"Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day [i.e., the day of the rapture and resurrection] shall not come, except there come a falling away [i.e., apostasy] first ..."
2 Thess. 2:3
"Things are not always what they appear to be."
- Paul Neuman to Sally Fields
in Absence of Malice
NOTE
The words "... if it were possible ..." in connection with Matthew 24:24 do not appear in the original texts - which would imply that some (many?) Christians will indeed be deceived.
In various places and in diverse ways the Scriptures warn about the dangers that will encompass the saints of God at the end of the age - so much so that the "very elect" shall be "DECEIVED" (Mat. 24:24); but I Tim. 4:1-2 is the only passage in the Bible which explicitly shows the special cause of the peril to the church in the closing days of this era, and how Satan will break in upon her members, and by DECEPTION beguile many:
"Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
"Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron ..." (I Tim. 4:1-2)
The word hypocrisy here means to present a lie as the truth.
The peril to the church at the close of the age, then, is from people who present a lie as the truth; from hypocrites who claim to be one thing, but who in reality are something else altogether; people who pass themselves off as Christians, but who are, nonetheless, unalterably opposed to God - much as Judas was.
The peril from such men concerns every true Christian in the "Latter Days." The prophecy declares that -
and
These hypocrites are believed because outwardly they appear to be "good," to be "spiritual." The so-called "good life" or "spiritual life" of these hypocrites is taken as a sufficient guarantee for their teaching.
But goodness is no guarantor of the truth: all teaching must be judged against the Written Word. Nothing else will suffice. To think that goodness and "good intentions" are adequate warrants for the truth is to take the first step down the road to deception. Such thinking has its foundation in the prevalent idea that everything that Satan does is manifestly evil, the truth not being realized that he works under cover of light. (2 Cor. 11:14)
We repeat, there is only one principle for testing the source of all doctrine - and that is not "good intentions," but the Written Word, the Bible.
But how is it possible that so many evangelicals - including a vast portion of our leadership - could have allowed themselves to be so dulled spiritually that they have become such easy targets for these hypocrites? The answer is apostasy! Apostasy is not necessarily false doctrine and/or sin - though it can be this, and there can be no question that these things inevitably follow in the wake of apostasy - but rather it is, in the first instance, the FALLING AWAY of Christians from a view of themselves as citizens of Christ's heavenly kingdom to a view of themselves as citizens of the kingdom of this world. The Bible says:
"Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day [i.e., the day of the rapture and resurrection] shall not come, except there come a FALLING AWAY [i.e., apostasy] first ..." (2 Thess. 2:3)
If we truly are aliens to this world, as the Scriptures so plainly declare we are, what should we have to do with its politics? - nothing of course. Nonetheless, that's what millions and millions of Christians in the United States have involved themselves in as they have flocked to the Republican Party and anointed it as "God's Party" dedicated to the mission of "taking back the country for Christ and the church."
But, again, if we are truly aliens to this world, why should we seek to involve ourselves in the politics of what amounts to be a "foreign country?" To do so diverts us from the single mission that we have been Scripturally commissioned to accomplish - to convince as many people as possible as we journey through this "foreign and hostile land" to join us in seeking that better land - that "heavenly country" whose builder and maker is God.
To get involved politically in the land we say we are leaving is to reveal ourselves as nothing more than frauds - people who don't really intend to leave - and unbelievers have a stubborn and pernicious way of noticing such inconsistencies; and then we have the chutzpah and temerity to wonder why we are so ineffectual in leading people to Christ?
It's wealth - or, as is more often the case, the desire for wealth (for most people never really get it) - which blinds us to the transitory nature of our connection to this world and which leads us into apostasy. Apostasy inevitably develops when Christians - because of their worldly comfort and wealth, or simply their desire for material things - refuse to acknowledge in word, deed, or action the fact that they are merely "pilgrims and strangers" - aliens - to this world and this present life.
It is the desire for material things which diverts Christians from their journey - from seeing this world as merely a "way station" on their path towards a better world. Paul wasn't just kidding around when He said,
"For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
"And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.
"For they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
"For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." (II Tim. 6:7-10)
Dom Helder Camara of Brazil was right when he wrote:
"I used to think, when I was a child, that Christ might have been exaggerating when He warned about the dangers of wealth. Today I know better. I know how ... [impossible] it is to be rich and still keep the milk of human kindness. Money [or the desire for money] has a dangerous way of putting scales on one's eyes, a dangerous way of freezing people's hands, eyes, lips and hearts."
Jesus said,
"Lay not up for yourself treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also ... No man can serve two masters [or two kingdoms]: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve [both] God and mammon [i.e., you cannot serve heaven and this world at the same time]." (Mat. 6:19-24)
Speaking of those who have given up on viewing themselves as citizens of heaven, and have reverted back to seeing themselves as citizens of this world, Paul said,
"For I have told you often before, and I say it again now with tears in my eyes, there are many who walk along the Christian road who have become the enemies of the cross of Christ. Their future is ... loss ... [for] all they think about is this life here on earth." [Phil. 3:18-19 (Amp.)]
Apostasy - i.e., that condition of thinking which leads us to perceive ourselves more as citizens of this world than of heaven - results when our attachment to the things or "treasures" of this life - our cars, our houses, our careers, etc. - overwhelm us and cause us to think of ourselves not as aliens to this world, but as "permanent residents." Once we as Christians have acquiesced in this way of thinking we have created the conditions necessary to open us up to Satanic DECEPTION.
If all that the Bible contains on the subject of evil could be exhaustively dealt with, we should find that more knowledge is given on the technique - the methodology - of Satan than many have realized, and at the heart of his technique is deception. From Genesis to Revelation the work of Satan as a deceiver can be traced, until the climax is reached in the "Great Deception" of the "very elect" in the "Latter Days."
Deception is truly a sinister and clandestine craft, and its work today in what passes for "evangelical Christianity" has become so lethal and toxic that the faith of countless numbers of heretofore sound Bible-believing Christians is being poisoned; yet it is so subtle and delicate in its intrigue that those who have been entangled in its web of fraud and trickery hardly realize that their faith has been thus corrupted.
We find recorded in Genesis Satan's first work as deceiver, and the subtle form of his method of deception. We see him here working upon man's highest and purest desires, and cloaking his own purpose of ruin under the guise of seeking to lead men and women into a closer relationship with God. We see him using good to bring about evil; suggesting evil to bring about good. Caught with the bait of being "wise" and "like God," man is blinded to the principle of obedience, and is deceived - and in the end, the desire to be "good" has counted for little. Indeed, the cleverest way in which the devil deceives is when he comes in the likeness of somebody or something which apparently causes a person to "be more like God" and/or to be "good." But the Bible somberly warns us:
"There is a way which seemeth right (i.e., good) unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." (Proverbs 14:12)
Let's now pause and think about all this, particularly as it pertains to the Religious Right - remembering all the while that what follows could have only occurred to a people who have given up on seeing themselves as subjects of a heavenly kingdom, and have instead grown accustomed to thinking of themselves as citizens of this present world.
A very wise person once said,
"Satan's greatest ruse is to first create a problem, and then offer the solution. The problem created is the bait; the poison is in the solution."
In the case of the Religious Right, the problem which Satan has created consists largely in what is perceived (and perhaps rightfully so) as a fundamental moral collapse of the society at large over the last three to four decades: specifically, the breakdown of the traditional family, the concomitant upsurge of single parent families, the growth of militant feminism, the acceptance of homosexuality as an "alternate life-style," Congressional and judicial acquiescence to the insane concept of women in combat, the increase in crime of all sorts, the rise of sexual permissiveness, the acceptance of "abortion on demand" - the list seems endless. When all this is combined with the new multicultural chic and the "political correctness" that is currently in vogue - a style of thinking which arrogantly and disdainfully denigrates the nation's older European-based, Christian civilization - it's enough to create a cultural firestorm, an enormous rage which has emotionally seized control of countless numbers of evangelicals and blinded them to their own eschatology (or doctrine of "end times").
The problem Satan has created seems compelling, persuasive, convincing; it demands action. The bait is set. The solution? - evangelicals must "enter the lists" (or arena); they must involve themselves and their churches politically to "stop the madness." The trap is sprung!
Without realizing it, they have fallen victim to the same trap that German Christians fell victim to sixty years ago with regard to Hitler.
Germany's defeat during the First World War had led to the rise of a liberal-left, anti-Christian, anti-right parliamentary coalition which seemed to hold in contempt all the values of "Old Germany." Indeed, wherever German Christians looked in the 1920s and early '30s, they found little to comfort them: the cherished national values of hard work, self-discipline, and patriotism embodied in the conservative Lutheran and Catholic value systems of the "Old Reich" were being openly undermined and ridiculed. Pacifist and feminist novels which seemed to deride manhood - and men in general - abounded; on the stage, incest, pederasty or - at the very least - marital infidelity were glorified. Illustrated magazines featured nude dancers and international gangsters, frequently shown in company with each other; movies like the Blue Angel (Marlene Dietrich) and entertainers like Josephine Baker, who could be found cavorting naked on the stage in Berlin as often as she could be seen in Paris, corrupted the younger generation by glamorizing sadism and rape. Prostitutes and their pimps were the main heroes of the day. Indeed, it appeared as if only criminals, the blasphemous, and homosexuals were of any interest to modern culture. It seemed as though Berlin had taken over from Paris as the world capital of lasciviousness and obscenity.
A kind of left-wing, liberal excess - the Kabarett Kultur - dominated the media, a liberalism which glorified sexual and cultural indulgence and which consigned the values of "ordinary folk" - which the liberal intelligentsia claimed were either stupid or barbaric, "das platte, all zu platte Volk" - to the rubbish heap. The literati were in command! - enemies of order, the profiteers of chaos! Like tubercular bacilli, they affected all the weak cells in the body politic. Rootless themselves, they bitterly attacked any manifestation of manly patriotism and healthy morality. They had no shame or modesty, they were the apostles of sensationalism forever in search of new trends and fashions, however worthless.
German Christians regarded the left-wing intellects as a noxious and cancerous element - more dangerous than gangsters. Why? - because ordinary criminals were merely engaged in offenses against property and persons, whereas the left-wing intelligentsia was helping to bring about the spiritual murder of an entire nation.
In assessing the moral and cultural decay which surrounded them, most German Christians had come to believe that this pathology of rot and decadence was by no means accidental - it was a concerted and centrally planned process - a deliberate conspiracy by socialists and left-wing, avant-guard radicals to undermine everything that was still healthy in Germany so that the country could never again recover and rise to greatness. Their stranglehold had to be broken to make a cultural recovery possible. But in attempting to set things right, in attempting to end the left's stranglehold on Germany, German Christians helped to create a nightmare which ultimately not only consumed them, but Germany and German Christianity as well. In the end, the solution was far, far worse than the problem which had at first seemed to necessitate it.
It's in the light of this kind of reality that William Thackeray once said:
"The wicked are wicked no doubt, and they go astray and they fall and they come to their own deserts; but who can tell the mischief the [so-called] virtuous do."
Today, it is commonly believed in evangelical circles in America that Hitler was a "New Age" theosophist and that the reason German Christians had been seduced by him is because they had earlier abandoned the "fundamentals" of their faith - largely as a result of the "Higher Criticism of the Bible" which was then in vogue throughout fashionable and intellectual sections of German society. But that simply is not true! The so-called "Higher Criticism" had no more taken hold on the great majority of German Christians than it had on the great mass of American Christians. Average German Christians - as opposed to some church intellectuals - had remained as "fundamental" in their faith as they had ever been; and Hitler, while he may indeed have been a theosophist in his "inner most being" - and shown himself as such to his inner circle of friends and associates - was extremely careful to present himself as a traditional "Christian conservative" to the German people (see Adolf Hitler, Hitler's Secret Conversations 1941-1944 and Ernst Hanfstaengl, Hitler: The Missing Years).
The fact of the matter is, the public persona that Hitler constantly cultivated was that of a "Christian Savior" commissioned by God to save the nation from the liberal rot which had overtaken it. Indeed, Hitler - in his first radio address to the German people after coming to power - announced,
"The national government ... will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality."
Hardly the words of an outspoken theosophist!
Two weeks later, on February 16, 1933, Hitler went even further in affirming his devotion to Christianity. In a speech at Stuttgart, Hitler asserted,
"Today Christians ... stand at the head of Germany ... I pledge that I never will tie myself to parties who want to destroy Christianity ... We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit ... We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theater, and in the press - in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during the past ... [few] years."
Thus, while it may be true that - despite the rhetoric and the persona - Hitler was no Christian, and that evangelicals may be correct in pointing this fact out, evangelicals are still wrong - very wrong - in believing that German Christians themselves were anything but sincere and "fundamental" in their faith - and the fact is, they are being very self-serving in assuming otherwise. Why? - because it obscures the real reason German Christians were seduced by Hitler - why they didn't really investigate what actually lay beneath Hitler's public persona; after all, it wouldn't have been difficult to do. The evidence - despite Hitler's effort to hide it - was easy to find. The obvious reason is, they didn't want to!
They wanted to believe Hitler! - and anything which got in the way was swept aside! Their perceived need to be rescued from a liberalism which they believed had run amuck had so blinded them that they purposefully ignored any evidence which suggested that Hitler might be something else than what he had presented himself as - and they denounced all those who attempted to uncover the real truth as "unchristian" and "unpatriotic!"
In light of all this, the question that fairly begs to be asked is this: Are American evangelicals making the same mistake German Christians made sixty years ago with Hitler? In refusing to examine the motives behind their secular allies in the political and economic right, by condemning Christians who attempt to do so as being "unloving and uncaring," by denigrating those who question the spiritual wisdom - as opposed to the political wisdom - of a Catholic / evangelical alliance, etc. aren't American evangelicals going down the same road taken by German Christians sixty years ago? The answer, obviously, is yes!
The road that leads to Hell is not transversed with one giant step - but rather with innumerable small ones, each insignificant in itself, but when combined with countless others leads inevitably to the final destination. So also with the little compromises evangelicals are making today. Each compromise in itself is not much, and if left to itself would probably not count for anything - little steps, such as -
When Chuck Swindall, president of Dallas Theological Seminary, agrees to participate in the activities of the "Promise Keepers" - never mind the fact that the organization encompasses within its membership people who are connected to groups inimical to the wider interests of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and when one of its chief spokesmen, Robert Hicks, refers to Jesus as "a phallic kind of guy" [the phallus is the erect male sexual organ, i.e., the erect penis (Hicks, The Six Stages of Manhood, pg. 24)]. And it should be noted in this connection that despite the fact that the Promise Keepers no longer pass out this book at their assemblies and conferences, they continue to promote it to all their devotees, and it still forms the basis around which their small home gatherings are arranged - and Swindall should know this; and if he doesn't, it's because he has purposefully chosen not to.
When Tim LaHaye accepts money from the Moonies - never mind the fact that the Moonies claim that Christ had sex with the women who followed Him.
When Paul Crouch, President of TBN, says that he is going to "shoot" those who stand in the way of a Catholic / evangelical rapprochement - never mind the fact that Catholics have done nothing to renounce the heresies which impelled the Reformers to break with them in the first place.
When prominent evangelical pastors throughout the country allow Death Squad leaders such as Mario and Adolfo Calero to speak at their churches - never mind the fact that the Caleros are connected to some of the most notorious Death Squads in South and Central America.
All these are little steps in and of themselves - but when combined, take us as evangelicals down a path, the destination of which is a dark and very evil place.
When one begins to perceive this present world as one's permanent abode, then one cannot help but try to make oneself comfortable in it - which leads one invariably to embrace a form of Christianity that is frivolous and superficial, the kind of silly and trifling Christianity embraced by Atlanta preacher Bruce Wilkinson in his book, The Prayer of Jabez (a book so inane and foolish - even CHILDISH - that it fairly boggles the mind).
The book celebrates GREED as a guiding principle in the Christian life, and presents God as nothing more than a "SUGAR-DADDY" whose sole object in life is to make Christians happy. For example, Wilkinson writes:
"If you didn't ask God for a blessing yesterday, you didn't get all that you were supposed to have. And be sure to ask EXTRAVAGANTLY, for you nothing but God's fullest blessings [meaning, of course, MATERIAL blessings] will do. Don't worry about coming across as selfish, for this is exactly the kind of request our Father longs to hear ... you will be so overwhelmed ... that you will find yourself saying, 'It's too much! Hold some of your blessings back'."
What is Wilkinson talking about here? Certainly not Christ and the Gospel - unless he has in mind ANOTHER Christ and ANOTHER Gospel (Gal. 1:6-7); a Christ the Bible knows nothing about. Jesus taught,
"If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me." (Matt. 19:21)
AND,
"If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." (Matt. 16:24)
AND,
"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal:
"But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
"For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (Matt. 6:19-21)
AND,
"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
"Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?" (Matt. 6:24-25)
AND,
Finally the prophet Habakkuk writes,
"Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls:
"Yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will joy in the God of my salvation." (Hab. 3:17-18)
What's Habakkuk saying here? - he is saying that what REALLY "marks out" the man of God is his ability to REJOICE in the Lord when everything else is collapsing around him - hardly the Gospel according to Wilkinson.
And Wilkinson isn't alone here! The sad fact of the matter is, the type of Christianity that is being peddled to Christians today by the pastors of today's church is the fatuous and superficial kind where T-shirts promote "J. Christ" rather than "J. Crew," "Fruit of the Spirit" rather than "Fruit of the Loom," "Christ Supreme" instead of "Krispy Kreme" and where there are endless "spin-offs" to things like the Prayer of Jabez generated specifically for the sake of money: For example, a devotional volume to the Prayer of Jabez, an illustrated gift edition, a journal, a Bible study course, "Prayer of Jabez for Women," and "Prayer of Jabez for Little Ones" ("Dear God, Please bless me in a great big way!"), not to mention greeting cards, calendars, mugs, mousepads, etc.
The Wilkinson brand of Christianity is the kind of Christianity where it's "cool to be a Christian" - and PROFITABLE; where Christianity is licensed and "bottled" for sale, and where individual Christians are reduced to the status of consumers for whatever their pastors are selling.
Ultimately, the great hazard Christians face in all this is the danger of being reduced to a "commodity" themselves - a "PRODUCT" TO BE MERCHANDISED BY THEIR PASTORS TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER. And who exactly is the highest bidder? - the elites, of course. And sadly, that's precisely what is happening - Christians are being "sold out" by their pastors and leaders to the elites. [Please see our article, "The Rich Have Seized Control of the Church."]
The tragic fact of the matter is, the leadership of today's church view their parishioners as a passive assembly of AUTOMATONS to be "bought and sold" at auction for the benefit of whatever their elite masters in the Economic Right are interested in at any particular moment.
And what is it that the pastors receive in return? - MONEY! Lots and lots of MONEY! For example,
Pat Robertson receives massive amounts of money from the John M. Olin Foundation, a channel for elite money that emanates out of the armaments industry.
Then there is D. James Kennedy who receives money from the Carthage Foundation and the Allegheny Foundation, both of which are controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife, heir to the Mellon banking fortune, as well as Gulf Oil and Alcoa money. Kennedy also receives financial backing from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, another elite channel for money that flows out of the electronics industry.
Then there is Moonie money that goes to support people like Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, the Rutherford Institute, and a whole host of other "big names" in the Christian world - and this is just a tiny sampling of what's going on.
Now, does one really think that all this elite money is going to the church without any strings attached? Come on now! - what strictly religious connection does the armaments industry have with Pat Robertson; or the banking industry with Jerry Falwell? Be honest here! - what intersection of interests is there between the liquor industry (Adolf Coors - another funder of many in today's church), the electronics industry, and the oil industry on one hand, and the poor Carpenter of Nazareth on the other hand? Be honest! [Please see our article on Richard Mellon Scaife entitled, "Richard Mellon Scaife: The Evil That Money Can Do" for a look into the convoluted world that connects elite money to the leaders of today's church."]
The pastors act as slave auctioneers; the slaves they are selling are their own followers (and the votes that go with them at election time); and the buyers are the "worthies" of the various economic elites. Do the elites need support for "Welfare Reform" so that there is more "corporate welfare" for them and less welfare for the needy? Do they require support for their incessant war against the poor in the jungles of Colombia and Venezuela? The pastors whip up their parishioners in support of these agendas. Do the elites need "warm bodies" to demonstrate for "their man" (i.e., George Bush) in Florida - the pastors deliver. Whatever the elites want, the pastors see that they get - and oftentimes, what the elites want runs counter to the REAL interests of their parishioners.
Indeed, what the pastors are doing is conspiring with the moneyed elites of this world to sell LIES to their own followers - lies that are as false and self-serving as the claims of cigarette companies that nicotine is nonaddictive and cigarette smoke poses no health hazard.
And now we get to the meat of things - what apostasy ultimately produces: It transforms God's servants into ENEMIES of the Kingdom of God. And why is that? - because apostasy makes God's servants "friends of this world," and the Bible says:
"WHOSOEVER … WILL BE A FRIEND OF THE WORLD IS THE ENEMY OF GOD." (James 4:4)
These are those about whom Paul said,
"For I have told you often before, and I say it again now with tears in my eyes, there are many who walk along the Christian road who have become the enemies of the cross of Christ. Their future is ... loss ... [for] all they think about is this life here on earth." [Phil. 3:18-19 (Amp.)]
AND ISN'T THIS EXACTLY WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO BOTH ISRAEL AND THE CHURCH? The very real fact of the matter is, the American New World Order System has no closer allies than Israel and the church. My heavens! - what a SHAME all this is: that Israel, about whom God said, "... I AM A FATHER TO ISRAEL," and the church about whom the Bible says "... CHRIST … LOVED THE CHURCH AND GAVE HIMSELF UP FOR HER" should be counted now as God's enemies; for BOTH have made a pact with Babylon, and its in Babylon's strength that both have sought refuge.
One cannot, however, be Babylon's friend and at the same time call himself a friend of God. Again, it's not without reason that the Bible says, "Whosoever … will be a friend of the world [over which sits Babylon the Great] is the enemy of God." (James 4:4)
Both Israel and the church have made a pact with the devil by becoming friends with the United States
And what slavish retainers both have become in Babylon's service - especially as that service has impacted on the expansion of the American New World Order System. What close partners both have become in America's brutal and bloody effort to subjugate the earth.
NOTE
In describing the work of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq we are fully cognizant that this committee is today somewhat passé. Nonetheless, the workings of this committee describes perfectly what is going on in other Religious Right / Political Right institutions - even what's going on today in the Sarah Palin's Tea Party Movement.
And one doesn't have to look far for examples: Take what Jim Lobe, who writes for Inter Press Services, discovered insofar as the elite's effort to secure Christian support for their destructive war in Iraq; he reported that a small group of well-placed AMERICAN NEW WORLD ORDER devotees with close ties to (then) Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield, (then) Vice President Dick Cheney, and (then) Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was largely responsible for rallying Christian support for the invasion of Iraq. They called themselves the "COMMITTEE FOR THE LIBERATION OF IRAQ," and they brazenly set themselves up in offices on Capitol Hill.
The new "Committee on Iraq" was a spin-off from the "Project For A New American Century" (PNAC), an elite American New World Order "front group" consisting of one primary group, and two lackey groups who - like the "lapdogs" they have become - exist off the scraps of food that fall from time to time from their master's table.
THE PRIMARY GROUP:
Elements from the POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC RIGHT (for example, Richard Perle, Frank Gaffney, the late Jeane Kirkpatrick, Michael Ledeen, Marc Reuel Gerecht, etc., as well as elite economic groups that revolve around Exxon/Mobile, Chevron, Haliburton, Philips, etc.).
THE TWO LACKY GROUPS:
CONSERVATIVE JEWS dedicated to cementing a military alliance between the United States and Israel (for example, Midge Deckter and the Norman Podhoretz "circle" centered around the conservative Jewish publication, Commentary.
CHRISTIAN EVANGELICAL "HEAVY HITTERS" - the group that forms the CORE political constituency for today's Republican Party. [Please see our article, "Inside the American New World Order System."]
All of these groups in one way or another see in the very power America wields proof of America's "exceptionalism," and each group hopes to harness U.S. power for its own purposes, whether for -
Economic aggrandizement,
Security for the state of Israel
or
The expansion of Christianity.
Moreover, none of these groups shrinks from the possibility of having to use the "barrel of a gun" to promote its interests. Finally, each of these groups has come to believe that Islam is a force to be reckoned with insofar as the promotion of its interests are concerned, and, therefore, each is fervently working for Islam's diminution, and even - if possible - its destruction.
The members of PNAC believe in POWER, and they feel that power has a "USE IT OR LOSE IT" peculiarity about it. They do not intend to lose it; they mean to use it.
To this end, PNAC is dedicated to promoting America's "War on Terrorism" as a conflict between Jews and Christians (on the one hand) and Islam (on the other hand). They are intent on widening the so-called "War on Terror," and eventually turning it into a CIVILIZATION CONFLICT through which they hope to eliminate Islam once and for all. This is, of course, precisely what such Christian leaders as Pat Robertson, D. James Kennedy, Jerry Falwell, John Hagee and all those evangelical Christian groups connected to the "Apostles and Prophets Movement," and the so-called "International Christian Embassy in Israel" are fervently hoping for. [Please see our article, "Radical Islam;" please also see our article on the International Christian Embassy, "The Superman Theology of the International Christian Embassy's Feast of Tabernacles."]
The immediate purpose of the "Committee for the Liberation of Iraq" was to mold the Christian evangelical community into a political counterweight against those forces on the Left that are increasingly speaking out against the war - AND IT IS FROM THIS PERSPECTIVE THAT ONE MUST JUDGE THE MEAN-SPIRITED STATEMENTS THAT ARE ESCALATING OUT OF THE LEADERSHIP OF THE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY CONCERNING ISLAM AND THE INEVITABILITY OF WAR BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND THE MUSLIM WORLD. [Please see our article, "The Coming War in Iraq: What It's Really All About."]
These statements were not "happenchance" nor coincidental. They were part of a carefully orchestrated campaign to prepare Christians to back such a war - a war whose REAL aim was to capture and then control the oil wealth of Iraq (and, ipso facto, the Middle East) for the benefit of America's oil elites, just as the overriding aim of the War in Afghanistan is to capture and control the oil wealth of Central Asia for those same elites. [Please see our article, "The War in Afghanistan: It's Not What You Think."]
PNAC (again, the "mother-group" for the "Committee for the Liberation of Iraq") was formed in 1997 by such Christian, Jewish, and financial elitists as Elliot Abrams, Gary Bauer, William Bennett, Dick Cheney, Vin Weber, Norman Podhoretz, Eliot Cohen, Midge Decter, Paul Dobriansky, Steve Forbes, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfield - all of whom were aghast at the timidity of Clinton's foreign policy in advancing the interests of the American New World Order System - especially in Central Asia and the Middle East.
The members of PNAC believe in POWER, and they feel that power has a "USE IT OR LOSE IT" peculiarity about it. They do not intend to lose it; they mean to use it. The members of PNAC view the power America wields as proof of America's "exceptionalism."
PNAC' statement of purpose reads in part:
"American foreign and defense policy is adrift ... We aim to change this. We aim to make the case and rally support for AMERICAN GLOBAL LEADERSHIP [read: the American New World Order System] ... We need to accept responsibility for America's UNIQUE role in preserving and EXTENDING an INTERNATIONAL ORDER friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles [read: 'we need to create a universal economic and political order dominated by the United States and dedicated to making client-states out of the nations of the rest of the world']."
PNAC stems out of the same Evangelical Christian, Conservative Catholic, and New World Order political and economic elements in the United States that helped America fight and win its Contra War in Central and South America in the 1980s - such as the "Committee for the Free World," "Prodemca," "Friends of the Democratic Center in Central America" and last, and most importantly, the "INSTITUTE FOR RELIGION AND DEMOCRACY" (IRD). There is a history here to which the "Committee for the Liberation of Iraq" was connected - one with a very bloody and cruel past, and one that threatens to besmirch the reputations of both Israel and the church. [Please see our two articles, "Colombia: America's New Vietnam" and "The Spread of America's New World Order System Northward from Latin America to the United States."]
The IRD is particularly instructive concerning the DEADLY mindset behind what's been animating this history, and what the "Committee for the Liberation of Iraq" was REALLY up to insofar as the War in Iraq was concerned, and the part the American elites expect Israel and the church to play in the events that are even now unfolding in the Middle East. Twenty-five years ago, when the IRD was formed, one of its primary purposes was to bring to bear the weight of the evangelical Christian community in support of the Contra War and stifle what the elites considered to be the "pernicious" influence of "Liberation Theology" in Latin America which - as we reported in our article, "The Death Squads: Bringing in the Kingdom of God through Terror, Torture, and Death" - had taken hold in Argentina and Brazil and was rapidly spilling outward and threatening to spark a socialist conflagration throughout the region. [This is, of course, EXACTLY what the elites expected out of the "Committee for the Liberation of Iraq" insofar as their war in the Middle East was (is) concerned - i.e., to stifle the opposition of the Left in this country to the so-called "War on Terror," of which the War in Iraq was only one aspect.]
Liberation Theology was a new and RADICAL Christian theology promulgated at first by left-wing Catholic clerics and later by liberal Protestant groups, and it was rapidly taking hold in the innumerable urban shanty towns and poverty-stricken rural communities throughout Central and South America. It was an incendiary gospel that linked socialism to Christian theology in a revolutionary blend which was proving to be particularly attractive to the peasants of Latin America - and it attracted them in a way which the traditional, more secular brand of Marxism-Leninism had never been able to do. [Please see our article, "Liberation Theology, the Vatican, and the CIA: Ghosts and Phantoms."]
What the IRD did was to coordinate the efforts of conservative Catholics [e.g., Catholics like General Vernon Walters (Deputy Chief of the CIA), Zbigniew Brzezinski (former Advisor to the President on National Security Affairs), Bill Simon (former Secretary of the Treasury), Michael Novak, John Neuhaus, etc., as well as "lay" Catholic groups such as P-2 and Opus Dei (all of which had rallied around the new conservative Pope, John Paul II] and the EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY to fight the efforts by the left-wing Catholic clergy. What they (i.e., the liberal Catholic clergy) were doing that the evangelicals and the conservative Catholics found so offensive was - in conjunction with liberal Protestant groups - fighting to break the strangle-hold on the poor (about 85 percent of the region's population) by the wealthy oligarchies that controlled Central and South America in the interests of the American New World Order System. [Please see our article, "The Catholic / Evangelical Rapprochement."]
The IRD was responsible for providing the ideological and RELIGIOUS framework for waging the MURDEROUS war against the adherents of Liberation Theology in El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. In addition, others who operated in the political and religious nexus out from which the IRD sprang had been deeply involved in overthrowing the popularly elected Allende government in Chile, the Goulert government in Brazil and installing brutal right-wing dictatorships in their stead as well as similar dictatorships in Uruguay, Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru - ALL IN THE NAME OF CHRIST.
Now think about the STUPIDITY of all this insofar as evangelical Christians are concerned! In the interest of fighting against the "New Age" ideology (theology) supposedly espoused by the adherents of Liberation Theology and mainline Protestantism, Christian evangelicals allied themselves with groups such as P-2 and Opus Dei (whose conservative Catholic ideologies are much more ABHORRENT and DEMONIC than anything the adherents of Liberation Theology have ever dreamed up) to "take back "DOMINION" in Central and South America for "Christ and the church." [This kind of thinking - the kind that lies behind the notion that Christians must engage the forces of evil in this world "THROUGH THE BARREL OF A GUN" - is called "Dominionism;" please see our article on "Dominionism."]
Opus Dei and P-2
BUT SUCH THINKING IS OXYMORONIC! - i.e., allying oneself with P-2 and Opus Dei to fight against the adherents of Liberation Theology. IT'S KIND OF LIKE ALLYING ONESELF WITH BEELZEBUB TO FIGHT SATAN. It's ridiculous! At the very least, the followers of Liberation Theology had the interests of the poor at heart; Opus Dei and P-2 - together with the wealthy oligarchies they support - have NEVER had the interests of the poor in mind; their only concern has been for themselves and the interests of the American New World Order System that preserves them from the rage of the 85 percent of the population they suppress and domineer.
To put it plainly, what the IRD did was paint the battle for control of Central and South America - which was in reality a struggle between the indigenous populations of the region (on the one hand) and the American New World Order System (on the other hand) - as a war between "atheistic Communism" and the "Occultic Forces" of the "New Age (again, on the one hand) and Christianity and God's so-called "Redeemer Nation" (on the other hand). And they succeeded in convincing Christian evangelicals as to the "veracity" of their ruse.
Indeed, even today in countless numbers of evangelical missionary groups (e.g., Wycliffe, YWAM, New Tribes, etc.) and Christian churches throughout the country, the defeat of Liberation Theology in Central and South America, [and the concomitant overthrow of the Allende government in Chile, the "reduction" of the Sandanistas in Nicaragua, and the earlier destruction of the Goulert government in Brazil (and the resultant installation of MURDEROUS dictatorships in their stead)] is hailed as a great victory for Christianity over the forces of Occultism and the New Age.
For example, Beverly LaHaye never tires of "trumpeting" her part in the overthrow of the Goulert government in Brazil; and we (i.e., Antipas) never cease to receive letters from now retired evangelical missionaries who served in Brazil, Guatemala, Argentina, Uruguay, Bolivia, El Salvador, etc. who - sadly - took sides with the death squads in their murderous campaign against the Leftists of the area during that era. Their thinking at the time ran along the lines of Cubie Ward of Paralife Ministries when he said,
"Killing for the joy of it is wrong, but killing because it is necessary to fight against an anti-Christ system ... is not only right, but the duty of every Christian."
OR the evangelical pastors who defended the HOMICIDAL rampage of their Contra "parishioners" by saying,
"... they don't massacre people ... They massacre demons, and these people are demon possessed: they're communists ..."
OR the businessman who praised the work of the death squads as the work of "dedicated Christians," and who further said:
"Don't say it was I who said so, but the victory over ... [the Left] began the day my wife said, 'There's no way out except to kill these monsters [i.e., the peasant adherents to Liberation Theology]: we've got to kill them all'!"
OR the work of death squad functionaries who stuck bayonets up the vaginas of their female captives, cut off the penises and testicles of their male prisoners, and fried their captives over a bed of hot coals on pieces of corrugated metal like hamburgers on a frying pan - and then sang in the choir of their churches the next Sunday as they did at the evangelical Christian Verbo Church in Guatemala City.
For these reasons and much more, Christians have become, as Psalm 44:14 suggests,
"... a byword [i.e., a terse saying or adage] among the heathen [i.e., the unbelievers], a shaking of the head among the people" [at least insofar as the poor of this world are concerned] - and because of these monstrous wrongs, the Lord's Name has been ... profaned among the heathen [i.e., unbelievers], whither we went." (Ezek. 36:22)
What a SHAM we as Christians "bought into" - believing (really, "pretending") that the war the American New World Order System was conducting against Liberation Theology in the jungles of Central and South America was a war of "good" vs. "evil;" of Christianity vs. Occultism and the New Age; of God vs. the devil! - AND NOW THE SAME GROUP THAT SOLD US THAT "BILL OF GOODS" IS TRYING TO SELL THIS SHAM TO US ALL OVER AGAIN, THIS TIME IN THE MIDDLE EAST. And once again, Christians are falling for this deceit, just as they did twenty-five years ago.
What UTTER and COMPLETE toadies we have been made by the rich of this world! - i.e., by the elites who control Exxon-Mobil, Philips, Chevron, Haliburton, etc. The sad truth is, America is sending its young men and women off to the Middle East to fight and die for the sake of Chevron Oil's "bottom line," and the evangelical Christian community is not only standing on the side-lines cheering, but offering up its own children as "storm troopers" for Exxon-Mobile and Philips as well.
And - sadly - it's not just Christians who have been reduced to the status of toadies and boot-lickers to the rich in the American New World Order System; Jews have descended to that level as well. One has only to peruse the membership of the "Project For A New American Century" [again, the "mother group" for the new "Committee for the Liberation of Iraq" and the successor group to the "INSTITUTE FOR RELIGION AND DEMOCRACY" (IRD)] to discover that there is not much difference between the Jews and the Christians in this matter; both groups have sold themselves out as servants to the moneyed elites of this world, and specifically to the American New World Order System. This is the kind of thing that the prophet Hosea was talking about when he said:
"... [they have] played the harlot ... for ... [they have] said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink." (Hos. 2:5)
That's pretty harsh! But that's what harlotry is - selling yourself for money and the "good things of life." And why did the Jews do this? - because, as Hosea said, their "lovers" took care of them! And isn't that ostensibly what the American New World Order System is doing for the Jews and the state of Israel? - just as it is doing for Christians? Of course it is. But there's a price the Jews are having to pay for that so-called "care" - and that is, they must forever "stand at the ready," like any good servant must, to be summoned anytime, anywhere to "service the needs" of the elites who control the American New World Order System.
Sadly, most Jews - and for that matter, most evangelicals - have very little idea of how far and wide over the globe this service has taken the Jews and Israel - or the depths of indecency and shame into which it has plunged them. But the poor of the earth know; those whom the American New World Order System has oppressed and domineered - they know. They know the depths of infamy and immorality to which Israel has been plunged - all for the sake of "servicing the needs" of the American New World Order System!
THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN ONE SERVES THE DEVIL AND THE INTERESTS OF HELL. [Please see our article, "The Search for Babylon; What Do the Scriptures Say."] One acquires a reputation for scandal and shame - and contrary to what most might think today, Israel was not always held in such contempt by the poor and dispossessed of the World. The fact is, most of the early support Israel received in the precincts of the United Nations came from those nations and peoples which we today call the "Third World" - and oftentimes it came in defiance of the machinations of the anti-Semitic whims of the U.S. State Department. The fact is, in the beginning, the poor of the world thought of Israel as one of them. They embraced Israel as an example of what the "little people" of the world could do if they stood their ground against the rich and powerful.
What caused everything to be turned around to the extent that it has been? What caused the "little people" of the world to turn away from Israel? What caused Israel to be numbered among those nations of the world who trample the poor of the world underfoot, rather than as a nation who stood up against the world's oppressors?
Most Jews and evangelical Christians think that it was the result of Arab propaganda. To a certain extent, that's true - at least insofar as the peoples and nations of the Middle East are concerned. Unfortunately, however, that doesn't tell the whole story. Why, for example, do the blacks of South Africa, Angola, the Congo, etc. hate the Jews and Israel so much? Why do the indigenous populations of Latin America despise them to the degree that they do? What's going on here? The rage these people feel towards Israel as expressed wherever the Left demonstrates against the oppressive policies of such institutions of the American New World Order System as the IMF, the World Bank, and the WTO cannot be explained away simply as the result of Arab propaganda. Not even anti-Semitism can explain it away.
No! - there is a much deeper and sinister reason, and one that most Jews and Israelis are loathe to admit - though deep down in their heart they surely must have an inkling if they think about it to any great degree. The very real fact of the matter is, the poor and dispossessed of the world have run into Israel and the Jews time and time again in their unceasing struggle against the oppression and cruelty of the American New World Order System. And they have run into them in the same way that the American colonialists ran into Hessian soldiers during America's War of Independence - as MERCENARIES and THUGS in the pay of their masters, the American military and the CIA.
The fact is, elite Israeli military units and the agents of the Mossad have been running amok all over the world in the service of the American New World Order System, performing dirty, bloody little tasks that the U.S. military and the CIA have been forbidden by law to do: an assassination here, running guns there, dealing with people that the Americans wouldn't get "caught dead" talking to, and generally acting as proxies (really toadies) for the Americans in tasks that the Americans didn't want to touch because of the horror and disgust attached to such activity - AND THAT'S WHY ISRAEL IS SO UNPOPULAR TODAY IN THE SO-CALLED THIRD WORLD!
Come on now, don't act so surprised! You say this is the first time you ever heard about any of this? - but if that's so, it's because you didn't want to know. After all, one doesn't have to have access to secret documents to ask himself why Israeli military "advisors" and Mossad agents have been tramping all over Africa and Central and South America? For what possible reason have they been doing so? What possible motive did the Israeli military have that was purely of Israeli or Jewish origin for their ubiquitous presence as military "advisors" in the Contra training camps in Central America in the 1980s, or in Angola, the Congo, Mozambique, and elsewhere in Africa where American interests were being challenged.
What purely Jewish reasons were there for someone like Midge Deckter - whose overriding purpose in life has been the preservation of the "Jewish state" - to be found "manning" the boards of a whole host of American New World Order System "front" organizations dedicated to maintaining America's crushing political and economic grip on the people and nations of Central and South America - for example, groups such as the "INSTITUTE FOR RELIGION AND DEMOCRACY." What real Israeli interest per se could she possibly have had for Central and South America? - or for the Contra War? The reason very obviously was that she was ingratiating herself to the American elites, and doing their bidding in order to secure their reciprocal support for Israel. [Deckter, for those of you who have never heard of her, is the wife of Norman Podhoretz, the publisher of Commentary Magazine, the leading light of conservative Jewry in the United States, and the conduit through which Israeli officials (especially Likud Party officials) orchestrate their relationship with American evangelicals and elite moneyed interests such as the Heritage Foundation, Olin, Pew, etc.]
It's through Jews connected to the "Podhoretz group" that countless numbers of Israeli military officers have been procured to speak at evangelical Christian churches. Indeed, in recent years, there is hardly an American evangelical church that hasn't been visited by handsome Israeli military officers telling dashing stories of "daring-do" about the various wars that Israel has been involved in since 1948. But rarely are there any stories told about Israeli military operations in Central and South America, or in Africa - all in slavish support of the American New World Order System. No! - those kind of stories are "off limits."
Norman Podhoretz and his allies have been ruthlessly successful in persuading American Jews to ally themselves with the neo-conservative right in the "defense of Israel."
In addition, Deckter is the mother-in-law of none other than Elliot Abrams, who - in the 1980s - was President Reagan's notorious "front man" for the bloody suppression of the "insurrectionists" in Central America, and who was heavily linked to the operation of death squads throughout the region. Abrams and Oliver North are the ones who came up with the idea of circumventing the Congressional mandate against aid to the Contras by securing "humanitarian aid" from the American evangelical community, and military aid from the Israelis.
The entire evangelical Christian community was involved, and included just about everyone who was anything, including such Christian millionaires as Ellen Garwood (heir to the Clayton Anderson Fortune), the Coors family, Richard Mellon Scaife (heir to the Mellon Banking Fortune), Cullen Davis, Richard DeVoss, Edwin Feulner, Edith Hakola, Smith Hempston, Herbert Hunt, Nelson Bunker Hunt, etc., as well as such prominent and influential Christian leaders as Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Robert Dugan, Jerry Falwell, Ron Godwin, Ed McAteer, ad nauseum. [Please see our article on the strange alliance the Christian Right has made with the Secular Right entitled "Strange Bedfellows: The Religious Right and the Secular Right."]
The Abrams / North effort at securing the aid of the Israelis and the evangelical Christian community in support of the re-imposition of the American New World Order System in Nicaragua and the rest of Central America was a coup of monumental dimensions for both North and Abrams. In reality, however, Abrams was much more the leader in this effort than was North. His fingerprints were everywhere! - even in the effort to secure the backing of the evangelical community, where Abrams - although calling most of the shots - took a "back seat" to North because he was Jewish and North was a Christian.
Interestingly, it was Abrams who took control of the State Department's "Middle East Desk" during the early stages of America's "War on Terror" and its resultant war in Iraq - LENDING CREDENCE TO THE SUPPOSITION THAT THE SAME "CROWD" THAT INVOLVED ISRAEL AND THE AMERICAN EVANGELICAL COMMUNITY IN REAGAN'S CONTRA WAR WAS IN CONTROL OF THE EFFORT TO INVOLVE BOTH COMMUNITIES ALL OVER AGAIN IN AMERICA'S NEW WARS IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND CENTRAL ASIA.
THE FACT IS, IN TODAY'S WORLD THE AMERICAN NEW WORLD ORDER SYSTEM'S MOST LOYAL AND EFFECTIVE ALLIES (READ, LAPDOGS) ARE ISRAEL AND THE CHURCH, not NATO, not the EC, not Japan, not Saudi Arabia nor Egypt nor any other such group or entity.
One is tempted to say that all this is just coincidence - nothing more than "happenchance." There's no real collusion between Israel and the church (on the one hand) and the elites who control the American New World Order System (on the other hand). But that's nothing more than wishful thinking - the result of PURPOSEFUL naiveté on the part of both Jews and Christians.
The fact is, there are "smoking guns" lying all over the world that attest to the collusion between the American elites and their lapdogs, Israel and the church. Take, for example, the IRD's statement of purpose back in the 1980s: it sets out in black and white what the leaders of the evangelical church were up to insofar as whipping their parishioners up in defense of the American New World Order System in Central America, and molding them into a bulwark of support for that system. The statement reads in part:
"Never has there been a greater need for strong churches as a crucial component of civil society. America and the world require a fresh impetus of Christian evangelization, transforming both individuals and cultures. Yet tragically, important segments of the American church ... are spiraling into deep decline as they retreat from this task. Particularly in the historic 'mainline Protestant denominations, but also in other churches, many leaders have lost their focus on the Gospel, the basis of their existence. They have turned toward political agendas mandated neither by the Scriptures nor by Christian tradition. They have thrown themselves into multiple, often leftist crusades - radical forms of feminism, environmentalism, pacifism, multi-culturalism, revolutionary socialism, sexual liberation and so forth."
This statement is a purposeful "slam" in "Church-speak" against those Christians who refuse to support the American New World Order System (what the IRD terms "civil society"). It pictures the mission of the church as the "transformation of culture" (that's what the IRD means by "Christian evangelization") - and sees the challenge of the Left as the enemy of culture, which it pictures as the "American Free Enterprise System" (read: "the American New World Order System").
When the tome speaks of the "deep decline" of the church, its "retreat from this task" (i.e., the "transformation of culture"), and its "lost focus on the Gospel" what it has in mind is the tendency of some in the church to oppose the expansion of the American system. Finally, it labels all those in the church who oppose the expansion of THE AMERICAN NEW WORLD ORDER SYSTEM as "leftists" - people who embrace radical feminism (i.e., "home and hearth"), environmentalism (read" "tree huggers" and "New Age" devotees), multi-culturalism (read: all those who embrace non-Western and non-Christian cultures), "revolutionary socialism" (read: "Anarchists and Communists") and "sexual liberation" (read: "hedonists and libertines").
Wow! - those Christians who oppose the American New World Order System are all these things? - i.e., "hedonists," "libertines," "Anarchists," "Communists," "New Agers," and generally people who oppose "family and hearth." Eeee gads - that's the kind of "stuff" that can get one thrown out of the church - which is precisely what the IRD wants, fulfilling the words of Christ when He said,
"... take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils; and in the ... [churches] ye shall be beaten: and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them." (Mark 13:9)
The hard truth of the matter is, the justification the elites are using to draw both Israel and the church into the wars in the Middle East is based on lies! - lies that are, as we said previously, as false and self-serving as the claims of cigarette companies that nicotine is nonaddictive and cigarette smoke poses no health hazard.
Lies! - lies like the ones the United States used to draw Christians into the Contra War of the 1980s, passing that war off as a struggle between "atheistic Communism" and the "Occultic Forces" of the "New Age (on the one hand) and Christianity and God's so-called "Redeemer Nation" (on the other hand) rather than what it really was, a struggle between the indigenous populations of the region and the American New World Order System.
Lies! - lies like the one a sobbing 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, known only by her first name of Nayirah, told a Committee of Congress about Iraqi soldiers storming into al-Addan hospital in Kuwait City during the Fist Gulf War, removing babies from their incubators and throwing them on the floor to die. It was all a lie - a lie that the U.S. government, in coordination with the Kuwaiti Ambassador (whose daughter Nayirah turned out to be), fabricated and "pushed" on the American public in order to enlist U.S. support for that war. And all this to say nothing about how the U.S. government enticed Iraq into invading Kuwait in the first place (which is another story altogether).
Indeed, it sometimes seems that the government can't function without lying. The murder of Patrice Lumumba; Mk-Ultra; the assassinations of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King; the Tonkin Gulf Resolution (which got us into the Vietnam War); the Pentagon Papers (which laid out in detail the lies the Vietnam Conflict was based on); Agent Orange; the Contra Wars; Iran-Contra; the toppling of the duly elected governments of Chile (Allende), Brazil (Gourlert), Guatemala (Arbenz), etc.; the CIA's involvement all over the world in drug running, etc., etc. - LIES! All of them LIES, and if that's the case, what does that say about our government? -
"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He ... abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." (John 8:44)
This is the background of the people with whom both Israel and the church have "climbed into bed" - AND IT IS PRECISELY THESE LIARS - THESE "CHILDREN OF THE DEVIL" - THAT ARE INVOLVING ISRAEL AND THE CHURCH IN THEIR MACHINATIONS INSOFAR AS THE WARS IN THE MIDDLE EAST ARE CONCERNED.