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The Folly of Fleeing
By Dene McGriff
It happens all the time. People
are living quiet peaceful lives, raising their kids, taking them
off to soccer practice, going to work. Suddenly, something
happens – a disaster, invasion or economic crash. It has
happened time and again through history all over the world. All
of
Europe, except a few elites, was totally surprised by World War
I and so it goes down through history. German Jews refused to
believe Mein Kampf, even when Hitler laid out his plans in great
detail. People living in relative tranquility in places such
as Beirut, once known as the Paris of the Middle East, can
suddenly find themselves in the middle of a war zone. Zimbabwe
was one of the most productive countries in Africa but was
reduced to inflation ridden poverty. Even wealthy Argentina,
Brazil and most Latin American countries have at one time or
another seen their savings wiped out and their lives turned
upside down.
So what do we do escape or stand,
flee or have faith that God will use us in the midst of trouble?
Few Christians today are prepared to stand and suffer for their
Lord. Many evangelicals are convinced there won’t be a problem
because they will rapture before the Tribulation begins. A
growing minority believe that
America is prophetic Babylon and
that Christians should flee – move physically out of the
country. This article examines these various positions. Which
is correct?
But whether we flee the country or
to the wilderness, or rapture, we are
missing
the point. First, there will be escalating signs; deception,
wars and rumors of wars, famines and earthquakes but these are
just the beginning of sorrows (birth pains). Then there will be
persecution, but what are we told to do? “Stand
firm to the end” and
“be a testimony to all the
nations.” Do you really think you will avoid
tribulation in Germany or Canada? We aren’t told to escape to a
“hidey hole” and try and make it until the tornado passes. So
what should we do?
Daniel did not flee
Babylon but
overcame even while he was in the King’s court. He was not hurt
by lions or fire.
His
testimony was sure. He was not a coward. Down through the
ages, there are very few instances where God’s people are told
to flee. The glory to God is when His children stand boldly
realizing that any loss in this life will be more than made up
by eternal gain.
It will be very difficult
(although not impossible) for a person who is heavily invested
in their institutional Church and
America as a chosen nation to
escape deception. It will take a revelation from God. Fleeing
and escapism are folly, but standing all alone is not very smart
either. Christians are afraid of getting too close to one
another. They are afraid to leave the safety of their “church”
even though they realize they’re staying there at their own
peril.
We need to let the love of Christ
draw us together with other Christians and begin to experience a
daily organic church life (apart from buildings, leaders and
programs). A living community of Christians will provide the
protection we need from the world and apostate religious
systems.
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The Church – a Source of Deception
by Dene McGriff
In
the last days, there will be a falling away, tribulation and
deception and Christians will be persecuted. What will be the
greatest source of deception and persecution for true
Christians?
The apostate church! Few consider what this may mean to
them personally or how this could possibly happen. All
disclaimers aside (that within the institutional churches there
may be those who overcome), the modern church is a tradition
bound, moribund institution that attracts a good percentage of
Americans to weekly services. But does it really accomplish
anything? Does it shine the light of God’s presence to the
world? Does it produce a radiant, triumphant testimony of Jesus
living in believers? Do the programs, sermons, counseling and
entertainment produce a vital living church?
Is the modern church a glorious
testimony of Jesus or merely a reflection of our culture – a
religious corporatocracy, an entertainment extravaganza, endless
sermons that exhort, teach and inform and programs to take care
of all of the needs of the people? Churches may bring people
into a relationship with Jesus Christ but do they really bring
people to mature, living, fruitful Christians? The average
“born again” Christian remain as a baby who never grows up but
sits year after year in the pew being bottle fed the “milk of
the Word” by the pastor. The more zealous usually turn to
full-time ministry. Most “part-time” Christians remain just
that for the rest of their lives…nominal participants in
“church” for most of their lives. For the vast majority of
Christians, “church” is something you do once or twice a week,
not what you are 24/7. There is little commitment or real
community, certainly no organic participatory meeting life.
I originally titled this chapter
“The Church – the Heart of Darkness” because I truly believe
that the church is the greatest source of deception, lulling
Christians into a feeling that they are okay. They think their
spiritual lives are being taken care of by those who watch over
them and they have nothing to worry about. Not only is this
keeping them from developing the kind of relationship with the
Lord and other Christians that they should have, but it is
putting many in harms way as they listen to lukewarm teaching
that lulls them into a false sense of well being and deadens
their prophetic senses. The institutional church is the
greatest impediment to the growth of the saints, to their
ability to get their own fresh living Word from the Bible, to
the establishing of their own gifts and ministry and the
building up of the saints as a glorious corporate expression to
the world.
If you see how far the church has
strayed from God’s ultimate intention, how corrupt and worldly
it has become, how there is such an internal conflict that it
can’t really stand for the truth any more, you will see a church
that is falling away. That institution many hold to is not
really the church. The people in it are but pawns in a worldly
corporate system that has no resemblance to the church
envisioned by Jesus. If you want specifics as to what to do, I
would urge you to order and read the books by George Barna and
Frank Viola mentioned at the very beginning. I know you have
many questions as to what to do, but there are answers. We may
see prophecy as clearly as can be, have the chronology of events
down pat, but the point of “the tribulation network” is that God
still wants a glorious triumphant testimony in the face of the
worst tribulation the world has ever seen. And that will only
happen if we rediscover the true meaning of and the simplicity
of church – a body of believers who simply share the life and
love of Jesus with a frightened world.
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Russia has a Cameo
Appearance in Bible prophecy
Part XXII
Rise or Fall of American Empire?
By Doug Krieger
While
Barack Obama was vacationing in Hawaii,
John McCain talked with the Columbia Law School educated
president of Georgia,
Mikheil Saakashvili, and declared:
“Today we are all
Georgians.”
McCain’s style was
markedly different from the “moral
neutrality” Obama expressed about the Caucasus crisis, prior
to his inauguration at the Democratic Convention in Denver,
Colorado. Then came the bravado from the Russians, and the put
down from the Americans:
“Forget about Georgian
sovereignty” – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
“Meaningless ‘bluster’” – US
Presidential spokeswoman Dana Perino. (Bush
Won’t Compromise on Georgian Sovereignty, BreitBart.com,
August 14, 2008)
And, from the
former satellites of the Soviet Union, now members of NATO:
“We, the leaders of the former
captive nations from Eastern Europe and current members of the
European Union and NATO– Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland –
are extremely concerned about the actions of the Russian
Federation against Georgia. We strongly condemn the actions by
the Russian military forces against the sovereign and
independent country of Georgia.” (Joint
statement on Georgia-Russia War by Presidents of Poland,
Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania, georgiandaily.com, August 9,
2008)
And in Prague,
remembrance of the Soviet invasion during the Prague Spring
of August 1968 brought this response from the Czech Republic’s
Foreign Minister
Karel Schwarzenberg: “It is a sad coincidence.”
But it was
Ukraine’s Orange Revolutionary President, Viktor Yushchenko, who
put the Russian Fleet ported in the Crimea on notice that they
would not be allowed to use Ukrainian territory for their fleet
if vessels were used to destroy Georgian independence – “If they
put under question democracy and independence in Georgia, then
they can undermine democracy and independence in other states,”
he said. His vehemence was all the more foreboding given the
charge by Russia that Ukraine is
supplying arms to the Georgians against the Russians.
At the same
rally in Tbilisi, the Capital of Georgia,
Premier Ivars Godmanis of Latvia said:
“Always be united, and we -
Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Poles, and Ukrainians - will
always be with you.”
Latvia has
joined the United States in warning that relations with Russia
are bound to suffer following the conflict.
IMPLICATIONS OF
RUSSIA’S ACTION AND AMERICA’S STANCE
Before we
delve into the morass of Gog and Magog (because of its alleged
eschatological ties to the Caucasus and Russia), let us throw
our geopolitical hat in the ring with the rest of the political
pundits as to the implications of Russia’s agitation toward the
West, the “New West” and the leadership of the West, the United
States of America.
First of all,
there appears to be no clear winners here: Russia, South Ossetia,
Abkhazia, Georgia, Ukraine, NATO and especially Poland who was
told by Russia’s deputy Chief of General Staff that by signing
their nuclear defense system pact with America, they now, as of
August 15, 2008, are exposing themselves to
nuclear attack by Russia!
LET US DELVE INTO
THE ESCHATOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE CURRENT CRISIS…
It is this
alienation from the West, as now orchestrated by the USA (and
don’t be so foolish to think otherwise), that leads to “news
(rumors) from the . . . north will trouble him; therefore he
(i.e., Antichrist) shall go out with great fury to destroy and
annihilate many” (Daniel
11:44). To suggest that Gog-Magog (from the “far north” –
Ezekiel 39:2), which has been utterly annihilated (Ezekiel
39:2 – Heb. “shaw-shaw” or “to annihilate” Strong’s 8338 –
not “shashah” or “sixth-part” Strong’s 8341) can now mount a
counter offensive that will “trouble” Antichrist, who will go
forth in that direction to annihilate many (Dan.
11:44), is to suggest that Gog’s initial annihilation was
perfunctory, incomplete and distorts the true meaning of the
text as found in
Ezekiel 39:2a and confirmed by Antichrist’s further
annihilation beyond Israel’s immediate “far north.” Naturally,
and obviously, the biblical expositor must connect the
eschatological dots between
Ezekiel 38-39 and
Daniel 11:40-44 as two different aspects of the same
Gog-Magog War; otherwise, confusion will reign between these
latter day texts—which is precisely what
John Walvoord has done and which we have in the past
addressed at length. (Please see our E-book entitled:
Antichrist and the Gog-Magog War)
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Babylon on the Cheap
Part XXI of "Rise or Fall of American Empire?"
by Doug Krieger
“The merchants
of the earth will weep and mourn over her, for no one buys their
merchandise anymore…the merchants of these things, who became
rich by her…will stand at a distance…weeping and wailing…for in
one hour such great riches came to nothing…and cried out when
they saw the smoke of her burning…WHAT IS LIKE THIS GREAT
CITY?…all who had ships on the sea became rich by her
wealth!...for in one hour she is made desolate.”
(Revelation
18:11, 15, 17-19)
What
do the USS George H. W. Bush and the Emma Maersk have in
common? WEALTH & POWER – to be exact (although the cost of the
USS George H. W. Bush was $4.5 Billion and the Emma Maersk a
paltry
$145 Million). And, if you can’t SEE this, then you’re
probably suffering from a rare disorder known as “narcissistic
Americana myopia” (NAM) – an awful contagion contracted
primarily in America (aka “americanus denial
hyperactivity-disorder” or ADHD) but spread throughout the
planet by the same hyper-active militarists and opulent
merchandisers to the unsuspecting, mimickers, pleasure-seekers
and, in sum, all who especially benefit from trading with “that
Great City” so clearly identified in
Revelation 18.
Berating
those evangelical prattlers who deny America’s end-time role as
Babylon the Great – the ultimate expression of Gentile World
Power and the extremity of the King of Tyre’s acquisitions and
fortune – has reached a refined and superlative expression on
this web site. It is at the crux of the “Rise or Fall of
American Empire?” in that it is the thesis of this author and a
growing number of believers, as well as geopolitical, economic
and social scientists, that never has there been such an
amalgamation of riches gathered nor heaped up on behalf of
fellow plutocrats by one such nation upon this globe as these
United States of America!
Here the
world buys and sells – here the WHOLE EARTH (at least its
merchandisers) can be made rich through trading with her!
Listen, as much as we’d like to sound the proverbial alarms that
Babylon’s going through so-called “economic hard times” – it’s
barely a burp, a slight disturbance in the force, a glitch in
the indomitable apparatus of consumption – in brief: We’ll pass
the gas of our present eating binge and regroup for the next
food fest!
Before we
examine through casual observation the complexity of America’s
sell off and consequent extensions of globalization and general
wealth integration throughout the world – remember these
prophetic bursts from the prophet Ezekiel’s pen:
“There is no secret that can be
hidden from you! With your wisdom and your understanding you
have gained riches for yourself, and gathered gold and silver
into your treasuries; by your great wisdom in trade you have
increased your riches, and your heart is lifted up because of
your riches” (Ezekiel
28:3-5).

America’s
EMPIRE OF DEBT is naught but a furtive allusion wherein she
is able to sustain herself and her friends, the merchants of the
earth, through thick and thin. These same merchants, who
traffic in the bodies and souls of men and who have been made
rich through trading with her, have no qualms of perpetual
indulgence before her altars of commercial expectation and
expediency. The Bible’s portrait of this great end times’
commercial empire will one day be “remembered before God, to
give her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath” (Revelation
16:19). Because, you see, it is through “the abundance of
your trading you became filled with violence within; and you
sinned” (Ezekiel
28:16). In order to garner, as well as to protect, her
abundance, she has had to resort to violence—war after war after
war to extend her commercial umbrella. But prior to her sudden
dissimulation, she shall be the delight of the world’s traders
and of their kings, the “great men of the earth.”
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Some symbolism that
the United States may fit into?
Part XX
Rise or Fall of
American Empire
By Doug Krieger
“The Revelation of
Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show His servants—things
which must shortly take place. And He sent and signified
it by His angel to His servant John” (Revelation
1:1)
The
title of this, once again, provocative piece of apocalyptic
preciosity is designed to expand the eschatological fervor of
God’s people to immediate Biblical relevance, while challenging
the geographic restriction of evangelical Premillenarian
confinement to all things Euro-centric (e.g., revival of the
Holy Roman Empire) . . . for the Image seen in Nebuchadnezzar’s
dream began to walk the face of the whole earth colonizing the
earthlings and now sits like a Queen overlooking her imperial
horizons from sea to shining sea. Simultaneously, the “earthlings”
who deign to observe our food fight might just be enthralled to
know of our interior constipations or why they are convinced in
their disenchantments when considering our apocalyptic wars;
hopefully, however, the Holy Spirit just may ignite an
illuminating fire within someone’s soul - for “the truth is out
there!”
Notwithstanding,
content taken from the Apocalypse – the “unveiling of Jesus
Christ” – was and is transmitted to us through a most unusual,
yet time-proven means . . . allow us to share the late Ray
Stedman’s explanation from his commentary on the Revelation –
God’s Final Word:
“The book is called
the ‘revelation of Jesus Christ,’ and John says that Jesus
Himself ‘made it known by sending his angel to his servant
John.’ The English phrase ‘made it known’ actually has a deeper
meaning in the original Greek, where instead of three words
there (i.e. ‘made it known’) is just one Greek word,
semaino. The word should be translated ‘signified’—or,
if you want to really get the true sense of this word, pronounce
it aloud: ‘SIGN-I-FIED.’ In other words, Jesus made His
revelation known to John by signs or symbols. Once you grasp
the symbolic ‘sign-ificance’ of this book, you can begin to
understand and apply the book of Revelation. Revelation is a
book of symbols, and these symbols are important. Symbols help
to simplify difficult concepts and to clarify things which are
baffling or murky . . . The book of Revelation, however, uses
symbols with great precision and clarity . . . The key to
understanding the symbols of Revelation is recognizing that
almost all of these symbols have been given to us elsewhere in
the Bible. If you try to read Revelation without any
understanding of the rest of the Bible, you are doomed to
confusion. But if you use the rest of the Bible as a guide and
interpreter of the symbols of Revelation, most of these symbols
immediately become understandable.” (God’s Final Word, Ray C.
Stedman, Discovery House Publishers, Grand Rapids, MI, 1991, pp.
3-4)
Now, we could
further disparage our concerns and imbibe in Paul’s “little
folly” to have you all “bear with me” – for this ministry—the
Tribulation Network—is “not inferior to the most eminent
apostles”…though we may be considered by some to be “untrained
in speech” (II
Corinthians 11:1, 5-6). That said, it is with some
consternation that the dissemination of a great deal of what
passes as pertinent prophetic platitude designed to prepare the
people of God in America, North America and throughout the
planet for the coming of the Lord, is fraught with what the
prophet Micah called a severe case of “PRATTLE” – to wit:
“‘Do not prattle,’
you say to those who prophesy (lit. ‘drip words’)” (Micah
2:6)
And, just who might
these “prophetic prattlers” be? Alas! For they come bearing
gifts and announce all is well, fat and sassy amongst the people
of the Lord:
“If someone showed
up with a good smile and glib tongue
and told lies from morning to night—
‘I'll preach sermons that will tell you
how you can get anything you want from God:
More money, the best wines...you name it’—
you’d hire him on the spot as your preacher!”
(Micah
2:11 – From “The Message”)
Therefore, having
announced these peculiar caveats (pick and choose what’s
appropriate to sundry sites), allow us to delve into the more
popular disseminators of the prophetic – knowing this – most are
beloved in Christ; however, most are awash in a protective
Laodicean-mindset wherein the “Gospel
of Wealth and Prosperity” has skewed the prophet’s vision.
Compounding the myopic gaze of these visionaries are what is
seen as benign attempts at “financial responsibility” (before
the Lord, no doubt) – coupled with a preoccupation to obfuscate
the United States of America as having little,
perhaps-yet-undiscovered or nothing to do with Biblical
prophecy, no matter how these aforementioned “symbols” signify
to the contrary; i.e., America insinuates herself as the epitome
of Revelation’s most ghastly symbolism: The SUPREME CULPRIT -
BABYLON THE GREAT – of the latter days!
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