A British army veteran who served in Afghanistan was found guilty today of praying silently near an abortion clinic in England.
Adam Smith-Connor breached a Public Spaces Protection Order by this action, according to the ruling at Poole Magistrates Court in the town of Poole near Bournemouth, Dorset, England. The court gave Smith-Connor a conditional discharge, meaning he would be sentenced only if convicted of future offenses within the next two years. But the court also ordered the father of two children to pay prosecution costs amounting to £9,000. ADF International stated that Bournemouth, Christchurch & Poole Council spent £90,000 prosecuting the former soldier for praying, which carried a maximum penalty of £1,000. This is crazy and whoever authorised the expenditure should be sacked.
“Today, the court has decided that certain thoughts — silent thoughts — can be illegal in the United Kingdom,” Smith-Connor said after the court ruling. “That cannot be right. All I did was pray to God, in the privacy of my own mind, and yet I stand convicted as a criminal?”
The court found Smith-Connor guilty of an act of “disapproval of abortion,” though he was only thinking about his son, who had been aborted many years before, according to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International.
Smith-Connor had slightly bowed his head and clasped his hands in prayer on a public green in a buffer zone near the abortion facility in Orphir Road, Bournemouth in November 2022. During a confrontation with police officers that he recorded, they asked him, “What is the nature of your prayer?”
The buffer zone had been previously legalized under a Public Spaces Protection Order enforced on streets near the abortion clinic. The intent of the buffer zone had been to stop pro-life beliefs being expressed near the facility, including offering help or prayers to women in crisis pregnancies, according to a press statement by ADF International.
Defense attorneys argued that Smith-Connor’s prayerful thoughts, beliefs and opinions were not a crime, especially as he stood peacefully and silently on a public street. He stood behind a tree, spoke to no one, and had his back to the facility.
Fortunately, Biblical prophecy shows us that the return of Jesus to put an end to this nonsense is near.
One of Australia’s most senior Catholics has warned that a proposal being considered by the ACT Labor-Greens government to allow teenagers as young as 14 to access voluntary assisted dying could see assisted suicide become available to “anyone that wants it”. Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher said that every jurisdiction that had introduced assisted suicide had relaxed restrictions over time, cautioning that by setting such a low bar the ACT would see standards “end up in the gutter with no protections at all”. ACT Human Rights Minister Tara Cheyne said that the government was considering allowing children as young as 14 to access voluntary assisted dying, unveiling a community consultation report to help shape legislation to be introduced by the end of the year. “The fact is, every jurisdiction in the world that has gone down the euthanasia path has then gradually stripped away its protections,” Archbishop Fisher said.
“So, if we start as the ACT’s proposing to start, with the bar already very low, well they’re just going to end up in the gutter with no protections at all.” Archbishop Fisher branded the ACT government led by Chief Minister Andrew Barr, a “radical government” that he didn’t trust to enforce safeguards around assisted suicide. He also questioned why 14-year-olds were considered too young to drive and vote but mature enough to “make a life-and-death decision”. “Victoria has only had euthanasia for a year or two, and they’re already talking about removing most of the protections,” he said. “Well, if the ACT starts with almost none, where are they going to be two or three years on? “My guess is it will be euthanasia on demand for anyone that wants it, and that’s exactly, for some of the proponents of this, their ultimate goal.”
Ms Cheyne rejected as arbitrary the requirement in other Australian jurisdictions for assisted suicide to be accessed only by people with a life expectancy of between six and 12 months, and left the door open for dementia patients to access the scheme. NSW, Victoria, Western Australia, Queensland, South Australia, and Tasmania have legalised assisted suicide for people over 18 years old who have a terminal illness and are given less than six to 12 months to live. Health Minister Mark Butler and opposition health spokeswoman Anne Ruston said they would not comment on territory issues. Five MPs representing the ACT independent senator David Pocock, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, and Labor members Andrew Leigh Alicia Payne and David Smith also declined to comment. Nationals MP Barnaby Joyce questioned the suggestion that 14-year-olds were mature enough to make an “informed cogent decision about the most precious thing they have, which is their life”.
“It’s what happens when you have a Greens left-wing Labor government and the idea the state reigns supreme over the individual; it’s the removal of all forms of religion to be replaced with the ethos of the state,” Barnaby said. The architect of the world’s first right-to-die laws and former Northern Territory chief minister Marshall Perron said it was “very hard to put a finger” on when a teenager developed the decision-making capacity to be eligible for assisted suicide. “You’ll get a different opinion from different people … 16 and 17 would be an easier step to go,” he said. “However, there is an argument to go beyond that. If we’re talking about terminally ill individuals who are going to die and are suffering horrifically, I mean, anyone who’s a parent would have to have some sympathy for the child.”
What we are seeing is just a prelude to the coming of the man of lawlessness, the Antichrist, but the good news is; the return of Jesus to restore righteousness and rule and reign with the resurrected Saints during Jesus’ transitional Millennial Kingdom is not too far off.
“Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him… Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.” 2 Thessalonians 2:1,3-4
This article by Megan Agnew appeared in The Weekend Australian 09/07/2022. My comments are in italics.
Billie Eilish: ‘I craved judgment… or criticism’ As a child she suffered ‘crippling separation anxiety. Now the most famous 20-year-old on the planet, Billie Eilish is finally getting comfortable in her own skin.
She has 11 billion views on YouTube, 47 million monthly listeners on Spotify, 44 million followers on TikTok and 103 million on Instagram.
Eilish is who she is largely because of the internet. At 13 she recorded Ocean Eyes, a song written by her older brother Finneas, which they posted to the online music platform SoundCloud. It went viral, landing a management deal and recording contract. Four years later Eilish hit the mainstream with the song Bad Guy, which they recorded in Finneas’s bedroom. It went to No.1 in more than 15 countries and became the planet’s best-performing single that year. She was 17.
Her music defies genre; a mixture of pop, rock, electronica, hip-hop and Peggy Lee jazz, with lyrics about Xanax, climate change, Invisalign braces, self-destruction, Uber ratings, and burying her friends. It is music for the generation who grew up on the internet, where irony is king and sincerity is lame. It is not ponytail-swinging pop about being a “hotgirlboss” but melancholic and twisted, tender and honest, music about the darkness of life – and her legions of teenage fans love it.
The lyrics of Ocean Eyes (video below) reveal a lot of the craziness of the world we are now living in. “I’ve been walking through a world gone blind”, “burning cities, napalm skies”, “I’m scared”. Also, what do these words even mean, “Can’t stop thinking of your diamond mind”, “Careful creature made friends with time”?
As with most young people God does not feature in her life at all.He is not given a thought. She has no concept of a Heavenly Father that loves her and seeks to be in a relationship with her.
Megan Agnew spoke about one of Billie Eilish’s concerts: “On stage she does not look very little at all, marching around with the jumped-up bravado of a boy, an electrifying sort of drag, dementedly crawling on her knees among projections of tarantulas, kicking the air in her trademark trainers while the screens behind her play footage of forest fires and droughts. “Stop,” goes one lyric, the crowd of mostly girls yelling in time, “what the hell are you talking about! Ha! / Get my pretty name out of your mouth!”
Eilish is known for her baggy clothes and upside-down version of beauty, dyeing the grown-out roots of her hair neon green. She started out like this because she didn’t want people to judge her body, which she has “hated” since she was a child. She self-harmed “because of my body”, she told Vanity Fair, and her body was a reason for her first depression at about 12. Today her insecurity is compounded by the scrutiny of the internet. On TikTok people speculate whether she is pregnant. When she was photographed in LA going to the shops in a vest top, she went viral for being “brave”.
How is her relationship with her body now? “Gurl!” she says, throwing her head back. “Nowhere good. My relationship with my body has been a truly horrible, terrible thing since I was 11.” This was the age she was diagnosed with Tourette’s, which can be “very exhausting”, she says, brought on in times of stress, manifesting in eye rolls, moving her ears and twitching her head back. “I love that my body is mine and that it’s with me everywhere I go,” she continues. “I kind of think of my body as my friend. My ugly friend! It’s complicated. But what are you gonna do?”
Eilish is cycling through all the insecurities of youth – in front of millions. She didn’t really know who she was “until, like, probably the end of 2019. Then Covid made me go right back down into the spiral of, who am I?” Her tour was postponed and she went home to LA. “I remember thinking, ‘I need to figure out who I am right now’. Then halfway through Covid I felt as if I was starting to have an identity again – Let’s do different things, let’s have different experiences. And then it happened again.” Another identity crisis.
Thank goodness Jesus is coming back soon to restore sanity to a world gone mad.
Just when we thought it couldn’t get crazier… The most egregious example of speculative excess in the art world… $18,000 for ‘air and spirit’… Signing up to get nothing in the financial realm… Ignorance is not a valid excuse… We’re living in the ‘Age of the Emperor’.
For the past year and a half, collectors have been paying outrageous prices for some truly weird works… first, a banana duct-taped to a wall sold for $120,000 in Miami back in December 2019. Then, this past March, an artist known as “Beeple” sold a non-fungible token (“NFT”) of his work – a digital-only collage of 5,000 images – for $69 million at auction. The latest example occurred last month in Milan, Italy… Auction house Art-Rite sold a piece of work by Italian artist Salvatore Garau titled Io sono (Italian for “I am“) for $18,000. With Beeple’s NFT going for $69 million, how does a mere $18,000 sale qualify as egregious excess? The answer is simple… because Io sono doesn’t actually exist. It’s “invisible art.” It’s not there. The buyer got a whole lot of nothing for his $18,000. Instead, Garau issued a certificate of authenticity to the buyer (like the banana-and-duct-tape piece). The artist – and his piece of paper “verifying” it – said Io sono is a sculpture that consists of a 25-square-foot space and that light and climate control are optional.
You can’t sell a certificate of authenticity for something that doesn’t exist without concocting a fantastic story… Garau put together a great one. As he told one Spanish news outlet… You don’t see it, but it exists. It is made of air and spirit.
THE FINANCIAL WORLD – Information from Stansberry Research Digest – Largest USA independent financial research organisation.
Art is the flag of culture. And its excesses are frequently preceded by those in the financial realm, given as it is to stoke the fires of greed.
‘Nothing’ has been on sale in the financial markets for much of the past decade…
The most obvious example is negative-yielding sovereign debt. According to Bloomberg, $13.3 trillion of this debt is circulating around the world these days. Roughly $10 trillion of the total is the sovereign debt of countries like Japan, Germany, Switzerland, and France. (Nearly all the rest is corporate debt.) This is supposed to be the second-safest debt in the world, behind only the debt of the U.S. government. When you buy a bond trading at a negative yield, it means you’re guaranteed to get less in principal and interest at maturity than you paid for it in the first place. In other words, you’re guaranteed to lose money. You’re signing up to get nothing.
Bonds are supposed to be the “smart money”… It’s where savvy investors go to get a much safer return than the stock market. And for a $13 trillion swath of the bond market, that supposedly safer return is a little less than zero today… Nothing. Nada. Zip.
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association’s 2020 Fact Book puts the value of the global bond market at $105.9 trillion. So negative-yielding debt – a guarantee to receive a little less than nothing for putting capital at risk – accounts for 12.5% of a massive global market.
And it’s not just bonds, either. The rational expectation for stocks is a negative average return over the next 10 to 12 years. That’s according to the work of often quoted economist John Hussman, Hussman’s return model suggests the S&P 500 is currently priced to return a 7% loss per year, on average, for the next decade. However, reality is that the market doesn’t simply tick down 7% each year for a decade. It falls 50% or more in a great washout that generally lasts somewhere between six months and two years.
Moreover, many would suggest that a great washout is about to occur or put another way the financial bubble is about to burst. In a Bloomberg interview, GMO’s Jeremy Grantham talked about his asset-management firm’s study of 330 bubbles across all asset classes. As Grantham succinctly put it… the last 12 months have been a classic finale to an 11-year bull market. And he cited plenty of data to make his point during the interview, ultimately concluding… The great bubbles by scale and significance… all accelerated late in the game and had psychological measures that could not be missed by ordinary investors. (Economists are a different matter.)
The data, like today, is always clear, just uncommercial and inconvenient for the investment industry and often psychologically impossible to see for many individuals. In other words, all of us “ordinary investors” ought to be like the child in “The Emperor’s New Clothes” who innocently blurts out that the emperor is naked. That emboldened others to say so… eventually making it impossible for the emperor himself to avoid admitting the truth.
We can all see the truth. Our only remaining task is to acknowledge it and act accordingly. But the great herd of investors just can’t do it. The herd is like the courtiers and other sycophantic hangers-on around the emperor. They’re all scared of his ire and eager to gain his favour , prompting them to proclaim the surpassing beauty of his non-existent clothes.
They’re too vested in continuing the charade to notice that doing so is an unsustainable state of affairs.
The greatest charade perhaps of all is in the cryptocurrency called Dogecoin. Dogecoin was created as a joke to make fun of cryptocurrencies being worthless, and not only has it taken off, but it’s such a success that second-level joke cryptocurrencies making fun of Dogecoin have gone to multibillion-dollar valuations. An unabashed ode to the culture of nothingness has wound up with a massive valuation… Dogecoin’s market cap peaked on May 7 at $88 billion and still sits above $32 billion today. Its value has crashed over the past six weeks. But even so, that’s still a whole lotta nothin’.
There’s no fraud going on in these instances at all. Folks are saying, “Hey, sign me up. I want nothing and I’ll pay real money for it!” Nothing is the new something.
Any sane person can see that this cannot end well. In fact, it will get so crazy that the world will be crying out for a Saviour, the scene is set for the entry of the Antichrist on to the world scene. His appearance is the most significant prophesied “end times” sign. As I have said many times before there are far more prophecies about Jesus second coming than there were of His first coming. Are you aware of these prophecies? Are you prepared for what is ahead? For Christians it is a time of intense persecution. We are already seeing the “end times” prophesied falling away in the church from the truth of God’s Word and His moral values. Wake up church, God is purifying His church. Sadly, much of the church is like the church at Laodicea which will be left behind to face God’s wrath.
“I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.” Revelation 3:15-17
It is the Church at Philadelphia that represents the church that is raptured prior to God’s wrath being poured out with the Trumpet and Bowl Judgements.
“Because you have kept my word about patient endurance, I will keep you from the hour of trial that is coming on the whole world, to try those who dwell on the earth. I am coming soon. Hold fast what you have, so that no one may seize your crown.” Revelation 3:10-11
The Rapture of the Saints prior to God’s wrath being poured out on an unrepentant world with the Trumpet and Bowl Judgements
The classic story of “Cinderella” is getting a “modern makeover” as a musical complete with the LGBTQ injection of a genderless fairy godmother.
Entertainment Weekly (EW) reports Camilla Cabello will make her big-screen debut in the title role, and actor-activist Billy Porter will portray her fairy godmother.
Kay Cannon, the movie’s writer-director told EW she wrote the role specifically for Porter. His fairy godmother role is described by Cannon as a supernatural being who stands for being true to oneself, and who transcends mundane human labels.
“Billy articulated the idea that magic has no gender,” Cannon said.
This unusual new version of Cinderella will stream on Amazon Prime in September, according to EW.
As CBN’s Faithwire reported last year, Hollywood elites claim to be pro-feminism, but this new film sure makes it clear sexism is alive and well in Tinseltown.
Porter called the movie “a classic fairytale for a new generation,” during an interview at the time with CBS News.
“It hit me when I was on the set last week, how profound it is that I am playing the Fairy Godmother — they call it the ‘Fab G,’” he said. “We are presenting this character as genderless — at least that’s how I’m playing it, and it’s really powerful.”
Porter, the man known for his “gender-bending” outfits at award shows (he often wears dresses), has made headlines for rebuking sexism and misogyny, but not in the way you might think. While there is plenty of sex-based discrimination against women in Hollywood and elsewhere, Porter is busy decrying how he — as a male — is the victim of misogyny because people think it’s weird he wears bodices and elegant dresses flowing with tulle on the red carpet.
He talked about it on ABC’s “The View” last summer, where he got a little help from co-host Joy Behar who opined with Porter that the reason people are uncomfortable with men wearing dresses is that they “hate women.”
ANALYSIS: THE CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE
In reality, it’s something more profound than that. Certainly, there are some who still carry with them misogynistic perspectives. But the reality is this: people are uncomfortable with the undoing of the sexes as God intended them — male and female. The erasure of that binary is a rebellion against God’s design, and whether Christian or not, the breakdown of that structure is worrisome because the continuation of humanity quite literally depends on it.
“I think the new generation is really ready,” Porter said of his role in “Cinderella” and of the push toward “gender fluidity.” “The kids are ready. It’s the grownups that are slowing stuff down.”
Writing for Faithwire, Tré Goins-Phillips noted: “It’s pretty ironic to think the progressive Hollywood left — the cadre of people keen on equity between men and women — are giddy overturning a historically powerful female role into a ‘genderless’ part and handing it to a male.”
“The sad irony is what Porter himself proves about this push to suppress the male and female binary: in the end, it only suppresses women more,” he wrote. Meanwhile, Porter is also breaking some other new ground. He just announced he’s been HIV positive for 14 years and that he’s tired of the “stigma” surrounding the disease.
We are living in a world where this Scripture is prophetic of the godless world we see playing out before us.
“And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting” (Romans 1:28).
Benjamin Franklin was not known as an ardent evangelical Christian, but his friend George Whitefield would often urge the claims of the gospel upon him and it obviously had an impact as during a deadlock at the American Constitutional Convention he called for prayer:
“I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth – that God governs in the affairs of men; and if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sir, in the sacred writings, that ‘except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it.’ I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid, we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.”
We all know what happened at and to Babel or do we? God confused the language and created the nations at Babel, prior to Babel the world had one language.
“Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” Genesis 11:1-4
“Come, let us (Triune God) go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.” Genesis 11:7-9
As in all things concerning God’s world, the true paradigm is that we are creatures answerable to our Creator; the diagnosis is that we are all fallen and rebellious sinners. There is only one solution: we need to repent and trust in Jesus Christ as our Saviour and Lord. Just as our Heavenly Father sent His Son, Jesus to pay the price for our sins, once we repent of them and accept Jesus as our Saviour and Lord, the Father sends the Holy Spirit to indwell every believer to be our counsellor, teacher and comforter. He makes it possible for us to live the Christian life. He will enlighten us to the truths in God’s word and help us to apply them to daily living. He will produce the fruit of the spirit in our lives and provide the gifts of the Spirit for ministry. God the Father does it all, how simple and yet how hard!
The wrong paradigm was embraced by the multitude long ago. There is no way that the chattering classes will admit that the basic problem is that they have rejected their Creator God and His commandments are being trampled upon. With sexual morality as an example, for decades, the received wisdom has been that sexual morality does not count as morality at all. Provided all is consensual, basically anything is allowed. Given this paradigm, the media could maintain their moral outrage at the recent antics of parliamentary staffers in Australia’s Federal parliament while continuing to excuse sleazy advertisements and shows like Married at First Sight and Game of Thrones.
Your eternal destiny is at stake
But if your paradigm is wrong, your diagnosis will be wrong, and your proposed solution will be wrong. The world has created its own problems – it has taken morality out of sexual relationships; it sees uniformity as the answer to all ills; and it calls on the law to achieve these goals. The result is more of the same, and a blindness as to what is really going wrong. People get their hopes up that progress is being made when actually the boat is just being rowed around in circles. It is God who declares what is wrong: it is the human heart, for it is corrupt.
“For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a person.” Matthew 15:19
Only a true believer, one who has accepted Jesus as His Lord and Saviour and received the Holy Spirit as His Counsellor, Teacher and Comforter can truly understand.
“Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” John 15:5-7
Everyone needs to read the article “Energy Solution Hinges on New Technology” which appeared in The Weekend Australian, Saturday June 15th 2019 by Dr Bjorn Lomborg, president of the think tank Copenhagen Consensus Centre. He has been named one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world. I have reproduced it below in an amended form.
The reality is, today, solar and wind energy together deliver only about 1 per cent of global energy. The International Energy Agency estimates that even by 2040 these will cover a little more than 4 per cent of global energy.
The idea that we already have the needed technology to phase out quickly from fossil fuels is nonsense, so before we can establish what the solution to climate change really looks like, we first need to dismantle the faulty idea that we have the solution already.
One of the world’s leading energy researchers, Czech-Canadian Vaclav Smil, has said:
“The great hope for a quick and sweeping transition to renewable energy is wishful thinking.”
Former US vice-president Al Gore’s chief scientific adviser, Jim Hansen, who put global warming on the agenda back in 1988, agreed, saying:
“Suggesting that renewable’s will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.”
The recent “hoo-ha” or “brouhaha” by climate change activists, involving thousands of children skipping school to be involved in street protests in Australia, over the Adani Coal Mine, demonstrates that the belief that we already have the solutions is a delusion on a planetary scale. It may be comforting to tell ourselves that global warming is effectively solved. It’s dangerous because it leads to us taking at face value promises and vows that have no chance of being enacted. And it is reckless because it stops us from focusing on what we need to do instead.
If we do care to fix climate, we need to change course. This was clearly shown by 27 of the world’s top climate economists and three Nobel laureates who looked at the whole gamut of climate solutions for Copenhagen Consensus.
If we keep doing what we’ve done so far and make more promises to cut carbon in ineffective ways such as subsidising wind and solar, each dollar spent will avoid only 3c of climate damage.
Recently, the 10-year, $US10 billion public investment into shale gas in the US proved to be a great way to cut carbon. While it wasn’t intended as climate policy, it led the way for a surge in production of cheap gas, which out competed a significant part of US coal consumption. Because gas emits about half the CO2 of coal, the US has reduced emissions more than any other country in the past 10 years.
France has an extremely low level of carbon dioxide emissions per capita from electricity generation since over 90% of its electricity is nuclear (58 nuclear reactors) or hydro. Why isn’t nuclear on the table in other countries, particularly Australia with some of the biggest reserves of uranium ore?
Politicians across the world happily promise to emit net zero CO2 by 2050, knowing they will be long retired from politics when those vows are broken. Achieving this will be almost impossibly expensive, likely provoking “yellow vest” street riots long before their conclusion.
After New Zealand made its 2050 zero emissions promise, the government commissioned a report on the costs. The report found that achieving this goal in the most cost-effective manner would cost more than last year’s entire national budget on social security, welfare, health, education, police, courts, defence, environment and every other part of government combined. Each and every year.
UN Losing Credibility:
UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres is inviting all heads of state to New York next September to promise jointly to cut global emissions to zero by 2050. To see exactly how unrealistic this is, look at the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s five policy scenarios for the 21st century. The most optimistic “sustainable” scenario puts on green-tinted glasses to envisage a world in which the rich countries happily accept having their energy availability cut in half and people in the poor world accept they will never catch up even to half of rich-world energy availability.
We have a world in crisis with politicians living in “Lalaland”. To quote again, former US vice-president Al Gore’s chief scientific adviser, Jim Hansen “suggesting that renewable s will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.”
Surely, for the Bible believing Christian, this is further evidence we are living in the prophesied end times prior to Jesus return to rule with a rod of iron for one thousand years, as revealed in Revelation 20.
“The World Economic Forum reported that in 2015, worldwide pensions were underfunded by $70 TRILLION. That is larger than the top 20 economies in the world, combined. In the US alone, federal, state, and local government pensions are $7 trillion short on the funding they need to pay what they have promised. And none of this includes Social Security’s almost $50 trillion of unfunded obligations. And the private sector isn’t in great shape, either. US corporate pensions are a combined $553 billion in the hole. And one quarter of those funds are expected to go broke within a decade.” Simon Black Wall Street Journal
Well, as we enter 2019 the situation is worse and those in the know are preparing for a recession so may I suggest you prepare likewise. Get out of debt as quickly as you can.
There is much political turmoil across the world; the battle between globalism and nationalism is on centre stage and nationalism has clearly gained the upper hand. There are many internal and external international conflicts going on at the same time, and even more agendas.
VENEZUELA: In the first few weeks of 2019, the US recognised the Venezuelan opposition leader who, along with the Venezuelan parliament, declared the current leader Maurado a usurper and himself to be the legal and rightful leader of the country.
GREECE: Greece is edging toward political uncertainty with the Macedonia agreement which is being rejected by various factions and is resulting in many internal conflicts.
FRANCE: French citizens have been demonstrating in mass for the last nine weeks and the government has capitulated to their demands.
ITALY: Italy ignored the EU and passed a budget which the EU condemned.
MIDDLE EAST: US sanctions on Iran is crippling the economy and could trigger drastic action. Israel has been carrying out military strikes on Iranian targets, and there is mass public unrest and demonstrations against the Iranian government. The US withdrawal of troops from Syria may only embolden Iran to step up its hostile actions. Beginning with Trump recognising Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moving its embassy there, tensions in the middle east have escalated with direct missile attacks on Israel by Iran from Syria, provoking a stronger response from Israel. Iran sponsored attacks by Hezbollah from Lebanon and Hamas from Gaza will only heighten the tension and bring on the prophesied war in Daniel 8. For more on this, I suggest Mark Davidson’s book Iran’s Great Invasion.
CHINA: China has declared war on both its Christian & Islamic populations, attempting to eradicate these faiths, and if they deem it necessary, even the citizens who hold them.
The Chinese technology company Huawei and the Chinese government have been universally condemned, their business executives arrested in many nations for espionage, and the use of their services declared illegal. Forbes wrote: “The arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou in Canada last month for breaking U.S. sanctions law, followed by the firing of Huawei sales executive Wang Weijing in Poland last week shows China can be a bad actor, exactly as Washington believes. The Poland story centres around spying allegations, where Wang allegedly sought trade secrets from the government.’ China is losing the PR battle, for years, U.S. companies have been complaining that China does not honour intellectual property rights. Washington believes tech powerhouses like Huawei owe much of their growth to IP theft.”
China’s growth estimates don’t look good and are getting worse. They are clearly losing the trade war and its about to get a lot worse for them. Quite simply, 90% of China’s GDP comes for exports, so the US affecting 90% of their trade with our country and exports account for only 15% of US GDP, thus China is only affecting 15% of our trade with them. No matter how you look at it, the US easily wins any trade war between China and the US.
RUSSIA: The Russians and the Chinese have been pushed together into an uneasy alliance, something the US has always tried to strategically prevent. The US has always attempted to work with China against Russia or Russia against China. President Trump tried to do this with Russia to prevent an ever aggressive China from gaining more ground, but was prevented from doing so, by Congress and the inept Mueller investigation.
“And you will hear of wars and rumours of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.” Matthew 24: 6-8
The current world situation, with an unprecedented economic crisis, governments now unable to resolve the mounting political unrest, increasing God ordained natural disasters, apostasy in the church, all indicate we are in the Biblical prophesied “end times” Can I suggest you prepare for Jesus return by going to my other website http://www.powerpointsermons.net and download the Power Point Sermon Are We Ready for Jesus – How to Prepare for His return.
A “LAST DAYS” PROPHETIC EVENT IS UPON US AS ECONOMISTS REALISE THE WORLD’S DEBT IS BEYOND RECOVERY. THE WORLD HAS NEVER BEEN AS INDEBTED AS IT IS RIGHT NOW.
In the month of October, 2017 alone, the US national debt has soared by nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars.
The government of the largest, most important economy in the world is completely, woefully bankrupt. And its rate of decline is accelerating.
You’d think this would be on the front page of every major newspaper in the world. But it’s not. It’s shrugged off as par for the course, as if accumulating historic levels of debt is somehow consequence-free. And this complacency is what I find the MOST bizarre. Consider the following: the US government spends nearly the ENTIRETY of its tax revenue on Social Security, Medicare, and Interest on the Debt. Throw in national defence spending and the budget deficit is already hundreds of billions of dollars.
The only realistic way out is for the US government to eventually capitulate… and default.
This could mean selectively defaulting on holders of US debt (for example– the Chinese, Japanese, Federal Reserve, Social Security Trust Fund, etc.); one day Uncle Sam simply stops paying.
Or it could mean defaulting on promises made to citizens, like providing a strong national defense, maintaining a stable currency, or paying out Social Security benefits as advertised.
Each of these scenarios has its own particular consequences, ranging from steep inflation to a full-blown global financial crisis.
Bottom line, there is no possible rosy scenario here for the USA and Europe is in a worse debt crisis. As the global economy is interrelated, if major trading blocks like the Eurozone or countries like the US or China go into recession, it’s likely to affect economic growth around the world.
Sadly, as Jesus prophesied in the last days there would be a great falling away in the church, even the elect being deceived. This is most evident in the denominational church which is compromising with the world on issues such as gay marriage, homosexual leaders in the church, evolution and billions of years.
Make sure you are in a Bible believing church that understands we are in the “last days” and is equipping the Saints to bring in the harvest. As the world gets darker our light will shine brighter. Our joy and hope in the Lord will be evident and the power of God on display with healing and miracles following. Live eternal NOW.
British politician, Paul Weston, has long cautioned about the Islamization of Britain, he warned that Khan’s rise is a harbinger of things to come:
“The previously unthinkable has become the present reality. A Muslim man with way too many extremist links to be entirely coincidental is now the Mayor of London. Mayor of the world’s greatest city, to be in charge of police and security. I suppose this is hardly a shock, though. The native English are a demographic minority (and a rapidly dwindling one) in London, whilst Muslims from Pakistan and Bangladesh are a rapidly expanding demographic. Khan — who won 57% of the ballot, or 1.3 million votes, a number which happens to be roughly equal to Muslim population of London
“In a couple more decades Britain may well have its first Muslim Prime Minister, and I think we can safely assume he will be of the same ideological stock as Sadiq Khan…. Reality cannot argue with demographics, so the realistic future for Britain is Islamic.”
Daniel Shayesteh in his book, The House I Left Behind – A Journey from Islam to Christ, states the Muslim agenda clearly: “I lived Islam as a radical and a committed Muslim and was aware of the plans committed Muslims had for Australia and all other western communities. They come to the West to penetrate and change western civilization, until it collapses, giving way to Islamic rule.
It was terrifying for my family to see the establishment and growth of their plans in the West…. It was shocking to us to hear and read that many people in the West believed that Islam carries the same values as other beliefs… People are losing their interest in distinguishing the difference between peaceful and terrorizing ideologies since everything is believed to be right and there is nothing to be called the best and absolutely true. You are called unethical if you challenge Islam. Therefore, not many people dare to take a stand against anything the Islamists are imposing on society, simply for fear of offending someone.
Islam is not only incompatible with democratic values, it also has instructions for the destruction of these values. According to Islam, Muslims have no right to fit themselves to the values of non-Muslims, but have to force or lead others to change to suit Islamic values (to lie to infidels is encouraged in the Koran). I was a Muslim leader myself and taught how to permeate the infidel western societies, destroy their cultures from the inside and pave the ground for Islamic law. For example, Muslims have been trying to stamp their Islamic logo of ‘Halal’ on everything in order to Islamize everything. They ignore the rights of the majority and pronounce openly that the foods prepared by non-Muslim hands are unclean.”
Joel Richardson in his video series The Return is Near outlines the prophesied events in the Bible and how Islam and the Antichrist/Mahdi/12th Imam dovetail into these events. What we see unfolding now in the Middle East and Europe, makes it extremely difficult to not see the link to end times events prophesied by Daniel, Jeremiah, Isaiah and other OT prophets, and in REVELATION.
LIVING ETERNAL NOW 