Remarkable… on many levels.

A sculpture by Chinese artist Liu Bolin titled “Burning Man Obama”… represents U.S. President Barack Obama’s impact on the world.

 

Further in the vein of searching for root causes for collective denial and obfuscation, (aka self-delusion, lying to oneself, psychological protection mechanisms) David Kupelian writes with bold, thoughtful clarity in WND:

…a certain percentage of us, when we’re intimidated and upset, start to emotionally gravitate toward and agree with whatever is intimidating us. Not just superficially, as a temporary tactic of placating a bully so he won’t hurt us, but more profoundly, deep down in the inner sanctum of our being where our thoughts and feelings germinate and our loyalties bloom.

Intimidation – that is, causing others to react with upset and fear – is a fundamental principle of mind control, fully capable of causing the victim’s loyalties to shift toward the intimidator, whether a schoolyard bully, gang leader, child molester, hostage-taking bank robber or Islamic radical.

“Political correctness” – which is basically a low-grade Stockholm syndrome playing out on a broad societal stage – is actually a subtle form of brainwashing. Even establishment mouthpiece Newsweek, in its famous Dec. 24, 1990, cover story on the then-new phenomenon of political correctness on college campuses (titled “Thought Police”) conceded this truth when it reported: “PC is, strictly speaking, a totalitarian philosophy.”

Bottom line: We’re intimidated, bullied, threatened, terrorized – and so we capitulate, not just in word and deed, but in thought. Get it?

Most of the time, of course, this occurs below the radar of our own consciousness. We don’t understand what’s really happening. So we interpret our growing sympathy and affinity for whatever intimidated us as evidence of our loving, open-minded, enlightened nature. In reality, it’s the result of craven weakness on our part.

Various ‘psych bloggers’ with stellar credentials (e.g., Dr. Sanity) have written in this vein for some time. Yet the fact that the shooter himself had earned such credentials and been accepted by the psychological establishment is something I’ve not seen widely discussed. It should give us pause. (Kupelian relates a startling scene along these lines towards the end of his piece.)

It should drive us to ask the question: On what grounds have we placed faith in modern psychological theories and techniques? Where is the evidence that they lead to the same kind of fullness of life and recognition of purpose (both here and everlasting) that Jesus promises? When the principles of the psychological profession (which has done and does many good things) is able to assimilate someone whose worldview centers on the antithesis of truth, what are we to make of that bizarre marriage other than seeing it as yet another expression of the totalitarian ‘PC’ mindset run amok? Is it not a worthwhile question, in light of Fort Hood?

Moving on…

I was listening to a sermon from Cornerstone Simi last night on my way to small group and the preacher (not Francis Chan) asked the question: How would you know if you were deceived/deluded? (And by implication, how would you know if you were systematically working to deceive yourself and avoid the truth.)

His simple point was that you wouldn’t. None of us could. The only rational response would be: It’s possible that I could be deceived. I’d be surprised if I were. I don’t think that I am. But it’s possible. Lest anyone take that as an argument for moral relativism, note that it’s a response of humility, or to put it in Christian terms: fear of God. As in “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”

In other words, when we’re told we’re deluded, i.e., when our worldview is challenged, where we turn to check on the validity (or non-validity) of that accusation determines everything. And one thing unique about our current age is that there are more places to turn than ever before. Want a patently insane opinion validated? Not hard at all. They are legion.

The thrust of history, the teachings of scripture (which, quite excitingly, can be internally validated as having come from outside our time domain) and the great weight of wisdom provided by our forbears (who, up until very recently, saw islam as a deadly threat to all things civilized) should provide a bulwark against the  moth-to-a-flame attraction Kupelian describes — our inexorable craving for latest fashionable opinions and for the ‘PC’ idea that all religions are basically the same, that they all point to the same deity and that they all basically help people to be nice to one another and obey the Golden Rule.

Anyone who would argue (for example) that gut feelings, mainstream opinion, popular culture and/or the news media should be the benchmark for delusion vs. clarity needs to make something more than an emotional case for why that is so. “But it seems right to me” plays directly into the worst kind of idolatrous examples from sacred history.

A more sophisticated answer might draw from scripture out of context, noting that we are to love and pray for our enemies, yet that valid construct presupposes identifying them as such. Scripture does not say: you have no enemies; all people are basically good and want the best for you. Instead it admonishes us to love and pray for them.

Why are we seeing this powerful (and, I might add, deadly) delusion sweep our civilization now? By many other prophetic signs and measures it is clear we are in the end times (e.g., among other things, Russia poised, with Iran and other allies, for the Magog invasion of Ezekiel 38/39). Since we are quickly approaching if not already experiencing the first phase of the 70th week of Daniel (the end of the end times), it only makes sense that other passages that refer to it would apply now as well, e.g., 2nd Thessalonians 2:9-12, in which Paul writes:

The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders, and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

One of the implications seems to be that, after extreme patience, long-suffering and mercy, a dynamic eventually develops among those who refuse to love the truth (who is Christ) and that that dynamic takes on the character of a kind of unrecoverable tailspin.

In other words, there is a point of no return, and it begins with individuals choosing not to love and embrace the truth.

I’m not saying I know where that event horizon is, however I find it hard to read this passage as saying that delusion is OK if everyone else is doing it, or that God holds the door open indefinitely, even in the face of people rejecting Him and his laws en masse. It surely applies individuals, however the rest of scripture would seem to suggest that God also looks at societies. Eventually even His patience runs out when it is clear that a threshold of rejection and idolatry has been passed. Are we there yet? Time will tell. When I look at Fort Hood though, I can’t help thinking all hell broke loose.

Three quick hits (below) on the theme of how climate change hysteria is part and parcel of both a culture of death and a push towards world government. I’m going to coin a new term for it: the socialization of societies in that the net effect of global governance is to reduce innovation and choice among nations and national systems in a manner very similar to how national-scale socialism reduces innovation and choice within industries. (When tyrants don’t need to fear the loss of brains or capital to freer locales, their options for exercising power are greatly increased.)

1) I know it’s an ‘old’ (late August) story, but I still can’t get over how John Holdren, Obama’s science ‘czar’, could be an open, vocal advocate of forced abortions and other Nazi-style involuntary eugenic measures and yet find his way not only to Harvard but to the highest echelons of power.

…population control is camouflaged class warfare. In truth, the oligarchs are not concerned with carrying capacity. Ultimately, they are concerned with the capacity of their control. For the adherents of the gospel of elitism, a Malthusian like Holdren is, indeed, a messiah.

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2) The real climate change catastrophe. New book for those interested in how this tangled web came to be woven out of nothing more than a desire for political power. Familiar stuff to those who’ve looked into it, but since nobody seems to be paying attention, another blow-by-blow book can’t hurt. House of cards; foundation of sand.

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3) It took me awhile to wrap my head around this one (‘What Manner of Person are you?’, pdf). It seemed, at first, arcane, even bizarre, but the authors have a point, the implications of which are profound when you let them sink in. (Hint: read the first few lines of Constitution.) Bear with it and you’ll see what I mean.

Is this Man God created the same as the legalistic man who is defined in our present law dictionaries?

UPDATE: Third-coldest October on record.

The average October temperature of 50.8°F was 4.0°F below the 20th Century average… For the nation as a whole, it was the third coolest October on record… Temperatures were below normal in eight of the nation’s nine climate regions, and of the nine, five were much below normal… all but six states had below normal temperatures.

It should be common sense, but cold kills — far more than heat. If we could control the climate with CO2 (and we can’t; the sun does that) the moral thing to do would be to release as much as possible. The fact that we’re not leads to one of two conclusions: willful ignorance, or immorality. Have you done your part today?

The muslim faith system is, by definition (and by the words of its own books), opposed to Christ as the Son of God who came in the flesh and died for our sins. It is therefore antichrist: imitative of Christ (very likely on purpose) and therefore satanically idolatrous and evil at its very root. I know of no plainer way to put it.*

(I recently learned that islam is essentially a monotheistic repackaging, by the warrior child-molesting mohammed, of a set of polytheistic moon-worshipping, pagan religions that had existed in the Middle East for millennia, in a guise that made it appear, in a number of ways, passingly similar to Christianity and Judaism while denying their core tenets.)

Many if not most of its followers are, in their heart of hearts, peaceful and well-meaning. Those who would make this personal and hate, judge or seek to oppress or lash out at the individuals caught up in this grossly perverted system outside of the avenues of justice duly set up by government to deal with law-breakers are, in my opinion, misreading the scriptures and falling into a trap. Christ died that all might have the opportunity to repent and turn to him for salvation.

To the extent that muslim adherents are at ease with a non-islamic system ruling over them however, they are not following the dictates of their faith. They have gone native.

Such an outcome is devoutly to be wished and encouraged (systematic assimilation into the melting pot of Western Culture rather than multi-cultural, Balkanized tossed salad ethic that has prevailed of late). Yet as the Ft. Hood shooting amply illustrates, such assimilation may be rarer than we imagine — a bout of wishful thinking without foundation.

Whenever islam has had the power to break out and express itself fully, the horrifying spectre of shari’ah law (e.g., sacred duty to kill your sister or daughter if she is raped) has been the result. It is the only faith system I know of where large numbers of adherents are held in systematic coercion (i.e., direct, credible threats of death for changing one’s mind, renouncing or converting away.)

BHO is at least a strong advocate, sympathizer, supporter of and apologist for this system, and in all likelihood (we can’t know for sure) a secret believer — a kind of one-man sleeper-cell in the heart of the quickly-slipping most Christian nation on earth.

That does not disqualify him from being president, though it reflects profoundly on the state of our culture and media, and the mindset of the electorate, that we should be collectively ignorant of what it implies and think it of no more consequence than a leader that prefers pistachio ice cream instead of vanilla, chocolate or strawberry.

I find it remarkable that within hours of the Fort Hood shooting, “A senior administration official told NBC News that the shootings could have been a criminal matter rather than a terrorism-related attack and that there was no intelligence to suggest a plot…” (Never mind that there’s no precise or easy distinction to be made between terrorism and criminality. If the shootings weren’t terror-inducing and therefore terrorism, it’s hard to imagine what would qualify as such. With the word ‘terrorism’ loaded with islamic implications however, it’s not hard to see what the unnamed official may have been steering away from. One wonders further: how could he or she be so sure so quickly that that was the best ’spin’ for the sake of the nation and not just the president?)

I also find it telling that the President (who may or may not have known about the shooter and his background at the time) appeared shockingly untroubled by the events, mustering only a veneer of sympathy once that persona became useful to him. The term schadenfreude comes to mind as potentially applicable, though it would require a deeper understanding of his state of mind than we have available to us.

The fact that the shooter, Nidal Malik Hasan, is a muslim convert (and enthusiastic proselytizer) is not much of a surprise to those who have done their own independent reading and research and have refused to settle for the easy, politically correct lies being sold to us vigorously since 9-11. The sheer repetitive volume of violent acts perpetrated by muslims — on Christians, Jews, secularists, Hindus, and, quite perversely, if regularly on one another — and the resulting cumulative body count compared to that perpetrated by any other faith except for Marxism should pierce the pompous balloon of such obfuscation.

(If you don’t believe me, go look it up. If you don’t like that I’ve pointed it out, then please respond with facts, not platitudes or ad hominem. Eternal truth, we are told, is bound to be emotionally divisive — and thus diagnostic of one’s orientation — even as it is logically and factually singular.)

That the Crusades and Oklahoma City (horrible as they were) continue to be held up as herald banners for such a smokescreen should be an embarrassment. The numbers just don’t add up. Not even close. None of this — the nature of the islamic system — would have been news to our great grandparents (Winston Churchill, for example, saw it plainly), or even to the founders of this nation who were nearly done in by the Barbary pirates (jihad, 18th-century style).

The fact that the Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Malik Haan took actions consistent with pre-meditation, and that he spoke to co-workers about the duty of muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan to “rise up” and slay the oppressor (i.e., U.S., forces) should come as little surprise . That he appears to be smart, dedicated, patient, very well-educated, economically well-off and articulate should come as no surprise either.

That soldier eyewitnesses “reported that the gunman [Hasan] shouted “Allahu Akbar!” — an Arabic phrase for “God is great!” — before opening fire” is merely the icing on the cake, summarizing his motivation. That he was advising the president himself on homeland security(!!) is the maraschino cherry realization on top of that icing: a sick, sinking taste of what we may be in for. (God help us!)

This will continue to be reported, in the main, as the case of a mentally disturbed individual, upset with U.S. policy, who should never have been trusted with a firearm.

All of those things are true.

What the media will largely fail to plumb is the full scope and source of Mr. Hasan’s mental derangement (by definition: mis-perceiving the truth) and of his upset with U.S. policy (i.e., that we are at war with his fellow-believers; a gross perversion in itself, in that we have fought — in the Balkans as well as Iraq and Afghanistan to free large numbers of muslims from oppression).

Nor will they report the well-accepted theological fact that, in islam, the only act guaranteed to usher an individual into their false version of ‘paradise’ is to die while slaying non-believers. (Too bad for Mr. Hasan — the ideal of our system is to provide compassionate medical care to our enemies no differently than we do our friends.)

Where I come to in all of this is the disturbing if not original thought that we are reaping, as a nation, what we’ve sown in willful ignorance. A culture of “whatever” that sees no reason to face hard truths in any domain any more (e.g., social, economic, historical, scientific, spiritual) is finding itself beset by a culture that comes at falsehood from a different, if more violent direction.

The president may or may not turn out to be a ‘type’ writ large of Mr. Hasan — smart, smooth, muslim and determined to carry out the dictates of his faith, surprising (and killing) many. I would give more than even odds on it, but time will tell.

Am I sad? Absolutely. This is a horrible tragedy and my prayers go out to all the victims and their families. But am I mad at Mr. Hasan (or any other muslims)? No.

We are told by Christ himself that though it may be incredibly hard, we must pray for Mr. Hasan and others caught in that evil system. Why? Precisely because he and many like him have shown themselves to be our enemies. Yes, it sickens me. I look to texts such as 1st John 5:16 (the unpardonable sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit and thus choosing to put oneself beyond God’s redemptive power) but I can’t be certain that they apply here. They may, but it would be presumptuous of me to go that far.

I require God to get past my all-too-human feelings of disgust. Yet being eternal, hell is far far worse than death. If we truly understood that, appreciating the frequency and urgency with which Christ spoke of it, we would literally not wish it on our very worst enemy. We would pray more easily, trusting the Lord to work it all out — because at the cross, He already has.

*UPDATE: I realize my first paragraph may sound, to some, intolerant. If that is your view, it is important to ask yourself why you believe tolerance to be a higher value than truth. But more importantly it’s critical to separate two kinds of tolerance: intellectual and interpersonal.

Sadly, the two have become conflated.

Interpersonal tolerance is to be lauded. My muslim neighbors (and I mean literally the people who live next door to me) have every right to go about their lives as freely as I do, with all of the protections that the Golden Rule, our Constitution, common courtesy and our system of laws affords them.

Intellectual tolerance, on the other hand, is tantamount to saying “whatever” and failing to engage with issues or persons. It is the essence of contempt. It is surely not wise to press such distinctions in every conversation, but to fall into the habit of not making them for oneself is to fall into a swamp of half-truths and, ultimately, bald lies.

Its opposite involves distinctions and thus forms the basis for reason and truth. (I cannot tolerate you saying the light is green when it is red because that puts both of us in danger — it is untruthful, perhaps even insane. I cannot tolerate fraudulent information and expect my business to thrive or escape legal censure. I cannot tolerate the belief that the earth is flat — at least not when espoused by an airline pilot or navigator. One can think of myriad other examples that a small child could understand.)

When fears of interpersonal intolerance (e.g., we can’t say that because it might cause some people might beat up muslims!) cause us to steer clear of facts or other rational distinctions that are important to explore for other reasons, we allow fear to hold reason and open dialogue hostage. And that, I should hope, would be something we could all agree is not a good or healthy thing.

UPDATE II: It’s worth noting that the Arabic phrase the shooter used to launch his attack, “Allahu akbar” means not just “god is great”, but that his imaginary “god”, allah is greatest — a point this article makes clear. It is a superlative no less exclusive than anything found in the Christian scriptures. Since they are demonstrably not the same God, one of us is wrong. One must choose. There is no “both/and” out for this.

Hundreds of tons of weaponry, ten times the size of the Karine A shipment of 2002, were seized in an overnight raid Tuesday by the Israeli navy, some 100 nautical miles west of Israel… carrying arms sent by Iran and destined for Syria and possibly also Hizbullah.

The weapons seized on the ship, which was sailing under an Antiguan flag, included some 3,000 rockets of various types, as well as bullets and ammunition… the armaments were disguised as humanitarian aid and hidden behind sacks of polyethylene.

“This is the third time this year that Iran is disregarding international law and UN Security Council resolutions which forbid it to transfer weaponry,” [said Israeli Brigadier General Rani Ben-Yehuda]

…there was regular intelligence indicating that Iran was continuing to support terror groups with large amounts of weapons aimed at being used against Israel. Furthermore, it was likely that additional shipments would be sent out from Iran… In recent years, Revolutionary Guard-founded Hizbullah’s military capability has been greatly enhanced by shipments from its more powerful allies.

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But you, Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend; you whom I took from the ends of the earth, and called from its farthest corners, saying to you, “You are my servant, I have chosen you and not cast you off”; fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Behold, all who are incensed against you shall be put to shame and confounded; those who strive against you shall be as nothing and shall perish. You shall seek those who contend with you, but you shall not find them; those who war against you shall be as nothing at all. (Isaiah 41:8-12, ESV)

Increasingly, I’m looking at the political universe, and the ever-evolving power centers within it (e.g., ‘left’, ‘right’ and otherwise), for signs of a global, anti-Christian faith system taking hold. islam is an obvious choice, but lets set it aside for the moment.

To qualify in end-times prophetic terms, such a movement needs to be:

- Reasonably comprehensive. (I.e., addressing a wide range of questions across different domains of life — social, personal, economic, natural, historical — and in such a way as to be self-reinforcing to its adherents),

- Seemingly attractive. (I.e., sounds good on paper, in sound bites, or upon cursory inspection by those who don’t care to delve deeper into historical track records.)

- Widely shared. (Aside from Christianity itself — which is rooted in fundamental, universal truths observable throughout history and human nature — worldviews with just a handful of adherents are, by definition, not the basis for earthly power and thus don’t make good synthetic vehicles for the coming world leader to ride to destruction.)

- Faith- rather than fact-based. (Truth is truth is truth. Any competitor to it must rely on a kind of faith demonstrably divorced from truth. Over and over again, those who have taken a hard, honest look at the wide range of evidences for the Christian faith have had their minds changed by the facts. Furthermore, as various commentators have noted (popular myth to the contrary), the Christian system of belief has absolutely nothing to fear from honest, hypothesis-based, empirically demonstrated science that recognizes the limitations of its own (and the human) perspective (as opposed to the theoretical or conjectural variety that increasingly tries to pass itself off as scientific.) After all, the Judeo-Christian worldview gave rise to the scientific process and revolution. The expectation of a consistent set of physical laws is a uniquely Judeo-Christian construction — anathema to the god of islam which even its adherents, the koran and hadiths acknowledge to be capricious, unknowable and untrustworthy.

In that context, I find it fascinating that one of the best candidates for such a religion is right under our noses, as John Steele Gordon points out in today’s WSJ (worth reading in full for the facts and supporting arguments I’ve left out for the sake of brevity):

Thus the liberal paradigm divides the American body politic into sheep, wolves, and would-be shepherds. The shepherds must defeat the efforts of the wolves.

This paradigm… had a basis in reality… The liberal revolution [then, was]… one of the greatest—and most peaceful—political triumphs in history…

Now if only someone would tell the shepherds about their own success… [Instead, they see themselves] as being on the outside, speaking truth to power, even when speaking from the Oval Office.

…the liberal paradigm… has largely congealed into a political religion… Since liberals care about the sheep, all who disagree with liberalism must not, making them morally inferior if not downright immoral… the so-called wolves are now a majority.

Gordon’s piece could be filed away as just another grenade lobbed over the left-right political fence. If it were only that, I would not have posted it.

Yet he makes the assertion, and begins to build the case that the current worldview known as ‘liberal’ (which has, quite sadly, morphed into a Marxist-leftist one from its reasonable and compassionate FDR, HST, JFK roots) has many of the hallmarks of a comprehensive, widely shared, faith-based system capable of fulfilling end-times prophecy and providing a plausible vehicle for the coming world leader, aka antichrist.

The fact that one of the left’s primary political planks and priorities (urgently setting up a global system to thwart the imagined threat of anthropocentric, catastrophic, man-fixable, global warming) has broad reach and serious money and power behind it makes it very interesting as a candidate for end-times synthetic (anti*-Christian) religion.

(*The word ‘anti’ as used in Biblical constructions such as ‘antichrist’ actually means “pseudo” or “imitation” and not, as many would have it, “opposed-to” — though the former, over time, eventually drives to the latter.

The effect is to draw devotion and attention away from the real thing, gradually and subtly, over years if not generations.

satan, we are told, is wily; a faith system directly in opposition to Christianity from its inception could never get off the ground and turn into a mass movement within a Judeo-Christian society. In other words, the ‘best’ antichrist is one whom many without deep grounding in the real thing can fervently believe to be the real thing.

This helps to explain why those with a leftist world view often seem to draw many of their impulses and goals — e.g., compassion for their fellow humans, desire for peace and justice, etc. — from Christianity and why, further, they might even feel very strongly that they have been inspired by the moral teachings of Jesus.)

Finally, the fact the leftist worldview exhibits a perverse and persistent affinity towards islam (a faith system that would seem to share none of the laudable paleo-liberal priorities such as civil rights, womens’ rights, equality, peace, etc.) makes it even more interesting as a candidate for antichrist vehicle.

The combination of these two factors raises the question of what irrational, behind-the-scenes force or shared animosity would draw together such very strange bedfellows. If anthropocentric, catastrophic global warming is a lie (and it is — a very big one indeed) those that buy into it need to ask themselves: What (who) is truth? (And who is the father of lies?)

And related to that: How would you be able to tell if you were under the influence of a powerful delusion? To what source of truth would you turn?

UPDATE: As if on cue, Senate forges ahead with the lie (saw this after I posted).

Full disclosure: I haven’t watched the whole thing yet (it’s 95 minutes long), but after a short sample, I plan to. Smart, witty, factual, startling and thoroughly compassionate. The speaker makes clear why the religion of anthropocentric, catastrophic global warming is a death cult run wild.

Excerpt:

Here is why the truth matters. It was all very well for jesting Pilate to ask that question and then not to tarry for an answer. But that question that he asked, “what is the truth?” is the question which underlies every question and in the end it is the only question that really matters. When you ask that question what you are really asking is “what is the truth about the matter?” And we are now going to see why it matters morally, socially, and politically, as well as economically and scientifically. That the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth should inform public policy.

Slides here (~8MB pdf). Closely related: The world’s first carbon billionaire? (An excellent candidate for the coming world leader, aka, antichrist, remembering that prophecy tells us it’s really a duet.)

H/T: WatcherOne

Not sure what this means, but thought I’d share anyway. The last 3 nights, I’ve had dreams of unusual clarity and urgency.

The first night, I found myself, in the dream, back in my childhood home (the place I spent the first 14 years of my life, since torn down). It seemed symbolic of my REAL home in heaven. I was introducing my wife to the place and I awoke with this sense of awe, that lasted most of the day, at the loving nature of God and how he wants us to approach Him in child-like simplicity.

The second night, I was in another room of my childhood home, standing near the reclining chair where my father used to read to me every night. I was talking with three people, none of whom I recognized. One was sitting in my father’s chair and clearly wise, but he was not my earthly father. He was telling me very specifically how Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1 dovetail, and how the phrase “In the beginning God” could stand as a complete sentence with no need for a verb (since God simply IS). We were having a little discussion about it and I found it incredibly profound, as if I were hearing from one who just knew these things. Strangely enough (and I’d forgotten this), the next day I was scheduled to start into John’s gospel in my one-year-bible program (a real treat).

Then last night, in a dream, I found myself shedding layers of jackets and sweatshirts, with logos on them so as to get down to a plain T-shirt. I had the sense that I needed to purify myself of those earthly marks. There was some urgency to my doing this because, it was made clear to me, I needed to baptize people in a hastily set-up kids’ swimming pool near a church. (I’m not a pastor, so that was weird). There were a lot of people standing in line for this, very eager to do it. I was then made aware, in the dream, in a very specific way, of the circumstances surrounding my own adult baptism seven years ago.

Then later last night, in a related/subsequent dream, I was standing in another line, this time at a photo processing facility at a pharmacy (place of healing) and it was made clear to me that the photos (symbolic of the sweep of my life) were being well cared for (e.g., the envelope had my name on it and they had the other half of my tag), and that the guy behind the counter doing the processing would call out my name and the names of the people standing in line very soon.

Last night in our small group we discussed chapter eight of Francis Chan’s book, ‘Crazy Love’. (Highly recommended: small groups in general, Francis Chan, and the book.)

In it (p. 145), Chan notes that, “The average Christian in the United States spends ten minutes per day with God; meanwhile, the average American spends four hours a day watching television.”

Because it’s not a new or unique insight, it’s easy to blow right past its implications which according to scripture, seem profound. More on that in a moment.

Quibble with the numbers any way you like. He footnotes the claim, but let’s be insanely generous and assume that the average American spends twenty minutes each day truly focused on God (prayer, worship, Bible study, fellowship — whatever) and only two hours watching television. Heck, let’s go even further and triple the God time to thirty minutes and cut the TV estimate by a factor of three as well (to one hour and twenty minutes).

The point stands.

What are the “right” numbers? You tell me. Not all television is bad. And not all time spent in what may look like God-focused activities is necessarily pleasing to Him.

But I do know this: You can’t manage what you can’t measure, and time is our only truly limited resource — an expression of our deepest priorities, including ones we may not have articulated to ourselves and which we may be ashamed to admit.

We talk about “saving” time, but we can never bank it. We cut our sleep hours, but can only cut them so far. We talk about extending our three-score and ten with healthy habits (and that’s a fine thing; our bodies being God’s temple), but we can be surprised by an early call home from unexpected illness or accident and even when we are blessed with more years, the extension beyond the mean is never more than 50-60% at the outside. “I’ll take it!”, you say. That’s all fine and good. It’s still not eternity. Not even close.

Until we get there, we’re on a one-way time train. What we do and don’t do on this short ride will be what we bring to the throne of judgment, determining (among believers) if we go in naked and spiritually destitute, as if through a fire (1Cor 3:15), or whether we’re presented with a substantial inheritance and with it, authority.

As much as each day may seem much like the one before it, we’re each drawing ever closer to our departure station. And, for the average American (and I don’t mean to sleight you non-Americans, but it’s my own frame of reference) we’re filling our eyes, hearts, minds and souls with less-than-nourishing fare.

Is it any wonder then, that we’re spiritually flabby? Do we have any right to complain that, after eating spiritual Twinkies mixed with rat poison day in and day out we’re unable to stand, much less walk, much less run and fight spiritual battles?

In my morning reading, I ran across Psalm 101:3 which in the ESV reads:

I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless.
I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cling to me.

What are you setting your eyes on today that you know in your heart will not last? That you know is destined to burn, rot or rust? That you know is only pushing you further down the escalator towards the complacency department where satan is more than happy to extend store credit and let you run up a big bill with interest, slowly, gently, easily taking you away from the floor where your money is no good and Christ himself hands out the pure gold of holiness to those who ask Him in a spirit of truth?

What does the world count as productive work that you know will be less-than-worthless in the kingdom? Just asking… of myself first and foremost. Not easy.

Longtime readers know I was a fan of George Bush as president and anything but a fan of the current one. Let’s just get that out of the way and set it aside for a moment. This post isn’t about politics, though it has helped me continue my journey beyond politics.

I was under the impression that the U.S. is coming under judgment because (among other things, e.g., life issues) BHO’s policies represent a sharp, unprecedented break from 60+ years of American support for Israel. Jimmy Carter’s and Bill Clinton’s coddling of Israel’s enemies seem to stand as pale shadows in contrast with the deep, settling darkness BHO appears to be pursuing in that domain.

I was inclined to see BHO himself as the cause of impending judgment and/or view his election in itself as a kind judgment — the out-working of widespread apostasy and idolatry in any number of domains. Those still may be true, but in much too small a context — i.e., I was wrong to focus only on him. Hear me out.

I just discovered one of those Biblical-prophetic close-in date “things” I’ve been seeing the past year. It was so clear when I did the spreadsheet an hour ago as to make me sit up and gasp in trembling awe for what it says about God’s nature (outside of time; omnipotent; omnipresent; seen it all “already”) and what it implies about our near future.

Short take: one way or the other, there won’t be a lot more of it (our future) down here on earth!

As many of you know, I’ve written several times about how, the 1260-, 1290- and 1335-day prophetic measuring sticks laid out in Daniel and Revelation seem to demarcate not just the tribulation period, but a series of what one might describe as “time ripples” linking pairs and groups of key end-times, trib-related events.

If we think of these as akin to contractions or birth pains, we would find ample Biblical support, though I’m not wedded to that imagery in relation to this. The point is that key milestones around Israel (e.g., Netanyahu’s 2005 resignation) seem to be tightly linked according to these three Danielian date-spans to key events here in the U.S. (e.g., BHO’s inauguration) and vice versa.

Late last night, over a big bowl of vanilla ice cream over warm berries at my kitchen counter (yum!), I was startled to read, on pages 132-133 of Chuck Missler’s book “20/20 Prophecy” about the May 26, 2005 meeting between then-President Bush and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and the announcement that followed it. If memory serves, that took place around one of my brother’s several relapses with cancer. I was kinda distracted and so never read much of the commentary on it.

Here’s the Bush money quote:

Any final status agreement must be reached between the two parties, and changes to the 1949 Armistice Lines must be mutually agreed to. A viable two-state solution must ensure contiguity on the West Bank, and a state of scattered territories will not work. There must also be meaningful linkages between the West Bank and Gaza. This is the position of the United States today; it will be the position of the United States at the time of final status negotiations.

George Bush, the man whom I’d thought was a staunch defender of Israel (and who was, in many ways), had just drawn a line in the sand for them far more conciliatory to those who have sought their elimination than any U.S. president ever.

The 1949 lines represent the point in time at which Israel, in its modern incarnation, was at its weakest — just after its Arab neighbors had taken what would be their best shot at a national partial-birth abortion. (Their attempt at national infanticide, in 1967, would fail as well).

The 1949 lines did not allow Israel access to East Jerusalem or to the Temple Mount — a geographical state-of-affairs about as hard against the grain of God’s plan as its possible to get. (I didn’t know this until recently, but Jerusalem isn’t mentioned even once in the Koran. muslims only grafted it onto their narrative as a ‘holy’ site later in a move that seemed almost perfectly crafted to oppose and irritate Jews and Christians. Question: what other cities outside of their historical lands have muslims ever claimed as holy after mohammed’s death? Exactly…  )

The 1949 Armistice Lines represent an undoing of every gain Israel has ever made in its efforts to establish common-sense buffers from regular attack. They represent a profoundly smaller footprint than the 1921 British Mandate for Palestine from which the entire country of Jordan was carved out specifically for the purposes of housing those who fled in advance of Arab attempts at incursion. To the degree that the media’s memories go back at all, they seldom go back to any of these key events in Israel’s struggle to exist, or their details, much less the reason Israel was established in the first place (the Holocaust).

I won’t belabor the point. Many other commentators far wiser and more studied in these things than I am have described that May 26, 2005 meeting between Bush and Abbas, and its outcome, in superlative terms. (I.e., superlatively negative for Israel). Even if you disagree with me, it cannot be argued that it was a major watershed for that country, and ours.

On the premise that, in the Hebrew (i.e., Biblical) worldview prophecy is pattern, and not just prediction (aka, “history echoes”), here’s what I discovered:

May 26, 2005 plus 1260 days takes us to November 6, 20098, the day all voting results from the fifty states in the 2008 presidential election had come in, making clear beyond a shadow of a doubt that BHO was this country’s choice.

May 26,2005 plus 1290 days takes us to December 6, 2008, the day that BHO first began to reveal the full scope of his socialist agenda (‘Public Works on a Vast Scale’, said the relatively staid and left-leaning WaPo). In a prophetic vein, it also happens to have been the 4th anniversary of the Al Q’aeda attack on the U.S. Consulate in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, the 10th anniversary of Hugo Chavez’ election, the 39th anniversary (3X13) of the murder by Hells’ Angels members at a Rolling Stones concert at the Altamont Motor Speedway.

It’s also the 125th anniversary of the Washington Monument: “On December 6, 1884, workers placed the 3,300 pound marble capstone on the Washington Monument, and topped it with a nine-inch pyramid of cast aluminum, completing construction of the 555-foot Egyptian obelisk.”

(That would translate, in prophetic terms as a kind of national-scale institutionalization of Baal worship (the obelisk), but there’s more to it than that. Interestingly, the monument’s height symbolizes grace (five) as well as grace perfected (repeated 3X). Very interesting. [UPDATE I: I just realized, during some prayer time, that the 125th anniversary, in 2008, would also be 5X5X5. Again, grace perfected. What might that mean in this context? Perhaps that America has tried God's patience to an extreme degree. Fortunately, the author of grace has plenty of it to pour out, though he will not do so forever.]

But here’s what sent cold shivers up my spine…

Wait for it…

May 26, 2005 plus 1335 days (Daniel 12:12) takes us to… January 20, 2009 — the date millions have anticipated as the dawn of a new age of ‘hope’, ‘peace’ and ‘change’… the date BHO was inaugurated U.S. President.

Something fundamentally different began on that day [UPDATE II: Daniel says, "Blessed is he who waits and arrives at the 1,335 days". I don't know if 1-20-09 was the 1,335 day mark, but it certainly seems to have been one of great significance.]

Everyone senses it.

It has been my view, for some time, that that (1-20-09) was the beginning of the tribulation — a period of accelerating descent into awfulness that has its pivot-point (middle) in the summer of 2012: beginning the day before the 236th anniversary of this country’s independence, coming to a crescendo during the London Olympics (and BHO’s 51st birthday), and concluding on Rosh Hashanah 5772 (Sept. 16, 2012). [UPDATE III: Just to be clear, that theory would put the really bad part of the trib after RH 5772, with the real end-of-world stuff in 2015. The other possibility, of course, is that 2005 marked the jumping-off-place and we're now in the nasty bit but, frankly, I just don't see it.]

Keep praying folks. We must remember that this kind of stuff sits in the context of the One who has overcome it all already — the one who resides in all believers, infinitely more powerful than the one who is in the world.