Teaching

Do Not Lift That Stone

by J. Jacob Prasch

"˜The Lord Will Make Jerusalem A Heavy Stone And All Who Lift It Will Be Severely Injured' - Zechariah 12:3

Few Christians and fewer if any non-Christians comprehend the prophetic significance of the series of events that have occurred over the past two weeks in England, Norway and the U.S. The nations of the world are lining up in a confederacy against the regathered nation of Israel unaware that they are puppets of the antichrist who is pulling their strings.,  

The Bible foretells a time when both Israel and the Gentile nations will "look upon Him whom they have pierced." The Jews must be present not only in Israel, but in East Jerusalem to facilitate the return of Jesus.

It is no surprise that Satan is desperate to drive the Jews from Israel and Jerusalem since the return of Jesus cannot take place unless the Jews are physically present in their ancient capital. Satan got his biggest defeat in Jerusalem and he will get his final one there as well.

The same puppet master has raised up false brethren within the so-called "˜Evangelical' church to tell Christians to ignore Bible prophecy and who label the regathered Jews in Israel as occupiers instead of the rightful owners of the Holy Land. The fact remains that the Gospels and epistles affirm the prophetic agenda for Israel, Jerusalem, and the Jews directly.

Anglican vicar Stephen Sizer's Jew-hating books "Christian Zionism - Road Map to Armageddon" and "Zion's Christian Soldiers" could have been channelled directly from the devil.

His anti-Israel rhetoric was echoed by Saddleback Community Church Pastor Rick Warren when he publicly praised the Syrian government and its tyrant president Hafez al-Assad as a good leader supportive of Christians. The truth is Hafez teams up with Syria and Iran to arm radical Hezbollah terrorists to attack Israel and massacre Lebanese Christians

Replacement theologian John Piper supports Warren even as Warren pushes his overtly anti-Christ agenda, "˜The Global Peace Plan,' calling upon born-again Christians to unite with Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists etc. to usher in global peace apart from a saving faith in Christ.

It is only by resorting to the hermeneutical Gnosticism of Stephen Sizer or the late John Stott can they construct a hollow apologetic for rejecting the plain teaching of the Word of God and unambiguous teachings of Jesus concerning His coming. They spiritualize texts out of context by appealing to extra scriptural traditions of men such as the Patristic literature of the church fathers.

While the Holy Spirit of God is preparing the faithful bride for the return of the Bridegroom, the spirit of antichrist is preparing the harlot church for the advent of the "˜Man of Lawlessness.' This anthropon anomon, the final embodiment of antichrist, wants the false bride to align itself with the corrupt political and economic system of this world.

This is the spirit behind the Emergent church, the ecumenical movement, the Sabeel movement, and the Purpose Driven agenda. It is this counterfeit spirit that controls the Vatican, the World Council of Churches, and much of popular evangelicalism already discredited by the televangelist money preachers.

Who Are the Palestinians?

These attempts to assail Israel as an occupation neglect the fact that the archaeological record verifies that the Jews are the indigenous people of the land. Indigenous people by definition cannot occupy their indigenous land any more than an Apache can occupy Arizona or an Eskimo can occupy Greenland.

On the other hand, an ethnic Palestinian people do not even exist [that was the name of the ancient non Arab Indo-Grecian Philistines] and until the 1970s were simply Jordanians. According to the British government, the League of Nations, the U.N., and the Arab world itself, a Palestinian State already exists in Jordan where 70% of the population are Palestinian Jordanians with a Hashemite government. In 1968 Yassir Arafat said "Palestine is Jordan," and in 1970 King Hussein of Jordan said, "Jordan is Palestine." King Mushariff of Saudi Arabia said, "Israel is for the Jews," as did King Faisal of Iraq.

Israel was forced to capture back much of its indigenous land that it had willingly forfeited in the false hope of peace with Jihadist Islam. The tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees in camps in Lebanon who were driven out of Jordan during Black September of 1970 by Jordan, not by Israel. Yet the Arab world, the international left , and Sabeel ‚   blames Israel for their plight.

Israel's humans rights record is by far the best in the Middle East where the persecution of Christians in Islamic countries, the suppression of women's rights, and the violation of human rights of homosexuals is endemic. Instead Israel, protecting these rights, is held up as the culprit.

Anti-Israel bias permeates the left wing idiocracy with its propaganda fueled media, leftist academics, anti-democratic socialist politicians. It is joined by its religious left wing counterpart who are spiritually defunct, doctrinally abject, intellectually brain-dead, and morally bankrupt. The new corps of theologic hooligan leaders are the same ones active in churches and denominations compromising on same sex marriage and homosexual/lesbian ordination.

As academic and journalistic hypocrisy march hand in hand with political and theological hypocrisy towards the antichrist, eschatological prophecy marches on towards the return of Jesus.

All eyes are now upon Israel as the winds of change blow upon the religious and secular powers that are blindly swept into place. The entire world is in the grip of the god of this age. The man of sin sits in the wings waiting for the right moment to make his entrance onto the world stage. The Western nations are beginning to reap the whirlwind as a result of their political stands against Israel.

Norway

Due to its left leaning Euro-socialist government, Norway is arguably the most anti Zionist and some would argue anti-Jewish government in Europe. It continually panders to Islamic extremism, overlooking the Islamic gangs that have virtually taken over much of the neighboring city of Malmo. They outlaw the Jewish ritual slaughter of kosher meat products while legally allowing the Moslem slaughter of halal meat.

There is a minority of true believers in Jesus in Norway who are not opposed to Israel. One is Ole Kvarme, the Luthern Bishop of Oslo, who is a former evangelist to The Jews. But overall, Norway is the epitome of post-Christian, Neo-Pagan, Europe. Its government has been dogged by the squandering of North Sea oil wealth on counter-productive nanny state programs that achieved little to bolster the long-term economic viability of the country. With the oil revenue gone and nothing to show for it, the country repeatedly gravitates to the left and to an anti Israel bias that is endemic.

The foreign minister and government characteristically overlook the abysmal human rights record, women's rights record, and persecution of Christians in the Arab Moslem world and pursue a foreign policy blaming Israel occupation for Hamas terror. All this in spite of the fact that Islamic terror against Israel predates the existence of the Jewish state dating back to the jihadist pogroms of the 1920s. In its polemics, the Norwegian government overlooks the Hamas commitment to Israel's eradication and its anti Western ethos.

At their annual political young socialist summer camp, Norway's future socialist leadership held a rally to which the nation's anti Zionist foreign minister was invited. The leftists, carrying placards and banners, demanded a boycott of Israel. On the following day 69 of them were shot dead. A crazed extremist, concerned about the growth of radical Islam, went on a rampage.

Moderate voices in Europe had warned of the inevitable consequences of unchecked Islamic immigration and became victims of politically motivated prosecution. Right-wing Dutch politician Geert Wilders, head of the anti-Islam Freedom Party, is a target for lies in the popular media. In the meantime, pro jihadist Moslem thugs run wild rioting in the streets of Bradford, Sydney, and Paris. The failure of Western governments and mainstream political parties to challenge this invasion is driving people to extreme measures. Westerners are growing tired of being captives in their own homes to militant foreigners who do not share their values or respect their laws. Such conflict becomes inevitable as one intolerant extreme after another challenges Western governments that fail to protect their citizens' cultural heritage and social values from radical Islam.

As the lunatic left forges an alliance of convenience with Islam traditional European Jew hatred resurfaces and Israel becomes the easiest target.

We of course do not sanction or condone the Norway shootings that left 77 youth dead, but recognize that God providentially allowed it in divine judgment. The left wing press attempted to identify this psycho gunman as belonging to the Christian right because he was a member of a re-invented Knights Templar organization. The Templars were never a Protestant or Evangelical organization but rather a Roman Catholic one, disenfranchised by the pope in the aftermath of the medieval crusades. On what basis the left wing press managed to connect such a strange figure to the Christian right appears as nebulous as how an Arizona sheriff connected the shooter of a Democratic congresswoman to the TEA Party. The criminal psychopath who shot her was also a Democrat.

It is no accident that hatred of Israel and of Christianity were linked by the Norwegian left. The power of the media in the character of the old Soviet Pravda and Izvestia is to make even the most ridiculous lies seem plausible, if not factual.

Oslo is the location where the peace accords were concluded in 1993 between PLO leader Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin of Israel, mediated by then President Bill Clinton. The Oslo accords put the division of Jerusalem on the table leading to another intifada and a massive barrage of suicide bombings. In Oslo, Norway attempted to move the stone.

Great Britain

With the British Conservative Party in coalition with its ideological opposites, the Liberal Democrats, (who are neither liberal nor democratic but Socialist Eurocrats), there no longer remains a true conservative party in Britain under David Cameron. Despite his paternal Jewish great grandparents, the Levita family, Cameron has been no friend of Israel, calling Gaza a prison during the flotilla event. He apportions blame, not to the corruption of the Palestinian Authority that pilfered the international aid, or to Hamas that turned it into an armed camp for jihadists, but blames Israel for defending itself. His government has joined Hilary Clinton's State Department in condemning Israel's construction of new housing units in already existing Jewish neighborhoods of their capital Jerusalem. As with the American Bush family, Moslem oil money is the only god he appears to serve.

Cameron likewise is no friend of Christianity. He publicly applauded the decision by two judges against a Christian couple as being unfit to adopt children because they refused to teach them that homosexuality is normative. The court's decision effectively declares that the demanded rights of homosexuals outweighs the conviction of Christians or pure common sense. As opposition leader, Cameron did not oppose Tony Blair's sexual orientation regulation giving homosexuals and lesbians co-equal rights of adoption. God only knows whether the tragic death of his own baby was an act of divine retribution for his actions against the little babies being placed in same-sex parent homes.

The recent riots in London and all over England fell on the heels of Cameron's denunciation of new home construction in Israel. Cameron is clearly in denial when he blames the riots on hooliganism, failing to connect it to unemployment and cuts in social services. In his thinking, the unemployed youth have everything from dole to national health, so rioting cannot be justified. He is truly hypocritical when he orders a police crackdown placing thousands of police on the streets of Britain's cities, after denouncing Israel when they have deployed security forces to contain violence and protect its own citizens. It is in any event no coincodence however that these riots took place when Cameron tried to move the stone.

Greece & Europe

The ecumenical World Council of Churches just held a conference in Volos, Greece. Anti Jewish churchmen arrived in Volos from around the world: Lutherans from the United States, Catholics and Protestants from Bethlehem and Nazareth, Orthodox Christians from Greece and Russia, academics from Beirut and Copts from Egypt. Not a single word of criticism was uttered against the Islamists who are persecuting Arabs who believe in Jesus. The conference declared the Jewish State "a sin" and "occupying power," accused Israelis of "dehumanizing" the Palestinians, theologically dismantled the "chosenness" of the Jewish people and called for "resistance" as a Christian duty.

In the last few months we have seen a radical and dangerous increase of rhetoric against Israel by both Protestant and Catholic institutions. These groups are closely linked to globalists, European bureaucracy, the media industry, the United Nations and various legal forums that are violently anti-Israel and anti-Jewish. Although the U.S. is home to many Christian supporters of Israel, they are outnumbered by the left-wing religionists who are paving the way for a new Jewish bloodbath by the theological exclusion of Israel's Jews from the family of nations.

As Daniel 2:43 states "Iron does not adhere to clay." Yet in fulfillment of Daniel's prophecy, the European Union tries to make it happen. The countries of Europe have already forfeited their judicial sovereignty to the EU. In what was a common market, Europe is being transformed into a super state without democratic consent of the governed. Germany is calling for an unelected panel with power to enforce centrally dictated fiscal policies and impose mandatory penalties above the rights of member states to say or do anything. This comes on the back of more imposed financial and commercial regulation that is not legislated but decreed by unelected, mainly socialist, bureaucrats living lavish lifestyles at tax payer expense. The Soviet politburo has moved to Brussels.

Now Europe is usurping the foreign and defense policies of its member states. As countries like Britain close embassies in cost saving measures, they pour millions into the coffers of the EU's foreign service headed by Catherine Ashton. She is a left wing bureaucrat with no experience in international affairs; a vehement critic of Israel. She is committed to a pro Islamic, anti Israel bias, pushing for de facto recognition of terrorist Hamas despite its commitment to Israel's obliteration and its jihadist ideology towards the West.

The latest anti Israel rhetoric by Ashton over its housing expansion in East Jerusalem coincided with the solvency crises facing EU states like Greece, Ireland. Italy, and possibly France. Iron cannot stick to clay.

Europe has forged an unworkable union and painted itself into a corner of economic failure, losses of sovereignty, social malaise, a cycle of corruption and waste -- a demographic time bomb with radical Islamic population growth and immigration threatening the very existence of Europe's cultural and ethnic future. They are looking for savior in their desperate fervor to make the iron adhere to the clay. When they find the one they are looking for it will be the antichrist whose kingdom will be destroyed by the return of Christ (Daniel 2: 45).

Meanwhile apostate Protestantism embraces apostate Rome and aligns itself with international European based institutions seeking to placate Islam at the expense of Israel. Babylon the Great is in formation as the ecumenical movement opens the door to inter-faith unity for the false peace of the antichrist. As the EU establishment leans towards a recognition of terrorist Hamas despite Hamas' commitment to Israel's eradication, we see what happens to the EU., But the worst is yet to come economically and politically; all the EU must do is continue to try and move that stone.

The USA

A high stakes game is being played in New York, Washington, and London that eclipses the power or authority of any American president or British Prime Minister. The real core of global finance is the Wall Street / Chicago "“ London - Hong Kong triangle. The Americans forced France to withdraw its opposition to the UK entering the EU because Britain is America's strategic partner, political voice, and investment platform within the EU.

The real core of Western military might is not NATO but the NSA/ GCHQ intelligence network comprising the USA, UK, Australia and Canada. The real core of the EU is not the 25 member states, but the Western European Union (WEU): the ten key nations in the EU that are linked to the USA via NATO. Britain is the lynchpin. In the Falklands war, America shunned its Latin neighbors in support of its British cousins and Britain supports the USA in Europe in opposition to its European neighbors. Ultimately, Australia, Canada and the main commonwealth countries fall into line behind the Anglo American alliance that in part pulled the USA into World War I and put British troops in Afghanistan. The rest of NATO gravitates around this relationship that gives the English speaking world dominance. Even after the demise of the empire, Britain continues to punch well above its weight in global politics because of its relationship to the USA, while its former long standing rival France does not. The other old European colonial powers are relegated to the status of secondary players.

Forty years ago many people said that the EU (then known as the Common Market) would be the next Anglo-American empire. That has not happened. Twenty five years ago many were saying Japan would so emerge, but that has not been the case as Japan is eclipsed by China as Asia's largest economy. Now many are saying China will replace the Anglo American empire, but an earthquake and rail disaster revealed that China's newly built infrastructure is poor construction sitting on top of a brewing environmental disaster. The manufacture and design of Chinese products are lower grade copies of Western products. The exported durables Westerners import from China are Western products made in China under Western license and supervision. Actual Chinese products are mostly cheap junk in comparison to Western goods. Western economies use China to keep their consumer prices low.

In short, China has realized that the Anglo-American banking establishment, the US Treasury, and the Federal Reserve have taken China to the Chinese laundry. The 1.5 trillion dollars China holds in US debentures and T Bills are being repaid in devalued US dollars. Hence as China keeps its own currency artificially low, the US dollar is allowed to slide having lost 40% of its value. Interest returns on these debentures are not nearly high enough to recover actual value.

Meanwhile, American & British interests groom India, an English speaking democracy, to be the next boom economy slated to rival China. India has the largest middle class in the world, has more scientists and engineers per capita than any other country, it is a nuclear power that shares Western concerns about the radical Islam threat due to its tense history with Pakistan, and will eclipse China as the world's most populace nation and biggest market. Yet, India has its own problems with a caste system and fundamentalist movements among Hindus, Seiks, and a huge Moslem population, but it is historically tied to the British commonwealth. Meanwhile the USA bolsters strategic links with South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, and even Vietnam in response to China's military build up in an arms race of the kind that bankrupted Russia. China's fear of its growing Christian population is due to the role of Christianity in inducing the fall of Soviet communism.

China is frustrated because its own currency is linked to the dollar and as with the Saudi and Emirate sovereign wealth funds its portfolio is dollar denominated. It cannot abandon the dollar without badly damaging itself. The Euro crises makes the fate and stability of the Euro and the security of Euro bonds even more precarious an investment than the dollar. So China therefore has no place else to go but to the cleaners, buying even more US debt. The Fed is monetizing the US debt by borrowing more and more, further devaluing the dollar and creating more inflation in China. Meanwhile, America keeps internal inflation lower, despite dollar devaluation, by exporting a major portion of the inflation to China whose products are imported at an artificially low price. These products are then sold at WalMart while the price of gold bullion is driven artificially higher. China's inflationary pressures are compounded by the USA diverting 1/3 of its corn harvest to ethanol conversion which does nothing cost efficient or environmentally efficient to ease the energy imbalance but does link the price of food to the price of oil in the global commodities markets. This further exasperates China's medium to long term woes. What is clear is that the truly business smart ethnic Chinese are in Hong Kong and Singapore, not in Beijing. The diasporic Chinese are financial creatures, the communist party bureaucrats are rather political ones who are now realizing they have been duped by America despite their inflation fueled growth. Adjusted for dollar devaluation , the US will earn a profit on the money it borrowed from China. Now China is awakening to the fact that it lends the USA one hundred dollars but is paid back only seventy in actual currency value.

Although China breaks World Trade Organization rules pathologically, the communist party can only retain power by capitalism. It must keep itself in step with social and political stability by sustained steady economic growth. At some point, however, China's already fragile banking system will crack and plunge into a series of recessions, causing very serious unemployment. Any double dip recession in the West reduces demand for its goods. China will crash and the social and political ramifications will make Tienemann Square appear trivial in comparison. It is a paper dragon. China's only hope is to develop domestic demand in lieu of an export driven economy, but the pace of growth will decline. China is also heading for its own banking crises with toxic assetts to state owned enterprises. ‚   At the same time a real estate bubble burst impacting the securities markets along the lines of what transpired in Japan is inevitable in China. The only question now is when.

How China reacts to this will be interesting. We can only speculate if it is China or the Islamic states of central Asia which will constitute the invasions of "˜the Kings of the East' predicted prophetically in the book of Revelation. One thing however is certain. The debt crises in Europe makes the Euro no alternative to the Dollar and the havoc wreaked on the dollar and US economy by the suicidal policies of Barak Obama are the same tactics used by Euro socialism that left Europe in a quagmire. Obama is driving America the way of Greece, Ireland, Italy, and France.

But the picture is larger. Barak Obama is an obvious antichrist. He tries to identify with the Moslem world, changing his name from Barry to Barak Hussein and came into power promising a wave of change that has only been change for the worse. He has betrayed the 78% of Jews who stupidly voted for him in his demand that Israel return to its pre-1967 borders, necessitating a loss of East Jerusalem, the Temple Mount, the Wailing Wall, the City of David, and the Mount of Olives. The 98 % of Black Americans who foolishly voted for Obama are left with the fact that Black unemployment has increased nearly 29% under Obama and the number of Blacks on food stamps has graduated nearly 34%. More Blacks have been put out of work under the Obama administration than in any other presidency in history. He has written welfare checks for banks, granted corporate bail outs, and handed lucrative gratuities to interests of millionaires like Jeffrey Immelt and billionaires like George Soros, but has done nothing for his own people. Meanwhile, the White House budget for lucrative salaries, plush vacations, ‚   and excessive lifestyles has never been more extravagant.

The antichrist will likewise betray the Jews, betray his constituency, and seek to conjoin the Islamic world, and arise to power with the backing of a debaucherous religious leader as Obama did with Jeremiah Wright and Jim Wallis. Obama is a faint shadow of the one who is to come. If the Jews are duped by Obama it is easy to see how they will be duped by the antichrist to come and enter into a covenant of death with him.

A global currency will eventually prove to be the only possible alternative to a self doomed dollar and euro. If the US Federal Reserve Bank and the European Central Bank agree to a one for one exchange rate mechanism (ERM), the British pound sterling, the Yen, the Swiss Franc et al, will line up with it and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will become the global currency supply regulator with no accountability to anyone but itself.

The Anglo American Empire is the last man standing. Hereafter is an integrated global currency and a move towards one world government. A re-confederated Europe may be central to this, but as Daniel tells us - this can't work either.

What is abundantly clear, however, is that under the fiscal madness of Barak Obama's runaway deficits, America lost its S&P triple A credit rating and predictably it happened right after he tried to move that stone (Zechariah 12:4).

The Arab Spring

For years we have been fed the lie by biased left wing journalists that Islamic terror and unrest is caused by Israel. We have likewise seen Jimmy Carter hired with Moslem oil money to become a de facto apologist for Islamic terror. With the advent of the Arab Spring, however, we witness the actual truth. The source of this unrest is the corruption of its own governments and despotic Islamic leaders.

Of three things we may be sure. First, as predicted in scripture, the nations at the center of world events in biblical times are at the center of world events once again. This hasn't been the case since the Crusades; only then Israel did not exist as a Jewish state. Secondly, there are as yet unfulfilled predictions of the wholesale destruction of Arab Moslem capitals such as Damascus (Isaiah 17) and Amman. We may be sure that Arab Moslem nations will fall under the brutal judgment of God for their persecution of Arab Christians, Israel, and the Jews. Thirdly, except for Libya (called "˜Put'), no Arab nations are in the confederation of states joining Iran and Turkey backed by Russia in the first Gog and Magog war.

Multiple outcomes can emerge from the Arab Spring, a term used by the media to refer to "the current crop of pro-democracy uprisings currently sweeping the Middle East." One is that it will produce moderate secularist regimes that will make a temporary peace with Israel along the lines of the Camp David accords. That would yield a temporary cold peace with Israel, such as what currently exists with Jordan and Egypt. The other is that Islamic fundamentalist regimes will gain power in a Psalm 83 scenario, which will result in Israeli eradication of these nations as viable military threats before the first Gog and Magog war of Ezekiel 38 & 39.

One thing is absolutely certain: The Lord Himself has made Jerusalem a heavy stone and any individual or any nation attempting to lift it will hurt themselves grievously.

The godless governments and politicians of the world do not know this. Neither do the co-equally godless Purpose Driven, Ecumenical, Emergent, Liberal Protestant, or Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches. Backslidden Israel, in rejection of its own Messiah Yeshua, do not know it either. Yet by the grace of God we do know what God has warned these nations:

"DO NOT LIFT THAT STONE" !