Welcome on this New Years Eve 2004 as we are going to take a journey through Bible prophecy and see how they relate to world events today. Back in 1995, at a prophecy conference in Orlando, Florida; one of the speakers was a man named Elbert Peak from Abilene, Texas. He has been teaching and speaking on Bible prophecy for over sixty years!
The topic of his presentation was, “The Signs of the Times” and he began by saying: “I began preaching on the signs sixty years ago when there were very few that you could actually see. Today they are everywhere. I am no longer looking for signs, I am looking for sounds!” We, as Paul was, are “looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works. Speak these things, exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no one despise you.” Titus 2:13-15.
Ever since the Jews became a nation once again in the land of Israel in 1948 and re-gained the city of Jerusalem in 1967, making it the capitol of Israel, God’s prophetic time clock seems to be moving faster and faster towards His return for His Bride, the Church, and the start of the 7-year tribulation period. That will be followed by the Lord’s return to the earth with His saints to set up His kingdom on this earth for 1,000 years and after that a new heavens and a new earth will be created that is eternal!
Now, in saying that there are many bizarre ideas out there that people have regarding the Bible and Bible prophecy as they try to twist the Scriptures to fit what they believe instead of what God is saying. Maybe you heard of the story of the new pastor who was visiting members of his church one afternoon. As he knocked on one woman’s door, one of his parishioners, she did not answer even though he knew she was home, he could hear the television playing. So he decided to leave her a note on his business card from Revelation 3:20, which said, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.”
On that following Sunday after the service, the woman came up to the pastor and handed him a card with a note on it. This is what was written on the card from Genesis 3:10, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”
Obviously that is not what God intended but they twisted the Scriptures to fit their situation and yet, Peter tells us in II Peter 1:20-21, “knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” You see, the Scriptures are not to be used for our own opinions but it is a revelation of the mind of God to us!
The reason I am brining this up in a study like this is because of a new book series that Tyndale House is putting out, the same company that put out The Left Behind series, and yet this one goes contrary to what God’s Word has to say and that is very troubling to me! Listen to these excerpts from an article in Agape Press from December 3, 2004, by Jenni Parker and Jim Brown. We are told:
Tyndale House recently published The Last Disciple, the first book of a series that embraces the notion that many of the promises for the return of Christ were fulfilled in A.D. 70 when the Roman armies brought destruction to Israel. The novel was co-written by Hank Hanegraaff, a Christian scholar/researcher and host of a syndicated call-in radio show, The Bible Answer Man, and the eschatological theory on which his fictional story is based stands in stark contrast to the pre-tribulation view espoused in Tyndale’s popular Left Behind series, co-authored by Dr. Tim LaHaye.
The Last Disciple tells a story in which the Roman emperor, Nero, is depicted as Revelation’s “beast.” In the novel, Christians in Rome and Jerusalem are suffering through the Tribulation, a period of severe persecution against Christians. Nero, meanwhile, is seeking the Apostle John’s letter (the Book of Revelation) in order to destroy it. To survive, the early Christians in the story must decipher the mysteries hidden in the apostle’s carefully coded communication . . .
Tyndale’s decision to publish The Last Disciple came as a total surprise to LaHaye, who has a long history with Tyndale. “I was shocked beyond words, just stunned,” he says, “when I saw this from this publisher. See, I was their first writer – Spirit Controlled Temper was my first book. And they’ve held the pre-trib position for 40 years. That’s why I went with them.”
LaHaye believes the “millennial” or “preterist” view of biblical prophecy put forth in The Last Disciple fails to interpret properly what scripture makes plain. The Left Behind author says, “It comes right down to the issue of whether the millennium is a thousand years, the way the Book of Revelation clearly says it is, or whether it’s an ambiguous period of time, and we can’t pin it down.”
The pre-trib author says the new book by Hanegraaff erroneously teaches that all of Revelation’s prophecies have come to pass and the rapture has already occurred. “Their idea that the Book of Revelation was written in 64 or 66 A.D. means it’s passed – it was all fulfilled,” he notes. “Personally, I think it’s an absolutely ridiculous view – and indefensible.”
The well-known Christian theologian says hearing preterists promote this “nonsense” causes him to respond, “You mean we’re living in the millennium? What a shock! Or that Satan is bound? – Good grief! Can you imagine the surprise of the apostles and others, to think that Satan is bound? Then, who’s doing all the mischief in this world?”
LaHaye says the allegorical view of Bible prophecy held by Hanegraaff and others was first espoused by the Catholic monk Augustine . . .
But Ron Beers, senior vice president of Tyndale, feels there is nothing strange about Tyndale publishing both series of books. The Dallas Morning News quotes him as saying that Tyndale, as a Christian publisher, is committed to representing a diversity of viewpoints. He notes that there are “a variety of perspectives on the end times” and says some readers “had a problem with the theology in the Left Behind books.”
Hanegraaff, who heads a Christian research institute based in Southern California, says he is “elated” with Tyndale’s support. His hope for the new book series, he adds, is that it will attract readers “in an age where most people aren’t even reading the Bible” and, once they have read it, that they will be prompted “to go back to Revelation and see if they will read it the same way.”
Folks, if this is the Kingdom Age and Satan is bound, we are in trouble! As you read the book of Revelation you can easily see that these events have in no way come to pass. Believers in Christ before the Tribulation Period starts are not going to go through it but will be taken out before it begins as God pours out His wrath on a Christ rejecting world! And to promote these lies to people who don’t read the Bible will only confuse them more! In regards to Bible prophecy and the second coming of Christ, there are over 500 prophecies of this in the Scriptures and one out of every twenty-five verses in the New Testament speak of His second coming! So I don’t believe God wants us to be confused regarding His return and if we would take God’s Word as He says it, I don’t believe we will be confused regarding end times events!
Now our focus this evening will be the following topics: THE DECLINE OF MORALLITY, THE COMING ONE-WORLD GOVERNMENT, THE COMING ONE-WORLD RELIGION, THE COMING WAR, THE CASH-LESS SOCIETY and we will conclude by looking at ISRAEL, the apple of God’s eye! So we have a lot of ground to cover tonight and we will be having a short break halfway through this study, and then after the two studies we will have a time of questions and answers for you. So with that said, let’s begin looking at our first topic this evening.
1. THE DECLINE OF MORALITY
Now many laugh at this idea of morality or the decline of morality as being a sign of the coming of the Lord. If you feel that way or are unsure, listen to what Paul told Timothy regarding the last days in II Timothy 3:1-5. We are told, “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!”
That phrase “last days” began with the first coming of Jesus Christ, according to Hebrews 1:1-2, and it will continue on to the setting up of His Kingdom in His second coming. So we are living in the last days!
Thus, as we continue to move closer to the Lord’s return, evil will grow, “perilous times will come” or times of great stress, savage times. This is the same word that is used in Matthew 8:28 to describe the two violent demoniacs of Gadara. That suggests to me that the violence, the evil, these times will be energized by demons!
As you look at this list given by Paul they have always existed, but now they have intensified in numbers and actions – our world is moving quickly into depravity. Man has truly become a lover of self and that is seen in the evil activities that he does. Let me give you some examples to show you where we are at today and how fast we are moving away from God.
First of all let’s look at the rise of the acceptance of homosexuality in this country. And please understand that the homosexual community is only some 2 to 4 percent of the population, not 10 to 15 percent, as they like to suggest. Yes, those numbers can grow and probably will, but that does not make it right and the reason for the growth is their push to make people gay. You may remember the story of the grade school teacher who told her student that if she didn’t like boys, she is probably a lesbian! Let’s face it, in grace school the opposite sex had cooties! You see, training up our children not only to accept the gay lifestyle but also to embrace it themselves!
In an article from WorldNetDaily, Brave New Schools, Homosexual Book for 1st Graders from March 18, 2004 we are told:
A North Carolina couple is outraged by a book their first-grade daughter brought home from the school library in which a prince finds his true love – in the form of another prince.
The leading character in “King & King,” Prince Bertie, waves off a bevy of eligible princes before falling for Prince Lee, Associated Press reported. The book ends with the two “marrying” and sharing a kiss.
The principal of Freeman Elementary School defended the book.
“What might be inappropriate for one family, in another family is a totally acceptable thing,” Principal Elizabeth Miars is quoted as saying.
Maybe we should have books on all kinds of immoral behavior, for in some families it is acceptable? How foolish! You remember Howard Dean, the 2004 Presidential hopeful candidate for the Democratic Party who didn’t make it, he said, “If God had thought homosexuality is a sin, He would not have created gay people.” First of all, listen to what God says regarding homosexuality. In Leviticus 20:13 we are told, “If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them.” In the New Testament we are told in Romans 1:24-28, “Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting.” You see, they are not born homosexuals, they chose that lifestyle and it is a sin before God! They rejected God and God gave them over to do the wickedness that is in their hearts and homosexuality is just one of those things!
Now homosexuality is being embraced in the church as a normal lifestyle in America and throughout the world! In an article from Norway, AFTENPORTEN, from November 22, 2003 we are told:
Churches in North-Norway guarantee homosexuals that they will be welcomed without prejudice. The parishes of Svolvaer and Vagan promise that no negative words can be uttered towards gay churchgoers in their churches, a promise that is bound not to please everyone.
“Everyone must respect the council’s decision. This flag clearly states that no attacks on homosexuals will be accepted here. People who have other viewpoints must simply remain silent. That applies to priests as well,” Mellling said.
The clergyfolk and council members stressed that the flag also symbolized a positive attitude towards homosexual clergy, including those that wish to live in partnership.
And from AgapePress, May 3, 2004 we see Canada do something that can put Bible teaching pastors in trouble. We are told:
Evangelical Christians in Canada fear it’s just a matter of time now before pastors there are charged for preaching that homosexuality is sinful.
By a vote of 55 – 11, Canada’s Senate last week gave final approval to Bill C-250, adding “sexual orientation” to the country’s hate crime law. It means comments made against homosexuality can now be considered as violations of the criminal code.
“With these new provisions, which include not only what somebody says about an issue to incite hatred, but also include provisions to seize literature that was used in the promotion of hatred, we have had a very strong concern that the Bible might become guilty by association,” he says.
Is it possible that Bibles may be confiscated as hate literature in Canada? We are living in perilous times!
To move on, this is from an article in U. S. News & World Report, November 15, 2004 dealing with a book about American Colleges and how they have changed. This is from an interview with Tom Wolfe, the writer of the book:
Your book suggests college today is mostly about sex, booze, and status. Hasn’t that always been true?
Before the Second World War, it was understood that one of the reasons for sending young people to college was to build character, which involved religion – which usually meant Christianity. The other reason was a broad general education. Together, those would set you apart from the vast majority of people in the country. But today, with a few exceptions, universities have totally abandoned the idea of strengthening character. You hardly ever hear the word anymore. That’s an enormous change.
Especially when it comes to sex?
At our university health services today, the message is: “We want you to have sex, we want you to have a lot of sex, we want you to have good sex, but there are certain things you must realize and certain safeguards you must attend to” – and that is so different from the old order. That is a huge difference in society.
Who is affected the most by today’s campus culture?
I think it’s hardest on young women. They have much more to lose – which is their femininity. And the idea that the great reward of the mating game comes first and then you get to know each other after – well, there’s something very hard on women about that, I think.
What’s you solution to the moral vacuum you describe in the book? Would you add religion back to college life?
I’m not religious myself. And it’s not something you can add. This book is not written as an indictment. I’m just saying this is what’s out there. I feel like the most important thing I can do is simply discover things that maybe other people would like to know.
Now here is a solution to teen pregnancy and if you have young children, how do you feel about their solution? We are told from The Observer, May 9, 2004:
Encouraging schoolchildren to experiment with oral sex could prove the most effective way of curbing teenage pregnancy rates, a government study has found.
Pupils under 16 who were taught to consider other forms of ‘intimacy’ such as oral sex were significantly less likely to engage in full intercourse, it was revealed.
And one of our Supreme Court Justices, Antonin Scalia said this regarding sex:
“I even take the position that sexual orgies eliminate social tensions and ought to be encouraged.”
And thus, we are in a sexual revolution in this country and really throughout the world as people do whatever they want to satisfy themselves and thus, since Roe verses Wade there have been over one hundred and sixty five million abortions! We kill children in the womb, and what do you think the next step is? Killing them after they are born! Listen to these two reports if you don’t think that could happen, because it already is!
This is from Reuters, September 8, 2004 and we are told:
Belgian lawmakers belonging to Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt’s ruling Flemish Liberal party have introduced a bill seeking to expand the country’s controversial euthanasia legislation to include minors.
Senators Jeannine Leduc and Paul Wille said in the bill that terminally ill children and teenagers had as much right to choose when they wanted to die as anyone else.
“Their suffering is as great (and) the situation they face is as intolerable and inhumane,” the senators’ bill read on Wednesday.
Wille and Leduc now also want to include “assisted suicide” in the current legislation as they feel patients often want to end their lives themselves.
And from The Associate Press, November 30, 2004 we are told:
A hospital in the Netherlands – the first nation to permit euthanasia – recently proposed guidelines for mercy killings of terminally ill newborns, and then made a startling revelation: It has already begun carrying out such procedures, which include administering a lethal dose of sedatives.
In August, the main Dutch doctors’ association KNMG urged the Health Ministry to create an independent board to review euthanasia cases for terminally ill people “with no free will,” including children, the severely mentally retard and people left in an irreversible coma after an accident.
The guideline says euthanasia is acceptable when the child’s medical team and independent doctors agree the pain cannot be eased and there is no prospect for improvement, and when the parents think it’s best.
Examples include extremely premature births, where children suffer brain damage from bleeding and convulsions; and diseases where a child could only survive on life support for the rest of its life, such as severe cases of spina bifida and epidermosis bullosa, a rare blistering illness.
There is so much more, this is only the tip of the iceberg from closing the streets in New Orleans for the Decadence Fest to the brothel in Moscow for homosexual pedophiles to planned parenthood and the conference they had for 4 to 9 and 10 to 14 year-olds in Waco, Texas on July 19, 2004. At this conference, when the parents tried to get in, they were banned and the children who did go in received a book “It’s Perfectly Normal” which is a 89 page primer of sexually-explicit illustrations showing these kids the tools for engaging in sexual acts – it is nothing more than a pornographic comic book one person said! It even deals with homosexuality stating, “The ancient Greeks thought that love between two men was the highest form of love,” found on page 17. And, according to the instructions on page 73, “There are many reasons why a female or couple might want or need to end a pregnancy.” The ninth reason is listed as “female did not intend to become pregnant.”
Let me end this section on Morality with this story “Chances Are You’ll Be Left Behind” from Weekly World News, September 13, 2004. We are told:
Chances are you’ll get left behind after the Rapture. But just because God thinks you’re a jerk and Armageddon is minutes away, it doesn’t mean you can’t have a good time.
In fact, this is the season for sinners to really live it up . . . But being left behind can be a blast! You don’t have to be depressed like those people in the Left Behind books . . . Disobey ALL 10 Commandments. You’re left behind for being a sinner anyway, you might as well go nuts. So knock yourself out: Shoplift, be an adulterer with your neighbor’s wife/husband depending on gender/sexual preferences, dishonor your parents and tell them they’re idiots - and kill, kill, kill all the people who have ever irritate you since grade school. Avoid poverty by holding up banks, looting snotty stores, stealing everything that’s not nailed down and squatting in vacant mansions where the wealthy residents, movie stars, models, CEO’s and entertainers were kindly, charitable, loving religious fanatics who went North during the Rapture . . . When Christ shows up again after seven years, don’t blow your second chance at salvation. Tell him (with a straight face, please) you are now a true believer and he is your Savior. Hold up a Bible for dramatic effect. When you finally get to Heaven and join the others, be sure to tell them (when God isn’t listening) how much wild and crazy fun they missed. Really rub it in.
In Genesis 6:5 we are told, “Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” Before the flood came, the judgment of God, man had deteriorated into wickedness – that was the passion of his heart. There is coming another judgment of God called the Tribulation Period leading into the Great Tribulation where God will judge man for his wickedness, judge a Christ rejecting world and as you can see, the heart of man today is growing more and more evil.
And folks, when the judgment comes, it will not be party time, but judgment time as Revelation tells us, and this is only one section, the judgment of God will reach a point where men will want to die and they won’t be able to! But in Revelation 6:12-17 we are told, “I looked when He opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became like blood. And the stars of heaven fell to the earth, as a fig tree drops its late figs when it is shaken by a mighty wind. Then the sky receded as a scroll when it is rolled up, and every mountain and island was moved out of its place. And the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains, and said to the mountains and rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able to stand?’” Judgment is coming!
2. THE COMING ONE-WORLD GOVERNMENT
We have talked about the coming one-world government before as we went through the book of Daniel and Revelation. The thing that has changed, as we are going to see, is that we are now training up the next generation to be citizens of this one-world government.
Way back in 1968 the Club of Rome had its beginnings with leaders from ten different countries gathering together for solutions to the world’s problems and their claim was that they had the answers for peace and prosperity for the world. Then, on September 17, 1973 the Club of Rome released this report: Regionalized and Adaptive Model of the Global World System. This document divides the world into ten political/economic regions that they call “kingdoms.” This seems to follow the free trade agreements that are being made. In fact, on July 18, 1993 Henry Kissinger, a CFR member and Trilateralist said the following in the Los Angeles Times concerning NAFTA: “What Congress will have before it is not a conventional trade agreement but the architecture of a new international system . . . a first step toward a new world order.” Thus, these ten toes of the multi-metallic image of Daniel chapter 2 are the ten political/economic regions that will represent a one-world government one day!
The thing is, how do we get Americans to give up their sovereignty and become part of this one-world government? By training up the children, the next generation as this story by Dennis L. Cuddy, Ph.D tells us, From World Citizenship to World Government:
There has been a lot in the news recently about the federal No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation concerning education. Most of the controversy has been about academic accountability, but there is a lesser-known part of the law that is also controversial. It is rare in federal legislation for Congress to single out one organization for special treatment. However, in NCLB one reads that, “the Secretary (of Education) is authorized to award grants to, or enter into contracts with, the Center for Civic Education (CCE)” and the CCE’s We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution education program “authorized under this subsection shall be made available to public and private elementary and secondary schools.” CCE is an INGO (UN status International Non- governmental Organization) . . . Why is CCE’s lack of emphasis upon America’s national sovereignty while emphasizing a UN Declaration a cause of concern? It’s because on Oct. 3, 2003, US Secretary of Education Rod Paige in Paris stated: “The United States is pleased to return to UNESCO . . . Our governments have entrusted us with the responsibility of preparing our children to become citizens of the world . . . UNESCO is a powerful forum for sharing our views, developing a common strategy, and implementing joint action.” . . . In the NEA Journal (October 1947), National Education Association (NEA) official William Carr wrote, “Teach those attitudes which will result, ultimately in the creation of a world citizenship and world government.” Late in 1945, Carr had been deputy secretary for the founding conference of UNESCO [United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization], whose first director-General, Sir Julian Huxley, wrote in UNESCO: It’s Purpose and Its Philosophy that “political unification in some sort of world government will be required.”
The year after Huxley’s book was published, UNESCO began a series of booklets titled Towards World Understanding. In volume 5 one finds mention of “the success of the teacher in bringing up his pupils to be good citizens of the world . . . As long as the child breathes the poisoned air of nationalism, education in world-mindedness can produce only rather precarious results . . . For the moment, it is sufficient to note that it is most frequently in the family that the children are infected with nationalism.” . . . In the October 10th, 1962 Congressional Record, Representative John Ashbrook warned that UNESCO’s “right attitudes” could “lead our youth down the path to collectivism and internationalism whereby they gradually lose their loyalty to home and nation . . . their first loyalty will be to world government.” Nearly three decades later UNESCO, UNICEF, the UN Development Program and the World Bank sponsored the World Conference on Education for all. Referring to the conference in his October 3rd, 2003 Paris speech, Secretary of Education Paige stated, “Education for All is consistent with our recent education legislation, the No Child Left Behind Act.”
You see, train up our children, because the parents are messing them up, that is the way to go and if there is a world government then there will also need to be a world currency that will eventually lead up to the mark of the beast, which we will discus more in our next session. But listen to this from AGI, Florence, Italy, Oct 11:
Nobel Prize winner Robert Mundell reckons that the “long-term goal is world currency”, and proposed to call it “Intoro”. That’s what he said at the international congress of financial directors in Florence. Intoro stands for “oro internazionale, international gold”, because the new currency “should be based on the only international metal system, which is gold. The mechanism is similar to the one of the Breton Woods agreement, and is to involve the IMF, perhaps with an initial agreement between the 3 main currencies, euro, US dollar and yen. The following step would be a temporary currency named ‘dey’ (dollar, euro, yen), and it could then include the pound sterling and the yuan. Such a monetary reform would, then lead to the brand new international currency, Intoro.”
How close are we to this one-world government that the Bible speaks of? Listen carefully to this report from August 2, 2004 – Another Step Towards a One World Government? We are told:
Those of you who live in the UK may be surprised to know that there are talks under way to put “feelers” out for a United America (with Canada and maybe even South America.) The USA is planning to attend a EU style regional governance plan in 2005. A plan for the creation of an American Union, patterned after the European Union and its Western European Army, was discussed at the June 1999, Bilderberger meeting in Sintra, Portugal.
Former United Nations Assistant-Secretary General, Robert Muller, said to a group of educators and students during the 1997 Global Citizenship 2000 Youth Congress, “ . . . Let us create regional continental units . . . the European Union, an American Union, which I’ve been pushing too – and this is how you got the trade agreement between the US and Canada. And then we’ll take the five continents, and the five continents, if they’re united, will create a World Union.”
But how can we, as a sovereign nation, an independent nation, join a world government – our Constitution doesn’t allow for that? Listen carefully to what author James McGregor Burns published in The Power to Lead in 1984. We are told:
“The framers of the U. S. constitution have simply been too shrewd for us. They have outwitted us. They designed separate institutions that cannot be unified by mechanical linkages, frail bridges, tinkering. If we are to ‘turn the Founders upside down’ – we must directly confront the constitutional structure they erected.”
And in April of 1974 the Former U. S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Trilateralist and CFR member Richard Gardner’s article The Hard Road to World Order, which was published in the CFR’s foreign Affairs and he stated:
“the ‘house of world order’ will have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down . . . but an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault.”
Some may not want this, they might not like it but the reality is, it is going to happen and it is just a matter of time and if you don’t like it, tough. That may seem harsh but it is not because I have said it but listen to what James Warburg said way back on February 17, 1950. He was a member of the CFR, and before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee he said these words, “We shall have a world government whether or not you like it – by conquest or consent.”
Folks, what may have seemed impossible 100 years ago, even 50 years ago is now very possible, a one-world government. It is not IF it will happen but more WHEN it will happen as Arthur C. Clarke tells us in Childhood’s End, “Fifty years is ample time in which to change a world and its people almost beyond recognition. All that is required for the task are a sound knowledge of social engineering, a clear sight of the intended goal – and power.”
Our goal as Christians is not to stop that from happening but to win people to Jesus Christ! You see, God said this will happen and the bigger issue is not a world government but who is ruling and reigning on the throne of your heart and the hearts of the people! Paul had the right attitude as he tells us in Romans 1:16-17, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; as it is written, ‘The just shall live by faith.’”
Never forget the Great Commission that Jesus gave to us in Matthew 28:19-20, “‘Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’ Amen.”
I know it seems like an impossible task but God is with us and it can be done as this story, from WorldNetDaily, January 23, 2004 tells us:
Walid Shoebat, born in Bethlehem, began attacking Israelis when he was 8 years old, throwing stones and Molotov cocktails.
He was, Shoebat says now, an Islamic terrorist in the making – a product of his environment, including schools, media and mosques that preached hatred of the Jews.
“I never actually met any Jews,” he said. “But in school we were taught from the Quran that they were pigs and monkeys.”
By 15, he had already served time in a Jerusalem prison for participating in an anti-Israeli riot. While there, he was recruited into the Palestine Liberation Organization.
At 16, he was chosen to take a loaf of bread, packed with explosives, to blow up the Bethlehem Bank Leumi. His instructions were to place it in a garbage can near the door of the building. But seeing Arab children playing nearby, he decided to throw the bread on the roof where it did little damage.
He once blinded a man during a fight and was “so happy” to learn he was a Jew.
He was also involved in the near lynching of an Israeli soldier. Though Shoebat and his friends took the soldier’s gun and beat him, he managed to escape.
His motivation?
“I wanted to die as a martyr,” [he said]. “We were indoctrinated to look forward to heaven.”
Shoebat’s parents, however, had something else in mind for their son. Fearing he would wind up dead or in prison, they sent him to the United States for college at the age of 18.
But that didn’t stop Shoebat’s anti-Israeli activism. He continued his recruitment for the PLO on campus. He was the representative for thousands of Palestinian students in Chicago, raising funds, purchasing military uniforms and sending students to fight in Lebanon.
His deep-seated revulsion of Jews and Israelis continued until he married a Christian woman in 1993. Though he was determined to convert her to Islam, Maria converted him instead.
“She challenged me to find any mistakes in the Bible,” he recalls. “So I set out on a six-month journey to do that – to find the errors and convert her.”
Instead, he says, after reading the Bible from cover to cover, he determined it was the truth. The computer programmer and his wife were baptized together.
It was an unlikely twist for the grandson of the mukhtar of Beit Sahour and a close friend of the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, an associate of Adolph Hitler.
But that was hardly the end of the journey for Walid Shoebat, now 43. To test his new faith he took a trip to Israel.
“I had still never talked to a Jewish Israeli,” he said. “On the plane there, I sat next to a Jewish woman and talked to her. She began crying. I asked her why. She said that she loved her daughters and was worried about them serving in the military. I asked her how they felt killing Palestinians. She replied that they hated killing. I saw a sincerity there that touched me.”
Now Shoebat has turned his activism in a completely different direction. He calls himself a Christian Zionist, giving speeches around the country and Canada, where he made an appearance this week. His ultimate dream, he says, is to go to Israeli prisons to teach Palestinian youngsters Jewish history – a dream he understands is fraught with danger from the people who think as he once did.
Even his own father calls him a traitor.
“He still calls me at 2 o’clock in the morning and tells me I should be killed,” he said. “He hates me.”
. . . “That’s my mission now – to go to Americans and churches anywhere I can go and explain God’s plan for the state of Israel, and how God intended Israel to be a light unto the nations, and how all of our hatred toward Israel is really evil,” he says.
Shoebat grew up in the West Bank when it was sunder the control of Jordan. He recalls the 1967 Six-Day war vividly.
“The Jordanian and Egyptian radios were ordering all Arabs to leave because they were going to kill all the Jews,” he says. “But we locked ourselves in our bathroom for the six days of the war. My father refused to leave because he thought that my mother’s American passport would protect us.”
During the war, Shoebat’s family listened to the Arab radio station announcing victory over the Israelis. They were amazed to find Israeli soldiers in place of Jordanian soldiers when they emerged from hiding.
What was life like on the “occupied West Bank” under Israeli control?
“Beautiful,” he says. “Prices fell. We had no problems.”
- Jospeh Farah
Jesus said that He is the Light of the world and then He told us, that we are the light of the world. We are representing Him in a world in darkness, never give up, look at this man and what God has done and is doing. We can make the difference one heart at a time if we are willing to walk! May our light shine for Jesus!