In Honor of Rev. Dr. King Jr.

I Dare To Dream

(excerpt from “The Middle and Working Class Manifesto” (3^rd edition),

by Rev. Paul J. Bern)

The maniacal march of economic inequality, from which springs the source of racism, poverty, crime, violence, and lack of access to health care and higher education, has become the new civil rights issue of the 21^st century. Rev. Dr. King's dream of unconditional equality throughout the country can finish becoming a reality when the economic barriers that we all face on a daily basis finally come down for good, like an economic Berlin Wall. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke to the masses during the 1963 civil rights march on Washington and said, “I have a dream...”. By writing and publishing these words it is my intent to help take up where Rev. Dr. King's Dream left off, and to do anything I can to help finish the job that he started. And so let me slightly change that to, “I dare to dream”.

I dare to dream of a world in which the widening gap between rich and poor is gone forever. We all deserve to live in a world where wealth has been redistributed in a peaceful and orderly manner and not by the barrel of a gun. I dare to dream of a country where wealth has been redistributed in 4 ways. First, every worker earns a living wage so poverty can be eliminated. Second, free higher education and vocational retraining must be available to every worker for life, including daycare when necessary, because everyone has the right to better themselves at will. Third, I envision an America where quality health care is available to every worker at nominal cost for life. Single-payer health care based on the current Medicare model must not be reserved only for certain people, but it must be a fundamental human right for all ages. I dare to dream of an America where there will be no such thing as someone without health insurance, where every citizen will have lifetime health care and prescription drug coverage without qualification, and where there will be the fewest sick days for American workers and their children of any country in the developed world. Fourth, “we the people” demand the abolition of the federal tax code, including elimination of the despised federal withholding tax, which would give every American worker or business owner an immediate 18% net pay raise.

I dare to dream of a new America with a robust and viable economy. That is why I have been insisting on a $15.00 per hour minimum wage since 2010 (earlier versions of my book were $10.00 and $14.00 per hour respectively). I dare to dream of a new America where education will be subsidized from the cradle to the grave so that the US develops the most formidable work force the world has ever seen. I dare to dream of an America where all workers have the right to organize, to a flexible work week and to paid family or maternity leave. Most other developed countries already do this. The US is the only exception and that has got to change. The only remaining question in my mind is whether we can accomplish this peacefully or otherwise, and it is looking more and more to me like it could be the latter, and that concerns me a great deal.

I dare to dream of an America where affordable housing is the law of the land, where home ownership becomes a right and not a privilege so we can wipe out homelessness, and where the price of a house is limited to the sum total of ten years income of any given individual or household purchasers. I insist on a country where home ownership isn't part of an exclusive club with the highest “credit scores”. It is, and must become, a basic human right. Even the cave men lived in caves of their own!

I dare to dream of a country with new public works programs that put an end to unemployment forever so the USA can have full employment all the time. America's infrastructure needs to be rebuilt, and its inner cities are in dire need of an overhaul. What a better way to accomplish this! People by and large don't want a handout, they want to earn a decent living!

I dare to dream of a new America with an all-new public school and university system that has an Internet-based curriculum that can be updated at will, and that is second to none in the developed world, with a new and more intensive school year, and that has viable replacements for standardized testing, and where class size is limited by law. I dare to dream of a country where teachers, police officers and firefighters make what their Congressional representatives make, and vice versa.

I dare to dream of a new nation where unconditional equality is the law of the land for every citizen without exception, and this will include economic equality. I dare to dream of a new America where there is no more income tax, no capital gains tax, no alternative minimum tax, no estate tax, no self-employment tax, and where families and businesses can have a tax free income unless they are very wealthy. In its place would be a national sales tax, such as a Consumption Tax, where everyone pays proportionately the same tax rate on only what they consume, plus an “excess wealth tax” for persons with annual incomes exceeding $3 million, and for businesses with annual proceeds exceeding $700 million, so America's budget can be balanced and fair.

I dare to dream of a better USA where personal privacy is the law of the land, where identity theft is a thing of the past, and where it will be illegal for employers to obtain the credit files or credit scores of any job applicant.

I dare to dream of a more compassionate America where children have the right to a challenging and progressive learning environment, and where kids will be legally guaranteed freedom from hunger, sickness and violence, and where all God's children will have the right to safe adoption, foster care and day care.

I dare to dream of an all-new voting system – including the abolition of the elitist Electoral College – that is Internet-based, paperless, and that can be accessed from any location using any computer or wireless device, instead of wasting our time and fuel and losing work time going to polling stations, and instead of using poorly secured and easily- tampered-with voting machines.

I dare to dream of an America of integrity where all of the dirty special interest money and all the filthy lucre is abolished from our political process. I dare to dream of an America where the Wall Street shysters who crashed the US economy are finally brought to justice, and where the keys and title deeds to all of the fraudulently foreclosed homes are returned to their rightful owners.

I dare to dream of the end to America's sinister war on drugs, where all convicted nonviolent drug offenders can qualify for alternative sentences for their offenses so they may obtain early release, and where all natural (i.e. cannabis, mushrooms, peyote, etc.) drugs are legalized, regulated and taxed by appropriate legislation for medical and recreational use.

Finally, I dare to dream of a world in which all this is financially easily achievable. That's because all the money currently being wasted on the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, and to a lesser extent in Pakistan, Libya and elsewhere will be redirected towards all these dreams that I have just mentioned. The money is already there, its just being budgeted in all the wrong places. Let me tell you why. If the US military took all the money it spent occupying Afghanistan for just one day and put it into an interest-bearing account, there would be enough money available to send every American school kid from the first grade up to high school seniors through 4 years of college fully paid for, including tuition, dorms, books, food, access to the Internet and to public transportation. Here's another example: If the US government took all that money set aside from one days worth of military expenditures in just Afghanistan alone, there would be enough money to build a 2,500 square feet house, fully furnished and stocked with a year's worth of groceries, with all the utilities already turned on, for every homeless person in the US, beginning with all the kids. That's how easily we can end homelessness in the richest country in the world. Since the political will to do these things currently isn't there, and since it never will be so long as we wait on the government to fix all this stuff, it is up to “we the people” to do the job ourselves.

Just as surely as there was an Arab Spring beginning in 2011 that is still ongoing, so I am telling you that there will be an American Spring in 2015. Beginning in 2011 with the start-up of the “Occupy” and “99%” Movements, of which I am proud to be a part, this uprising of the American people against the top 1% has exploded like an atomic mushroom cloud over the American political and economic elite. Once this process is complete, the American people will take back what has been stolen from them without anyone having fired a single shot. Let the remaining 99% of us try first to peacefully take back what has been stolen from us over the last 100 years. But if peaceful revolution is stifled we will be left with no choice but to resort to force. We can only accomplish this by uniting together as one and acting as one body to break free from the shackles of oppression that have us all enslaved.

You have just read the last four pages of chapter 9 of my book, “The Middle and Working Class Manifesto” (3^rd edition, Copyright 2011, 2016 by Rev. Paul J. Bern, Progressive Christian Ministries of Greater Atlanta, Inc., 470 pages, $18.95 on Amazon, or get the E-book on Pay-hip at https://payhip.com/b/CV5h [also on Kindle or Nook] for $3.50) To order your copy, go to http://www.pcmatl.org/books-and-donations. I also have a few leftover 1^st editions in softback for $9.95 with free shipping, but quantities are very limited. Thanks so much! Shalom.

This week's Bible study will be the rest of 2nd Timothy chapter two

Calling Out To The Lord With a Pure Heart

[2nd Timothy chapter 2, verses 19-26]

When we left off at verse 18 last week, the apostle Paul was warning his protege', or more accurately his deacon Timothy, to be wary of those who had wandered away from the truth and who refused to come back to Christ. In modern times we call “churches” who “teach” this kind of useless garbage cults. It's just that, back in Paul and Timothy's time, the term 'cult' had not yet been invented as far as I know. There is no other word for them, and if anyone reading this has ever found themselves caught up in one of these cults masquerading as churches as I once did a very long time ago, get away from there any way you can. I succeeded and so can you. What happened in that case was that I simply got up in the middle of the service and left. No problem. Pray to the Lord for deliverance and He will most definitely enable you to leave without worrying about what others may think. “Come out of her, oh my people”, says the Lord about these churches that are not of God but of men and women, “and be separate from them”. Bearing that in mind, let's take up where Paul left off in his letter to Timothy, beginning at verse 19.

“Nevertheless, God's solid foundation stands firm sealed with this inscription, 'The Lord knows those who are his' and, 'Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness'. In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble. If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument of noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work. Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will.” (2 Timothy chapter 2, verses 19-26, NIV)

God knows those who are his, sometimes without their knowledge and who are blissfully unaware of His guiding presence in their life. I did not give my heart up to Jesus Christ and recognize him as my Savior and kinsman-redeemer until I was in my mid-thirties. In spite of that fact, I am certain that the Lord knew from day 1 that I was born to be His. But then comes the flip side of this coin – which is that all who sincerely walk with Jesus have left their bad old ways behind them. That's exactly what the word 'repent' means! People who are recovering addicts, for example (not to put those in recovery in the spotlight), are in recovery as long as they never touch that to which they are addicted, no matter what it is. But if they relapse (which can be fairly common), they still get another chance by starting over on counting their days, weeks and months of sobriety. They never, ever give up. The salvation of Jesus Christ works the same way. This could involve a bit of confession, first with Christ, second with those they may have hurt, and sometimes third with their therapists or therapy groups. In a worst case scenario, this can sometimes even mean a short-term hospitalization for the person's own protection. In this same manner, we shed ourselves of all unrighteousness, immorality, and impure hearts and minds so that we too say we are “clean”. “Work out your own salvation”, Paul wrote in Philippians, “with fear and trembling before the Lord”. That is perfectly applicable right here, and it applies to all of us equally. 

 

“...be an instrument of noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work. Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.” Let's not go through life acting just any old way, or doing just what we please, usually at the expense of all others around us. That's not Christ at all. Be a true believer in Jesus, just as I wrote above, by living your faith instead of merely believing in it or belonging to it. Acquire a strong faith in Christ, don't simply learn it. Anybody can memorize a creed, but living one's faith as a lifestyle is another matter altogether. Pursue love and peace! Don't wait for love and peace to come to you, or you'll be waiting all your life. Take the love and peace that you have received through your deep faith in Christ and spread it all around like butter on a slice of bread. Which, by the way, proves that we don't always need money to solve problems and build a community. That's so 20^th century! Call on the Lord at all times with a pure heart. Don't bother asking for forgiveness if you are holding a grudge or hiding an ulterior motive. God sees right through that kind of Spiritual junk, and that's why those kinds of prayers never get answered. It's time to get a grip, everybody, this is the Son of God we're talking about. This is very serious stuff, the knowledge of which is crucial to all. Where you will spend eternity depends upon this alone.

“Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not quarrel; instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct ...”. Avoid argumentative people, Paul wrote to Timothy, because all they do is go around spoiling for a fight. They are, to put them into a single category, bullies. There is no such thing as a Christian bully. They don't exist, and any bully professing Christianity while throwing punches is not just a phony Christian (CINO – Christians in name only), but a dangerous human being in need of some restraint. Fortunately, we have people who take care of problems like that. They're called police officers. Those who serve the Lord, on the other hand, must be kind, gentle, thoughtful and compassionate. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, Jesus said. But Paul saved the best for last in the closing verse when he wrote, “gently instruct those who oppose you”. This is the polar opposite of getting into an argument. If someone opposes you, it is far wiser to convert a potential enemy into an ally than it is to beat them into submission with fists, with mean and nasty words, and other abusive behavior. It is inevitable that, sooner or later, those who are abused and bullied strike back at their abusers, sometimes with (God forbid) horrific results. But Paul wrote the Philippian church that true peace is “the peace of Christ that surpasses all human understanding”. Can we ever achieve this highest level of peace? Yes, but we must be willing to work towards that goal over our entire lifetimes. “Christianity”, a famous author once wrote, “is a journey, not a destination”. That is ever so true.

Mainstream Christianity Needs to Get Its Act Together

All the Things Mainstream Christianity Gets

Terribly Wrong Gives Me a Feeling of Total Dismay

by Rev. Paul J. Bern

Once in a while I have one of those days where it seems like I'm the only soldier on the twin battlefields of truth and justice fighting in the sacred name of Christ, and today feels like one of those days (can I get a witness?). This all began when all the “prophecies” I've been reading about or watching on You Tube and other similar Internet media what was supposed to be this big prophetic climax around the time the Shemitah year ended back in mid-September. But the date – or series of dates if we include the Feast of Tabernacles and the Day of Atonement – all came and went without incident. I was still waiting up until this past week. The same thing happened when the fourth Blood Moon came and went without so much as a whimper back on September 28^th, 2015. Moreover, if everything we've been told up until now about End Times Biblical prophecy is to be believed, the “rapture” of the church should have already occurred. This is based on the words of Jesus in Matthew's gospel chapter 24, verses 32-35: “Now learn this lesson from the fig tree; as soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you will know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” 

 

OK, what was our Lord and Savior talking about here? First, for the benefit of all you new friends and followers, the fig tree is a Biblical symbol for the nation of Israel. Israel became a nation in May of 1948, and there was a movement within Christendom back then that said “since one generation in Jesus' time was 40 years, Jesus will return for His church in 1988”. Evidently we're all still here, so now the religious pundits have been saying that 2018 will be the year of our Lord's return (one modern generation supposedly equals 70 years). But there's no way that can be right either, and here's why. According to the prophet Daniel and the Book of Revelation, and verified by Jesus himself elsewhere in the four Gospels, the Great Tribulation will last for seven years, with the rapture of the church taking place at the midpoint of that Tribulation Period (never mind the pre-mid-post-trib debate, that's a separate topic). Well, if that is true, the Great Tribulation should have started sometime in 2011, with the 'rapture of the church' taking place sometime in the summer of 2015. As before, so it is again – evidently we are all still here. Now let me be abundantly clear right here. This does not mean I think there is anything wrong with the Bible. On the contrary, the Bible is the infallible written Word of God. No one who has read this book would arbitrarily dismiss it unless they have lost touch with reality, atheists excluded. Like the Tribulation debate, I regard atheism too as being a separate topic at best, or maybe even totally irrelevant to what I'm writing about today. 

 

The clash between Christianity and Islam is of a similar nature. It is political on the surface, but very religious when examined in depth. What's wrong with that? Not much, unless you start killing people. Killing people in the name of religion has got to be the ultimate contradiction. When we Christians get political, we often do so because we believe that we have God on our side. This is true whether we are progressive or conservative, and throughout most of American history there have been both. When we examine that history, it quickly becomes evident that Christians have frequently been on the wrong side of it, to put it mildly. Here are some more things that American Christians, particularly those of the conservative stripe, have gotten completely wrong when they were so sure they were speaking on God’s behalf.

1) Slavery. Both sides of the American slavery debate claimed to be speaking from profound Christian conviction. The Bible has a rather matter-of-fact view of slavery, something pro-slavery Christians routinely pointed out. Abolitionists took a broader, less literal view of the Bible. Unsurprising that this divide led to the South being, to this day, home of the most people who take a fundamentalist view of Christianity. Of course, nowadays you can’t find even the most literalist fan of the Bible who is willing to agree with their predecessors in the 19th century who believed the Bible endorsed slavery. Of the many things conservative Christians have gotten wrong over the years, the pro-slavery argument is one that will hopefully never be revived.

2) Women's suffrage. Unsurprisingly, conservative Christianity was hostile to women’s suffrage, just as it’s been hostile to women’s progress ever since the apostle Paul wrote that “women should be silent” in the church. Women’s “God-given” roles were routinely referenced in arguments against giving women the right to vote, such as when Susan Fenimore Cooper – daughter of James Fenimore Cooper – wrote in Harper’s that “Christianity confirms the subordinate position of woman, by allotting to man the headship in plain language and by positive precept.” While the argument is clearly wrong in retrospect and disavowed by most modern conservatives, there are tragically still some Christian conservatives who continue to believe that the issue isn’t resolved and should still be up for debate.

3) Evolution. From the time it became evident that life on earth evolved over millions of years, many conservative Christians were aghast and resisted this as hard as they could. The Scopes monkey trial is the most famous example, but the Dover trial of 2005 over the teaching of intelligent design in schools is up there in terms of sheer humor. The Republican-appointed judge even went so far as to describe the Christian conservative defenders of creationism as liars pushing a theory of “breathtaking inanity.”

4) Pain relief for childbirth. The Bible explicitly lays out pain in childbirth as Eve’s punishment for sin, so unsurprisingly that’s what many Christians continue to believe has to be so. Once reliable pain relief in childbirth began to be developed, there was a lot of resistance to it from Christians who feared it defied God to let women have some relief. The truth is that pain in childbirth is not a punishment from God, but the product of evolution, which is a far from perfect process. Eventually, the argument that women owed it to God to suffer through childbirth faded to the fringes of right-wing Christianity. Natural childbirth has seen a resurgence in popularity since the 1960s, but that was more of a reaction to some medical overreach than a belief that women are sinful and deserve to suffer.

5) The Catholic church. Modern American conservative Protestants embrace Catholics and have even started to borrow some Catholic arguments against things like abortion and contraception. But from the early 19th until the mid-20th centuries, there was widespread anti-Catholic sentiment, much of it tied up in hostility to Catholic immigrants. There was even an anti-Catholic political party in the early 19th century. Catholics were viewed as idolaters and drunkards by many Protestants, but by far the most bizarre relic of anti-Catholic paranoia is the fear that evil shenanigans were going on in nunneries. A woman writing under the pseudonym “Maria Monk” penned a best-selling book where she claimed to have escaped a convent where she was forced to be a sex slave and pressed into the act of killing babies and hiding their corpses. Needless to say, none of her accusations should be taken as anything approaching true. Anti-Catholic paranoia also led to another “Christian” led folly…

6) Prohibition. Hostility to Catholic immigrants was a large part of the reason temperance mania took over many Protestant communities in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Despite the fact that Jesus and the apostles were wine drinkers, abstinence from alcohol — and forcing abstinence on others by force of law— became a major Christian cause during this period, which led up to Prohibition. This was true, even though many in the temperance movement were also aligned with the suffragist cause, making Prohibition one of the primary conservative Christian follies. Luckily, it took little more than a decade for this colossal Constitutional error banning alcohol to be fixed.

7) Segregation. Religious leaders like Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. led the desegregation movement, but it’s also important to note that the pro-segregation movement was also conceived as a Progressive Christian one. Arguments against “race mixing” were largely framed in religious terms. The judge who initially ruled against the interracial couple in Loving v. Virginia argued that the “Almighty God” put people on separate continents and “did not intend for the races to mix.” Christian right leader Jerry Falwell got his start fighting to uphold segregation, giving sermons about how integration was offensive to God. As Max Blumenthal noted in the Nation, the modern religious right as we know it started off as a movement to defend slavery first and segregation later.

8) Contraception. From the beginning of the “birth control movement,” Christian conservatives fought to keep women from being able to have sex without getting pregnant. Devout Christian Anthony Comstock successfully convinced Congress in 1872 that contraception was ungodly, leading to a federal ban on sharing birth control information across state lines. This was finally repealed in 1936. In 1963, the US Supreme Court ended anti-contraception laws for married women. Then in 1971, the Supreme Court also eliminated the last of the anti-contraception laws banning birth control for single people. Nowadays, 99 percent of sexually active women have used contraception at some point in their lives.

9) School prayer. Along with supporting segregation and opposing feminism, the third issue that created the modern religious right is the issue of prayer in public schools. In 1961, the Supreme Court ruled against school-led prayers, even if they were supposedly voluntary. All attempts to have this decision overturned failed in court up until this point. There’s no evidence that these bullying tactics have ever converted anyone to Christianity, but they keep on trying anyway, like banging their heads on a wall. If your children want to go ahead and pray in school, they should be able to do so just to themselves without fear of punishment or bullying.

10) Marriage equality. The religious right, which in my view is neither, is still fighting like it’s not obvious that they’re wrong on this one. The tide is shifting so fast it’s quickly becoming apparent that this issue, like segregation, is going to be one where they’ll be pretending they didn’t fight so hard for the side of wrong in a few decades. The majority of Americans now support same-sex marriage. The momentum is in the direction of justice and equality. Christian conservatives are, as with most things, on the wrong side of the issue too.

As a result of all of the above, let me just say I'm glad to be a Progressive Christian. The phrase 'conservative Christian' is a contradiction. Conservative people are those who do exactly as the word implies – they conserve – they don't spend money, they hoard it. The same goes for cars, food, houses and other investments, plus whatever else they can buy at a low price so they can sell for a higher one. Conservatives are, for the most part, tightwads. Rich people stay rich by not spending any more than they have to. They hoard the rest. Jesus kept nothing for himself, but freely gave to his apostles and to those in need. “Freely you have received”, Jesus said, “freely give”. We have all received freely the salvation of Christ through His shed blood on the cross. Let's freely give as the Spirit would lead us.

Bible Study This Week Will Be the 1st Half of 2nd Timothy Chapter Two

Being a Good Soldier For Christ

[2^nd Timothy chapter 2, verses 1-18]

Today as we continue our study of the 2^nd letter to Timothy as written by the great apostle Paul, we'll be going over the first half of chapter two because it is rather lengthy. In this chapter, as Paul continues his thoughts on Jesus Christ and what we now call Christianity, we find Paul continuing to mentor Timothy about his own ministry, which must have been growing like crazy. All I can say here is that, to me, it would be an honor to be mentored by Paul. In a way we all are ultimately mentored by Jesus Christ, the ultimate mentor for sure! Bearing that in mind, let's begin with verse 1.

“Timothy, my dear son, be strong with the special favor God gives you in Christ Jesus. You have heard me teach many things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses. Teach these truths to trustworthy people who are able to pass them on to others. Endure suffering along with me, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. And as Christ's soldier, do not allow yourself to be tied up about the affairs of this life, for then you cannot satisfy the One who has enlisted you in his army. Follow the Lord's rules for doing his work, just as an athlete follows the rules or is disqualified and wins no prize. Hardworking farmers are the first to enjoy the fruits of their labor. Think about what I am saying. The Lord will give you understanding in all these things. Never forget that Jesus Christ was a man born into King David's family and that he was raised from the dead. This is the Good News that I preach. And because I preach this Good News, I am suffering and have been chained like a criminal. But the Word of God cannot be chained. I am willing to endure anything if it will bring salvation and eternal glory in Christ Jesus to those God has chosen.” (2 Timothy chapter two, verses 1-10)

“My dear son”. This is actually coming from Scripture. Although Timothy and Paul obviously had a close relationship, Paul notably puts the emphasis on a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ. “You are my son”, says Psalm Two, “today I have become your Father”. Paul also wrote elsewhere that our hearts cry out to God with the Spirit of adoption towards the Lord (the old King James calls it a “spirit of son-ship”). So when we become born again believers in Jesus, who walked the earth as a Jewish man, we become adopted into the Family of God, meaning we all become Jewish by adoption when we surrender our lives, hearts and minds peacefully to Christ. I don't know about you, but being adopted into the Family of God sounds pretty good to me.

“Teach these truths to trustworthy people who are able to pass them on to others.” This has been a problem for the Church ever since day one (well, almost). Clearly the apostles were very trustworthy individuals. But since the early church's inception, there have been those who take the Good News of Christ and twist it around to suit their purposes for financial gain. Today the greater Church has continued to try to deal with this internally, but only with limited success because too many “believers” are believing the wrong people (I won't name names). As a result, organized mainstream religion – and particularly conservative Evangelicals – has and will continue to have issues with credibility – not from within the overall congregation, but it's the leadership that's at fault. It's not what they're teaching so much as how the Truth is being presented. If certain TV preachers, for example, claim to be presenting the Gospel of Christ then why do some have their own jet planes? Why are they driving around in cars with six figure price tags? And why do they seem to feel it's necessary to live in homes with 8 figure price tags? Does anyone else besides myself see a problem with this?

“... as Christ's soldier, do not allow yourself to be tied up about the affairs of this life, for then you cannot satisfy the One who has enlisted you in his army. Follow the Lord's rules for doing his work, just as an athlete follows the rules or is disqualified and wins no prize.” Be a soldier for Jesus! Not in the traditional sense with guns and artillery, but rather in the Holy Spirit. Don't be so weak that people just walk on over you, but let's not be so aggressive with our faith that we offend or frighten people either. Neither of these has anything to do with Christ. Don't get all tied up about daily living. In order to do this, we must free ourselves from the distractions of this world. Don't be materialistic, or a seeker of wealth for its own sake, and especially avoid falling into the trap of comparing yourselves with someone else. Above all, turn off your television and disconnect yourself from Satan's world until our Lord returns and takes the 'evil one' out of the way. Success in life and enrichment by our walk with Christ should be measured by God's standards as well as our own. We are to be living our present life to please God first, others second and ourselves last. Above all, let's not get disqualified by God and lose the prize – our vitally important eternal inheritance in the Kingdom of God!

“Think about what I am saying. The Lord will give you understanding in all these things. Never forget that Jesus Christ was a man born into King David's family and that he was raised from the dead. This is the Good News that I preach.” That sums it up very nicely, don't you agree? Jesus was crucified, died and was resurrected on the morning of the third day. He did this so that, when our physical lives are over, all who sincerely believe are raised up to eternal life with Jesus. Eternal life in this context simply means a life outside the boundaries of time and space as we know and understand it. The salvation of Jesus Christ is the greatest news in the world for all humankind who believe in Him.

“... because I preach this Good News, I am suffering and have been chained like a criminal. But the Word of God cannot be chained. I am willing to endure anything if it will bring salvation and eternal glory in Christ Jesus to those God has chosen.” It is an established fact that there were more Christians who died for their faith in the 20^th century than had been killed for their faith in the previous 19 centuries combined. So far people here in America have not yet had to suffer for their faith, but when the Antichrist steps onto the world stage – and this will happen sooner rather than later – you had best believe you may indeed be forced to suffer for your faith. What will happen when this occurs? Without a doubt it will be the acid test of our faith, and many may well fall away from their faith to keep from getting killed by the forces of the Antichrist. Anyone who decides to do this will wind up in hell with the devil and all his demons. Don't make this crucial mistake! About this Jesus said, “...but he who stands firm to the very end shall be saved”. (Matt. 24: 13) We as Christians may well be imprisoned or worse during this time, whose arrival is imminent. Be willing “to endure anything” as Paul was, and you will most definitely be saved from the coming wrath of God. And now let's conclude today's study.

“This is a true saying: 'If we die with him, we will also live with him. If we endure hardship, we will reign with him. If we deny him, he will deny us. If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself'. Remind everyone of these things, and command them in God's name to stop fighting over words. Such arguments are useless, and they can ruin those who hear them. Work hard so God can approve you. Be a good worker, one who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly explains the Word of truth. Avoid godless, foolish discussions that lead to more and more ungodliness. This kind of talk can spread like cancer. Hymenaeus and Philetus are examples of this. They have left the path of truth, preaching the lie that the resurrection of the dead has already occurred; and they have undermined the faith of some.” (2 Timothy 2, verses 11-18)

“... If we die with him, we will also live with him. If we endure hardship, we will reign with him.” Here we have it in a nutshell – the ultimate truth about Christianity. When our bodies wear out and die our spiritual, or other-dimensional, selves remain. Since God is eternal, as well as the salvation of Christ, then we will also live with Him eternally. So, in essence, the sacrifice of Christ together with his resurrection render death to be a gateway, or maybe a rite of passage, from our temporal world to that of the timeless and eternal. And anyone who endures hardship for the sake of the Gospel will have a greater reward awaiting them when it's time for all of us to go home to New Jerusalem. “If we deny him, he will deny us. If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself.” Jesus said, “Anyone who denies me I will deny before my heavenly Father”, and I'm fairly certain that Paul was referring to this verse of Scripture when he wrote these words. Best of all, Christ Jesus remains faithful to us whether we sin or not, or when we are believers or not, because he cannot deny himself. 

 

“... command them in God's name to stop fighting over words. Such arguments are useless, and they can ruin those who hear them.” Now where have I seen or heard this one before? Actually I'm just kidding, because certain denominations and even certain pastors spend an inordinate amount of time condemning those whose faith is not the same as his or her own. With things like this going on between denominations, or between individual churches, and even on well-known Christian television stations while millions are watching globally, is it any wonder that Christianity in general, and certain church leaders in particular, have an image problem? Since this problem in our churches is apparently not going to be fixed from the top down, it will be we the members who will have to fix this from the bottom up. It is this singular movement that I am proud to be a part of, and it can only grow continuously for the foreseeable future.

“Be a good worker, one who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly explains the Word of truth. Avoid godless, foolish discussions that lead to more and more ungodliness. This kind of talk can spread like cancer.” Be diligent! Slackers and lazy people never get anywhere in life. That's because we get out of life whatever we put into it. Nothing in equals nothing out. Never be content with that! Always strive for ways to improve yourself, your life and your overall enrichment because God has given us all that very same ability to improve ourselves, which brings us closer to God. All of us can do this one way or the other at one time or the other. Jesus has already given each of us the Power Source from which we can grow and allow ourselves to be cultivated by the Holy Spirit. All we have to do is to learn to plug into it.

 

Spiritual misinformation, Paul wrote, spreads like cancer. It has a carcinogenic effect on the human spirit by replacing the Word of God with the word of someone who presumes to be a Christian leader, oftentimes by finding ways to elevate themselves to that very position that they covet. It forces out the indwelling of the Holy Spirit so that more of the misinformation and confusion can filter in. But that is one way we can know if something is from God or not. Jesus never forces himself into anyone's heart, not just because he doesn't have to (“for the earth is the Lord's, and everything in it”), but because it is against His nature to do so. There are countless examples of things very similar to this going on in the modern Church today. But the main point I am making is that it doesn't really matter what church you attend, so long as it is Bible-based. Jesus said, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth”. So when we share our faith with others, and especially with strangers, we must do so with humility, gentleness and compassion. That is how we all can exemplify Jesus Christ. So until next week, practice exemplifying Christ everywhere you go by being compassionate. You don't necessarily have to stand on a downtown corner and preach at the top of your lungs. Something far less dramatic will suffice. By a homeless person a burger, fires and a drink. Make a donation to the charity of your choice, or be a volunteer in your community. The point is that we can exemplify Christ in countless ways. Find your niche in Jesus and go for it!

ARK OF THE COVENANT FOUND?!

Twenty Five Uncomfortable Truths

You Shall Not Bear False Witness: 25 Uncomfortable Facts

The Mainstream Media Wouldn't Discuss in 2015

by Rev. Paul J. Bern

The Ninth Commandment, as it written in the Book of Exodus chapter 20 along with other nine, is very explicit – you shall not lie (or “thou shalt not”, if you prefer). Yet for its entire existence, humankind has developed a remarkable propensity for ever more sophisticated forms of deception. For example, during the Hitler dictatorship in Germany from the 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, he just has a far more innocuous title than "Propaganda Minister". This person's job – and I have noticed regular personnel changes – 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 were remarkably few protests about it up until about 2011 or so. This was during the mushrooming of the Arab Spring, which led to the “Occupy Wall St.” and “we are the 99%” Movements, and more recently into the “Black Lives Matter” protests, all of which are still very much active today. So this week's message is my small contribution towards demanding some genuine truth and authenticity from our news sources. No more US Government propaganda please, we're all fed up with the government! Not so much America, mind you, just the government.

For decades, the mainstream media in the United States was 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. Contrary to what many atheists and agnostics are saying, this includes a significant number of people of faith like myself. A Gallup survey from 2012 found that 60 percent of all Americans “have little or no trust” in the mainstream media. That number is now exceeding 80 percent here at the dawn of 2016. More people than ever are realizing that the mainstream media is giving them a very distorted version of current events and human history, and they are increasingly seeking out alternative sources of information. In the United States today, just six giant media corporations control the mainstream media. Those giant media corporations own television networks, cable channels, movie studios, radio stations, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, music labels and even many prominent websites. But now, thanks to the Internet the mainstream media no longer has a complete monopoly on the news. In recent years the “alternative media” (Alternet, Infowars, Democracy Now, Bill Moyers, Truthdig, etc.) 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 want “the whole damn truth”, and they know that they are not getting it from the mainstream media. That's also one of the primary reasons why people are doing away with cable TV as I have. It's not just the money saved from unsubscribing to cable TV, it's the fact that everybody knows everything they are watching is a load of BS!!

We are watching a media revolution happen, and many influential people in the traditional media are totally freaking out about it. In fact, some in the traditional or “lame stream” media have even begun publishing articles that mock the American people for not trusting the MSM. For example, a 2012 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. Ever have the feeling you’re being lied to by the news media, the authorities, the corporate world? That somebody — or something — is out to get you? You’re not alone, and you're not losing your mind, either. Welcome to 21st-century America. Look around. Trust is hitting historic lows. Less than one fifth of Americans have a favorable view of the federal government, a decline of about 40% since 2002, according to the Pew Center for People and the Press. Gallup has Congress’ approval rating down in the low teens. 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 back in the summer of 2013. The article goes on to make it sound like it is very irrational not to trust the media, but in this day and age it is imperative that we all learn to think for ourselves. Pardon me if this seems a bit too blunt, but blindly trusting someone else to do your thinking for you is both very dangerous and very lazy. Contrary to what all the conformists have been saying, it's perfectly OK to be skeptical!

Anyone that does not acknowledge that the mainstream media has an agenda is either really naive or they're not being honest with themselves. 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 worldview being pushed 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. The following are 25 facts that the mainstream media doesn’t really want to talk about, because they are all 'red flags' that tell us that theirs is an agenda for a system broken beyond repair:

#1 The mainstream media doesn’t really want to talk about the fact that gun sales are absolutely skyrocketing in the aftermath of all the mass shootings everywhere. Americans from all backgrounds are arming themselves to the teeth!

#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 6 million Jews and slaughtered 34 million others.
• 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” was quietly passed by the U.S. Senate more than 3 years ago. Never mind that it's completely unconstitutional (see the Bill of Rights to the US Constitution, namely the 4^th, 5^th and 8th amendments).

#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, and earthquakes globally are at an all time high.

#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 trends forecasters globally are predicting a major financial disaster in 2016.

#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 over 500 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, GE, Halliburton and Citibank (among numerous others) 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 danger of losing its status as the primary reserve currency of the world. If this were to occur – which is becoming increasingly likely – financial calamity would surely follow. Such a calamity would make the 2008 crash and the Great Depression seem like a daycare center in comparison.

#11 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that they should be doing a much better job keeping track of Wall Street speculators, their bankers, and all their filthy lucre. Instead, the MSM has to mention that president Barack Obama has gone off to vacation in Hawaii while the rest of the nation works multiple part time jobs.

#12 They don't want to discuss the fact that one fourth of all homeless people in America are children under the age of 12. This one social injustice alone makes me ashamed to be an American. Moreover, like the rest of the country, I too am one check away from becoming homeless myself. For such a thing as this to be happening in what is allegedly the world's richest country is absolutely inexcusable!

#13 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that the U.S. economy is losing millions of jobs to nations where it is legal to pay workers slave labor wages. Actually, this process is already started in the US as well, due to the fact that no one can live on a minimum wage paycheck of $7.25 an hour. 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 American middle class jobs continue to leave the country.

#14 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that large numbers of formerly patriotic Americans are leaving the country in droves because they are completely disgusted with what America has become – the world's largest arms merchant and biggest bully.

#15 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 that the US economy has 'recovered'.

#16 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.

#17 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.

#18 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.

#19 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that 'political correctness' is taking over America. The truth is that the media does not see any problem with that at all.

#20 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.

#21 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 actually absolutely thrilled that less babies are being born.

#22 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.

#23 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that Barack Obama received more than 99 percent of the vote in more than 100 precincts in Ohio on election day back in 2012.

#24 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.

#25 They don’t really want to talk about the fact that the Federal Reserve created the conditions for the last financial crisis and their mismanagement of the economy has now brought us to the verge of another horrible economic downturn. According to the mainstream media, the Federal Reserve is “above politics” and should not be criticized. 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 (see article 1, section 8). 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, which really only exists on paper anyway. But they can't because their corporate sponsors won't allow it. That's why the system is broken, and it's up to us, “we the people”, to get the job done.

Saudi Arabia's Perfect Storm ... foretold in Bible Prophecy !!!