The Dark Night in Denver—Groping for Answers

By Dr. Albert Mohler
The news hit the airwaves like a sudden onslaught, and the truth began to sink in. It has happened again. This time, 50 people shot while attending the midnight premier of the last in the Batman sequence, “The Dark Knight Rises.” According to press reports, a 24-year-old man burst into the crowded theater, wearing a gas mask and carrying an arsenal. After deploying what is believed to be tear gas, he opened fire with a shotgun, a rifle, and two handguns. At least 12 people are dead, and dozens are injured, many critically.

Over 100 police officers responded to the scene in Aurora, just a few miles from Columbine High School, where in 1999 two high school students killed 12 fellow students and one teacher in a rampage that also injured 21 other students. That school massacre became a milestone in the nation’s legacy of violence. Now, yet another Denver suburb joins that tragic list.

The inevitable media swarm focuses on the data first—the who, what, when, and where questions. Then they, along with the public at large, begin to ask the why question. That is always the hard one.

The same vexing but inescapable question comes every time a Columbine happens or an Anders Behring Breivik attempts to justify his mass homicide. How could such a thing happen? How could a human being do such a thing?

There is no easy answer to this question. The easy answers are never satisfying, and they are often based in the confused moral calculus of popular culture. We assume there must have been a political motivation, a psychiatric disturbance, a sociological pressure...anything that will offer a satisfying explanation that will assure us. Wave after wave of analysis is offered, and sometimes some horrifying clues emerge. But the moral madness of mass homicide can never be truly explained.

Christians are driven by instinct to think in biblical and theological terms. But, how should that instinct be guided?

The Reality of Human Evil

First, Christians know that the human heart is capable of great evil. Human history includes a catalog of human horrors. The twentieth century, described by historian Eric Hobsbawm as the century of “megadeath,” included a list of names such as Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Pol Pot, and Charles Manson. But those murderers did their killing from a distance, at least usually. Those who carry out the murders themselves are even more haunting to us. The young man arrested in this case, 24-year-old James Holmes, looks disarmingly normal.

The Fall released human moral evil into the cosmos, and every single human being is a sinner, tempted by a full range of sinfulness. When someone does something as seemingly unthinkable as this, we often question how anyone could do such a thing. The prophet Jeremiah spoke to this when he lamented,

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick, who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)

Human beings are capable of unspeakable moral evil. We are shocked by such atrocities, but only because we have some distance from the last one. We cannot afford to be shocked when humans commit grotesque moral evil. It tells us the truth about unbridled human sin.

The Grace of Moral Restraint

Second, we must be thankful for restraints on moral evil. Christians must not underestimate the potential of any human being—ourselves included—to commit moral horror. We know ourselves to be sinners, and we know ourselves to be capable of sins we do not actually commit. Why do we not commit them?

God restrains human sinfulness. If the fullness of human sin was set loose, humanity would destroy itself. God restrains human evil by several means. First, he has created us in his image, and at least part of this image is what we call conscience. The moral conscience is a powerful restraint on human evil, and for this we must be exceedingly thankful. At the same time, the human conscience is also warped by the Fall and no longer fully trustworthy. We have developed the capacity to ignore the conscience, torture the conscience, and even misdirect the conscience by moral rationalization. Nevertheless, the restraint of the conscience is fundamental, and for that we must be very thankful.

God has also established institutions and orders that restrain human evil. As the Apostle Paul reminds us in Romans 13, God gave us the institution of government in order to restrain evil and to punish the evildoer. He has also given us the institution of marriage and the family and the larger order of society in order to restrain evil. We are surrounded by a complex of laws and statutes and social expectations and civic associations. All these function to restrain evil.

At the foundation of these restraints is the fear of God, which, even in an increasingly secular society, still retains a more powerful force than is often acknowledged.

Evil Answered at the Cross

Third, we must admit that there will be no fully satisfying answer to these questions in this life. Christians know that God is sovereign, and that nothing is outside of his control. We also know that he allows evil to exist, and human beings to commit moral atrocities. We cannot deny the sovereignty of God to be denied and evil allowed its independent existence, and yet we cannot deny the reality of evil and the horror of its threat to be lessened. We are reminded that evil can be answered only by a cross.

Theologian Henri Blocher explains this truth vividly in these words:

“Evil is conquered as evil because God turns it back upon itself. He makes the supreme crime, the murder of the only righteous person, the very operation that abolishes sin. The maneuver is utterly unprecedented. No more complete victory could be imagined. God responds in the indirect way that is perfectly suited to the ambiguity of evil. He entraps the deceiver in his own wiles. Evil, like a judoist, takes advantage of the power of good, which it perverts; the Lord, like a supreme champion, replies by using the very grip of the opponent.”

We must grieve with those who grieve. We must pray for Gospel churches in the Denver area who will be called upon for urgent ministry. We must pray for our nation and communities. And we must pray that God will guard ourselves from evil—especially our own evil. And we must point to the cross. What other answer can we give?

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.

World War Three has begun as the battle for Damascus escalates

If Damascus falls, Israel and its gas fields feared threatened

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report July 17, 2012, 2:32 PM (GMT+02:00)

Syrian military forces were gathered in Tuesday, July 17, to save Damascus.

Tanks and armored vehicles were positioned in strength in the capital’s centre and around government buildings. However, the noise and fury of battle in the Syrian capital Tuesday, July 17, were produced, Debkafile’s military sources report, by six battalions of Bashar Assad’s loyal Allawite militia in clashes with the rebels who captured the two southern suburbs of Meidan and Tadmon Monday. They are trying to pound the enemy into extinction before its forces reach central Damascus.

The two beleaguered districts are home to a quarter of the capital’s 1.8 million inhabitants.

The Syrian general staff has withdrawn its command headquarters to a well-fortified complex on Shuhada Street in the capital’s center.

If Damascus falls and Assad is cornered, the entire region stands in peril of wider repercussions, because neither he nor Tehran will take defeat lying down.

Debkafile’s military sources report their campaign will be paced and scaled according to the momentum of the Syrian rebels’ advance on Bashar Assad’s door-step, which could be drawn out and bloody.

On the Iranian-Hizballah list are Middle East oil installations as well as Israeli, US, Turkish, Saudi and Jordanian strategic targets.

Saturday, the Cypriot police captured a Hizballah terrorist before he could blow up an Israeli El Al flight and tourist buses in Limassol.

Tehran is feared to be focusing on the Mediterranean island as part of a plot to set Israel’s Mediterranean gas field Tamar on fire. The field is 80 kilometers west of Haifa

It would be a spectacular curtain-raiser for the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and for strikes against Gulf oil installations.

Navy Commander, Maj. Gen. Ram Rothberg called last week for an extra five warships and submarines to safeguard Israel’s burgeoning gas fields at the cost of a billion dollars.

The Syrian ruler has stoked up the menace by moving out of storage missiles and shells armed with mustard gas, sarin nerve gas and cyanide stockpiled for years.

They are on operational readiness at Homs, Latakia and Aleppo and, according to Nawaf Fares,

Syrian ex-ambassador to Iraq who defected to the opposition, may already have been used against rebel concentrations.

The longer the battle for Damascus goes on, the greater the danger that the Syrian ruler will release his poison-tipped missiles against Israel, Turkey and Jordan.

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.

The End Game of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad: And What that Might Mean?

The sociopathic war criminal, Bashar al-Assad

By Tom Payne
Whenever I initially mention the name of Bashar al-Assad I refer to him as the sociopathic war criminal, because it is accurate. This unflattering estimate seems to be shared by a growing number of his closest associates and it points to the potential for a quick end to this sad son who followed too closely in the footsteps of his father, the equally brutal Hafez al-Assad.

There are reports that three generals in his inner circle have fled to Turkey for sanctuary. Two of the generals were leaders of the Shabiha paramilitary that was savagely attacking the opposition and civilian populations. These commanders are Gen. Mohamed Tatouh, Deputy chief of Syrian political intelligence, and Gen. Mohamed Kodissia, deputy chief of the “Palestinian” Intelligence agency.

Evidently, the “Palestinian” addition to his title is a ruse as he is concerned with other intelligence issues. Finally, the Sunni Maj. Gen. Adnan Nawras Salou, former head of the chemical warfare authority (until 2008) left with six other generals in tow. These revelations come from the DebkaFile, a Jerusalem based news agency specializing in intelligence in the Middle East and elsewhere.

This is impressive news, but here is the bomb shell. These defectors were able to get their families out of Syria as well. This means that they were planning for weeks on a complex operation, and successfully executing it, underneath the noses of the supposedly well-informed intel network protecting Assad and his interests. This in turn means Assad is exposed and vulnerable and probably as scared and dangerous as a cornered rat.

What might this lead to? The permutations are endless, but the first likely option is the intervention of Iran to protect one of its only allies, Syria, their lifeline to Hezbollah. If a Sunni rises to power in Syria, where is Hezbollah? Who will store their missiles, as Syria now does (unless they’ve recently been moved)? Syria’s influence in Lebanon has been strong for many years and if Assad, the member of a Shiite sect, falls, who will support Shiite Hezbollah in the region?

The Ayatollah Khamenei of Iran

Hezbollah’s importance to Iran is only this. They have few missiles that can reach Israel from Iran. But they have tens of thousands that can reach them from southern Lebanon. Therefore, expect Iran to intervene in some capacity. It could be in this one: they realize they are about to be check mated (shah mat, the king is dead; chess came from Persia/Iran) so they do to the West what the West has done to them: they hurt us economically by actually shutting the Strait of Hormuz for weeks and then slowing traffic for months with the occasional strike. And they could decide to use all of those missiles in southern Lebanon while they still can since they may never have a better chance to hurt the Little Satan, Israel.

America should never forget that in the minds of these Muslim extremists, we are the Great Satan. Their missiles might not reach us yet, but their terrorists can. What it comes to is this. You may hate Israel or you may love Israel, but what ultimately matters is whether or not Israel’s interests and ours parallel one another. Should Iran make a desperation play to destroy Israel (an unlikely outcome) and cripple the economy of the West (a more likely outcome), can their be any doubt who we need to be working with and who against?

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.

“Super Event” Warned Near As Weather Chaos Pounds Planet

A grim report prepared by the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) for President Putin on the catastrophic flooding in the ‎Krasnodar region that has killed at least 144 people warns that our world is fast approaching what is termed as a“Chizhevsky Super Event” due to the rapidly growing number of sunspots that continue to hurl M and X Class Flares towards Earth causing continued and massive global weather chaos.

A “Chizhevsky Super Event” is named after famed Russian scientist Alexander Chizhevsky (1897-1964) who founded “heliobiology” (study of the sun’s effect on biology) and “aero-ionization” (study of effect of ionization of air on biological entities). Chizhevsky was also was noted for his work in “cosmo-biology, biological rhythms and hematology.”

Chizhevsky is most notable for his use of historical research (historiometry) techniques to link the 11 year solar cycle, Earth’s climate and the mass activity of peoples, research that was confirmed by Western scientists earlier this decade in two important studies titled Amplifying the Pacific Climate System Response to a Small 11-Year Solar Cycle Forcing and Synchronized Northern Hemisphere climate change and solar magnetic cycles during the Maunder Minimum.

Important to note, this report says, are the “four components” of Chizhevsky’s eleven year cycle and their approximate lengths: 1) a three year period of minimum activity characterized by passivity and autocratic rule; 2) a two year period during which masses begin to organize under new leaders and one theme; 3) a three year period of maximum excitability, revolution and war; 4) a three year period of gradual decrease in excitability until the masses are apathetic.

Of these “four components”, this report continues, our world has now entered into the Third Period: A three year period of maximum excitability, revolution and war.

According to Chizhevsky’s research, RAS scientists state in this report, the defining characteristics to be looked for when our world enters into a Third Period “Super Event” timeline is a rapid overturning of existing weather

phenomena combined with an equally sudden major changing of the global social-political power structures all occurring during a period of Solar Maximum.

Interesting to note about the current Solar Maximum we are in was the 23 March 2009 scientific article titled Space Storm Alert: 90 Seconds From Catastrophe published by New Scientist that eerily describes somewhat exactly what is now occurring in the United States following their East Coast region being struck by what is being called a “derecho” storm that, in part, says:

“It is midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south but their fascination is short-lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment. Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds, the entire eastern half of the US is without power.”

According to NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center web site, a derecho (pronounced “deh-REY-cho”) is a widespread, long-lived wind storm that is associated with a band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms.

Chizhevsky’s research, however, states that derecho storms are but a precursor to the much more damaging events associated with a “Super Event”, a finding made even more terrifying with the 2008 news that NASA’s five THEMIS spacecraft had discovered a breach in Earth’s magnetic field ten times larger than anything previously thought to exist. Solar wind can flow in through the opening to “load up” the magnetosphere for powerful geomagnetic storms.

RAS scientists in this report blame this “loading up” of the magnetosphere caused by solar flares for causing not only the catastrophic Russian floods, but also our present global weather chaos, to include: 1.) The unrelenting heat wave hitting the United States that has caused at least 30 deaths, hundreds of forest fires and billions in crop damage. 2.) The torrential floods and rain continuing to batter the United Kingdom. 3.) The catastrophic floods that have hit India leaving nearly 100 dead and millions homeless. 4.) The historic and severe drought that has hit northern and central Mexico. 5.) The historic drought that has ravaged Brazil’s northeast.

Most important to note about a “Chizhevsky Super Event”, this report concludes, is that while no one is able to predict exactly what the “main event” may be, the historic record leaves no doubt whatsoever that it is coming with terrifying suddenness and will most certainly upend the entire world as we know it.

 Of particular concern for this particular “Chizhevsky Super Event”, say RAS scientists in this report, would be the sudden outbreak of global war combined with an equally catastrophic global flu outbreak such as that which happened last century during the Solar Maximum decade of 1910-1918 that saw the outbreak of World War I and the Spanish Flu Pandemic that combined killed estimated 500 million people.

Not known to but a few researchers was that in 2001 Canadian researchers warned that influenza epidemics are more likely to sweep the globe when the sun develops spots and sends its excess energy barreling toward Earth such as it is doing now.

“Epidemics are four times as likely during solar maxima,” said Ken Tapping, a solar physicist with the National Research Council, pointing to the striking correlation between flu pandemics and the peaks of the 11-year sunspot cycle, also known as the solar maximum. He and two colleagues have compared flu and solar records dating back to 1729 and found a statistically significant connection. There were flu epidemics, some of them fatal to millions of people, in 1729, 1830, 1918, 1957, 1968 and 1977, years when solar activity and flares bombarded the Earth with extra radiation and cosmic rays.

The effects of solar cycles on influenza epidemics is especially important to note as along with the current global weather chaos the highly deadly Bird Flu virus has once again emerged in Mexico, China andIndonesia.

Of greatest concern, however, to global health authorities is the mysterious respiratory and neurological disease that has killed, so far, at least 64 Cambodia children this past week that is feared to be a Bird Flu mutation more deadly than any ever seen before.

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.

Why does a loving God allow Christians and none Christians to suffer in pain and suffering, sometimes for decades and decades?

Mental anguish, pain and suffering
 is the common lot for the majority of mankind

‘Earthquake Claims 10,000 in India.’ ‘Thousands Perish in Bangladesh’s Flood.’

Tragedy is constantly in the news, including large-scale, ‘senseless’ disasters that snuff out the lives of thousands, such as the terrorist attacks on New York’s World Trade Centre. Nor is tragedy confined to today—it was not too long ago that an evil regime wiped out 6 million Jews and many others.

In addition to the headline events, each of us suffers pain at one time or another—illness, headaches, accidents and death. It is not surprising, when the burdens become too great, that people cry out to God in anguish, ‘Why don’t you do anything? Don’t you care?

Death and suffering is everywhere, and as that is the case, then how can how can an all-powerful, loving God allow suffering to continue. The bottom line is that multitudes and have rejected God because of suffering and as a result have more than likely found themselves suffering in eternal damnation at the end of their lives for having done so.

Charles Darwin rejected Christianity after the death of his daughter and then one would suppose came up with his theory of evolution. Famous media mogul Ted Turner lost his faith after his sister died.

After having injured my back as a young man, I have been in constant and regular pain for decades and decades, 38 years to be precise. At the time of the incident, I was working as a labourer in a railway siding loading soft drinks into railway trucks.

When it happened, I knew what the cause of the intense and severe pain to the lower back region was the result of - a slipped disc in the lower vertebrae.

However, that was only the start of my problems as I soon learnt there was not one GP who was willing, or able, to do anything about the predicament that I had found myself in.

After having visited so many over the years to be told all I had was mild arthritis, and that there was nothing at all that could be done. I was left completely despairing and in a state of bewilderment as there was nothing at all that I could think of to relieve the pain.

What that meant was that for decades and decades anytime that I did anything at all that was strenuous or involved the use of my back that result was that I suffered sometimes for days and days until my back started to return to normal.

The bottom line out of all of this is that there was nowhere that I could go to find a cure to this quite intense pain. That was until recently when I was talking over the fence to my next-door neighbour who told me that he also had been suffering with intense pain in the lower back region and that he had gone to a highly recommended chiropractor who had worked a miraculous cure returning his back to normal.

I followed that advice and after only having made one visit to the chiropractor managed to have the disc pushed back into place resulting with a 70% cure. Subsequent visits have only improved the situation further.

As a young man of just 18, I accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my saviour and deliverer and then just 4 years later I was inflicted by Satan with what was to become a lifetime of suffering and pain. However there was never ever a time over those forty years of what was at times sheer torment did I ever give up on the Lord, just as the Lord had never ever given up on me.

As that is the case, if there are those out there who may be in the same situation that I was in and are thinking of giving up on the Lord, DON'T DO IT, is my best advice, just hang on in there with the Lord and eventually he will see you through.

Those who put their trust in Christ as Saviour have a wonderful hope—they can spend eternity with the Lord in a place where there will be no more death.

‘And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away’ (Revelation 21:4).

Indeed, death is really the path that opens the way to this wonderful place, called Heaven. If we lived forever, we would never have an opportunity to shed this sinful state.

However, God wants us to have a new body, and He wants us to dwell with Him forever.

In fact, the Bible states that ‘precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints’ (Psalm 116:15). Death is ‘precious’ because sinners who have trusted Christ will enter into the presence of their Creator, in a place where righteousness dwells.

IT IS SATAN, NOT GOD, WHO INFLICTS PAIN AND SUFFERING ON THE CHRISTIAN, AND THE NONE CHRISTIAN ALIKE, SO THAT HE MAY DRIVE THE SUFFERER INTO ETERNAL DAMNATION. DO NOT LET HIM DO THAT TO YOU.

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.

Is the Antichrist rebuilding his nation even now???

A Middle East Beast -  who really knows at this stage?


Personally, I think not - as the word of God makes it quite clear the Antichrist takes control of a Revised Roman Empire.

However, that is not to say that others may have different views and that I am open to all ideas. Accordingly, readers may read the attached piece and then form their own views.
Nevertheless, that is still not to say that by republishing the attached article that I am in favour of, or am endorsing, any of the publications by author Joel Richardson.

Alternatively, that by doing so I am supporting his view that the Antichrist will rise out of the Middle East.

As that is the case, then all that I am supporting here is an alternative view -- and that is all at this stage unless there is other real and valid information that becomes known to the contrary. Now read on...

The rumblings stirred by record-setting new film in Turkey are triggering alarm bells with students of biblical prophecy, who warn the world system the Antichrist will use to rise to power is already on the march.

“Constantinople will surely be conquered one day. The commander who conquers it is a blessed commander. His soldiers are blessed soldiers” – thus opens the film “Fetih 1453.”

“Fetih” (meaning “conquest”) begins in 7th century Arabia with Muhammad, who is presented off camera lest pious Muslims be offended by his physical portrayal, declaring the quote above. The film tells the story of the conquest of the Christian East Roman Empire and its capital Constantinople by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II, thereafter known as Mehmet Fatih, or the Conqueror.

Director Faruk Aksoy’s film is the now the most watched and highest grossing movie in Turkish history, earning more than $60 million worldwide.

But Joel Richardson, author New York Times best-selling “The Islamic Antichrist: The Shocking Truth About the Real Nature of the Beast” and “Mideast Beast: The Scriptural Case for an Islamic Antichrist,” just released by WND Books, views the release of “Fetih 1453″ and the rise of Turkey as a world power as confirming biblical prophecy.

“In my book ‘Mideast Beast,’ I walk the reader through several key biblical texts that also point to a renewed Turkish power in the last days,” Richardson told WND. “As the Obama administration is openly getting behind the Islamist government in Turkey, numerous world events are all aligning with what the biblical prophets spoke. For those who take biblical prophecy seriously, awaiting the return of Jesus, the events now unfolding in Turkey and the region – the days in which we are now living – are absolutely profound.”

Christian prophecy teachers are reexamining previous dogma regarding the empire of the Antichrist. Until recently North American prophecy teachers almost exclusively held to the European Antichrist theory in part because they believed that the Antichrist would succeed the Roman Empire, which some said never really fell. Modern scholars of biblical prophecy suggest the prior theories were historically inaccurate and contend that the Roman Empire was in fact conquered and succeeded.

Richardson’s work has been instrumental in the reexamination of the geographic region where the Antichrist will arise. The historical parallels between the time period depicted in “Fetih 1453″ and now are worth considering, said Richardson.

Taking a hard look at the most significant biblical end-time texts, “Mideast Beast” argues persuasively that the Antichrist, his empire, and his religion will come from the Middle East and not Europe, as has been widely taught by many prophecy teachers.

“When Mehmet gathered his Muslim soldiers around Constantinople, he purposefully had imams walk through the camps of the soldiers reading the prophecy concerning the conquering of the city, empowering the soldiers with a deep sense of divine and prophetic destiny,” said Richardson. “It was in fact the alleged prophecies of Muhammad that were among the most motivating factors driving the attack.

“Likewise today, throughout the Islamic world, there is a radical renewed interest in the many Islamic prophecies. Among these are prophecies concerning the renewal of the Islamic Caliphate, the invasion of Israel, the establishment of the Caliphate specifically from the city of Jerusalem, the genocide of most Jews in the land and also the secondary conquering of Constantinople,” Richardson continued.

“Many Turks believe that the present Islamic takeover of Turkey by the AK Party is the actual fulfillment of this prophecy. Among the significant events that are leading many Muslims in the region to believe they are again living in a moment of prophetic fulfillment are the present ‘Arab Spring’ or ‘Islamic Awakening,’ as it is more commonly referred to as throughout the region, the rise of an assertive Islamist Turkey as a regional power.”

The release of “Fetih 1453″ comes at an interesting time. Turkey is now ruled by an elected Islamist government that celebrates its Ottoman religious and imperial past. It has even been praised by Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan, notorious for his popularity among youth in the Middle East and his belligerent behavior toward the State of Israel in recent years.

“It is also important to note the fact that beyond the Islamists of Turkey, so also do many of the secularist nationalists desire to see a revival of regional Turkish power in the Middle East,” said Richardson. “The yearning for the glories of the Ottoman Empire are not limited to the Islamists alone.”

Whereas most students of the Bible have long held that some form of humanism or universalist religion would catapult the Antichrist to world power, “Mideast Beast” systematically proves that the long awaited system of the Antichrist is even now before us and knocking at our door – virtually unnoticed by the church.

“I am firmly convinced that Islam is the single greatest challenge the church will face before the return of Jesus, yet most are still either asleep or in denial,” Richardson states in “Mideast Beast.”

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.

An Iranian Video Declares the Arrival of the Islamic Messiah - the Mahdi - (the Antichrist) is near?

An Iranian video recently released with the full blessing of the Iranian regime is currently causing much excitement across the Middle East.

The video declares the time for the coming of the Islamic Messiah known as the Mahdi is almost upon us.

However, for those of us who hold fast to the one true and only word of God, the Holy Scriptures, the interpretation of that event is viewed in a completely different light.

Fundamentalist Born Again Christians see the arrival of the arrival of the Islamic Messiah, or the Mahdi, as being the arrival of the one the word of God calls the Antichrist, and that those two are actually one in the same individual.

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.

Fired teacher taking case to higher court

The US State of Ohio

John Whithead - the Rutherford Institute

By Bob Kellogg
One attorney says an Ohio science teacher, fired for asking his students to think critically about the theory of evolution, has every reason to take his case to the state Supreme Court.The Rutherford Institute is defending John Freshwater, who was suspended in 2008 and fired in 2010 from Mount Vernon Middle School for teaching alternative theories to evolution.

"In most schools … they teach [evolution] as a fact. It's not a fact; it's still a theory. There are different viewpoints by people all the way from Albert Einstein to Ben Stein, the comedian," notes Institute president John Whitehead. "So there [are] a lot of different opinions on it, but all this man was trying to do is get the kids to think it through, and obviously the school district did not want that."

Though the school board, a county judge and the Fifth Circuit have upheld the action taken against Freshwater, Whitehead is confident that the Ohio Supreme Court will hear the case.

"I think they will review it, and if this doesn't go well, the Ohio Supreme Court will talk to John Freshwater to see if he wants to go to the U.S. Supreme Court," the attorney predicts.Freshwater is arguing that his religious and academic freedoms were violated. He also asserts that he never mentioned creationism or intelligent design during his instructions. When the science teacher was suspended, students showed their support for him by carrying Bibles to class and wearing T-shirts with crosses.

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.

What are the possible ramifications for the recently discovered God Particle?

The Large Hadron Collider
The safety of particle collisions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - the world's largest and most powerful particle accelerator - was a topic of widespread discussion and topical interest during the time when the LHC was being constructed and commissioned at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) near Geneva, in Switzerland.

Concerns arose that the high-energy experiments - designed to produce novel particles and forms of matter - had the potential to create harmful states of matter or even doomsday scenarios.

Claims escalated as commissioning of the LHC drew closer, around 2008 - 2010. The claimed dangers included the production of stable micro black holes and the creation of hypothetical particles called strangelets, and these questions were explored in the media, on the Internet and at times through the courts.

To address such concerns, CERN mandated a group of independent scientists to review these scenarios. In a report issued in 2003, they concluded that, like current particle experiments such as the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), the LHC particle collisions pose no conceivable threat.

A second review of the evidence commissioned by CERN was released in 2008. The report, prepared by a group of physicists affiliated to CERN but not involved in the LHC experiments, reaffirmed the safety of the LHC collisions in light of further research conducted since the 2003 assessment.

It was reviewed and endorsed by a CERN committee of 20 external scientists and by the Executive Committee of the Division of Particles & Fields of the American Physical Society, and was later published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Physics G by the UK Institute of Physics, which also endorsed its conclusions

The report ruled out any doomsday scenario at the LHC, noting that the physical conditions and events that will be created in the LHC experiments occur naturally and routinely in the universe without hazardous consequences. These include ultra-high-energy cosmic rays that are observed impacting Earth with energies considerably higher than those reached in any man-made collider.

The God Particle has been revealed
Now because of those experiments with the collider the news is now beginning to filter through that origins of the universe have been revealed and that the God particle does exist Scientists have confirmed the discovery of a new subatomic particle that is consistent with the long-sought-after Higgs boson.

'This goes beyond the origin of life. This is the origin of the universe.'
SCIENTISTS have taken a giant leap in their understanding of how the universe was formed, with a joint announcement in Geneva and Melbourne last night that a new particle has been discovered.

The discovery has significant implications, as physicists say it is consistent with the elusive Higgs boson, or ''God particle''.

In what will prove a milestone in the history of modern science, the revelation ends almost five decades of searching for the subatomic particle.

The search included constructing - for almost $10 billion - the Large Hadron Collider 100 metres below the Swiss-French border to conduct experiments in conditions similar to those just seconds after the big bang.

The preliminary results, delivered to applause and whoops of excitement in the two cities, come from two separate experiments undertaken this year at the Large Hadron Collider. They delivered satisfyingly similar results, making the new particle the heaviest boson discovered with a mass of about 125 GeV.

''This goes well beyond the origin of life, this is the origin of the universe,'' said Geoffrey Taylor, who leads Australia's research contribution to the organisation behind the Large Hadron Collider, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN).

The announcement was made on the eve of the International Conference on High Energy Physics beginning in Melbourne today.

Scientists packed the Melbourne Convention Centre last night for the announcement, with more than 800 physicists making the trip for the conference.

Until last night, the Higgs boson existed only in theory as the missing ingredient of the standard model of particle physics - a rulebook of how elementary particles and forces interact in the universe.

''What the results have shown tonight is that this is statistically highly significant. It has all the hallmarks of the standard model Higgs,'' Professor Taylor said.

The existence of a Higgs-like boson effectively verifies the all-encompassing 30-year-old theory on why particles have mass and how the universe works at the simplest level.

''We have reached a milestone in our understanding of nature,'' said CERN director-general Rolf Heuer, who will arrive in Melbourne for the conference tomorrow.

''The discovery of a particle consistent with the Higgs boson opens the way to more detailed studies, requiring larger statistics, which will pin down the new particle's properties.''

Asked if he would go as far as to say the new particle was a Higgs boson, Dr Heuer said: ''As a nonprofessional, I think we have it. But as a scientist I have to ask 'what do we have'? We have something. We have discovered a boson. Now we have to determine what kind of boson.''

Among the many hundreds at CERN's Geneva base for the announcement was the man whose name the elusive particle takes, retired British theoretical physicist Peter Higgs.

Now in his 80s, Professor Higgs congratulated the international team of researchers for their ''tremendous achievement'', saying, ''it is just an incredible thing that it happened in my lifetime''.

The unassuming Higgs could now be on his way to winning a Nobel Prize.

The preliminary results unveiled last night are from experiments run independently at two of the giant atom smasher's four detectors - ATLAS and CMS. Both have been working on the hunt for Higgs, which is difficult to track down, as it can't be seen. The unstable particle lives for only a tiny fraction of a second before decaying into other particles.

Yesterday's confirmation follows tantalising results released in December, which allowed physicists to narrow down the region in which they were searching for the Higgs boson.

Since then the sensitivity at the Large Hadron Collider has increased, while scientists have also refined their analysis techniques.

The volume of data available this year was also vastly greater.

According to CERN, there was more data delivered from experiments at the Large Hadron Collider between April and June this year than during the whole 2011 run.

Having identified the new Higgs-like particle, physicists now have the task of establishing its properties and characteristics and then measuring the results up against the predicted properties of Higgs boson.

It could yet be that the discovery is even more extraordinary - the new particle could turn out to be an even more exotic version that would be a profound discovery and create a revolution in physics.

Either way, last night's results have set science on a new path.

''This is really a very unusual object, an unusual field,'' Professor Taylor said.
''It raises us up to a more solid platform where we can start thinking about bigger questions.''

What is the Higgs boson particle?
The Higgs boson is an elementary particle within the Standard Model of particle physics. It belongs to a class of particles known as bosons. On 4 July 2012, CERN announced the formal confirmation that a particle "consistent with the Higgs boson" exists with a very high likelihood of 99.99995% ("five sigma"); however, scientists must still verify that it is indeed the expected boson and not some other new particle.

The name Higgs Boson is derived from the surname of the Indian physicist, Satyendra Nath Bose, a contemporary of the German physicist Albert Einstein and after the British physicist Peter Higgs. British physicist Peter Higgs who was one of six authors in the 1960s who wrote the ground-breaking papers covering what is now known as the Higgs mechanism and described the related Higgs Field and boson.

Technically, it is the quantum excitation of the Higgs field, and the non-zero value of the ground state of this field gives mass to the other elementary particles such as quarks and electrons through the Higgs mechanism.

The Standard Model completely fixes the properties of the Higgs boson, except for its mass. It is expected to have no spin and no electric or colour charge, and it interacts with other particles through the weak interaction and Yukawa-type interactions between the various fermions and the Higgs field.

Because the Higgs boson is a very massive particle and also decays almost immediately when created, only a very high energy particle accelerator can observe and record it. Experiments to confirm and determine the nature of the Higgs boson using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN began in early 2010, and were performed at Fermilab's Tevatron until its closure in late 2011.

Mathematical consistency of the Standard Model requires that any mechanism capable of generating the masses of elementary particles become visible at energies above 1.4 TeV;[4] therefore, the LHC (designed to collide two 7 to 8 TeV proton beams) was built to answer the question of whether or not the Higgs boson actually exists.

On 4 July 2012, the two main experiments at the LHC (ATLAS and CMS) both reported independently that they found a new particle with a mass of about 125 GeV/c2 (about 133 proton masses, on the order of 10-25 kg), which is "consistent with the Higgs boson".

They acknowledged that further work would be needed to conclude that it is indeed the Higgs Boson that it has the theoretically predicted properties of the Higgs boson, and exactly which version of the Standard Model it best supported if confirmed.

What now are the possible uses for this newfound information?
There was a point that the late and great Barry R Smith once made that has stayed with me ever since he made the announcement in one of his meetings that there was never ever going to be the possibility of a nuclear war, because as he had said, there was no actual trigger to fire a nuclear weapon.

What that means is that even though the weapon could be fired there was no possibility of an ignition in the warhead because the sun had to be in a certain position to ignite the neutrons in the warhead. Accordingly, there could never ever be a nuclear war simply because even though a nuclear weapon could be launched it could never ever really be exploded and because of that fact, the nuclear weapon was more or less harmless.

However, with this new and latest discovery all of the Higgs boson particle all of this may have changed and scientists may have discovered a way to ignite those neutrons in the warhead of a nuclear weapon. What that also means is that in the hands of the Antichrist this new and latest discovery is going to turn the world upside down, as he sets out to follow the will of his master, Satan by unleashing a nuclear configuration yet unimaginable, just as the word of God said would be the instance in these last days.

WHY I AM NOT A DISPENSATIONALIST; John Nelson Darby is recognized as the father of dispensationalism later made popular in the United States by Cyrus Scofield's Scofield Reference Bible. Charles Henry Mackintosh, 1820–1896, with his popular style spread Darby's teachings to humbler elements in society and may be regarded as the journalist of the Brethren Movement. CHM popularised Darby more than any other Brethren author. As there was no Christian teaching of a “rapture” before Darby began preaching about it in the 1830s, he is sometimes credited with originating the "secret rapture" theory wherein Christ will suddenly remove His bride, the Church, from this world before the judgments of the tribulation. Dispensationalist beliefs about the fate of the Jews and the re-establishment of the Kingdom of Israel put dispensationalists at the forefront of Christian Zionism, because "God is able to graft them in again," and they believe that in His grace he will do so according to their understanding of Old Testament prophecy. They believe that, while the methodologies of God may change, His purposes to bless Israel will never be forgotten, just as He has shown unmerited favour to the Church, He will do so to a remnant of Israel to fulfill all the promises made to the genetic seed of Abraham. I am not a dispensationalist; it is unbiblical.