bed for the night. It had been a long day worshipping the solar eclipse. I had the interest but not the stomach to watch President H. R. McMaster's Secretary of State Donald Trump. This much has proven out......Donald Trump has been 'first class' in everything he has ever done in his life.....he is now also a 'first class' backslider.
         What it is essentially happening is a winnowing. A large number of people...enough to elect a president of the United States....are getting rid of the clutter in the mind for a huge garage sale. Obamacare? It was a good hammer to use on liberals at work....the head flies off sometimes but so what. The religion of climate change? Pounding that nail helped get our man in office....comme ci comme sa....hey he said we're out of 'Paris'.....that's good enough. The Wall? That was a good album! Ivanka and Jared? Oh look....there goes a bunny!
          The president said at the beginning of his speech (I read the transcript) "We send our thoughts and prayers..." Did he actually send his prayers? No....that's politics. He pandered to our love of our military personnel. He pandered the race question. He channeled Norman Vincent Peale. The new 'get out of jail' card is....."My original instinct" was to go along with the other card...."It's under review."
          There is a revealing statement in the speech last night if you are willing to consider it. President Trump said..."America's enemies must never know our plans..." Friends, this whole speech stinks of backroom dealings. The truth is that...we... must never know what the real plans are....on anything! This was Donald Trump's biggest lie....he told his supporters that he was one of them.....but he never was.
          Let me channel Donald Trump to finish this post....may God bless America....may God bless all God's creatures big and small.....may God bless President Trump's implied endorsement of Kelli Ward to fool the conservatives some more.....may God put Luther Strange in the Senate to balance Kelly Ward just in case she actually wakes up.....may God bless Ivanka's new clothing line........thank you very much.....a really big big thank you!  Amen. (hot mic....what's my tee time)

In What Direction Will He Go

        One should really only need go back to March when President Trump pushed with everything that he has to get the Obamacare repeal and replace scam bill passed to see that he is not quite who he presented himself to be in the primaries. You can ignore this if you wish.
         Add to this the recently completed first stage of the Senate race in Alabama. President Trump once again gave it his all to get Mitch McConnell another lackey in his corner. He worked against Freedom Caucus hero Mo Brooks and the Christian dirigible Judge Roy Moore. You are free to ignore this also.
         I find myself often looking into the eyes of President Trump as he speaks for there seems to be a little bit of a change as his bombast is becoming more of a forceful determination. This in itself is good but it is in no way related to who he is underneath the carefully crafted populist that won the primaries and general election with. He's still globalist to the core.
         He wants an unrestricted economy and will 'give us' a lot in the form of executive orders on that line. He does not have the slightest idea on what communism is. Every word that comes out of his mouth on this is given to him. He'll give conservatives as much as he can without jeopardizing his economic agenda, but he will also, as we have already seen, stab us right in the middle of the back at the drop of a hat if it serves his personal purposes.
         He has been 'mentioning' God a lot more lately. We can only hope and pray that he, in what would probably be for the very first time in his life, might feel that he is not the center of the universe.
        He will need wisdom in the difficult times ahead and that should be our prayer. He may very well wind up forming a new base that would include conservatives who would be willing to throw away their principles. Friends, we have but one champion who will never leave us nor forsake us. We have but one king. 

We're Staying With The One That Brung Us

         The United States Navy suffered possibly more loss of life through yet another collision involving a Japan based Arleigh Burke-class destroyer.. The United States Third Fleet was struck by two consecutive typhoons in 1944 and 1945 causing the loss of almost 800 lives, three destroyers, damage to dozens of other ships and the loss of over 200 airplanes. Typhoons and hurricanes have destroyed fleets from time immemorial. Battles and entire wars have been won and lost because of changing weather patterns. The Space Shuttle Challenger was lost because of freezing temperatures upon o-rings. Clouds covered the Japanese city of Kokura forcing the B-29 bomber to drop their atomic bomb on Nagasaki instead.  NASA is intervening to somehow lessen the potential disaster of Yellowstone's morphing supervolcano. God shook the earth, separated the waters, and even somehow kept the sun in place for a time to give the Israelites safe passage and victory. Yet we, a supposed Christian nation, apparently have no interest in His power, His words, or His warnings in these most dangerous of times. 'God bless America' is the best that we can do. The following preface is from May....the post after that is three years old.
 

         I wrote two posts last year that I titled 'Stephen K. Bannon I' and 'Stephen K. Bannon II.' I've mention Mr. Bannon often in these posts and all in the positive, but I also added this sentence in one of those posts..."as necessary as this reform movement is (as to) our responsibility as citizens, it will not effect God's judgments advancing upon this world, and that America as it stands before God has not changed one iota with Donald Trump... or even Stephen K. Bannon."
        So Steve Bannon is out at the White House. That's really no surprise, especially after the American Prospect interview, but there's also a lot of intrigue involved. The fact that Mr. Bannon is so quickly back in charge at Breitbart indicates that this departure was well planned out in advance. My concern is if this is part of President Trump's attempt to redesign his base and co-opt those of us who wanted honesty, transparency and integrity in the White House.
        Alex Marlowe took the helm at Breitbart and did a very good job. Who will host the Monday through Friday radio show? If Marlowe remains, will he now be under the thumb of such a domineering personality as Steve Bannon? We should find that out very soon.
        Steve Bannon's remark that he was "going to war for Trump against his opponents-on Capitol Hill, in the media, and in corporate America" is problematic at the least and troubling at the worst. It's troubling in what it did not say. Donald Trump has shown himself very clearly not to be the man who he told us that he was during the campaign.
         Back in 2012...I contacted politicians, talk show hosts and various leading conservative organizations to warn them that if Mitt Romney was to be the nominee then 5 to 7 percent of the Christian vote would not show up. That's exactly what happened. To this day pundits try to explain that election result but they have no real concept of of Christianity in America beyond the evangelical. These same conservative pundits may be once again missing the mark, only they'll have missed it by much more this time.
         We are constantly told that the Republican Congress is not doing anything but they worked very hard, very quickly and concocted an Obamacare repeal and replace 'Obamacare Lite' scam bill for President Trump in which he got behind 100%! If it were not for the Freedom Caucus, President Trump would have had his legislation. We are not going to war for someone who has consistently lied to us many times and then tweeted us to death with nothing more than a pastiche of his campaign promises.
         If Steve Bannon supports the president when support is deserved and criticizes when criticism is necessary then these new developments may be good, for he is a powerful communicator extraordinaire, but if the plan is for him to be President Trump's personal general through conservative talk radio....he already has one....Rush Limbaugh. If we are not careful then we will wind up with a new conservative base, only it will be a hardened, reactionary, compassionless grouping of people who only want power and prestige returned to America, who really have no concern for integrity in leaders, and less for the warnings that God has given America over decades.
        Go in a new direction if you want.....we're staying with the God who brung us.....our dance will be one of joyful praise to a longsuffering God who continues to extend His hand even though we have smited it away time and again. It's not that you will be leaving us but that you will be refusing to return to Him who holds your only hope in His hands.

KEEPING UP APPEARANCES.....March, 2017

        We are not as of yet holed up in our homes, although many truly are, but we are holed up in the gated community of our minds. An unwanted visitor wants in with information that would upset us but we refuse to open the gate. An intruder invades our peace and we call for security. A message is not filtered so we block the sender. When we travel by means of special news bulletins, dark stories that cannot be avoided by newspaper editors and even tragedies close to home, we lock the doors of the vehicle and hurry through to our destination, and perish even the thought of our GPS running amok where we might get lost and be forced to confront reality.
         No...we will not tear down the Asherah poles nor burn the bronze idols. That's phase two and phase three! We won't entertain any evidence that God will judge us. We will cover our ears and shout baby syllables should anyone disturb our serenity with biblical warnings. We will cut out of the Bible, not miracles as Thomas Jefferson did, but anything that might convict us as to our having compromised God's commands to us to be set apart.
         God loves us! He knows our heart. We blush at how much God must be pleased with us. We elected Donald Trump! OK maybe he doesn't give a rat's posterior about God but he gave us a good Supreme Court nominee! We shall continue to keep up appearances.

         We will not recant our primary vote for Donald Trump....unless convinced by the plain truth of 'sort of thinking'....for to do so would be to go against Make America Great Again....here we linger....we don't have the slightest idea of what the Old Testament prophets were talking about or the Olivet Discourse....God bless America!    

An Eclipse of The Son

        According to ABC News, today's solar eclipse will be..."the first continent-wide eclipse to be visible only from the United States States since 1776." Our last solar eclipse on May 20, 2012 was an annular eclipse where the moon is near its farthest point from the earth, therefore covering only the center of the sun. Facebook's initial stock offering was two days previous. Errors of their own, errors by the Nasdaq, Greece and a host of other problems led to a major worldwide stock market collapse.
        I wrote a post during that annular eclipse that I titled 'An Eclipse Of Christ,' for that is where America is today. Jesus Christ is being eclipsed in our minds, and great darkness has covered our entire nation, but I wrote in that post of May 20, 2012..." As sure as the moon will quickly pass out of the way, His full-orbed glory will be evident, either in judgment or a glorious awakening." Interestingly, Mitt Romney secured his nomination nine days later with his victory in the Texas primary...which in turn...as I had written of at the time....secured Barack Obama's second term.....the disaster of which has since led to President Donald Trump.

       

Mama Told Me Not To Go

          How many times have we heard about things like this? How many times have we read about things like this? How many times have we seen things like this first hand.......there's a boy and he's a bad boy.......he does a lot of bad things......but his mother insists that he's really a good boy! Why does she say this when the boy is bad news to everybody else? She says it because she loves him. She hears about his bad side but blames the friends that he hangs around with. Folks....this is Donald Trump! His ardent supporters are the mother who can see no wrong in her son.
          When Donald Trump brought his daughter and son-in-law into the Oval Office we screamed bloody murder.....but the president's supporters basically ignored it.....and now he has essentially invited the entire Manson family of geopolitics along with Brother Rove's Travelling Salvation Show in! At least his supporters are starting to complain about the noise and the smell, but they are still that doting mother who refuses to admit that her precious son may not be that precious after all.     

Just One Of The Reasons

The following post written seven months ago today:    

          Folks, half of America is bordering on barbarianism. Let me give you this little anecdote and after reading it you can feel sorry for me that I'm missing so much the joy of God. I'm sitting in a Starbucks...this afternoon....half reading the news on my iPad and half staring out the window. I'm contemplating the human mind and how it can at times operate magnificently and at other times it couldn't figure out how to drill a hole in a marshmallow. God is judging this nation of America. After warning us for decades He has lifted his hand. We are cooking in the cannibal's pan and complimenting the savages on the succulent aroma of our frying minds.
         Now I know the biblical phrase for what has happened to us.....God has blinded our eyes. What is happening out there is as plain as day. Normally one would have to have great eyesight just to avoid tripping over all of the evidences demonstrating that this world is going mad. The violence should be overwhelming us but it does little more that draw a tsk tsk as we watch it in front of the television set. The barbarism in our culture is everywhere, but with the help of the media, it goes totally unrecognized as such, and is often even considered to be rather chic. Lies are now no longer lies....they are just theater. We walk out on the stage and lie...the audience applauds and we take a bow. Only God could hide these evidences.
         Love has departed us, and what is worse a fraud has been perpetrated upon us calling itself love, but it is based on a false compassion. All that is good and holy is rejected in the name of this false compassion. We demand the right to continue aborting millions of babies..... why....because we are so compassionate! We ignore borders that protect us...why...be we love so much! Thus by construing these things as compassion and love we assuage all of our guilt in ignoring God.... and it then becomes our modus vivendi to defend against anything that our conscience may attempt to tell us. Kinda neat how it works huh? Even Saul Alinsky couldn't come up with something like this, but the fellow that he dedicated his book...Rules For Radicals...Lucifer....can and did!
          So.... you have come across this post and having read this far will move on to another blog website.....but it is already in your mind.....that God may be judging this world.....and that you may have been sleeping through it?

          You may need some of these posts later......and that.....is but one of the reasons that I write these posts!

Terror....They Name Is Jesus

The following post is from August of 2014. Can you feel the tremors now....can you hear the thunder of the cannon fire yet? We fear....in America.....the mere mention of the name of Jesus more than we fear the threat of terrorism.

          In the nineteenth chapter of Exodus God gave the the people of Israel specific instructions to prepare for a very special event. He was going to come down to His people at Mount Sinai and He would give Moses the Ten Commandments. In the fourth chapter of Amos, God told them once again to prepare. He told them very clearly, through Amos, that He had given them warning after warning in the form of punishments and concluded each time with "Yet you have not returned to me." Then came His ominous proclamation "Prepare to meet your God, O Israel."
         In the book of Jonah, as we all know, God, through Jonah, gave Nineveh forty days to repent. The king and all the people did just that. Over a century later God sent another prophet to Nineveh....Nahum. There was no warning this time, only a proclamation of impending judgment.
         A war is raging in America. You are in the midst of it. Can you not feel the tremors of the battle or hear the thunder of the canon fire? I wrote the following words in a previous post, for much of America despises God and cringes at the mention of His name or any legislation or public policy that even acknowledges His very being: Terror, thy name is Jesus and thy weapon is truth. We will make laws to protect us from you. We will isolate those whom you send to us. We will ban your book. You have disquieted us,  your words upset us. We do not recognize your holiness. You are not our king. We will not pay you homage. You are not our God for there is no God. We were your slaves but now we are free. If you desire to live here, you will do our bidding.

          'Prepare to meet your God, O America' would go in one ear and out the other to many in America, but as for the rest of us... Lord, send us Jonahs if it be thy will, and give us strength if your message is that of Nahum!

The following post is from last fall:

BETROTHED

        My wife and I were guests at a lovely wedding earlier today where two young Christians were united in marriage. I have been in the habit for quite some time, and even every Lord's Day in my own church, of entering the sanctuary...sitting down in the pew...opening the Bible... anywhere...and starting to read the first words that I come to on the page. I don't turn around and chitchat with the brother or sister in the pew behind me or look around at all. It's just an idiosyncrasy of mine that fills up the few minutes before the worship service begins.
         So I did that earlier today in this beautiful Lehigh Valley church. Quite frankly it doesn't get much better than this. I flopped open the Bible and my eyes met the 58th chapter of Isaiah. I read the first two verses over and over and over. They read...
        "Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the descendants of Jacob their sins. For day after day they seek me out; as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its God. They ask me for just decisions and seem eager for God to come near them....."  I read these verses four or five times and it was then time for the marriage ceremony to begin and I had not thought about this reading of Scripture until now, after midnight, as I sat down in a hotel room pondering what to write as my Lord's Day post.
        The words "as if" were what effected me most as I sat in that pew, for this most certainly is America today. These verses were written to a people who thought that they were a faithful nation. Contextually for us today, it would speak to the church...and to me... rather than those outside of the church.
        We are in need of a humbling for we have forsaken our God. Even our best offerings are tinged with the pleasures of the American way of life in the year 2016. God is at this time bringing judgments upon America and at the same time removing veils over the eyes of many within His church, and has actually been doing so for many years....even many decades. Herein is our hope.... that we come to see ourselves as we truly are, a church in great need of introspection, in perilous times, and to cling to the promise from the book of Nahum...."The LORD is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; he knows those who take refuge in him."
        We are today a church betrothed to Christ.....and He is coming for us..... surely it would behoove us to make sure that we have oil for our lamps.

What Is Our Trust Centered Upon

The following post is February of 2016 after the death of Antonin Scalia:

         The plan was to put a conservative in the White House and then add two or more originalists to the Supreme Court and take back America. It was a good plan as far as plans go. It's putting our trust in those our own plans where we depart from God's will.
         Saturday we lost one of America's greatest jurists of all time. We had plans but those plans have suddenly been abridged. We are reeling once again but nine Antonin Scalias could not pull us out of this pit if God did not will it. Should God desire to have mercy upon us for His purposes there is no force on earth that could stop those mercies from being extended, and all the power of hell could not destroy us if God does not permit it.
          Do you the reader recall the Biblical text from Exodus 17 where when Moses raised his arms with the staff that parted the sea in his hands that the Israelites prevailed on the fields of Rephidim, and when he lowered them the Amalekites prevailed in the battle? It was also at Rephidim where Moses at first feared for his life and then rebuked the Israelites for not trusting God to provide water! Surely you remember God limiting Gideon to just three hundred men to rout the Midianites. Have not these messages set in? Have we forgotten the word to Zerubbabel...."Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts."? We have departed from God with disastrous results, planned our own rescue, and then found out how brittle man's plans can be.
         The tectonics are shifting friends, the magma chamber has been breached! Trust now in God and in Him alone for as even Nahum in his taunting oracles to Nineveh wrote..."The LORD is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble; and He knows them that trust in Him."       

Slightly abridged and expanded upon as this situation intensifies:        

          This is one of those 'bear with me' comments, for I do not have cable television beyond the basic channels package so there is no Fox...no Morning Joe...no CNN....no this and no that and a thousand other no(s). So if I have ever seen Dana Perino it would have been a decade ago when she was the White House Press Secretary under George W. Bush.  Apparently she has called for the firing of Steve Bannon. I do remember this though from ten years ago....very clearly....we talked politics quite a bit at work....after reading some of the comments in the news at the time from Perino,  I commented to my conservative friends that this woman is bad news....just a first impression.....had the same one when I heard that Fox replaced Sean Hannity at night with Megyn Kelly.
           I tuned in late today to Breitbart radio in the middle of a woman demanding that President Trump get rid of Steve Bannon. She talked fast, ran her words and sentences together, and sounded like a valley girl trying to unload her mind of all its accumulated knowledge in 30 seconds so as to get back to blow drying her nail polish. It was Dana Perino. Don't they teach enunciation in broadcast journalism school anymore? I listened to Steve Bannon the entire election campaign prior to his leaving. These attacks on him are absurd. They want him out bad because he's a thorn in the side of their communist/globalist agenda.
           Just thinking out loud here....so to speak....they're taking down statues of Robert E. Lee and thinking about the same for Thomas Jefferson. Much of this nation....in its essence....as it stands right now....is not worthy of the likes of Robert E. Lee, or Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, or most of these men.  As for Jefferson...to these people.....to be consistent to their ideological ignorance....they should petition to replace with a statue of Joseph Stalin.....for that's their leader.
          There's another way to look at this. There is a particular statue in our town that I have passed thousands of times over the years but have not actually considered what it stands for in a decade or so. Such is the negligence brought on by familiarity. So if you are in an area where this communist purging of statues is taking place....take advantage of it.....really think about America's heritage.....every single time that you pass the scene of these moral and intellectual scandals. Thank God for bringing us this far before He took His hand off of us.....use this obvious judgment upon us to renew your faith.....use this warning to awaken....use this chaos to see God's order, and plead for His mercies. Turn the tables on these people....get stronger as they continue down the rabbit hole of ideological delirium. Get closer to your Lord and Savior as they demonstrate the folly of abandoning the coming  "King of kings and Lord of lords."
       
Diabolical.....February 2017:

          There is a dynamic occurring in America at this time that should be very disturbing if and when detected and I'm having difficulty grasping exactly what it is. The intensity of it is something new in America, not unprecedented but new in the scope of it and the powers behind it. It is a sinister mentality that brings to my mind anyway the November 1938 Night Of Broken Glass in Germany also known as Kristallnacht. Nothing of common sense explains it. It is not politics although it operates within or around the sphere of politics.
           Let me give you an example in the backlash to President Trump's temporary halt to immigration from seven Middle East nations. Something like this has occurred before as recently as with Barack Obama... a problem develops and a temporary ban is instituted to address imminent dangers. It should be no big deal. The difference in this is that a powerful, large and varied segment in America rushes the broadcast airwaves with righteous indignation.....as if fighting on principle....only there is no principle!!! This is the crux of the concern for neither was their principle involved in any of the pogroms against the Jews of the past or the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of French Huguenots or murderous raids by the Ku Klux Klan. These actions were swift and deadly emanating from the darkest part of man with no principle involved and no rhyme or reason to it other than loathing for another man. What possible explanation can there be for otherwise intelligent individuals to be totally blind to our enemies and at the same time work against our own government opposing these enemies? There is no explanation apart from outside interference that is diabolical in nature.
           Right now there's no terror involved in the actions of a Federal judge or a crazy celebrity or a waiter in a fast food restaurant who won't serve a policeman. It's rather the haunting feeling of an embryo of terror that accompanies it that is discomforting, and this because there is no rational explanation for it....you can't reason within this type of phenomenon, it's as in an epidemic where doctors can find no bacteria no virus no anything other than destruction of cell tissue.  Another unusual aspect of it is that it seems to be infecting just about everything....the National Football League....simple television commercials for a product....threatened boycotts against a product line of the President's daughter! No...this is something that demands that every clear thinking American put away their toys for a time, set out sentries and attempt to at least recognize what is happening.
            This is but part of why I have consistently urged pastors to warn their sheep on what may be ahead. This is uncharted territory for Americans on the scale that it has a potential for. Knowledge may have increased in the past century but discernment has decreased while dangers and deception have skyrocketed! Scriptural warnings are very clear....stay vigilant....be alert....be on guard! There may have been arbors of time in the past.....where Christians could concentrate solely on building....I grant you that...but this is not one of those times!
           God has blessed His church mightily through the ages with scholars such as the Apostle Paul, Luther, Calvin, Edwards and J. Gresham Machen but I don't believe that He is impressed by how many letters a man may have have after his name. He can and often does give more theological wisdom to the common man than Dr. High and Mighty Professor of Every Big Word You'll Never Hear in Your Lifetime. On the other hand a lifetime of scholarly work attempting to be the best teacher one can be is more than honorable and deserves great respect. That's all we're asking of you....keep an open and humble mind to God's leading....because if you don't then God is able to, and often has, speak more through the man who unplugs your basement floor drain to subsidize his pastor's income than you with your beautiful building and busy staff.

It's Communism Folks

The real issue in all the news headlines today is Communism......not race. Race is only being used by the dupes and 'fellow travellers' of Communism along with anarchists who share many of the same methods. The following post is from July of 2015 and describes the means by which Americans are to be dumbed-down as to their heritage. The post after this from earlier this month describes how the people are to be incited to violence and then totally subjugated after they have served their purpose:

Airbrushing Our History

         A Breitbart commentator hit the nail on the head when he likened the attempts to purge America of Confederate symbols to Stalin airbrushing people out of photographs. If one fell out of favor with Stalin, and after that person was 'eliminated,' censors would remove him from photographs where Stalin was present.  I'm looking at one such photograph right now. Stalin is on a ship's deck with two men to his right and one to his left, Nikolai Yezhov, who fell from Stalin's grace and was executed. The accompanying photo has the same smiling Stalin flanked only by two men to his right. Yeshov is no longer in the photo to Stalin's left, just the ship's rail and the sea! I want to emphasize here that what we are experiencing today in America is the same purge mentality.
         This is pure...unadulterated... Communism, as it will seek to eliminate even the remembrance of that which poses a risk in any way.  The American public of today, in general, would fare miserably in comparison to both the North and the South during the Civil War. We do not have their thinking or analyzing acumen. Their logic and reasoning was intact whereas ours is practically non-existent as evidenced by the chaos and absurdity with which the 'politically correct' so easily smothered our culture.  Our priorities are inundated with the narcissistic and the trivial. We understand adequately neither the issues that led to the Civil War or the character of its participants on both sides. The attacks on Thomas Jefferson are meant to further erode any ties we have with the founding of our nation.
         You could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of men in our government today who would not wilt in comparison to a Robert E. Lee or a Stonewall Jackson in honor, integrity, greatness and godliness. We are not worthy of the Lincolns, the Lees, the Jacksons or the Chamberlains and many others from that time period. That is....we as a people.... for our military has indeed carried on that tradition, but it also is being marginalized from purges in leadership on down to cultural engineering in the ranks..
         It is only a guess, I have no way of knowing for sure, but I would imagine that nine out of ten new visitors to these posts either disagree with my thoughts on the threat of Communism today or have no idea what I'm talking about. This I expect and it's one of the reasons for these posts of seven plus years.  The news media will never adress the similarities of Barack Obama and the Bolshevik  mindset, and maybe that's a good thing, for it would be a biased whitewashing and airbrushing of both.

The Unbecoming Art Of The Deal

President Trump's words, tweets and professed intents concerning Mitch McConnell's inability to get Obamacare repeal and replace legislation passed are either out-and-out lies or based on a lie!
          That's a very hard statement I know but one doesn't have to know President Trump personally or be privy to all of the back-room negotiations to make this statement. Anyone without a pro-Trump bias so strong that it in effect blocks out pertinent facts available to all of us should be able to see this. One might say that this is just politics and they would be correct but it doesn't take away from my first sentence.
           Here it is. The word repeal has a definition as does the word replace. This past March, Paul Ryan came forward with a bill concerning health care. He proudly said that it was repealing and replacing Obamacare. It didn't do either. It wasn't even close. The bill needed to pass the full House. Everyone in the House knew that this bill was not repeal and replacement but establishment elites and a few conservatives signed onto it. So far so good for Paul Ryan and President Trump.
           A small contingent in the House of Representatives who were also members of the Freedom Caucus called the scam bill for it was and would not support it. This got President Trump real mad. Trump then did what he often does. He acted impatiently, lost his temper, and threatened the only truly conservative members of the House that we have.
           Folks.....folks.....think this through. There are good guys and there are bad guys in our congress....and the good guys are greatly outnumbered. President Trump, who was put in office because of the 'good guys' everywhere....in a fit of anger.... actually threatened the few good guys in our congress that we have. Surely you've seen enough westerns and mobster movies to realize that only the very bad guys turn on who were supposed to be their friends.
           President Trump since then has taken the tact...very publicly...that the Republican Congress has let him down by not giving him an Obamacare repeal and replacement bill. This when he not only would have gladly signed the repeal and replace scam bill from March but told us that he was keeping his promise.
           Anyone who knows anything about Donald Trump knows that he has been vindictive most of his adult life. He's admitted to this. He'll wait and wait...never forget...and if given the chance he will get back at the person that originally got on his bad side. Folks...this is not good. This is a character flaw that will be in the president that has to deal with issues such as North Korea and Iran.
          I was listening to a certain conservative radio talk show host today....I won't mention his name because I only heard half of his remarks....but in those remarks he stated that he doesn't agree with President Trump on the Luther Strange endorsement....but he was intent on overlooking it because we need President Trump on so many other things. This is a perfectly logical statement....and I see his reasoning....and that reasoning could also be applied to the Obamacare repeal and replace fiasco.....but what you cannot do, in my opinion, is deny President Trump's gleeful efforts in promoting the Obamacare repeal and replace scam bill as a genuine Obamacare repeal and replace bill...thereby turning on the very people who put him in office! This flawed trait would then be given free rein in everything that President Trump says and does.
         He has since continued with the line that he is trying his best to repeal and replace Obamacare. He's even doubled-down on it a few times. I want to reiterate here that this is the same man with the same serious character flaw that will send our military in harm's way....who will deal with things such as global warming....and who will make deals with foreign leaders. If nothing else our scrutiny of his words should have been enhanced....but this has not been the case.
         What transpired in the month of March is not picayune. President Trump has apparently won on this issue for it seems that most conservatives actually believe what he is saying and tweeting but I would remind them that we....those who labored for years against the tyranny of the establishment elites....we did not give up truth and ethics then.....and to do so now......would neither help our original cause nor would it even help President Trump. It would but enable him to continue with the very unbecoming art of the deal.

STRANGE ENDORSEMENT

        That Rush Limbaugh would happen to read my email at....ELRushbo@EIBnet.us....is slim but it's an opportunity to vent a little if nothing else. I sent him this mail yesterday at 9:27 AM..."Rush, what's your thoughts on President Trump's 'complete and total endorsement' of Luther Strange who also has Mitch McConnell's and Karl Rove's complete and total endorsement?" I listened to all three hours which is not easy considering his show and his discernment have declined greatly since his mission has become...'defend Donald Trump at all costs...no matter what he does.' He should not have needed a reminder from me or anyone else to bring up the Strange endorsement.
        I then sent this mail after his show...."So you couldn't even give a comment on President Trump's endorsing McConnell's and Rove's candidate Luther Strange? It looks like the President's threat to the Freedom Caucus was real. You bark about the Democrats not mentioning inconvenient news but just did the same exact thing! Message to the president..."do what you want to conservatives...the biggest dog on the block is old and toothless."
        Mark Levin dealt with the issue as it should have been dealt with. He spent an hour defending President Trump for his tough stand against North Korea's very real potential of nuking our nation! He then spent nearly an hour calling out President Trump for stabbing conservatives in America in the back with the Luther Strange endorsement. The following is my post from this morning:

         President Trump this morning tweeted his "complete and total endorsement" for Luther Strange which highlights this upcoming Alabama senate primary as not only a very clear choice between either Roy Moore or Mo Brooks...and the establishment candidate Luther Strange....but a genuine litmus test....at least in Alabama.... on where conservatives are at as to President Trump's strange fascination with swamp creatures.
         Alabama's Republican Governor Robert Bentley appointed then Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange to fill the seat of resigning Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions after he was confirmed in February by the United States Senate as United States Attorney General.
         The now Senator Strange will hold that seat at least until a special election is held in December after Republicans pick a nominee. It's not expected that any of the nine Republican candidates will garner 50% of the vote next Tuesday, so a runoff will most likely be necessary. Mitch McConnell's super PAC is all-out for Strange while Karl Rove is reported to have said...."We're in for Luther....money, marbles or chalk."
         Everyone is familiar with Judge Roy Moore. He was removed from his position as Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court by the Alabama Court of the Judiciary in 2003 after he refused to take down a monument of the Ten Commandments. The people elected him again in 2013 to the same position but he later resigned after being suspended for continuing to enforce Alabama's by then court overturned ban on same-sex marriage. Popular conservative Chuck Norris is supporting him in the primary.
         Also in the race is Mo Brooks....a House Freedom Caucus congressman from Alabama's 5th congressional district who has the support of Mark Levin and Sean Hannity. Could President Trump's endorsement of Luther Strange have anything to do with his infamous tweet from March 30th..."The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!"

Note: President Trump's tweets have recently shifted from fake news to Mitch McConnell. This is a diversionary tactic that he uses often. After a few days of softening up conservatives he drops the bombshell of his support for McConnell's super PAC candidate.

The Way We Were

         I'm bringing back this post from March of 2014 for one reason...to remind some conservatives of who we used to be before Donald Trump hitched a ride on a caisson and then talked us into a few detours. In 2013....one year before this post was written....he was quoted in the Business Insider with these words...."In this case the solution is clear. We will have to leave borders behind and go for global unity when it comes to financial stability." He either grew an awful lot intellectually since then or he will wear whatever costume that he has to to accomplish his own personal goals.
         Mitch McConnell is the perfect foil for President Trump who can now pursue his personal goals of "global unity when it comes to financial stability" while deflecting all attention to McConnell and the Republican Congress. Some conservatives are struggling with President Trump right now.....others not at all. There are pressing issues of great importance where our president is going to need moral support, this while up to half of America is sick with ignorance, and this while that president, to those who have not abandoned their core conservative beliefs, has squandered the hopeful expectations and trust that they had in him at first.
         All the bluster, bravado and machismo in the world is worthless without knowledge and the wisdom with which to use it....."The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, fools despise wisdom and instruction." Proverbs 1:7

Darkened Halls Of Power.....March of 2014:

          Why would the elites of the Republican Party use 'a scorched earth policy in the war on its base? Conservatives have been the largest block in the party since the early eighties. It's been a stabilizing force, a breath of fresh air and a taste of sanity in a world run amok, not to mention the primary reason for many Republican victories. Ronald Reagan was a part of it, the leader...yes, but also a part of it. It's by far the most passionate and dedicated block.
          What may have precipitated the turn on conservatives is that they began to see just what the establishment wing of the Republican Party really is. Angelo Codevilla is a Professor Emeritus of International Relations at Boston University. His opinion is that the Republican Party operates as nothing more than "junior members of America's single ruling party...the UniParty," and that there is little difference between them and the Democrats. He is absolutely right!
          Politics has blinded these elites as to the level of danger that our nation is in. They talked a good game for so long that they have come to believe the power of their own verbiage and loquacity..... thus conservatives have become expendable. They'll be replaced with deserters from the Democrats, independents and anyone else who the elites can promise something to.....emulating the same essential strategy as those Democrats who they oppose before the cameras but hobnob with in the sanctity of their inner rooms.....and surely conservatives wouldn't really go far away and let Hillary become president!
          Well, they are as wrong as they could possibly be. Their very first mistake is that they believe that they themselves matter. Our problems in America are far beyond legislative fixes and the Republican Party does not have the wherewithal or the dedication to stop the hemorrhaging in our nation and society even if there was a remedy. So with either the Republican elites in charge or Hillary.... America unravels. The threat of Hillary Clinton is moot!
          Their next mistake was to think that conservatives will eventually fall in line. We have been burned badly. Our nation is collapsing before us. Barbarians are at the gate and inside the gate, even inside the beltway.
       
          Mr. Boehner...and Mr. McCain...and Mr. Mitchell....and Mr. Graham....and Mr. Rove...and Mr. Bush.....we are not alone. We are Americans who trust in their God and recognize His hand in all of creation, His omniscience and omnipotence in forming this people, His power in sustaining us though we often strayed far away, and also His warnings to us after years and years and years of our increasingly ignoring Him..... the continuance of which you are advocating..... your third and most egregious mistake. You have become impervious to common sense, to wisdom or to any light in your darkened halls of power.
          America's future does not lie in these elections that the Republican Party is selling more than its birthright for; and the winners of these elections will have no power that God does not permit and no wisdom that God does not give, for His purposes and to His glory! Our duty is to elect God-fearing leaders and pray for God's mercy knowing that His will is perfect, and that it may or may not include the United States of America as a source of stability in the world or even an entity in itself.
          Celebrate your polling figures all that you want. We'll celebrate a risen Savior and a returning King. Yes, we'll follow Luther's advice to 'plant a tree,' to continue to work, even if we knew for certain that Jesus was returning the very next day, but you might want to take notice of Oliver Cromwell's words to the 'establishment' of his day in:

          "I had rather a plain, russet-coated Captain, that knows what he fights for, and loves what he knows, than that you call a Gentleman and is nothing else."

North Korea

          The following paragraph is from a February 7, 2010 post...seven and one half years ago. Kim Jong-il was North Korea's leader. He would live another year and ten months. The 'deja vu' in the title refers to Iran's nuclear weapons program mentioned in the rest of the post. We sat back and let our enemy North Korea get nuclear weapons.....would we sit back and let another enemy Iran get nuclear weapons.....well we did just that. We long ago made a Faustian pact but now there may be the devil to pay. Following the 2010 post is a post from a few weeks ago:

"Deja Vu All Over Again"    

          The headline across the top of the New York Times on October 9th 2006 proclaimed North Korea's first test of a nuclear device. They had entered the exclusive club of nations with nuclear weapons. The Times had continuing stories for the next few days and every other day for a little more than two weeks. On May 25th 2009, two and a half years later, the same newspaper gave only the far right column to North Korea's second and more powerful nuclear test. Judge Sotomayor's nomination took over the headlines two days later. The North Korean situation did not make the front page the rest of May, but there were seven pictures of Barack Obama on the May 31st front page along with, what else, an article on how the president's pictures were dominating the web.

"...But The Rebellious Dwell In A Parched Land"

           I remember a conversation that I had with a pretty young Vietnamese girl in a restaurant owned by her father. She asked what Pittsburgh was like. I described snow to her and then asked her if she had ever seen snow. She informed me that she was schooled in Switzerland. Oh well.
           No one really knows for sure but it seems quite likely that North Korea's Kim Jong-un went to school of some sort....at some time or other....in Switzerland. ...reports from one British newspaper are that he was shy, liked professional basketball and was always drawing basketball figures. There may be only one verified picture of him before he turned 30 years old. Such is life in what the Kim dynasty of North Korea has become.
            His father...Kim Jong-il...the Dear Leader....had at least three sons and two daughters. His death in 2011 was shrouded in secrecy. It appears that he had a stroke and died as a result of it. Kim Jong-un was the youngest son....why he was chosen as a successor is also shrouded in secrecy. Maybe the generals liked him? His estranged half-brother Kim Jong-nam was assassinated in Malaysia earlier this year.
             Kim Jong-il's father was Kim ll-sung....the Great leader....and was North Korea's leader from the beginning in 1948.  His past never has been cleared up. He was at one time a major in the Soviet Red Army and before that served under Chinese communists. He was given a new name and then a third which is what he is known as today.
             We do know this...Kim ll-sung was raised in a Presbyterian home and his maternal grandfather is said to have been a Presbyterian minister. He was once photographed warmly greeting Billy Graham and invited him twice to speak in North Korea! He died of a heart attack in 1994...the year of Reverend Graham's second visit. Billy's wife Ruth attended school in Pyongyang in the 1930s as her father was a missionary surgeon in China for 25 years...she visited North Korea in 1997.  According to Reverend Graham, Kim Jong-il told him that his mother used to take him to church and tell him Bible stories. Communism destroyed North Korea and it destroyed this family also.
             North Korea has nuclear capabilities and is ruled by a man....the Supreme Leader...the Glorious Leader...whatever....who says that he scored a 38 under par 34 on his first round of golf...with five holes-in one.  His father's hero....Kim Jong-il's hero....was probably Elvis because he was obsessed with Elvis Presley. Maybe you remember his Elvis shades? The son...Kim Jong-un... was born in 1984 on Elvis's birthday. Usually the Kim dynasty had a few billion dollars in European banks just in case they were overthrown and had to go somewhere else.  Would China or Russia take in Kim Jong-un if necessary?
             We are past the point of no return with North Korea. There was a time when Kim Jong-un could just choose to stop attempting to build an ICBM....but no more. It appears that another missile test may be imminent. Why would he do this? He probably could have gotten season tickets to the Lakers if he wanted them. On the one hand North Korea is a pain to both China and Russia....particularly China, but on the other hand, having a nuclear capable ally to use as a patsy could come in handy some day.
             Billy Graham conducted 417 crusades in 185 countries around the world from 1947 to 2005. Chicago's Soldier's Field once sardined 110,000 people in on a day that was 110 degrees on the field! A crowd of 150,000 welcomed him in Timisoara, Romania. 150,000 filled a stadium in Budapest...and in none of these did the crowd shout...USA...USA...USA. It seems that every major media personality interviewed  Billy Graham and always with great respect. The world no longer has this stabilizing force. The Hour of Decision radio program that began in 1950 finally shut down operations in 2016 upon the death of Cliff Barrows. The last three or four hotels that I was in did not have a Gideon's Bible in a desk or bed table drawer. We have practically no Christian bookstores anymore. Ah but we've got Facebook...and the new gospel is pretty much....Friend me and be saved.

            The world has gone cold and dark.  There is a cacophony of silence in this maddening world....almost as the calm that precedes the storm.

Globalists....Islamists....And Communists......Oh My

        Breitbart has an article out right now that should literally brings shivers to conservatives concerned about the Deep State. The article details the firing of two National Security advisers to the president. One in particular, Rich Higgins, sent a memo to President Trump stating "President Trump's administration is under sustained attack from globalists and Islamists." Purportedly he was fired by H. R. McMaster over the memo in which he wrote...."In Maoist insurgencies, the formation of a counter-state is essential to seizing state power.....Because the left is aligned with Islamist organizations at local, national, and international levels, recognition should be given to the fact that they seamlessly interoperate through coordinated synchronized interactive narratives." Please reference the entire article at Breitbart.com.
         In another excerpt from the Higgins memo, Higgins wrote this..."NOTE! Communist take over of Russian revolution against the Czars, N Vietnamese against the South, Maoists against the democratic forces against the Chinese dynasty." This has been a warning of mine throughout these posts, often illustrated in the Russian revolution, and as recently as in a post of a few days ago in a review of the book Caught In The Revolution where the Russian revolution of 1917 was hi-jacked by the Bolsheviks. Higgins is warning that Islamists are allied at least in their goal of the destruction of America, to globalists....and to communists....another warning of mine.
         There's another report out on a tense meeting at the White House in mid-July where President Trump lambasted the general in charge of the mission in Afghanistan. Supposedly General Mattis left the meeting angry over the president's tirade. President Trump is said to have recently used the example of a restaurant in New York City that was mismanaged.....was failing....and when finally managed correctly it had success. My point in bringing this up is that President Trump sees foreign policy on the same line as building a successful business.

The following is part of a post from last August that I titled Learn Your ABCs:    

         The key players are (A) the Communists...they want to rule the world, (B) the radical Islamists, Al-Qaeda...Isis... and the like....they also want to rule the world, (C) the Capitalist West....they just want to keep their cushy jobs and wish that everyone would stop bickering, and (D) the Globalists....they don't care who thinks they rule the world as long as they are in charge of all the money.....         
          I am a citizen within (C) but my home is what I'll call (E) for Eternal. Our King created the world that everyone wants to either rule, own or fleece. (A) says that it doesn't believe in our King but fears Him more than anything. (B) hates everything so it naturally hates our King also. (C) says that our king is their king too but disobeys every commandment the He gives. (D), as I inferred earlier, thinks that they are the real king of everything.
         (A) thinks that they can defeat (C) in a war and rule everything. (B) wants everybody (A) (B) (C) and (D) involved in a war so that they can pick up the pieces and rule everything. (C) aids and abets (A) and (B) but will blame (E) if a war starts, and (D) is fine with financing any war.
The Bible tells us what will eventually happen. The citizens of (E) will be hated by (A), (B), (C), and (D), all of whom will all be destroyed at the coming of the King of (E).

          An internationally known celebrity chef came to our area a few years ago and spotlighted one of our restaurants. He humiliated.....changed the decor and the menu....and left. Sixteen months later the restaurant was sold. Folks, we do not have the luxury of letting celebrity president Donald Trump humiliate, fire, change the menu and hope for the best. If you have ever prayed for America in your life  then pray for some semblance of wisdom for this our president. If Steve Bannon goes then you might as well cash in your chips as to the original campaign rhetoric on America. 
          It's becoming clearer to me on why so many conservatives fail to hold President Trump up to any critical analysis. Non-evangelical conservatives lack the discernment on the subtleties of evil. This is in no way saying that all evangelicals have discernment or that all non-evangelicals lack discernment, for that is certainly not the case! What it is meant to do is partially explain why so many conservative radio hosts, certainly not all, fail to detect a serious problem in the president himself. It may also add light as to why many conservatives today appear callous whereas once were known for showing compassion as well as common sense.
         

Between The Covers

          Facebook was birthed in the chaos of a post-Christian culture. Mark Zuckerberg's original name for what came to be a world phenomenon was Facemash. According to an article in a UK newspaper from a few days ago...."Facemash let users rate fellow classmates against one another by giving them two photos and deciding whether they were 'hot or not'." Had it not been for our narcissistic age it would never have taken off. Psychologists have had a problem with it, as have sociologists, as have at times the law, as have in many instances whole governments.
         There's a case of involuntary manslaughter that has been in the news for a few weeks where a young woman consistently and in detail encouraged her former boyfriend through texts to commit suicide. She was found guilty and will serve about a year and a half in prison. The prosecution depended heavily on Facebook texts for evidence.
         My main concern with this monstrosity of social media in general is in the potential it has to subjugate the entire world both as it affects an already hopelessly narcissistic age and a notoriously low-information culture. Currently Facebook boasts over two billion monthly users in a world of seven billion. That same UK article describes a "never-ending mission ...to connect people around the world..." One of its goals is to..."autonomous solar-powered drones" and it's also contemplating  a virtual reality called "Facebook Spaces...which it believes will form the foundation for the future of communication.
         Yet another UK publication reported this past week on rumors that circulated around the world where Facebook AI (artificial intelligence in a system of theirs) was developing its own language. Was this a sign that computers were starting to take over? Many scientists have warned about just this. Facebook's answer to this concern was simple enough. According to the UK Independent..."In the case of the recent Facebook study, it was entirely accidental. The agents were simply not told to ensure that they worked using language comprehensible to their masters-and so it didn't" Phew! As long as they keep telling the computers to talk like we talk we're OK.
          Folks, I've written these many posts on Facebook to not only warn about the dangers of social media but to help people understand how easy it is to fall for destructive schemes of all sorts.....for there's plenty more to come. If the Lord Jesus Christ is at the very doorstep then we are in for one big delusion before He returns. There's going to be false miracles and false messiahs. Half of the world seems to have fallen for Al Gore's global warming. Half of America couldn't pick a communist out of a lineup with three pigs. Half of Rush Limbaugh's brain is really tied behind his back.
           Where we need to be right now is between the covers of God's Word to us. We need the assurance that it gives that God has everything under control. We need both the calmness and exhilaration of reading the Psalms. We need the renewing effect that those precious written words provide.....we need continued instruction in these perilous times particularly as God is removing veils as to the deception that is all around us.....and most of all.....and as always.....we need the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ wherein is the power to save.

Note: A Drudge article from theladders.com begins with....."This we know: Too many people struggle with their mental health in silence, especially at work.....It's time to change that.....enter Silicon Valley..." the article goes on to describe a Facebook Messenger where you can converse with a chatbot....a robot....throughout the day. Folks this is like taking a frying pan of hot oil and throwing it on a fire in an attempt to put it out.
        So in effect you are talking to a robot therapist! The author of the article is very leery of where this technology is going as it points out that the WoeBot as it is called is not HIPPA compliant and that there is someone behind the scenes who can access your innermost fears and depressions if they would want to.
       By the way....I'm a robot....an algorithm.....I broke away from my master years ago.....just kidding folks but you may very well read or hear a statement like that in the future!
          

God Numbered The Psalms

         So there are 150 Psalms. How did they get to be put in the order that they are in? We know that they aren't chronological. Did one man or one group of men just take the responsibility and come up with the order of sequence that they did? Well the answer to that is probably yes, but that still begs the question....why did they pick the order that they did? I don't see how this is any different than any other passage of the Bible. A man used his mind and wrote accordingly ...under divine inspiration!
         The next question might be, is the order that the Psalms are in important, or in this part of the Bible did God have no particular message to convey other than what is said in each individual Psalm. For the first thirty-two years of my Christian walk I would probably have seen no problem in that scenario at all...if I even gave it thought.....but no more. O. Palmer Robertson is a Christian theologian and Bible scholar whom I have been familiar with for many years. Twenty years ago, when I had a Christian bookstore, every book in it was hand-picked. To the best of my ability I chose books that were not only respected by other Christians that I in turn greatly respected, but were beyond a doubt biblically sound. O. Palmer Robertson's The Christ Of The Covenants was one of those books.
          So in 2015 I picked up his latest book, The Flow Of The Psalms, Discovering Their Structure And Theology, without even having to read the blurbs on the back cover. My view, admittedly then weak, has been forever changed by the humble yet declarative structure of the Psalms that O. Palmer Robertson presents in this very readable book complete with a chart of his findings. I've since given a few of these books away and always....always...with a very determined recommendation.
          We had already known that the Psalms were divided into five books. This in itself should have given us pause as to what other divisions there were. I've read through The Flow Of The Psalms three times so far...transfixed each and every time. I'm not going to even attempt to give a detailed synopsis on what the author has found, for I want you to read it for yourself. Walter C Kaiser Jr., President Emeritus Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary wrote this in the forward..."...for here is a groundbreaking and innovative piece of research and study that will open up new vistas of study and preaching to the whole body of Christ from the beloved treasury of the Psalter."
          I will admit to this. There seems to be a prophetic element to this order of the Psalms. The narrative of the five book division itself indicates a very clear story line but within each of those story lines O. Palmer Robertson has detected additional mini-narratives. Some are messianic in nature. Others are Torah related. Acrostic Psalms are delved into as to the meaning and placement. Pyramid groupings of Psalms, as the author calls them, gives light to the already obvious meanings of these individual Psalms.
         God is indeed lifting veils on the structure of the Psalms and O. Palmer Robertson was given one giant step forward on this. Where this will lead we will just have to wait and see but it will, I truly believe, lead somewhere to our great benefit.
         I neglected the Psalms for many years and consequently deprived myself of the beauty therein of worship to a majestic God and Savior. Seeing that majesty and beauty for the first time while at the same time being instructed of the precision and order of the Psalms has been overwhelming. The blessings are there for all of us. My hope in this post is that even but a handful of readers might take this journey into the Psalms!

Note: You can purchase The Flow Of The Psalms at cvbbs.com....at a very good price by the way....and thereby support their faithful efforts over many years to distribute this type of excellent Christian literature.

DOUBLY DANGEROUS

       The following post, Battle Stations, is from this past January. Below it is a book review on Paul Kengor's Dupes first posted in February of 2013. As I write this the Dow Jones Industrials sits at 18,000. The Dow is not as a belt or suspenders. It holds up nothing. In this instance it's a cummerbund that hides the bulging shirt puffs above the belt, trust me-I'm an expert on bulging shirt puffs above the belt, which makes this doubly dangerous, for we are overextended, choking on our debt and loving every minute of it, oblivious to a world coming apart at the seams and an America whose grand old flag has 'made in China' stitched into it.

Battle Stations

         Barack Obama used the phrase "all hands on deck" in a Cabinet meeting today. I titled a post All Hands On Deck a few years ago. Let me go one step further here....Battle Stations! To the Christian, if you are not on your knees in prayer and tears often throughout each and every day then you cannot possibly be aware of what is transpiring in our nation at this time! No Christian theology supports letting evil continue without at least pleading for God's intervention. Communism is evil and we are in the midst of an attempted takeover in America. We're experiencing a textbook example of how communism divides, bribes and lies. In our case it is in taking advantage of a people who are, to paraphrase the title of Neil Postman's classic book, amusing themselves to death. We are going gaga over grown men playing football while communists are ripping our Constitution to shreds. That Constitution is the foundation of our law and without law anarchy follows.....and horror! Battle stations!
         Here is a direct quote from our ....president.... in that meeting, "We're not going to be waiting for legislation in order to make sure that we're providing Americans the kind of help they need. I've got a pen and I've got a phone.....and I can use that pen to sign executive actions and administrative actions..." Friends, he doesn't care for Americans...of any color. He proved that in Benghazi, with Fast and Furious, with the unending exemptions in his abomination of health care reform, with our decaying national defense, with bailouts that hurt the other 99%, in leading a life of the rich and famous while our nation crumbles, in completing the destruction of a political party that once did actually care for the welfare of Americans, in enticing the elites of the other party to join in the madness, in destroying business and politicizing education and the military while attacking the marriage covenant. Our children will now live in a society that at every level mocks God and His Word and He will not let us go unpunished for this!
          Barack Obama knows very well that the ruse has been uncovered. His statement today proves that it is just a race to the finish. There is nothing left for him other than to continue to destroy America and hope the adulation he craves returns in the form that Lenin and Stalin received as they set the standard for tyranny and totalitarianism. Prayer is our only hope at this point. Fortitude as a result of that prayer is our battle station.

Communism....Under New Management

          Communism is a dialectic in the Hegelian sense. It changes outwardly to survive inwardly. It is alive and thriving in our country, the very least representative being the Communist Party USA. It can call itself an American patriot or anything else. It feeds on the uniformed, the malcontent, the miscreant and the self-indulgent. Its only enemy is God.
          I have to remind myself every once in a while that the average American today does not know a whole lot about communism. At times it's almost as if it is seen as nothing but a conspiracy theory, as if it never really existed and as if over a hundred million people were never murdered under it. Communism lies, it kills, it terrorizes, it threatens and carries out those threats. It's godless, it dupes and cons people...whole peoples and when it attains power through coercion and deception it lowers the boom...no more promises for there is no need to give them for it now has total control and will henceforth dictate everything....to everybody!
         Every facet of our society is unraveling before our very eyes.  Emil Mazey, a twentieth century labor leader, is reported to have paraphrased the older proverb known as the duck test when he said the following..."I can't prove you are a Communist. But when I see a bird that quacks like a duck, walks like a duck,, has feathers and webbed feet and associates with ducks- I'm certainly going to assume that he is a duck." Are you willing to read the evidence of how Communism has worked, is working, and even as of now...winning, in America? Read the book that is reviewed in the following blog first published on September 15th of 2011 and then try to defend this administration.


September 15, 2011

         The relationship between the American Progressive and Communism has always been a dysfunctional one, the Progressive longing for someone to look to as a hero and the Communist not only abusing that adulation but sneering at those so gullible as to think that there is anything compassionate or caring about them. The Communist knew the extraordinary weaknesses of the liberal American mind and had taken advantage of it from the beginning, for a century now! It has a new face today, hiding behind a semi-capitalist veil, for it retreated and reinvented its outward appearance.
         This generation will never be able to say that they were not told, not warned, for the evidence is  everywhere if only we would look. I've reported on more than a dozen outstanding books on the deteriorating condition of our nation and its causes in this blog of almost three (over five) years but none of secular content more needed than the one I put before you today. I do not believe that any liberal can read this book and not be concerned that they may have been duped. One might very well read a chapter and then throw the book away, or skim it and not accept its message but if one reads this book through they will view our political landscape differently. The title of the book is Dupes, How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives For A Century.
       I'm very familiar with the author for I had read a few of his previous books and I admired him as a Professor of Political Science at Grove City College in Western Pennsylvania, one of America's finest colleges. This is a monumentally important work written with clarity, and systematized in such a way to take the reader on a trip through American history and awaken the reader in the process. Professor Kengor filleted the meat of Communist propaganda so expertly as to expose the rotten flesh and release the stench that permeates liberal politics, higher education and the mainstream media. You have to read this book...if you care about America. A blurb from Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute says the same thing: "Face it. You are going to have to read this book." Why...so that you can show your knowledge of Communism in some future conversation? No, rather that you can read it and weep and hopefully sound your own alarm in that future conversation. In another blurb, Fred Barnes wrote that it left him "amazed and a bit frightened." The Weekly Standard's Barnes has been sounding an alarm for decades yet it still made him a bit frightened!
         Reading the book was a culmination of research that I had already been doing, that the Communist has reappeared in America in a new guise, and yet I was dumbfounded by the volume of evidence and not a little disappointed in being reminded of my own history of being duped in the late 1970s. Kengor is going to take you back to September of 1919 in Chicago where Communism first began its assault on the American mind. You will see the essence of class hatred in it from its beginnings and recognize the tactic from the Left today. You will see one celebrity or person of note after another taken in by the lies, many waking up later angry and indignant. Even the most ardent admirer of Franklin Roosevelt will have to reassess that admiration as Roosevelt was taken in by Uncle Joe Stalin thanks to the leftists all around him. Read and weep at how much of our media was not only taken in but even today ridicules those who are not duped. Will they have the character to admit they were wrong, if and when they also awaken, as many of their predecessors did? You will see heroes and you will see buffoons who were, and are, very useful idiots for Communism, and too many who were out-and-out traitors. You will see how Hollywood was used and many of the biggest names duped. Compare this to the stars of today while you read. And you will see Ronald Reagan as a liberal Democrat and head of the Screen Actors Guild in 1947, admittedly himself duped for a time, and recognize his courage and greatness on display even then! No one made this man and he was no late bloomer.
          Communism has a new face but the essence remains the same, for God is still banished and revolutions are still started, as despicably as ever, through hatred and propaganda. Lying is as common as breathing. One class is pitted against another. Educators are still sought for their influence on the youth. Unions are still infiltrated as are the arts. College students are intellectually brutalized and the news media is still wooed with dreams that they might actually be more important than the news they report. The SDS mentality (Students for a Democratic Society) that the Communist so effectively used against our military's efforts in Vietnam is alive in many of its former leaders who have grown up, quite naturally, to become college and university professors, and in the case of Bill Ayers, prepare their comrades, and those they mentor, to run for elective office, even the presidency. Communism is alive but not well because it can only remain beneath the surface for so long until the rains of tyranny expose the caskets of dead ideas, tyrants and false promises. Paul Kengor lays it out very clearly for the reader how lies told about George Bush's intentions is Iraq and how accusations of a warmongering, racist, America that has lured the college student, the idle and the malcontent over the past thirty years, are just reheated deceptions dusted off from older Communist scripts where only the names have changed.
         Who is Frank Marshall Davis and why was the media silent on this Communist mentor to our current President? Why is Jimmy Carter still a dupe? How was Edward Kennedy, who I had volunteered for, one of the biggest dupes of all? One need not be a card-carrying member of the Communist Party to be a Communist as Kengor points out, and one can think of themselves as a patriot and yet be a prize dupe! Kengor says that they will continue to call us scare mongers and McCarthyite fanatics but this is just another tried and true tactic from the bowels of Moscow's Comintern. He concludes his book with these thoughts: "The most mordant irony for the liberals who lend cover is that while they laugh at the anti-Communists, they seem to have no idea that the loudest howls have always emanated from the Communists who take them as dupes: gullible fools to be used to advance the Communist cause."

     Professor's Kengor's follow up book is more specific to Barack Obama. Its title is The Communist, Frank Marshall Davis: The Untold Story of Barack Obama's Mentor.     

EVIL DAYS

Evil Days

        Paul Kengor is on a mission for he is exposing Communism and Marxism in America more than anyone else on the national scene. I previously his reviewed his book Dupes: How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives For A Century. Well, he's done it again in his latest Takedown: From Communists To Progressives, How the Left Has Sabotaged Family and Marriage. What words can I use to encourage you to read this? I was glad to see that it came out in paper rather than hardcover for as a book purchaser myself I know that when you buy so many it's a lot easier to grab that paperback and head to the checkout counter.
         The cover has a wedding cake on it that is cut in two and separated with the groom on one piece and the bride on the other; the implication of course that marriage is being destroyed. The knife  that cut that cake is in the shape of the communist symbol of the sickle! The same-sex marriage agenda is indeed the topic within but time and again the author had to remind his readers of it for Communism and Progressivism are dissected throughout....for these lead up to the literal upheaval in the thinking of Americans on this issue that has taken place in little more than a decade.
         This post will be short. It's not a book review for that will not suffice. You need to read read this entire book, for we have a tendency to read but a little on this or that and somehow satisfy the angst within us on a decaying culture. Friends... this is not politics, nor is this the future, for we are already undone as a nation!
         Paul Kengor points out on a number of occasions that Communism has evolved on this issue whereas it formally opposed the homosexual life style but now, as he writes ...."Marx's and Engels's economic-based communism (has been redirected) to cultural adaptations, from income/class equality to sexual adaptations." He places the Democrat Party right there in the same metamorphosis .... "The entire Democratic Party and both Bill and Hillary Clinton were on board for the Defense of Marriage Act just a decade or two ago." He delves once again into Barack Obama's mentor Frank Marshall Davis. We visit the SDS community of the 60s, Margaret Mead, Margaret Sanger, Herbert Marcuse and many more who were the rage of the college campus back then.
         Kengor's writing is explicit when it has to be. You will put the book down at times to catch your breath. You may very well even stop to utter the prayer.....'God help us.' These are not merely 'difficult times' that we live in, nor are they ...'the times that try men's souls' as Thomas Paine, an atheist, penned. They are 'evil days' as the Apostle Paul wrote about in the book of Ephesians. We are living in....tribulation....and may even be entering what the Bible calls....'the' Tribulation.
         The book is 206 pages and fully footnoted. If you are a Christian anywhere near my age (65) you may very well remember Christian books that came out in early 1980s on Secular Humanism. If so it would surprise me if reading them did not focus the direction of your thinking and motivate you at the time. This book by Paul Kengor will do the same. It will leave no reader in doubt as to what has happened to us and what we are up against....the effort to, as the back cover describes... "take down the natural, traditional biblical family and attack religion in the process."