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Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Islamic Caliphate Declared What Does It Mean?

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about the Islamic Caliphate. This follows this post about the Koran. This follows this post about environmentalism. This follows this post about the debt from entitlements like healthcare. This follows this post about the gay agenda.For a free magazine subscription or to get the books recommended for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886- 8632.
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Islamic Caliphate Declared

What Does It Mean?

Posted on Aug 27, 2014 by Tom Robinson 3 comments Estimated reading time: 13 minutes

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Islamic Caliphate Declared: What Does It Mean?

On the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan this year, June 29, 2014, the al-Qaeda breakaway group ISIS or ISIL, the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (i.e., Greater Syria or the Levant)—which has seized vast tracts of Iraq and much of northern Syria—formally declared the creation of an Islamic transnational state, or caliphate. In doing so, the group changed its name to just the Islamic State (IS), as the caliphate is to rule Muslims the world over.
The group's chief, who's borne the pseudonym Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was declared to be the new caliph or leader of the Islamic State—now Caliph Ibrahim. A spokesman for the group “called on those living in the areas under the organization's control to swear allegiance to al-Baghdadi and support him. 'The legality of all emirates, groups, states and organizations becomes null by the expansion of the caliph's authority and the arrival of its troops to their areas,' [the spokesman] said” (“ISIS Declares Creation of Mideast Caliphate Across Iraq and Syria,” CBS News, June 29, 2014).
Baghdadi then called for Muslims to rally to his new state and to conquering the Christian West, saying: “Those who can immigrate to the Islamic State should immigrate, as immigration to the house of Islam is a duty … Rush O Muslims to your state … This is my advice to you. If you hold to it you will conquer Rome and own the world, if Allah wills” (quoted by Damien McElroy, “Rome Will Be Conquered Next, Says Leader of 'Islamic State,'” The Telegraph, July 1, 2014).

Longtime desire to reestablish the caliphate

The desire to reestablish the caliphate is driven by the goal of joining all Muslims under a single rule—as in the days of Islam's founder, Muhammad, and his immediate successors or caliphs in the seventh century. Under that rule everyone is to strictly adhere to sharia—Islamic law and jurisprudence—and follow the way of jihad or holy war to conquer the globe.
The caliphate was declared by a succession of Muslim empires over the centuries, the latest being that of the Ottoman Turks, which ended with World War I. Yet these are viewed as corrupt, and the desire of the Islamists today is to restore the initial “righteous” caliphate.
Islamist terror groups the world over, including Hamas, al-Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, the Taliban, the Muslim Brotherhood, etc., “all profess the revival of the caliphate, the regime that was installed by Muhammed's righteous successors, the caliphs, and has become the iconic model to be emulated by all future generations of Muslims” (Raphael Israeli, From Arab Spring to Islamic Winter, 2013, p. xiii). (See “20-Year Plan for a Global Caliphate “.)
During and after the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011-2012, momentum seemed to be building toward the formation of a caliphate, particularly with the ascendance of a Muslim Brotherhood candidate, Mohamed Morsi, to the presidency of Egypt. Yet with the military coup in Egypt last year that ousted Morsi and instigated a major crackdown against the Brotherhood, the momentum toward a caliphate appeared to have stalled.
But now, with millions of Islamic extremists across the Middle East still pressing for that Muslim dream, where one door closes another opens (although the door in Egypt is by no means truly closed, as the population there remains predominantly Islamist).
So what are we to make of this new development?
A number of Islamist groups and prominent clerics are not supportive of the declaration of the Islamic State, as it's viewed as premature and a cause for infighting between Muslim groups and states. But significant support has come in from far quarters. No doubt a great deal of blood will be shed over this among Muslims and between Muslims and the non-Islamic world.
In considering the matter we should ask: How did the new Islamic State come to be, and what are its prospects for success as a revived caliphate? Or might another group receive wider acceptance in the role? And does Bible prophecy tell us anything regarding such developments?

The rise of ISIS and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

The al-Qaeda contingent in Iraq, headed up by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the mid-2000s, went through several incarnations before eventually becoming the Islamic State of Iraq, or ISI, which came to be headed up by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2010, when American forces were withdrawing from the country.
The group's extreme brutality and killing of fellow Muslims created a divide between it and al-Qaeda's international leadership, which considered Zarqawi and his followers too extreme and criticized them for alienating people from the Islamist cause.
Furthermore, Osama bin Laden's successor Ayman al-Zawahiri maintained, as do many Islamist scholars now opposed to the current caliphate declaration, that a caliphate must follow the purification of the wider Muslim world, being then based on the consent of the public.
But, as Margaret Coker explains in The Wall Street Journal, Baghdadi and his supporters “reject this doctrine of an evolving religious and social consensus. They believe instead that a pure Islamic regime can be more swiftly imposed by force” (“The New Jihad,” July 11).
And in fact, this is the way the caliphate has been imposed in past centuries.
The struggle came to a head in April 2013, when Baghdadi declared a takeover of the Nusra Front, an al-Qaeda-linked rebel militia fighting against President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, stating that it would be merged with ISI to form ISIS. The Nusra Front rejected the takeover bid and Zawahiri ordered Baghdadi to leave Syria and maintain operations in Iraq. But in a huge affront to al-Qaeda, Baghdadi said he would follow Allah instead and maintained the ISIS merger, whereupon Zawahiri formally disowned the group.
ISIS went on to take over sizable parts of Syria and Iraq, sweeping through in a brutal blitzkrieg. It took to social media to demoralize resistance by displaying its extreme brutality. This tactic helped ISIS to wrest control of the large city of Mosul and its environs in June of this year when the Iraqi army had to retreat due to massive numbers of desertions.
The conquest of this area put huge amounts of advanced U.S. weaponry into the hands of ISIS, as well as hundreds of millions of dollars looted from banks—making it far wealthier than al-Qaeda ever was. And with U.S. forces now gone from Iraq, the new Islamic State has a great deal of room to maneuver. It thus seems poised to change the Middle East, if not the greater world scene, in a dramatic fashion.

Striking fear in the hearts and minds of opponents

Joseph Farah, editor in chief of WND (the former WorldNetDaily), commented prior to the caliphate announcement: “Do I expect to see ISIS conquer the Middle East, North Africa, part of Europe and Asia in the 21st century? No, I don't. But I do expect to see enormous carnage and destruction and bloodshed as a result of this movement—far more, perhaps, than most other analysts project. There is a ferocity to ISIS that makes even al-Qaida uncomfortable. It has already captured more wealth and armaments, including chemical weapons, than all but a handful of countries in the world possess …
“Brutality difficult for Westerners to even imagine is the modus operandi of ISIS. It calls for a scorched-earth policy against its enemies—which includes Christians, Shiites, Alawites, Jews, non-believers and all non-Sunnis. ISIS leadership advocates and practices barbarism designed to strike fear into the hearts and minds of its opponents and anyone who doesn't stand with them in their strict Shariah Sunni code.
“Already the ISIS marauders have crucified victims, beheaded them and conducted mass executions of Iraqi soldiers and civilians. No atrocity is beneath them” (“ISIS Rising—What It Portends,” June 23, 2014).
Farah compares the speed of their conquest with the original march of Islam and even Alexander the Great. “The success of campaigns like that requires that superior forces faint in fear of the coming hordes. You can see it's working already in Iraq” (ibid.).

Is the new caliphate viable?

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner gave a helpful analysis of the situation, dealing with the question of whether ISIS can maintain its rule and viability: “Analysts point out that seizing territory is one thing, governing it is quite another” (“'Jihadistan': Can Isis Militants Rule Seized Territory?” July 8, 2014).
Despite its remarkable military success in the wake of its psychological warfare, “Isis has effectively been 'punching above its weight,' to use a boxing analogy,” its numbers of between 10,000 and 15,000 fighters being low compared to competing forces. Gardner quotes a pan-Arab newspaper stating, “Isis' ability to control lands has been based on deals with local militants willing to do the 'ruling' for them.”
He further notes that Baghdadi and his followers do not seem, on one hand, to have learned from the mistakes of their predecessors under Zarqawi in Iraq in their brutal treatment of the populace, which failed to win hearts and minds. Regarding ISIS, “stories abound of harsh punishments imposed for the slightest of offences, women being confined to the home, public crucifixions, kidnappings and extortionate levies imposed on businesses …”
While Gardner on the other hand points out ISIS taking care of municipal needs like garbage collection, the mask of public service has since come off.
Gardner further states: “To succeed as a viable state, let alone as a transnational 'caliphate,' Isis will need access to oil and water.” And ISIS/IS now has both, controlling refineries and major dams in Syria and Iraq.
Gardner argues that the new Islamic state is not going away: “The only force capable of permanently ejecting Isis will be the tribes in those regions [they rule], and they have little incentive to do so while the Syrian civil war rages on …
“Which leaves the prospect of a violent, extremist, well-armed, well-funded and religiously intolerant militia becoming a permanent part of the Middle East landscape, a sort of de facto 'jihadistan.'” And, he notes, like Afghanistan it would also be a springboard for increased attacks against neighboring countries and the Western world.

Several key advantages and others to carry on the cause

In spite of the denunciation received from some Islamic scholars and disapproval from al-Qaeda and other jihadist organizations, this group nevertheless has much going for it in the Muslim world. One advantage is in the very declaration of the caliphate, as it's unlikely that a number of claimants would start declaring their own since that would minimize the whole idea of the pan-Islamic state.
Furthermore, the fact that ISIS/IS is actually carrying out major exploits and making massive gains, with the caliphate proclamation on top of that, can capture the imagination of the younger generation of jihadists.
As noted in Newsweek:“The brutal attacks of 9/11 were almost 13 years ago; many of the jihadist fighters on the front lines now were children then. They have grown up seeing Al-Qaeda on the defensive, with few successes of its own, while ISIS has stunned the world with its victories in Syria and Iraq” (Kurt Eichenwald, “Iraq's ISIS Is Eclipsing Al-Qaeda, Especially With Young Jihadists,” July 7, 2014).
Indeed, at his site Intelwire author J.M. Berger points out regarding al-Qaeda that “one of its few practical remaining plays would be to squander the entirety of whatever resources it has left on an attack against the West, in the hopes of regaining its reputation” (“A New Day for ISIS,” June 11). That should serve as a stark warning of great danger for the world even in the short term.
Since the proclamation of the new Islamic State, it has seen increasing voices of support by Islamists around the world. But even if the group falters in its bid to rule the broader Islamic nation, there are others who could still try to establish the caliphate.
There remains al-Qaeda of course. Then there's the Taliban in both Afghanistan and Pakistan—by which the caliphate potentially could acquire nuclear weapons. The Muslim Brotherhood still maintains a vast network of support in the Islamic world—and Egypt may yet eventually revert to rule by the Islamist majority, the economy there being presently in shambles. And Turkey's prime minister Recep Erdogan still dreams of a Turkish-led caliphate, as was the Ottoman Empire.
But with the caliphate already declared, a broad spectrum of Muslims from around the world may try to come together to help it succeed—and this could sway other Islamist leaders to support it. On the other hand, what some see as Baghdadi's big gamble in proclaiming the caliphate could backfire in a big way if things don't pan out for him. We will have to wait and see how matters develop.
As a preview of where things are headed, one of the first acts of the new caliphate was to issue a fatwa, or religious edict, ordering that “all women between the ages of 11 and 46 must undergo genital mutilation” (Agence France-Presse, July 24).
Again, it seems very likely that a lot of blood will flow because of the declared caliphate—both Muslims killing other Muslims and attacks being launched on non-Muslims.

Turning to the only reliable source for advance news

In the face of these events, if we want to know where the world is ultimately headed, we must turn to the only sure source of knowledge about the future—the Holy Bible, the very Word of God. Bible prophecy does seem to say, in Psalm 83, that a confederation of Middle Eastern peoples will come together with the intent of destroying Israel—apparently involving Arabs, Palestinians, Turks and others in the region.
Moreover, Daniel 11 refers to an end-time “king of the South” who will instigate a conflict with a power to the north—a revival of the Roman Empire centered in Europe—with the Holy Land caught in between.
Might the confederation and southern power in these prophecies be a restored caliphate? It seems quite likely. After all, the principal unifying factor among all these peoples is Islam—so a new Islamic empire bringing them together is not at all far-fetched.
Is the current Islamic State that power? Its leaders are so extreme that gaining a mass following among other Muslims poses a great challenge. Also, it does not yet encompass Egypt, which the southern power in Daniel 11 seems to include or even be based from. And perhaps the Islamic State won't reach that far in its current form.
Yet it could be that, just as the European Union of today seems to be the embryonic form of the coming European superpower, so the current Islamic State could be the embryonic form of a much greater caliphate to come. These developments certainly illustrate the desire of millions of Muslims to establish a caliphate.
Note again particularly the goal stated by the Islamic State to “conquer Rome and own the world.”It could well be that this long-held desire of Muslims will lead to the conditions described in the latter part of Daniel 11, where the end-time king of the South provokes the king of the North into an invasion of North Africa and the Middle East.
Momentous and dangerous times lie ahead. Stay alert and turn to God and His Word with all your heart. No matter what happens, He will see you through!
[ See the related article: 20-Year Plan for a Global Caliphate ]

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

America's balance of power in the Middle East

A very interesting post from www.Stratfor.com about America's balance of power in the Middle East. This follows this post about the Sunni and Shi'ite war in the Middle East. This follows this article about American energy independence and preventing money from going to hostile countries. For more, you can read two very interesting books HERE.
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Coming to Terms With the American Empire

Geopolitical Weekly

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By George Friedman
"Empire" is a dirty word. Considering the behavior of many empires, that is not unreasonable. But empire is also simply a description of a condition, many times unplanned and rarely intended. It is a condition that arises from a massive imbalance of power. Indeed, the empires created on purpose, such as Napoleonic France and Nazi Germany, have rarely lasted. Most empires do not plan to become one. They become one and then realize what they are. Sometimes they do not realize what they are for a long time, and that failure to see reality can have massive consequences.

World War II and the Birth of an Empire

The United States became an empire in 1945. It is true that in the Spanish-American War, the United States intentionally took control of the Philippines and Cuba. It is also true that it began thinking of itself as an empire, but it really was not. Cuba and the Philippines were the fantasy of empire, and this illusion dissolved during World War I, the subsequent period of isolationism and the Great Depression.
The genuine American empire that emerged thereafter was a byproduct of other events. There was no great conspiracy. In some ways, the circumstances of its creation made it more powerful. The dynamic of World War II led to the collapse of the European Peninsula and its occupation by the Soviets and the Americans. The same dynamic led to the occupation of Japan and its direct governance by the United States as a de facto colony, with Gen. Douglas MacArthur as viceroy.
The United States found itself with an extraordinary empire, which it also intended to abandon. This was a genuine wish and not mere propaganda. First, the United States was the first anti-imperial project in modernity. It opposed empire in principle. More important, this empire was a drain on American resources and not a source of wealth. World War II had shattered both Japan and Western Europe. The United States gained little or no economic advantage in holding on to these countries. Finally, the United States ended World War II largely untouched by war and as perhaps one of the few countries that profited from it. The money was to be made in the United States, not in the empire. The troops and the generals wanted to go home.
But unlike after World War I, the Americans couldn't let go. That earlier war ruined nearly all of the participants. No one had the energy to attempt hegemony. The United States was content to leave Europe to its own dynamics. World War II ended differently. The Soviet Union had been wrecked but nevertheless it remained powerful. It was a hegemon in the east, and absent the United States, it conceivably could dominate all of Europe. This represented a problem for Washington, since a genuinely united Europe — whether a voluntary and effective federation or dominated by a single country — had sufficient resources to challenge U.S. power.
The United States could not leave. It did not think of itself as overseeing an empire, and it certainly permitted more internal political autonomy than the Soviets did in their region. Yet, in addition to maintaining a military presence, the United States organized the European economy and created and participated in the European defense system. If the essence of sovereignty is the ability to decide whether or not to go to war, that power was not in London, Paris or Warsaw. It was in Moscow and Washington.
The organizing principle of American strategy was the idea of containment. Unable to invade the Soviet Union, Washington's default strategy was to check it. U.S. influence spread through Europe to Iran. The Soviet strategy was to flank the containment system by supporting insurgencies and allied movements as far to the rear of the U.S. line as possible. The European empires were collapsing and fragmenting. The Soviets sought to create an alliance structure out of the remnants, and the Americans sought to counter them.

The Economics of Empire

One of the advantages of alliance with the Soviets, particularly for insurgent groups, was a generous supply of weapons. The advantage of alignment with the United States was belonging to a dynamic trade zone and having access to investment capital and technology. Some nations, such as South Korea, benefited extraordinarily from this. Others didn't. Leaders in countries like Nicaragua felt they had more to gain from Soviet political and military support than in trade with the United States.
The United States was by far the largest economic power, with complete control of the sea, bases around the world, and a dynamic trade and investment system that benefitted countries that were strategically critical to the United States or at least able to take advantage of it. It was at this point, early in the Cold War, that the United States began behaving as an empire, even if not consciously.
The geography of the American empire was built partly on military relations but heavily on economic relations. At first these economic relations were fairly trivial to American business. But as the system matured, the value of investments soared along with the importance of imports, exports and labor markets. As in any genuinely successful empire, it did not begin with a grand design or even a dream of one. Strategic necessity created an economic reality in country after country until certain major industries became dependent on at least some countries. The obvious examples were Saudi Arabia or Venezuela, whose oil fueled American oil companies, and which therefore — quite apart from conventional strategic importance — became economically important. This eventually made them strategically important.
As an empire matures, its economic value increases, particularly when it is not coercing others. Coercion is expensive and undermines the worth of an empire. The ideal colony is one that is not at all a colony, but a nation that benefits from economic relations with both the imperial power and the rest of the empire. The primary military relationship ought to be either mutual dependence or, barring that, dependence of the vulnerable client state on the imperial power.
This is how the United States slipped into empire. First, it was overwhelmingly wealthy and powerful. Second, it faced a potential adversary capable of challenging it globally, in a large number of countries. Third, it used its economic advantage to induce at least some of these countries into economic, and therefore political and military, relationships. Fourth, these countries became significantly important to various sectors of the American economy.

Limits of the American Empire

The problem of the American Empire is the overhang of the Cold War. During this time, the United States expected to go to war with a coalition around it, but also to carry the main burden of war. When Operation Desert Storm erupted in 1991, the basic Cold War principle prevailed. There was a coalition with the United States at the center of it. After 9/11, the decision was made to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq with the core model in place. There was a coalition, but the central military force was American, and it was assumed that the economic benefits of relations with the United States would be self-evident. In many ways, the post-9/11 wars took their basic framework from World War II. Iraq War planners explicitly discussed the occupation of Germany and Japan.
No empire can endure by direct rule. The Nazis were perhaps the best example of this. They tried to govern Poland directly, captured Soviet territory, pushed aside Vichy to govern not half but all of France, and so on. The British, on the other hand, ruled India with a thin layer of officials and officers and a larger cadre of businessmen trying to make their fortunes. The British obviously did better. The Germans exhausted themselves not only by overreaching, but also by diverting troops and administrators to directly oversee some countries. The British could turn their empire into something extraordinarily important to the global system. The Germans broke themselves not only on their enemies, but on their conquests as well.
The United States emerged after 1992 as the only global balanced power. That is, it was the only nation that could deploy economic, political and military power on a global basis. The United States was and remains enormously powerful. However, this is very different from omnipotence. In hearing politicians debate Russia, Iran or Yemen, you get the sense that they feel that U.S. power has no limits. There are always limits, and empires survive by knowing and respecting them.
The primary limit of the American empire is the same as that of the British and Roman empires: demographic. In Eurasia — Asia and Europe together — the Americans are outnumbered from the moment they set foot on the ground. The U.S. military is built around force multipliers, weapons that can destroy the enemy before the enemy destroys the relatively small force deployed. Sometimes this strategy works. Over the long run, it cannot. The enemy can absorb attrition much better than the small American force can. This lesson was learned in Vietnam and reinforced in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq is a country of 25 million people. The Americans sent about 130,000 troops. Inevitably, the attrition rate overwhelmed the Americans. The myth that Americans have no stomach for war forgets that the United States fought in Vietnam for seven years and in Iraq for about the same length of time. The public can be quite patient. The mathematics of war is the issue. At a certain point, the rate of attrition is simply not worth the political ends.
The deployment of a main force into Eurasia is unsupportable except in specialized cases when overwhelming force can be bought to bear in a place where it is important to win. These occasions are typically few and far between. Otherwise, the only strategy is indirect warfare: shifting the burden of war to those who want to bear it or cannot avoid doing so. For the first years of World War II, indirect warfare was used to support the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union against Germany.
There are two varieties of indirect warfare. The first is supporting native forces whose interests are parallel. This was done in the early stages of Afghanistan. The second is maintaining the balance of power among nations. We are seeing this form in the Middle East as the United States moves between the four major regional powers — Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Turkey — supporting one then another in a perpetual balancing act. In Iraq, U.S. fighters carry out air strikes in parallel with Iranian ground forces. In Yemen, the United States supports Saudi air strikes against the Houthis, who have received Iranian training.
This is the essence of empire. The British saying is that it has no permanent friends or permanent enemies, only permanent interests. That old cliche is, like most cliches, true. The United States is in the process of learning that lesson. In many ways the United States was more charming when it had clearly identified friends and enemies. But that is a luxury that empires cannot afford.

Building a System of Balance

We are now seeing the United States rebalance its strategy by learning to balance. A global power cannot afford to be directly involved in the number of conflicts that it will encounter around the world. It would be exhausted rapidly. Using various tools, it must create regional and global balances without usurping internal sovereignty. The trick is to create situations where other countries want to do what is in the U.S. interest.
This endeavor is difficult. The first step is to use economic incentives to shape other countries' behavior. It isn't the U.S. Department of Commerce but businesses that do this. The second is to provide economic aid to wavering countries. The third is to provide military aid. The fourth is to send advisers. The fifth is to send overwhelming force. The leap from the fourth level to the fifth is the hardest to master. Overwhelming force should almost never be used. But when advisers and aid do not solve a problem that must urgently be solved, then the only type of force that can be used is overwhelming force. Roman legions were used sparingly, but when they were used, they brought overwhelming power to bear.

The Responsibilities of Empire

I have been deliberately speaking of the United States as an empire, knowing that this term is jarring. Those who call the United States an empire usually mean that it is in some sense evil. Others will call it anything else if they can. But it is helpful to face the reality the United States is in. It is always useful to be honest, particularly with yourself. But more important, if the United States thinks of itself as an empire, then it will begin to learn the lessons of imperial power. Nothing is more harmful than an empire using its power carelessly.
It is true that the United States did not genuinely intend to be an empire. It is also true that its intentions do not matter one way or another. Circumstance, history and geopolitics have created an entity that, if it isn't an empire, certainly looks like one. Empires can be far from oppressive. The Persians were quite liberal in their outlook. The American ideology and the American reality are not inherently incompatible. But two things must be faced: First, the United States cannot give away the power it has. There is no practical way to do that. Second, given the vastness of that power, it will be involved in conflicts whether it wants to or not. Empires are frequently feared, sometimes respected, but never loved by the rest of the world. And pretending that you aren't an empire does not fool anyone.
The current balancing act in the Middle East represents a fundamental rebalancing of American strategy. It is still clumsy and poorly thought out, but it is happening. And for the rest of the world, the idea that the Americans are coming will become more and more rare. The United States will not intervene. It will manage the situation, sometimes to the benefit of one country and sometimes to another.

Thursday, April 9, 2015

What Religious Days Do You Observe?

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about religious worship. This follows this post about the U.S. and the Middle East. For a free magazine subscription or to get the books recommended for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886- 8632.
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What Religious Days Do You Observe?

Friday, April 3, 2015 (All day)

What religious days do you keep? Easter? Passover? What does the New Testament say?

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[Steve Myers] What religious days do you keep? In the New Testament you’ll find a couple of days that are mentioned that are God’s festivals that most Christians today don’t even observe. And yet, we’re given very specific instructions that we ought to be doing that. We can find them over in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, and in this particular passage – verse 6 begins to describe the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread. And it says this: “Your glorying is not good. Don’t you know a little leaven leavens the whole lump?” Now, why talk about that? Well, he goes on and says, “Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you are truly unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast,” he says, “not with old leaven, nor with leaven of malice and wickedness, but the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Corinthians:6:5-8).
So the apostle Paul says very specifically, “Keep the feast”. Or some translations say, “Observe it”. Other translations say “Celebrate the feast”. So do you keep the Passover? Do you keep the Days of Unleavened Bread?
You know, back in the Old Testament, even Leviticus 23 tells us these aren’t any old days, that these are God’s feast days. They are the feasts of the Lord. And so, you ought to check it out. Check out what the Bible really says about the days that you should observe, and then when you find what it really says, well, keep it. Celebrate them. Observe the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread and all God’s festival days. Check them out – maybe something that you’ll be surprised to find out about.
That’s BT Daily . We’ll see you next time.

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Wednesday, April 8, 2015

2015 - A Year of Triumph or Trial for America?

An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about the U.S. and the Middle East. This follows this post about about religious libery. This follows this post about Iran. For a free magazine subscription or to get the books recommended for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886- 8632.
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2015 - A Year of Triumph or Trial for America?

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article by Mike Kelley

After years of bad economic news, some think things are looking up for the United States. But are they? What troubling signs are on the horizon?

A man holding an American flag flapping in the wind.

Has America passed, or is it about to pass, that point of no return?

Source: Chandler Erisman/Snapwiresnaps

Millions of Americans have seen reasons to believe that 2015 is on track to being better than recent years. Economic forecasts are up. Crime is down. Lower oil prices translate into hundreds of dollars more per year in consumers’ pockets.
Yet while this is all good, should we also be paying attention to troubling signs on the horizon?
To be sure, some signs do indeed look promising. After the economic crisis of 2008-2009 and several years of sluggish recovery, U.S. economists are nearly unanimous in the estimates of robust economic growth in 2015, with most expecting 3 percent or greater.
This would translate into more good news for the job market. The unemployment rate is expected to continue to decline, with tens of thousands of new jobs created each month. And the gradual tightening of the labor force should give U.S. workers more leverage in wage negotiations, finally driving up wages that have been stagnant for years.
A solid growth rate should also translate into stock and bond market gains, as an improving economy translates into higher earnings for companies. A growing economy would prompt the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, which would help bond investors.
As mentioned, the nation can take some satisfaction in an improved crime situation. Federal Bureau of Investigation figures show a striking but positive trend: The rate of violent crime has dropped by nearly half since 1993. FBI data shows a decline in violent crime from a rate of 747 incidents per 100,000 in 1993 to 387 incidents per 100,000 in 2012, the most recent year for which complete data has been published.
Nearly every type of violent crime declined over the past 20 years, with homicides down 51 percent, forcible rape down 35 percent and robberies down 56 percent. Property crimes, such as burglary and vandalism, also dropped sharply.
Some U.S. cities are the safest they’ve been in decades. New York City of the 1970s was considered one of the most crime-infested cities in the nation. Since that time, however, the city’s crime rate has plummeted to where it is now considered safer than Dallas or Houston (Justin Wolfers, “Perceptions Haven’t Caught Up to Decline in Crime,” The New York Times , Sept. 16, 2014).
The good news is something to rejoice about. But before we start celebrating too loudly, we should ask ourselves: Are we seeing the complete picture? Or could we be closing our eyes to dangers we’d rather not think about?

Not-so-rosy economic figures

While some economic figures are encouraging, a number of others are highly sobering. For example, a Jan. 13, 2015, report by Jim Clifton, CEO of Gallup, Inc., noted at the Gallup website that over the last six years, 70,000 more businesses have shut their doors than have opened.
He went on to explain: “When new businesses aren’t being born, the free enterprise system and jobs decline . . . Without a growing entrepreneurial economy, there are no new good jobs. That means declining revenues and smaller salaries to tax, followed by declining aid for the elderly and poor and declining funding for the military, for education, for infrastructure—declining revenues for everything.”
Going hand-in-hand with this, a New York Times article last year reported that over the previous decade, “the inflation-adjusted net worth for the typical household” had declined 36 percent (Anna Bernasek, “The Typical Household, Now Worth a Third Less,” July 26, 2014).
A Jan. 16, 2015, Washington Post article noted the following shocking fact: “For the first time in at least 50 years, a majority of U.S. public school students come from low-income families . . . a statistic that has profound implications for the nation”(Lyndsey Layton, “Majority of U.S. Public School Students Are in Poverty”).
Further, a CNSnews.com headline on Dec. 10, 2014, stated, “65 Percent of Children Live in Households on Federal Aid Programs.” The total number, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures, was more than 40 million.
Especially troubling is the skyrocketing U.S. government debt. According to the U.S. Treasury website, as of Jan. 1, 2005, total federal debt was just under $7.6 trillion. A decade later, at the beginning of 2015, debt stood at more than $18 trillion —a staggering increase of almost 140 percent, and more debt than the nation had accumulated in its entire previous history of almost 230 years!
Sadly, such figures are the tip of the iceberg in terms of the nation’s true financial picture. Making matters worse, on Feb. 2 President Obama presented a proposed 2016 fiscal year budget that would add another $1.44 trillion in taxes and another $6 trillion in debt over the next decade.

An island in a sea of turmoil

In spite of its financial problems, America could be likened to an island of relative peace and tranquility in a seething cauldron of worldwide unrest, where violence and hatred seem to be escalating everywhere.
The new year was barely one week old when two French-born Islamic terrorists of Algerian descent, brothers Cherif and Said Quache, stormed into the Paris offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on Jan. 7. Using automatic weapons with military precision, they gunned down 10 journalists and cartoonists, plus two policemen.
As they murdered a wounded Muslim policeman they shouted, “The prophet has been avenged!” Apparently they thought it was their Muslim duty to avenge any insult to the founder of Islam.
The murders had a chilling effect on press freedom, long a core belief of Western democracies. Major news organizations immediately began rethinking their editorial policies. At CNN, senior editorial director Richard Griffiths told staffers worldwide that Charlie Hebdo cartoons were not being shown on any CNN platforms, encouraging them instead to “verbally describe the cartoons in detail” (quoted at Politico, Jan. 7, 2015).
The Islamist terror organization al-Qaeda’s affiliate group in Yemen took responsibility for the Paris killings, which the French now refer to as their 9/11. Al-Qaeda has shown its ability to strike the major Western democracies, with nearly 3,000 killed in the 9/11 attacks on America in 2001 and 52 in England with the 2005 London subway bombings.
The sensational news of the attacks in France overshadowed other terrorist incidents that day—suicide bombings in Iraq that killed 23 people and a car bomb in Yemen that killed 38 and injured more than 60 others. These followed attacks in which an estimated 2,000 people were slaughtered by the Islamist group Boko Haram in northern Nigeria Jan. 3.
Very few realize that the Bible sitting on their bookshelf has something to say about these events. Speaking through Moses, God foretold events that would befall ancient Israel—and its modern-day descendants, particularly the major English-speaking peoples—for national rejection of His law:
“But if you will not listen to Me, and will not do all these commandments, and if you shall despise My statutes, or if your soul hates My judgments . . . I will even appoint terror over you, consumption, and burning fever, consuming the eyes and causing sorrow of heart . . . And I will set My face against you, and you shall be slain before your enemies”(Leviticus:26:14-17, Modern King James Version, emphasis added throughout).
Could it be that we’re seeing these ominous punishments begin to be played out in America today? What do such growing trends portend for the nation’s future?

Failing schools reduce national competitiveness

For the past few decades, America’s failing educational institutions have been an embarrassment to the nation and a blot on its national pride.
A recent Washington Times article described American public schools as “in a free fall,”with U.S. schools now ranking 29th in the world. This from the nation that earlier put man on the moon and has for decades led the world in finding cures for killer diseases.
Slovakia, Russia and Vietnam have joined the ranks of China, India, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea in the list of nations surpassing U.S. schools in the quality of education and the caliber of its graduates.
And now comes evidence that many American college graduates lack the skills to compete even in an average U.S. work environment. In mid-January, The Wall Street Journal reported that as many as four in ten U.S. graduates lack the reasoning skills to manage white-collar work.
The Collegiate Learning Assessment Plus exam, given to 32,000 college seniors at 169 U.S. colleges and universities, measures reasoning ability needed in typical U.S. managerial environments. It noted that many students start college at a deficit in reasoning, making it that much harder to catch up by the time they graduate.
“‘Even if there is notable growth over four years, many students are starting at such a low point that they may still not be proficient at the point of graduation,’ said Jessalyn James, a program manager at the Council for Aid to Education, which administered the test” (Douglas Belkin , “Test Finds College Graduates Lack Skills for White-Collar Jobs,” The Wall Street Journal , Jan. 16, 2015).
The implications for an America competing in a global economy could be disastrous. As nations such as China and India graduate more trained engineers, scientists, business managers and computer experts, American competitiveness will suffer.

Alarming increase in mental illness

Not well publicized is the dramatic rise of mental illness in America today. No less an authority than Marcia Angell, former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, had this to say in a June 23, 2011, New York Review of Books piece titled “The Epidemic of Mental Illness: Why?”:
“The tally of those who are so disabled by mental disorders that they qualify for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) or Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) increased nearly two and a half times between 1987 and 2007 —from 1 in 184 Americans to 1 in 76. For children, the rise is even more startling— a thirty-five-fold increase in the same two decades.”
Today, young people by the millions are experiencing the onset of clinical depression, among the most debilitating of mental illnesses resulting in thousands of suicides annually. Speaking to the National Press Club in 1998, Martin Seligman, then-president of the American Psychological Association, reported that the average age for the onset of depression had decreased from 29 to 15.
Antidepressant use in the United States has increased nearly 400 percent in the last two decades, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), making antidepressants the most frequently used class of medications by Americans ages 18-44. By 2008, 23 percent of women ages 40-59 were taking antidepressants, the CDC reported.
It seems every other person in the country is on some type of antidepressant these days. What does it portend for America’s future with depression and other mental illnesses on the rise?
And how much of this may be attributed to a sobering prophecy that applies to our time today found in Deuteronomy:28:28? Speaking to the ancient Israelites—and their modern-day descendants—about the consequences of disobedience to His law, God tells them, “The Lord will strike you with blindness and madness and confusion of heart.”

Rising racial tensions creating a divided nation

The election of Barack Obama as the first African-American president brought hope to millions that race relations in America would enter the final stage of healing, marking the start of a new era in the nation.
That optimism soon vanished. Annual Wall Street Journal/ NBC News polls show that positive views of race relations peaked among African Americans at 66 percent in 2010, one year after Obama took office. Then opinions took a steady downturn so that by July 2013 only 38 percent thought race relations were good—worse than the 40 percent in 2007 before Obama.
Perceptions of race relations dropped even lower with the highly publicized 2014 killings of two black men by white police officers, one in Ferguson, Missouri, and the other in New York City, along with grand juries in both cases deciding not to indict the officers. In another Wall Street Journal/ NBC poll in mid-December 2014, only 35 percent of African-American respondents rated race relations as good, while 63 percent rated them as bad.
The change in perceptions among white Americans was even more dramatic, having risen from 59 percent seeing race relations as good in 2007 to a peak of 79 percent considering them so in late 2009 and then plunging to only 40 percent now feeling this way, as of December 2014 (Reid Epstein, “Poll: Views of Race Relations Worse Than Before Obama Took Office,” Washington Wire, blogs.wsj.com, Dec. 17, 2014)
It would seem that America’s long-running racial divisions have not improved nearly as much as we would have expected since the early 1960s civil rights struggles. This does not bode well for the future of the country. As Jesus Christ Himself stated, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand” (Matthew:12:25, New International Version).
Certainly, the U.S. is not the only nation with significant gulfs between racial groups. But we could ask ourselves to what extent will smoldering racial tensions lead to the weakening of the world’s leading democracy?

How much longer?

Some will point out that America has faced crises before. One can’t forget the grim situation the nation faced in the 1930s, when worldwide economic depression crippled the U.S. economy with 25 percent unemployment in 1933. The nation came through a decade later when, roused from isolationist slumber by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, it mobilized its human and material resources to defeat the Axis powers.
But other observers also correctly point out the differences in the character of the American people then compared to today. With the nation’s flagrant disregard for morality and God’s righteous law, does America have what it takes to pull through today’s challenges?
Moses’ warning to ancient Israel is especially relevant to 21st-century America. Read it in Deuteronomy 28, where God promised blessings for obedience and curses for violating His laws. God dealt patiently with ancient Israel, and He will deal patiently with us today—but only to a point. Has America passed, or is it about to pass, that point of no return?
Individually, none of us can change the course of a nation bent on increasingly turning away from God. But each of us can personally heed God’s command given through the prophet Isaiah: “Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Isaiah:55:6-7).
May we have the wisdom to turn from our human ways that lead to suffering and death (Proverbs:14:12; Proverbs:16:25) and choose, as we’re told to in Deuteronomy:30:19, the way that leads to blessings and life!