Sunday, July 30, 2017

Another day, another nuke, another war

The Nuclear Genie Is Out of the Bottle,
and It's America's Fault
by Pastor Paul J. Bern
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On July 16th, 1945, the 'Trinity' nuclear test – the first-ever nuclear bomb – was detonated in New Mexico, at the Alamogordo Test Range, plunging humanity into the Atomic Age. Less than a month later, the first nuclear bomb ever used in wartime was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, and a second one was dropped on Nagasaki less than two weeks after that. In the first blast at Hiroshima, well over 100,000 people were instantly vaporized in the initial explosion, and the death toll at Nagasaki was tens of thousands higher. Over the following month or so, over a million more individuals died from the aftereffects of radiation poisoning. But, what is generally not known – especially here in America with its propaganda machine otherwise known as our “free press” – is that the US use of nuclear weapons against Japan at the end of World War 2 was unnecessary. Let's not forget that the winners of wars are the ones who write the history books, and the US is no exception. The fact of the matter is that by the summer of 1945, Japan had already been bombed back to the stone age. In point of fact, Japan was already attempting to start negotiating for peace. But the Japanese wanted to do it secretly, so as to not alarm the Japanese people (sound familiar?), and US military leaders wanted the announcement to be public. And so the die was cast, and the rest is history.



In the late 1940's Russia's leader and dictator Josef Stalin acquired an atomic weapon through quite a lot of espionage and outright theft, much to the discredit of America's “intelligence” community. As a response, the US supplied England and France with the technology and experience needed to build a few bombs of their own. By this time it was the 1950's, and within just a few years Communist China similarly developed their first atomic weapons. By the 1960's, other countries such as Israel, India and Pakistan had nukes as well. The genie was out of the bottle, and there was no putting it back. It was too late. Fast forward to the present day and we find America's latest nuclear adversary to be North Korea, who just tested their first nuclear-capable ICBM. And it all started with one nuclear test in the New Mexico desert in 1945. I have been studying up on this as of late, knowing that we are living in the End Times, and that the world as we have known it is drawing rapidly to a close. The first verse I have found that corresponds to these times and the accompanying nuclear proliferation can be found in the book of Daniel in the Old Testament, chapter 7 and verse 7, which reads as follows: “After that, in my vision at night I looked, and there before me was a fourth beast – terrifying and frightening and very powerful. It had large iron teeth; it crushed and devoured its victims and trampled underfoot whatever was left. It was different from all the former beasts, and it had ten horns.”



To put this into context, Daniel had a vision in chapter seven where he saw four “beasts” come up out of the sea. The sea in Bible prophecy usually always symbolizes all the peoples of the world – that is, humanity more so than nations. The first “beast” was like a lion, but it had eagle's wings. What country uses a lion as its symbol? Great Britain. The eagle's wings, then, represent America, whose symbol is an eagle, and who is an offshoot of the former British Empire. OK, so what's the second one, you ask? The second beast Daniel saw in his vision looked like a bear. What country uses a bear as its national symbol? Russia. And Daniel's third beast looked like a leopard, which symbolizes Germany. The fourth beast which is unlike all the rest could only be the United States, since it has the most powerful military force in human history. But what do the ten horns represent? Could they be nuclear powers? To find the answer to this question let's go to the Book of Revelation chapter 18.



The first 3 verses read as follows: “After this I saw another angel coming down from heaven. He had great authority, and the earth was illuminated by his splendor. With a mighty voice he shouted, 'Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! She has become a home for demons and a haunt for every evil spirit, a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird. For all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries. The kings of the earth committed adultery with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.'” Who or what is “Babylon the Great”? Some say it was the Roman Empire, still others the Ottoman Empire since it was intertwined with Islam, still others say it's the Vatican, and I even saw a video on You Tube a while back that suggested it represents the British Monarchy (I took that one with a grain of salt). But upon closer imagination we find the answer further down in the Scriptures, and I quote: “For her sins are piled up to heaven, and God has remembered her crimes. Give back to her as she has given; pay her back double for what she has done. Mix her a double portion of her own cup. Give her as much torture and grief as the glory and luxury she gave herself.



Now we're narrowing it down by a good bit! Could this be Hitler's Germany, Stalin's Russia, or Mao's China? Or maybe the Kim family of North Korea? One thing is certain, whoever or whatever this represents is a really bad actor on the world stage. Also, since the Book of Revelation was written in (approximately) 90 A.D., these words were meant for a people or a country from far into the distant future. You know, like about 2,000 years give or take? Let's move on to the next verses to find out for sure. “In her heart she boasts, 'I sit as queen; I am not a widow, and I will never mourn.' Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her: death, mourning and famine. She will be consumed by fire, for mighty is the Lord God who judges her. When the kings of the earth who committed adultery with her and shared in her luxury see the smoke of her burning, they will weep and mourn over her. Terrified at her torment, they will stand far off and cry, 'Woe! Woe, oh great city, O Babylon, city of power! In one hour your doom has come!'” (Revelation 18, verses 5-10)



The use of the pronoun 'her' suggests that the apostle John was referring to a country, not a person. Moreover, death, mourning and famine symbolize waging war. Isn't that what America has been doing for most of the last 75 years, since the end of world war two? This passage of scripture implies that everything the US has done overseas for the last 75 years is going to come back around and bite us in our backsides, and at the worst possible moment. To top it all off, all this will happen in a single day. Now let's ask ourselves, couldn't this be some other country besides the US? Don't we call ourselves, 'the land of the free and the home of the brave'? America is, among other things, a bastion of democracy throughout the whole planet. So why does our text read, “Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her: death, mourning and famine. She will be consumed by fire, for mighty is the Lord God who judges her”? There are many who would argue that the USA is not guilty of any such charges.



But isn't it/she? Since 1950 the US military has slaughtered a combined total of 2.5 million innocent civilians while it waged its wars overseas. This parade of victims came from a wide variety of countries and their inhabitants, such as (from the oldest to the most recent) North Korea during the Korean war, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Panama, the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya, and Syria has yet to be stabilized. This does not count all the 'black ops' that have been happening for decades on a regular, consistent basis which have killed untold hundreds of thousand more. Naturally, the Lame Stream Media isn't permitted to talk about this here in the US because their paymasters, the elite 1%, won't allow it. America cannot continue to do these things with impunity indefinitely! What goes around comes around, and it's about to be America's turn. Not because it's what I think – never mind that – it's what's in the Bible, which is the Divinely inspired Word of God! But look what Revelation tells us next: “



She will be consumed by fire, for mighty is the Lord God who judges her.” What kind of fire will this be? We only need to look down one more verse: “When the kings of the earth who committed adultery with her and shared in her luxury see the smoke of her burning, they will weep and mourn over her. Terrified at her torment, they will stand far off and cry, 'Woe! Woe, oh great city, O Babylon, city of power! In one hour your doom has come!” In one hour, wait a minute, is that right? That would be one monstrosity of a fire! The only thing we have today that resembles this scenario is a nuclear attack, and that in point of fact is America's ultimate fate. The USA is going to get nuked!! Where is this “city of power” located? Nobody knows for sure – so beware of those who claim to know – but if the Great Babylon is the United States it fits perfectly with this part of Revelation 18. The “great city” is likely either New York or Washington, the 'cities of power' contained in this example of Biblical prophecy. It is also written in Psalms 46: 9, “He makes wars cease to the ends of the earth, he breaks the bow and shatters the spear, he burns the shields with fire.” This is what the prophet King David said would happen to all forms of warfare in the End Times we live in. This is why America stands judged, because of her incessant warfare!



According to a 2016 report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), nine nations — the United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea — possess approximately 16,300 nuclear weapons in total. This is an obscenity because it's enough atomic power to blow up every city on the planet several hundred times over. But it's even more than an obscenity, it is utter madness and insanity to even consider creating such destruction and loss of life! But still, that's only nine countries that have nukes, so who's the tenth one, the one that completes the symbolism of Daniel's ten horns that he saw on the fourth beast? It has got to be Iran, there is no other explanation that I can think of, at least for now. No other country is as close to developing a bomb as Iran, everybody knows that. But this is a prophecy that has yet to come to pass.



But you can all be sure that this will be happening in the near future, no doubt about it! And once it does, Daniel's prophecy about the beast with the ten horns will be fulfilled. Since the British Empire and two world wars that were initiated in part by Germany have come and gone, this is the only part of this prophecy that has yet to be fulfilled. Once that happens, once Iran gets its hands on its first nuclear weapon – which is only a matter of time – the prophecy will be fulfilled and the stage will be set for world war three, which will be a brief but exceptionally deadly nuclear exchange (more on that in a separate message later). If it involves Iran and Israel as I suspect, then surely America and Russian will become involved sooner or later. And that's when world war three will really get started. It's all getting very close now. Prepare yourselves accordingly if you have not yet done so. We are just about out of time. Watch out and pray continuously!

Friday, July 28, 2017

Catherine Austin Fitts: HOW TO SAVE OUR NATION & OUR LIVES BEFORE IT'S T...

Free book excerpt from "Occupying America" by Pastor Paul J. Bern

Occupying America: book contents plus free sample, or scope out this video!


Table of Contents

Chapter One
A Commentary On Modern Revolutions ----------- page 3

Chapter Two
The Occupation Chronicles ------------------------- page 27

Chapter Three
A Documentary of a Broken System -------------- page 56

Chapter Four
Capitalist Implosion: The Warning Signs ---------- page 94

Chapter Five
Class Warfare: The Attack of The Elites On The 99%
--------------------------------------------------------- page 128

Chapter Six
Counterattack: The Second US Civil War ------- page 168

Chapter Seven
Ways to Replace a Broken System --------------- page 211

Chapter Eight
The United States of America: Under New Management
--------------------------------------------------------- page 249


Book Excerpt

Just as in Europe, we are seeing the results of colossal social failure. The occupiers are the very sort of people, brimming with ideas, whose energies a healthy society would be marshaling to improve life for everyone. Instead, they are using it to envision ways to bring the whole system down. What we are witnessing can also be seen as a demand to finally have a conversation we were all supposed to have back in 2008. There was a moment, after the near-collapse of the world's financial architecture, when anything seemed possible.

Everything we'd been told for the last decade turned out to be a lie. Markets did not run themselves; creators of financial instruments were not infallible geniuses; and debts did not really need to be repaid – in fact, money itself was revealed to be a political instrument, trillions of dollars of which could be whisked in or out of existence overnight if governments or central banks required it. It is nothing but a legalized Ponzi scheme, and all Ponzi schemes eventually implode.

When the history is finally written, though, it's likely all of this tumult – beginning with the Arab Spring – will be remembered as the opening salvo in a wave of negotiations over the dissolution of the American Empire. Thirty years of relentless prioritizing of propaganda over substance, and snuffing out anything that might look like a political basis for opposition, might make the prospects for the young protesters look bleak; and it's clear that the rich are determined to seize as large a share of the spoils as remain, tossing a whole generation of young people to the wolves in order to do so. But history is not on their side. As I see it, if the occupiers finally manage to break the 30-year stranglehold that has been placed on the human imagination, as in those first weeks after September 2008, everything will once again be on the table – and the occupiers of Wall Street and other cities around the US will have done us the greatest favor anyone possibly can.

The Wall Street protests must grow and spread across this country because they are the only realistic hope for change remaining for the 99% of Americans falling behind in this broken economy. Sad to say, but democracy in the land of the free and home of the brave simply no longer works. Big corporations and the wealthy have hijacked the political system for decades with their hefty donations to various political campaigns. Their contributions guarantee that bought-off politicians pass laws and tax breaks to their benefit. It is no secret, everyone is aware of how the system works, and it must be called for what it is: legalized bribery.

With traditional democratic political methods useless, what recourse do ordinary Americans have left? We are now witnessing the only real avenue left: ordinary citizens taking to the streets and demanding change to the rigged economic system that leaves 99% of them behind. It is only a start, but a vital one. Every day more people are awakening to the stark realization that the political and economic system in this country is stacked against them and getting worse.

During the Vietnam era, because they were directly affected, young people took to the streets to protest the war. America's young males were subject to a draft, and the prospect of being shipped off to die in a war they didn't believe in angered them a great deal. And so the war planners wised up and did away with the draft, but look at what has replaced it. America now has perpetual wars for oil, using a "volunteer" military, many of whom have enlisted due to lack of other opportunities. Seemingly unaffected by post-Vietnam wars, students and other young people have been politically inactive since the early 1970s.

But that is coming to an end. Young people are finding few if any jobs awaiting them when they get out of college (that's assuming they were fortunate enough to afford the high tuition). They graduate with no income coming in, but years of student loan debt to pay back. Those without a college or high school degree are even worse off. All of them see the sad reality, that the American Dream is only for the privileged few. If these demonstrations and protests continue to grow and expand, both here and abroad, the big banks, oil companies, billionaires and politicians will have to pay attention and give some ground. Either that, or face the prospect of violent revolution.

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Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Jason A Prophecy Strange Events Happening America Needs to See This 2017

Progressive Christian Bible teaching this week will be part 2 of Luke chapter 17

The Coming of the Kingdom of God
[Luke chapter 17, verses 20-37]
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For this week's Progressive Christian Bible study we'll be going over the second half of chapter 17 of the Gospel of Luke. When we left off last week at verse 19, Jesus had healed ten men of leprosy while traveling along the border from Samaria to Galilee, which would be in the area roughly west of the modern borders where Israel, the West Bank territory and Jordan intersect. As you recall, only one of them bothered to come back and thank Jesus and express his gratitude for his divine healing. “Where are the other nine?”, Jesus had asked, but the man did not know. We should all take a lesson from this, that we are to maintain an attitude of thankfulness and gratitude for the eternal salvation that has been given to us by the shed blood of Christ Jesus! I also recall charging all my readers to live up to that responsibility, so that on the day we stand before Christ not a single one of us would be found at fault, but that all might be found blameless before him. I presume everyone is doing that, but if you're not, you know who you are. Time to tighten up, everybody! Having written all that, let's take up where we let off last week beginning at verse 20.


Once, when asked by the Pharisees when the Kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, 'The Kingdom of God does not come by your careful observation, nor will people say, Here it is', or 'There it is', because the kingdom of God is within you.' Then he said to his disciples, 'The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. Men will tell you, 'There he is!', or 'Here he is!' Do not go running off after them. For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.'” (Luke 17, verses 20-25)


“The kingdom of God”, Jesus explained, “is within you”. It is not a physical place we can visit or live in. We cannot buy from it or sell to it. The only thing we can extract from it is also the only thing we need for our eternities – eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, Savior and Kinsman Redeemer. Beyond Jesus, everything else is little more than an afterthought. There is a very good reason – as far as most church denominations are concerned – that this is never taught in any of the mainstream churches of today. If more people understood that Jesus resides in the hearts and minds of every true believer, many church buildings would have no more reasons to exist! “The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it.” Here Jesus is plainly telling his apostles that none of them will still be on earth by the time the “Kingdom of God” is established. In other words, it was still a long way off back then, and we still faithfully await the establishment of His Kingdom to this day.


Men will tell you, 'There he is!', or 'Here he is!' Do not go running off after them. For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning....” Don't go running after people who claim to have an 'inside track' with God! There is no such thing! Even the apostles came to Jesus privately time after time, asking him to please explain this or that. Any man, woman or church that claims to have a certain access to God that is available nowhere else, well, that's how cults get started. But more importantly, that's how otherwise well-meaning individuals seeking a deeper relationship with Christ get sucked into these damned cults, and cults are idolatry because they interject an intermediary between Christ and humankind when none is necessary! That's why I teach and preach that we have available a direct and personalized relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ that transcends all human understanding as well as all church denominations and cults. The most severe judgment awaits those who perpetrate these cults on well-meaning but otherwise naive individuals, nearly all of whom are new to Christianity. “But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.” Here in verse 25, Jesus again predicts his eventual execution, which by this point was less than a year away. The Pharisees undoubtedly heard all these things Jesus said to the Twelve and had no idea what Jesus was talking about. I'm sure this was intentional on the Lord's part. Now let's move on to part 2 of 3 in our study, starting at verse 26.


Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also it will be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day Noah entered the Ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all. It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.'” (Luke 17, verses 26-29)


Here we can see the path taken by the train of thought of our Lord and Redeemer. In the last sentence Jesus spoke of the near future, when he would be ”rejected by this generation”. But in the following sentence Jesus spoke of the distant future juxtaposed with the distant past when he spoke of Noah, Lot and the “days of the Son of Man”, which referred to his Second Coming. Back then people were living their lives to the fullest with no regard at all for their souls; it was a completely hedonistic lifestyle where 'anything goes'. We have much the same situation today. It is common in some circles (but not all!) for people today to have more than one sex partner, multiple marriages, and even people with criminal records – the majority of which are nonviolent drug offenses or property crimes – have become fairly commonplace. Back when I was a kid, these kinds of things were the exception, but now they are the rule. And as before in days of old, there will be a series of huge natural disasters and major wars in the fairly near future that will wipe out much of humankind. Whether Christians will still be on earth during that time is the topic of endless debate, so I'm not even going there! But the point is that these things will occur, and we must prepare ourselves accordingly. And now let's conclude today's study starting at verse 30.


'It will be just like this on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. On that day no one who is on the roof of his house, with his goods inside, should go down and get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. Remember Lot's wife! Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. I tell you on that night, two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.' 'Where, Lord?', they asked. He replied, 'Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather.'” (Luke 17, verses 30-37)


The Second Coming of Christ will not unfold in some dramatic fashion like a Hollywood stunt or some fantastic special effects. None of those things would do it justice, let me be very clear about that! When Jesus returns for the final time it will be instantaneous, “like lightning”. But before that, when the Rapture of the Bride takes place roughly 3.5 years prior to that (see Daniel chapter 9), those who are called 'home' to Him will be brought before him just as instantaneously. Moreover, whoever tries to take anything with them – anything at all from their shoes on up – will be slaughtered instead. It doesn't specify how this will occur, but why take a chance on finding out when we can be with the Lord forever? “Where, Lord?', they asked. He replied, 'Where there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather.'” So, we can surmise that those left behind after the true Church is taken up will face destruction. They will be swept away along with the destruction of the earth or by a global war. I will decline to speculate on any possible dates for these occurrences, but you can be very sure they will certainly occur! Until then, let's keep our hearts and minds focused on Jesus Christ because he is the Savior of the world and the Kinsman Redeemer of all who place their faith in him. And next week we'll start on Luke chapter 18.


Sunday, July 23, 2017

The Science of Marijuana PBS Documentary

The Truth Juxtaposed Between Jesus and the News Media

Twenty-Four Gross Injustices That The
Mainstream Media Still Won't Discuss
by Pastor Paul J. Bern
To view this in any browser, click here! :-)


During the days of Nazi Germany from the early 1930's up to the mid-'40's, there was a branch of the government called "The Ministry of Propaganda" that dished out a torrent of profane distortions about Jewish people, and later the outcome of the war itself. It was headed by a guy named Joseph Goebbels, who committed suicide at the end of the war rather than face capture, which would surely have been followed by a death sentence at the Nuremberg Trials. Today in America, we have a similar position within the White House staff that we call the Press Secretary, who can be seen regularly on the evening news. He serves the same function, and his/her job is to spoon-feed the media the information du joir of the day. Everybody knows that the media is told what to say and how to say it, and yet there a few protests about it, giving me a feeling of dismay at times. Today's message, in light of the recent events involving still more police shootings of unarmed Americans, is my small contribution towards demanding some truth from our news sources. No more US Government propaganda please, uncle Sam, we have all had a belly-full already!



For decades, the mainstream media in the United States has been accustomed to being able to tell the American people what to think and how to think it. Unfortunately for them, a whole lot of Americans are starting to break free from that paradigm and think for themselves, and the reason can be summed up in two words – information technology. A Gallup survey from 2014 found that over 60 percent of all Americans “have little or no trust” in the mainstream media. That number now exceeds 80%. More people than ever are realizing that the mainstream media is giving them a very distorted version of the truth (“Truth? You can't handle the truth!!”). But now thanks to the Internet, the “alternative media” has exploded in popularity. People want to hear about the things that the mainstream media doesn’t really want to talk about. They want to hear news that is not filtered by corporate bosses and government censors. They are hungry and thirsty for some real truth, and they know that they are not getting it from the mainstream media. If only they knew Jesus as I do! They wouldn't be hungry and thirsty any more, because he said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. (Matthew 5: 7) This is one of the primary reasons why people are doing away with cable TV! It's not just the money saved when they unsubscribe, it's the fact that everybody knows everything we are watching is a load of B.S., and we're sick and tired of all the lies and distortions!



We are watching a media revolution happen, and many in the mainstream media today are totally freaking out about it. In fact, some in the mainstream media have even begun publishing articles that mock the American people for not trusting them. For example, a recent CNN article entitled “Still ‘Paranoid’ After All These Years” portrayed Americans that don’t trust the media as paranoid conspiracy theorists that have left rationality behind. Welcome to 21st-century America. Look around. Trust is hitting historic lows. Less than 15% of Americans have a favorable view of the federal government, a decline of 31% since 2002, according to the Pew Center for People and the Press. Gallup has Congress’ approval rating down in the low teens, after nearing single digits in 2013 and staying there for over a year. And the news media aren’t much better off. “Negative opinions about the performance of news organizations now equal or surpass all-time highs on nine of 12 core measures the Pew Research Center has been tracking since 1985,” a Pew report said last summer. The article goes on to make it sound like it is very irrational to not trust the media, but in this day and age that mistrust has become mandatory! Blindly trusting someone else to do our thinking for us is very dangerous and very dumb!



Anyone that does not acknowledge that the mainstream media has an agenda is either not being honest with themselves, or they are complicit with the powers that control it. The mainstream media presents a view of the world that is very favorable to their big corporate owners and the big corporations that spend billions of dollars to advertise on their networks. The mainstream media is the mouthpiece of the establishment, and the world view being promoted on the big networks is going to be consistent with the economic, financial, political and social goals of the establishment. The mainstream media loves to talk about things that fit with that agenda, and they don’t like to talk about things that suggest that there is something wrong with that agenda. And so here are 24 facts that the mainstream media really doesn’t want to talk about – period, and in no particular order of importance (because they're ALL important!):



#1) The mainstream media doesn’t really want to talk about the fact that gun sales are absolutely skyrocketing all over America. Is it any wonder?
#2) They also don’t really want to talk about the fact that disarming the population has resulted in some of the most horrific massacres in human history.
  • 1911 – Turkey disarmed it’s citizens, and between 1915 – 1917 they murdered 1.5 million Armenians.
  • 1929 – Russia disarmed it’s citizens, and between 1929 – 1953 they murdered 20 million Russians.
  • 1935 – China disarmed it’s citizens, and between 1948 – 1952 they murdered 20 million Chinese.
  • 1938 – Germany disarmed it’s citizens, and between 1939 – 1945 they murdered 16 million Jews.
  • 1956 – Cambodia disarmed it’s citizens, and between 1975 – 1977 they murdered 1 million educated people.
  • 1964 – Guatemala disarmed it’s citizens, and between 1964 – 1981 they murdered 100,000 Mayan Indians.
  • 1970 – Uganda disarmed it’s citizens, and between 1971 – 1979 they murdered 300,000 Christians.
#3) They don’t really want to talk about the fact that a bill allowing for the “indefinite military detention of US citizens on American soil” has already been passed by the U.S. Senate and signed into law by president Obama. Never mind that it's completely unconstitutional (see US Constitution, Bill of Rights, 4th Amendment).
#4) They don’t really want to talk about the fact that volcanoes all along the Pacific ocean's Ring of Fire are roaring to life. It seems like a new eruption is being reported every few days now. In fact, a red alert has been issued by the USGS for a massive volcano that sits along the border between Chile and Argentina, as well as for the super-volcano at Yellowstone National Park. An eruption there could devastate much of North America, killing millions.
#5) They don’t really want to talk about the fact that the use of genetically engineered seeds has caused on explosion of new “super weeds” that are incredibly difficult for farmers to kill.
#6) They don’t really want to talk about the fact that renowned trends forecaster Gerald Celente has been predicting a “financial disaster” somewhere between September 2017 to as late as May 2018, but no later and more likely sooner.
#7) They don’t really want to talk about the fact that it is easier to get into Harvard than it is to get a job as a flight attendant in America today.
#8) They don’t really want to talk about the fact that nearly 400 TSA employees have been fired for stealing from travelers since 2003. Our tax dollars hard at work. Nice.
#9) They don’t really want to talk about the fact that giant corporations such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft are funneling gigantic amounts of money through offshore banking havens such as the Cayman Islands in an effort to avoid taxes.
#10) They don’t really want to talk about the fact that the U.S. dollar is in real danger of losing its status as the primary reserve currency of the world. It's no longer a question of if this might occur, but when. China and Russia are buying up all the world's gold and silver reserves. What does that tell you about their view of the US dollar?
#11) They don’t really want to talk about the fact that the mainstream media always complains about what the president does or doesn't, when in actuality they should be doing a much better job keeping track of Washington lobbyists, Wall Street speculators, their bankers, and all their filthy lucre.
#12) They don’t really want to talk about the fact that there are government websites that give immigrants instructions about how to come over to our country illegally and then apply for SNAP benefits while formerly middle class American workers and their children starve for lack of work. Yes, America has always been a nation of immigrants, but never before at the expense of any of its citizens. Something is very wrong here (BTW, I don't blame the immigrants. They are economic refugees from the third world).
#13) They don’t really want to talk about the fact that the U.S. economy has lost millions of jobs to nations where it is legal to pay workers slave labor wages. The mainstream media is totally married to the one world economic agenda that their corporate owners make so much money from, and so they say nothing as a steady stream of businesses and jobs continue to leave America.
#14) They don’t really want to talk about the fact that hunger and poverty are absolutely exploding in the United States at the same time that they are telling us about the “economic recovery”.
#15) They don’t really want to talk about the fact that North Korea now has a three-stage rocket with enough range to potentially hit the western United States.
#16) They don’t really want to talk about the fact that the United States Postal Service is losing 25 million dollars a day and is on the verge of financial collapse.
#17) They don’t really want to talk about the fact that our biggest oil supplier in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia, still kills people for changing religions. They also continue to ignore the fact that all but 2 of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals.
#18) They don’t really want to talk about the fact that political correctness has taken over America. The truth is that the media does not see any problem with that at all.
#19) They don’t really want to talk about the fact that nearly half a million employees of the federal government are making more than $100,000 a year.
#20) They don’t really want to talk about the fact that the birth rate in the United States has fallen to an all-time low. The elite are absolutely thrilled that fewer babies are being born. Fewer of us means less competition for them.
#21) They don’t really want to talk about the fact that many major U.S. cities are seeing violent crime totally spiral out of control.
#22) They don’t really want to talk about the fact that America's election system is rigged from top to bottom.
#23) They don’t really want to talk about the fact that during the first four years of the Obama administration, the U.S. national debt grew by about as much as it did from the time that George Washington took office to the time that George W. Bush took office.
#24) They don’t really want to talk about the fact that the Federal Reserve created the conditions for every financial crisis since our country's inception, and their mismanagement of the economy has now brought America to the verge of another horrible economic downturn. Maybe the Federal Reserve should be nationalized so that printing and coining money returns to the auspices of the US Treasury like our Constitution specifies. All the US top-tier leadership needs to do is return to the original Constitution. It's the perfect way to wipe out the so-called national debt. Because America's so-called “national debt” has been manufactured by the same entities who are its lenders. Our “national debt” is fake news.

Saturday, July 22, 2017

Another free sample from my recent book release; "Cannabis Legalization and the Bible: Compatible or Not?"


Six Ways That Cannabis Criminalization

Defies All Reason and Logic

[1. Pot smokers punished more than sex offenders] Drugs are so reviled in the US and many other parts of the world that using them is considered worse than any other crime. If you commit violent crimes – arson or rape, for instance – a judge will determine all the facts of the case and consider your criminal record, if any, in sentencing you to prison or not. But if you are caught selling or growing marijuana, there are mandatory minimum sentences involved at the federal and most state levels that take the power of sentencing out of a judge’s hands and turns it into a Chinese take-out menu – a marijuana plant from Column A, within 1000 feet of a school from Column B, that will be 10 years with no parole. Next!

Still don’t believe drug use is considered worse than violent crime? Then why does our federal government pay a bounty for drug arrests, but no other arrests? These monies are called Byrne Grants and they are awarded to local police department for the express purpose of fighting drug crime. In actuality, they incentivize police to go after low-level drug offenders for the easy stat-padding drug arrest, rather than the tougher-to-catch-and-prosecute drug kingpins or the actual violent criminals out there. Still not convinced? Then explain how the Supreme Court could find the death penalty unconstitutional to punish the raping of a child, but there still exists on the books a federal death penalty for growing 60,000 marijuana plants? Or how a serial raping arsonist in Montana gets less time than a guy who merely rented space to a medical marijuana dispensary? Or how a guy who pleads no contest to sodomizing a four-year-old in Oklahoma gets a year behind bars but a college student with a dorm room stash could get life in prison? Or why there are more arrests for marijuana possession almost every year than for all violent crimes combined?

[2. The separation of church and weed.] Even an American educated in one of our fine public schools knows our Constitution recognizes freedom of religious expression. You can be Catholic, Baptist, Mormon, or have no religion at all, and that right is so important our Founding Fathers made it part of our First Amendment. You may practice your religion any way you choose, so long as you don’t violate other laws. But even then, our courts have given believers some latitude to violate laws in the name of religion. Nowhere is this more evident than in the use of drugs as a sacramental rite. A parent allowing their seven-year-old child a gulp of wine at the Olive Garden might earn a visit from Child Protective Services, but the same gulp at the cathedral is acceptable for children when it symbolizes the Blood of Christ. Our Supreme Court ruled several years ago that the use of an illegal Schedule I drug can be allowed for adherents of a South American religion using ayahuasca tea, a powerful hallucinogen that is considered a sacrament by their believers. Our Congress even went so far as to pass a Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) to protect such use when the Supreme Court allowed the State of Oregon to deny unemployment benefits to two Native Americans who were fired over sacramental peyote use. So it seems in the case of drug laws, the compelling state interest is preventing you from using drugs. Very few people use ayahuasca tea or peyote, it doesn’t grow everywhere, the religions that find them sacred are well-established in historical tradition, and the sincere adherents are easily identifiable. So allowing a few native religious believers their powerful psychedelic sacraments isn’t going to seriously hinder any efforts to prevent you from using those drugs. But your herb stash? That’s different, because there are 26 million Americans who are toking at least once a year and pot grows like a weed. In that event, trying to stop anyone from using, buying, growing, or selling pot would become nearly impossible.

[3. A patient on one of side of the border and a criminal on the other.] It is easy enough to find examples where differing state laws make you a criminal on one side of an imaginary line but not on the other. That applies to the numerous states that have passed medical marijuana laws and their non-medical marijuana neighbors. But what people don’t realize about medical marijuana states is that most don’t recognize each other. Only Arizona, Delaware, Maine, Michigan, and Rhode Island of the currently 17 states that recognize medical marijuana will accept the cards/recommendations from other medical marijuana states. So California and New Mexico patients who cross the border into Arizona would be safe, but Arizona patients who cross into California or New Mexico could be arrested for marijuana possession. Nowhere is it more absurd than the case of the Pacific Northwest medical marijuana states, Oregon and Washington. Both states have virtually the same list of qualifying conditions for medical marijuana. Both states allow patients to cultivate more than a dozen cannabis plants. Both states allow patients to possess up to a pound and a half (680 grams) of usable medicine. But if a Portland patient crosses the Columbia River into Vancouver with 40 grams of pot, he’s a felon. If the Vancouver patient crosses into Portland with 28 grams of pot, she’s a felon. Lesser amounts get you a 24-hour mandatory minimum jail stay in Washington but only a ticket and loss of driver’s license (even if you weren’t driving) in Oregon. Can you imagine if getting your driver’s license was something you had to do for each state you wanted to drive through? Now imagine that instead of a driving license, we were talking about licensing whether or not you would be able to eat today and not suffer bone-wracking pain and spasms, and you had to renew this license at full cost every year.

[4. Fine line between legal gardening and a felony.] In those 17 medical marijuana states, trying to determine which pot smokers are healthy enough to deserve a cage and which ones are sick enough to protect from arrest is bound to lead to logical absurdities. Fourteen of the states allow patients or their caregivers to tend a garden to grow their own medicine. To deter large-scale growing operations, some states have implemented limits on the number of marijuana plants a patient may grow. In a state like Washington, this is simple enough, as the state has specified fifteen as the total number of plants allowed. But in Oregon and some other medical marijuana states, a distinction has been made between “mature” and “immature” marijuana plants. Oregon’s limit is the most generous, allowing six “mature” and eighteen “immature” plants, to accommodate the fact that patients have to keep a continuous cycle of plants coming into maturity in order to maintain a steady supply of medicine. However, the law completely abandons horticultural science in defining what a “mature” marijuana plant is. In nature, a mature plant is one that is producing flowers, or in the case of cannabis, the buds that patients are putting into bongs, vaporizers, and brownies. But in the Oregon Revised Statutes, a “mature” plant is one that is greater than 12 inches in any direction or is producing buds. So your thirteen-inch pot plant vegetating in the closet is “mature”, even though it is weeks from being mature. It would be like setting the limits of sexual consent based on how tall a child is. This has led to situations where growers are diligently following the law, tending six flowering mature plants and the next three sets of six plants in three stages, only to have one set shoot up from ten inches to fourteen inches over a weekend growth spurt. Now the grower has twelve “mature” plants, even though only the six mature plants can produce any marijuana, and he’s no longer a patient, he’s a felon.

[5. Feds denying that marijuana is medicine at all costs.] The government’s intransigence on the medical utility of cannabis is the most stubborn and hypocritical federal policy ever. The feds will tell you, with a straight face, that marijuana is a Schedule I substance and as such has no recognized medical value within the United States, even as seventeen states expressly recognize its medical value. Now if you complain about the 17,000 peer-reviewed research papers sitting in the federal 'PubMed' database that demonstrate medical use of cannabis, you’re barking up the wrong tree. This is a federal government that itself has patented the medical utility of cannabis and still tells you it is not medicine. As if that weren’t hypocritical enough, the US government maintains a pot farm at the University of Mississippi. This is the one legal weed grow in America, expressly allowed under the 1961 UN Convention on Narcotic Drugs for the production of cannabis for research purposes. In 1975, a glaucoma sufferer named Robert Randall sued for the right to use marijuana, lest he go blind, and won. This decision led to the development of the compassionate, investigative new drug program that produced and delivered medical marijuana for Randall.

Shortly thereafter, more patients sued to get access to medical marijuana, expanding to a few more federal medical marijuana patients. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, AIDS activists began marshaling thousands of applications for HIV+ gay men who found marijuana to help combat the symptoms of their disease. So rather than expand the compassion to thousands who would have benefited, the Bush Administration in 1992 closed the program to new applicants and the Clinton Administration in 1999 declared it would not be reopened. However, the program was not closed to the patients who had already been approved. Today there are four remaining federal medical marijuana patients who receive a tin of eight or more ounces of pre-rolled federal medical marijuana from the federal medical marijuana farm every month. But, federally speaking, there is no such thing as medical marijuana.

[6. The Drug Enforcement Administration forbids cultivation of a non-drug.] Nothing is more absurd in the war on marijuana than the ban on industrial hemp. If you don’t know, hemp is also cannabis, but cultivated differently as to produce a seed and fiber crop that is exceptionally low in any drug value. It takes anywhere from 2% to 4% THC content (tetrahydrocannabinol, the “high” ingredient in pot) for someone to cop a buzz off weed. Some of the finer medical marijuana varieties may top 15% THC content. By law and international agreements, industrial hemp must be produced at less than 0.3% THC content. It’s safe to say that there is a greater alcohol concentration allowed in a “near-beer” than THC concentration in hemp. There’s more THC in my bloodstream as I write this than is found in a field of industrial hemp plants. But even though there is absolutely no way one can use hemp as a drug, its cultivation is banned by the Drug Enforcement Administration, because it contains any amount of THC. If this standard were applied to other drugs, you’d never have another legal poppy seed bagel, because they contain trace amounts of opium. SWAT teams would be raiding your grandma’s house for the decorative poppies in her backyard garden, as they could actually be processed into heroin. This is even more maddening when you realize how keeping hemp illegal works against the DEA’s stated goal of reducing outdoor marijuana cultivation. Though some cops seem to think hemp would allow pot growers to hide their illegal crop, cross-pollination of hemp into marijuana makes both crops worse. The marijuana becomes less “druggy” and the hemp becomes less “industrial”. The last thing a marijuana grower wants next to his prized plants is a hemp farm.

What is the most dangerous activity you can engage in? If you guessed doing illegal drugs, you would be wrong. Extreme sports like big wave surfing, base or bunjey jumping, cave diving, white-water rafting and mountain climbing all have a higher rate of risk to life and limb. Yet the question of a ban on these behaviors beloved by "adrenaline addicts" is viewed as ludicrous, even when the risk of death, say, in climbing Mount Everest once (until recently, about 1 in 3) is greater than the annual risk of dying from heroin addiction (around 1% to 4%). Or consider mundane activities like driving: Car accidents are responsible for 1% of annual deaths nationwide. Cigarettes and alcohol do at least as much, if not more, harm to each user than heroin or cocaine. Alcohol, cocaine and heroin have a 3% to 15% rate of addiction, depending on how it is measured—and tobacco's rate is much higher. Yet the risks don't align well with their legal and social status, especially when you consider that marijuana is safer than any of the legal drugs. The reasons for this inconsistency around risk are complicated. Driving has huge personal and economic benefits. Risky sports are seen as noble challenges that foster the human will toward exploration, adventure and growth. When it comes to non-medical drug use, however, discussion of benefits tends to be either dismissed as delusional or simply stifled. 

I don't mention these facts to promote drug use – not at all! That I feel compelled to immediately include such a disclaimer underlines my point: Our values shape our perception of risk and the way we make drug policy. If we recognize only the risks and ignore the benefits, we fail to understand that the real problems are addiction and harm — not the substances themselves and the people who use them. For instance, when we talk about the “epidemics” of Oxycontin, methamphetamine or heroin, we rarely acknowledge that the majority of users never become addicted. Over the course of a lifetime, only about 10% to 15% of regular users ever get hooked for an entire lifetime. That risk is not insignificant: Few people would fly on a plane that crashed every tenth flight. But focusing on use as the main factor in addiction obscures what is actually at stake. There are, decade after decade, headlines about the fall of one drug and the rise of another. Yet the overall rate of people with addictions remains fairly constant. Although population differences and other variables make the numbers hard to compare exactly, a large national survey in 1990 found a 3.6% rate of illegal drug problems (such as abuse or dependence) in people ages 15 to 54 during the previous 12 months. The most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which includes people from age 12 to those in their 80s or older, found a 3.5% rate of abuse or dependence in 2014, the latest year such stats are available. While that rate may not seem much lower, the difference is probably due to the later survey’s inclusion of people over 55, who are numerous and had a 2011 addiction or drug misuse rate of a mere 0.8% or less. It is worth noting that 1990 was the peak of fears about a non-ending crack epidemic; by contrast, today, while there are concerns about growing prescription opioid addiction, the actual rates have been steady since 2006.

Print edition available online from my website
Or, get it on Kindle, in Audio format, or view more titles on my Amazon page. Many thanks to all!

Friday, July 21, 2017

Anonymous How Can Anyone Ignore These Warnings?

Another free book excerpt from Author Rev. Paul J. Bern

"Sole Survivor" by Rev. Paul J. Bern

A free sample from the book's author!

Watch the video at http://youtu.be/5Bxi7x0nUc0

Available in print, digital or audio formats on Amazon, Kindle, Nook, Apple and Goodreads. To learn more, go to www.pcmatl.org/books-and-donations 





From that day forward, the relationship between my adoptive father and myself was continually adversarial.

My parents both became nearly impossible to please, and I absolutely hated school anyway, so there we were at an impasse. They were always insisting that I get better grades, and I would respond by doing just enough work to get a passing grade. So every so often I would get another whipping with a belt, particularly around report card time. Sometimes it was because I had a lot of behavioral problems at school, other times it was for an unsatisfactory report card, and once for going over to the house of someone I knew from church to listen to their Beatles records (the Beatles were a very big deal during this time). I remember one day I just sat in my room after enduring yet another beating – I don't remember what it was for but that no longer matters – and cried to the point of sobbing uncontrollably about my whole situation. I was saying, “Why me, Lord? Why does it always have to be me that gets beat with a belt? Is my whole life going to be like this? Is there no way it can get any better?” It was at just that point that I heard what seemed like a soft, low voice. Although not audible in the human sense, it was just barely audible deep down from within me, and it said, “You can't possibly imagine the things I have in store for you”. I did not realize it at the time, but I had just had my first encounter with the true God. Although I understood the words well enough, I failed to grasp their meaning because I was only about eight years old. But I have always remembered what happened when I was alone in my room that day.

The next time I had an encounter with God – which interestingly enough never occurred when I was in church – was about a year later. By this time the abuse that had been going on had gradually gotten worse. The animosity between my parents and myself had grown a lot right along with it, and the beatings had become more frequent. I remember hating not just my parents, but my entire family situation as well as detesting school. Quite frankly, I was bored nearly to the point of insanity with school. Second grade was a rehashing of first grade, third grade a rehashing of the second, and so on, as if we needed to learn everything twice in order to grasp its meaning. I have heard some talk and read on the Internet about the “dumbing down” of America primary and secondary schools. Well, this has been going on ever since the 1960's at least, and probably even before that. It's just that no one noticed it at first because it began so gradually. To this day, education reform has been one of the causes I have undertaken in my adult life.

Thursday, July 20, 2017

Progressive Christian Bible teaching this week will be part 1 of Luke chapter 17

Christ's Teaching on Faith and Forgiveness
[Luke chapter 17, verses 1-19]
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This week as we continue our in-depth analysis of the writings of the apostle Luke, we find ourselves moving on to chapter 17 of his version of the Gospel. When we left off last week, Jesus was expounding on his story of Lazarus and the rich man, and the folly of the pursuit of riches and 'prosperity'. Today we find Jesus and his apostles in a teaching session, which is apparently in a different time and place than the end of chapter 16, but presumably soon after. So let's all begin right from the top.


Jesus said to his disciples, 'Things that cause people to sin are bound to come, but woe to that person through whom they come. It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.. So watch yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back to you and say, 'I repent', forgive him.'” (Luke 17, verses 1-4)


In what ways could one cause someone else to sin? This goes far deeper than the usual definitions of people being misled into sinning through deception, or by being enticed with money in exchange for anything ranging from false testimony all the way up to contract murder. Notice Jesus words – “It would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around his neck than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.” People sin, everybody does, it's just a fact of life. Acknowledging our sinful nature to Jesus and to ourselves is the first step towards becoming his follower, and for the redemption of our sins. No one can attain eternal salvation in and through Jesus Christ without first doing those two things. But notice Jesus also said, “cause one of these little ones to sin”. This means anybody who misleads or pressures children into doing wrong, that sin will fall on the adult's head while the child will be spared by the Lord because he/she was an abuse victim. Children have been sold into slavery, mostly sex slavery but also as child laborers, for the entire history of humankind. So Jesus was also referring to all those children when he spoke those words all those centuries ago.


If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.” Since we all want to be forgiven for our sins, we must first forgive others for theirs. How can we pray for forgiveness and give thanks to Jesus for dying on the cross and shedding his blood for us if we still hold grudges against others, or if we refuse to let go of old hurts and offenses committed against us by others? If your brother/sister sins against you 7 times and comes to you asking to be forgiven 7 times and repents each time, we have a moral obligation to forgive each person because Jesus first forgave us when he made his supreme sacrifice on the cross! Moreover, since we must be willing to forgive, we must be equally determined not to judge others even if they insult or otherwise offend us. Like it or not, this is Christian living as it was truly meant to be. There are some believers who would respond, “But the Bible says that when we see evil we should expose it!” (see Ephesians 5, verses 8-14) What they don't understand (or don't want to see, take your pick) is that this is taking those verses out of context. The apostle Paul wrote those words as exposing evils out in the world, but Jesus said, “If your brother sins...”, meaning brothers within the church. It is a good thing to expose evil, but that doesn't mean we are supposed to turn into an army of tattle-tales or snitches. So let the distinction between the two be absolutely clear! And now let's move on to part 2 of today's lesson.


The apostles said to the Lord, 'Increase our faith!' He replied, If you can have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it will obey you. Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant who comes in from the field, 'Come along now and sit down to eat'? Would he not rather say, 'Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink'? Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are only unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.'” (Luke 17, verses 5-10)


Jesus was telling the apostles they had a long way to go to understand what true faith actually was, the intrinsic nature of it. To get a feel for what Jesus was saying, try going outdoors and (after looking around in case there is someone nearby with a camera or phone) walk up to the nearest tree and tell it to go jump in the ocean! This is essentially what Jesus meant, but much of the flavor of the original meaning has gotten lost in the sandstorm of time. Then, Jesus explains to his apostles why he used the example of the uprooted tree. 'Since I have this level of faith and you guys are not even close to being there at this point in your walk with me, do not expect me to do any special favors for you just because I am the Messiah', is very close to exactly what Jesus meant right here. You are my apostles, Jesus was saying, but you are still my servants. Jesus didn't owe the apostles a thank-you every time they served the crowds that he attracted like a magnet to steel. They should not expect any special accolades, Jesus told them plainly, for their service to the Son of God, because God doesn't play favorites. Moreover, the apostles' reward was not of this world, but the next. As true followers of Christ, we should expect much the same. God believes in unconditional equality and so should we! And now let's conclude this week's study starting at verse 11.


Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. As he was going into a village, ten men with leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, 'Jesus, Master, have pity on us!' When he saw them he said, 'Go, show yourselves to the priests.' And as they went, they were cleansed. One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus feet and thanked him – and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, 'Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?' Then he said to him, 'Rise and go, your faith has made you well.'” (Luke 17, verses 11-19)


Samaria was located in what we now call the West Bank area around the Jordan river just a few miles from the Sea of Galilee. So, the Bible recounts the time when 10 men with leprosy met Jesus on the road to Galilee. Because they had leprosy, a hideous and contagious skin disease, they did not speak to him face to face, but only called from a distance asking for healing for their afflictions. “Go and show yourselves to the priests”, Jesus told them. Jesus had already given them an affirmative answer and it manifested itself so that all 10 men were healed on their way to the Temple (presumably the Temple at Jerusalem, although there were many more than just the one). Yet only one of them had the good sense to come back and personally thank Jesus for his healing, and thank him he certainly did!


He threw himself at Jesus feet and thanked him – and he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, 'Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?'” Samaritans and Jews hated one another, mainly because the Jews thought they were much too good to associate with 'inferior' (in their view) Samaritans. In modern times, this would be equivalent to an American Jesus healing 10 “illegal immigrants”, only to have just one come back to thank him. Or, ten gang members from the roughest parts of any major metropolitan area, and so on. In other words, it was amazing that any of them came back and thanked Jesus, who was himself a Jewish man. This is a shining example of the mercy and grace of the Son of God. Jesus wants to heal all who are afflicted, no matter what it is, regardless of race, creed, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, age or gender! Embrace him! Embrace, don't merely “accept” Jesus like they say on “Christian TV”, as if we're doing Him a favor! And, unlike the other 9 Samaritans that Jesus healed, let's all be sure and maintain an attitude of thankfulness in our everyday living. When we look around us, we realize that we all have so much to be thankful for, up to and including our very lives. So for all this week, let's continue to have constantly thankful hearts. Focusing on this makes living life so much easier, too. And next week we'll finish up chapter 17.

Sunday, July 16, 2017

Biblical history is being mirrored by current events -- again!

History Repeats Itself, Even in the Bible
by Pastor Paul J. Bern
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One of the hot-button issues facing the entire world, and particularly in the US, is that of economic inequality. We find ourselves in an intractable and intolerable situation where 99% of the country's wealth is concentrated into the hands of an elite few. As this situation is ongoing, the American people find themselves compelled to pay for the most expensive health care, higher education, and housing prices on the entire planet! Plus, we find ourselves taxed to death by a federal income tax whose legality is open to question, and hemmed in both politically and economically by an unconstitutional curtailment of our rights, all while having the world's largest prison population! This would be ridiculous if it weren't so serious. For this week's message, then, I want to share a passage of scripture that closely resembles our current situation, so go to your Bible app or open your Bible to the Book of Nehemiah chapter 5, verses 1-13, and I quote:


Now the men and their wives raised a great outcry against their Jewish brothers. Some were saying, 'We and our sons and daughters are numerous; in order for us to eat and stay alive, we must get grain.' Others were saying, we are mortgaging our fields, our vineyards and our homes to get grain during the famine.' Still others were saying, 'We have had to borrow money to pay the king's tax on our fields and vineyards. Although we are of the same flesh and blood as our countrymen and though our sons are as good as theirs, yet we have to subject our sons and daughters to slavery. Some of our daughters have already been enslaved, but we are powerless, because our fields and vineyards belong to others.'” (Nehemiah 5, verses 1-5)


To put all this in its proper context, the Old Testament Israelites had been conquered by the ancient Assyrians and had been in exile for many years. With Israel's first period of exile ending, they had begun to return from Assyria where they had been enslaved, and a great rebuilding process had begun in and around Jerusalem. There was, unfortunately, also a great famine going on at that time because there had not yet been a harvest, and this was creating a lot of problems. The above passage of scripture has striking similarities to what is happening throughout much of the world today. People don't have enough to eat. They have trouble meeting their financial obligations because prices are impossibly high. Back then they had to give away their sons and daughters as slaves – presumably sex slaves – because they had no other way to pay their debts. Today, some of our sons and daughters are still taken as sex slaves. It's just that they are taken by force and not by barter. The rest of us are slaves, too. It's just that the world is a lot more subtle about it than back then. We work our jobs – if we're lucky enough to have one of those – for pay that is oftentimes pathetic. Many younger workers don't realize how drastically wages have been cut in the last 15 years or so. So, there are striking parallels between the time of Nehemiah and today. Now, let me go on with the second half of today's scripture, beginning at verse 6.


When I heard their outcry and these charges, I was very angry. I pondered them in my mind and then accused the nobles and officials. I told them, 'You are exacting usury from your own countrymen!' So I called together a large meeting to deal with them and said, 'As far as possible, we have brought back our Jewish brothers who were sold to the Gentiles. Now you are selling your brothers, only for them to be sold back to us!' They kept quiet, because they could find nothing to say. So I continued, 'What you are doing is not right. Shouldn't you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of your Gentile enemies? I and my brothers and my men are also lending the people money and grain. But let the exacting of usury stop! Give back to them immediately their fields, vineyards, olive groves and houses, and also the usury you are charging them – the hundredth part of the money, grain, new wine and oil.' 'We will give it back', they said. 'And we will not demand anything more from them. We will do as you say.' Then I summoned the priests and made the nobles and officials take an oath to do what they had promised. I also shook out the folds of my robe and said, 'In this way may God shake out of his house and possessions every man who does not keep this promise. So may such a man be shaken out and emptied!' And the whole assembly said, 'Amen!' and praised the Lord. And the people did as they had promised.” (Nehemiah 5, verse 6-13)


There are striking similarities between what was going on in Israel during the time of the first rebuilding of the wall around Jerusalem and what is occurring in America today. Everything is financed. Nobody pays cash for their cars much anymore, and everybody uses credit cards to make purchases from a flat screen TV all the way down to a week's worth of groceries. We are forced to pay interest on everything we need – even the food we eat. This situation has gotten completely out of hand, and unless the government steps in and stops it the American people will find themselves forced into conflict with the government, the outcome of which could lead to another American civil war. In the first civil war, it was fought over ending the slavery of Black people. The second one will be a fight to end the enslavement of us all, and there are going to be casualties, so you may as well start getting used to that idea. This is what was occurring during the time of the prophet Nehemiah.


Nehemiah then told the authorities, “What you are doing is not right. Shouldn't you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of your Gentile enemies? I and my brothers and my men are also lending the people money and grain. But let the exacting of usury stop!” Nehemiah and his brothers and enlisted men were helping those in need as best they could, but they were charging no interest for their services. They did it for free because they realized they were in a crisis situation that called for emergency measures to make sure everyone got their basic needs met. Their compatriots, on the other hand, were guilty of price gouging and criminal exploitation against their own countrymen, and in some cases even their own families. So Nehemiah told the nobles and officials to give it all back, very similar to an executive order issued by the President. Notice too, in verse 11, they were charging 1% interest, far less than what is being charged today (on the best of terms, 30 year mortgages are currently at just over 2.5%).


Imagine the uproar if such an executive order were issued today! I can almost see it now – president Trump giving a direct order to the banking and financial industries that all single family home loans were to be canceled immediately – would that be fun to watch or what? One thing is for sure – the American people are overburdened with excessive housing costs, combined with stagnant wages in the face of other rising living expenses like groceries. “We will give it back', they said. 'And we will not demand anything more from them. We will do as you say.' Then I summoned the priests and made the nobles and officials take an oath to do what they had promised.” Wouldn't it be awesome if we could do that today? Actually, we could, it's just that there is still insufficient political willpower among the American people. A national strike could be called – a mortgage strike. Everybody stopping their mortgage payments all at once would be the same as slaughtering the beast by starvation! But first, we should do a dry run using student loans as the pariah that this debt crisis has become. Then we call a meeting via social media, and make the powers that be promise to give us all some badly needed financial relief! Either that or we take to the streets and shut down entire cities.


I also shook out the folds of my robe and said, 'In this way may God shake out of his house and possessions every man who does not keep this promise. So may such a man be shaken out and emptied!' And the whole assembly said, 'Amen!' and praised the Lord. And the people did as they had promised.” The above example is what it looked like to issue a law that had some teeth to it back in those days. I can practically visualize president Trump calling his senior leaders into a conference room and telling everybody that everyone's mortgage, their student loans plus all unpaid medical bills will be canceled immediately and without preconditions. All the Wall Street bankers would have heart attacks, and debt collectors would have to go and find a new profession – just like myself. I was once a well-paid senior IT professional, but my career evaporated after the dot-com crash and I wound up working as a courier contractor for a local delivery company. I survived the changes I went through, and so will they because actually we are not so different after all. In closing let me also say those noblemen and government officials repaid those people they had exploited out of fear of the consequences from God. That fear of the Lord is largely absent here in modern times, but soon it will return, and then everyone will know exactly who God is.