Eye To Eye

I saw this in the news today and I remembered reading the book 'Eye To Eye'. The premise of the book is that every time the US tries to take land from Israel by encouraging 'land for peace', the US is hit by a natural disaster in 3 days time. Koenig, the author, documents an unbelievable number of instances and when I read this, I thought of Hurricane Ike.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=75048

Our nation has not learned...

Daniel 8

Hindsight is 20/20. We get to read the 8th chapter of Daniel and it reads kind of like a history lesson. I think in order to really get what was going on when Daniel wrote this (about 530 BC), we need to remember that the Babylonian empire has recently fallen to the Persian empire- the most powerful army in the world.

The vision that Daniel has concerning the Ram and the goat leaves Daniel saying 'what the heck are you talkin' about Lord'. The Medo-Persian empire is represented by the ram with two horns, the first being the median empire and the higher horn representing the more powerful Persian empire. The Lord tells us that the goat is representative of the kingdom of Greece (8:21). This is where I forget precisely how accurate and wonderful God's prophetic Word is. We've all read about world empires as we went to school, but when Daniel was writing this Greece was a literal speck on the map...and God was foretelling that this tiny country would displace the most powerful empire in the world! Can you imagine if God gave us a prophetic vision showing Venezuela conquering the United States? Absurd...well, I'm sure readers of Daniel's vision thought that too.

Another historical accuracy is fulfilled in verses 21-22: "And the male goat is the kingdom of Greece. The large horn that is between its eyes is the first king. As for the broken horn and the four that stood up in its place, four kingdoms shall arise out of that nation, but not with its power." Who was the first king of the Greecian empire? None other than Alexander the Great. Once again, the accuracy of the Lord is displayed in verse 8: "but when he became strong, the large horn was broken, and in place of it four notable ones came up toward the four winds of heaven." Alexander the Great was at the height of power at age 32 when he died...a young age even then. Four generals then took control of separate parts of the empire, one of which was Antiochus Epiphanes.

Verses 23-26 describe the antichrist and we'll get a further look at that in Daniel 9. He'll rise with a program of peace and deceive the world, only to exalt himself in the newly completed Third Temple. I'm not sure there is a correlation, but I found it interesting that God placed the vision of Alexander the Great's exploits with an interpretation of 'the latter time of the kingdom'. One prophecy he fulfilled to the letter and the other yet to come...but for any doubters about the literalness of prophecy, Daniel's vision was quite explicit.

Separation of Church & State

Sorry...laggin' a bit with posting on Daniel. My buddy Grant and I were talking about separation of church and state the other day, so it got me to thinking and reading about it.

To clarify, 'separation of church and state' is not in the constitution! The media would have you believe that the founders of the United States intended to keep God out of government, when in reality exactly the opposite is true. George Washington argued that if religious principles were separated from public institutions such as our courts of justice, then citizens would no longer have a secure basis for property, life, or freedom. The writings of many prominent founders corraborate that they did not embrace the modern day 'separation' philosophy (i.e. John Adams, Benjamin Rush, John Marshall, Noah Webster, James Madison, etc).

So, where did 'separation of church and state' come from? I'll let David Barton tell you:

On October 7, 1801, the Danbury Baptist Association of Danbury, Connecticut, sent a letter to President Thomas Jefferson expressing their concern that protection for religion had been written into the laws and constitutions. Believing strongly that freedom of religion was an inalienable right given by God, the fact that it appeared in civil documents suggested that the government viewed it as a government-granted right rather than a God-granted right. Apprehensive that the government might someday wrongly believe that it did have the power to regulate public religious activities, the Danbury Baptists communicated their anxiety to Jefferson.

On January 1, 1802, Jefferson responded to their letter. He understood their concerns and agreed with them that man accounted only to God and not to government for his faith and religious practice. Jefferson emphasized to the Danbury Baptists that none of man's natural (i.e. inalienable) rights- including the right to exercise one's faith publicly- would ever place him in a situation where the government would interfere with his religious expressions. He assured them that because of the wall of separation, they need not fear governmental interference with religious expressions.

In his letter, Jefferson made clear that the 'wall of separation' was erected not to limit public religious expressions but rather to provide security against governmental interference with those expressions, whether private or public.

This original interpretation was applied by the courts in America for a century-and-a-half before the Supreme Court in Everson v. Board of Education, for the first time, interpreted the 'separation' phrase as requiring the federal government to remove religious expressions from the public arena.

So, instead of the ACLU interpretation of today, Jefferson and founders really wanted to ensure that no national religion was defined. No worship would be coerced. Because of the freedom the new government had installed, it wanted all people to be able to exercise their God-given right of choosing when and how to worship.

Iran-Turkey relations

I just read an article in the Jerusalem Post about Ahmedinajed visiting Turkey, which Israel dislikes. There just seems to be so much groundwork being laid for Ezekiel 38-39 right now. First, Russia (Magog) and Iran enter into an arms agreement and help them to develop nuclear power (also mentioned in Ezekiel). Germany (Gomer) then begins supplying energy for Iran. Now, Iran is having diplomatic relations with Turkey (Togarmah). God's Word is so accurate...I'm just blown away that God foretold of these countries, together, coming against Israel over 2000 years ago.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1218104238967&pagename=JPArticle%2FShowFull

Daniel 7

Daniel definitely got to see some strange stuff! After telling us of the vision of the beast (and freaking everyone out), God makes a promise to us before the interpretation: "Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a Kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him. His dominion in an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away"- 7:14 God wanted to assure us of the outcome before explaining the vision.

I focused on the interpretation of the vision. "The fourth beast shall be a fourth kingdom on earth, which shall be different from all other kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, trample it and break it in pieces." I couldn't help but wonder how this kingdom would be different? An interesting conclusion that I've read about this kingdom is that it is a revived Roman Empire and the 'ten kings' are members of this future realm. Did you have any thoughts of our current day climate when you read this? We've read about the other empires that were described in Daniel's first vision and I couldn't help but wonder what classifed the empires as such? It seems to me that Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome all had a knack for brutality and control...so I'd think that the last empire that was described in the first vision would have those attributes. Then, when reading about the 'ten kings' in verse 24, that would be different than every other kingdom described (to have more than one king). I can't help but get excited to read about prophetic events because of the promise that it contains- the promise of being that much closer to our Savior.

Daniel gave this prophecy some 2500 years old...and here we are reading the promises God made that He has yet to fulfill. That's amazing. We can see the framework of the things Daniel spoke about being setup today. It doesn't matter when it will happen, but I'm encouraged by our God giving us warning so long ago because He knew his people would need the encouragement- that they'd know what to expect. Revelation chapter 13 deals with a this new kingdom and the antichrist too, so He is giving us ample opportunity to watch for, prepare for, and warn others about the coming change.

Daniel 5 & 6

"In the same hour the finger of a man's hand appeared and wrote opposite the lampstand on the plaster of the all of the king's palace; and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote." - 5:5

OK- that would freak me out! I suppose if God wanted to get the king's attention, he certainly succeeded. Belshazzar was definitely asking for trouble by having a party that he and his guests drank out of the gold and silver vessels that had been taken from the temple in Jerusalem. I wonder if this is where the 'the handwriting is on the wall' idiom has its beginning? Because, for Belshazzar, the handwriting on the wall meant that he was toast! His kingdom was over and he'd be dead in mere hours. For my own application, I think about how many times I've run the 'stop sign' that God has put in front of me? Plenty...I may not have heard an audible 'no' or had handwriting on the wall, but I think that this illustration shows us that Belshazzar had seen the mighty things God did with Daniel (and his 3 friends) and he still mocked God. Ultimately, we'll all be judged and the only thing that saves us is Jesus- our Advocate.

Chapter 6 is one of the most well known stories in all biblical lore: Daniel and the lions' den. I love that Daniel is faithful to God by praying, under the punishment of death, and is willing to die instead of not worshipping the living God. God, of course, is faithful to save Daniel when he's thrown into the den. I know this is true in our own lives too- we'll know that by taking a particular stance on something, we'll pay the worldly consequence. However, God is faithful to bring us through it! That is hard to remember when you're in the midst of the den, but He always rewards our faithfulness. Always.

Germany-Iran natural gas agreement

I had to mention this article- when I've spoken with friends and family about Ezekiel 38-39 in the past, especially about the players in the Magog invasion, one of the first things that I've wondered is how Germany would be involved. Gomer is mentioned in Ezekiel 38:6 as a member of the invading army, which is present day Germany. I've thought 'how could Iran, Russia, Turkey, Ethiopia, Libya, and Germany be on the same offensive team?' Germany has been an ally of the western nations for quite some time, but I think that this mention of a natural gas pact between the two countries is going to begin laying the groundwork for friendly relations. The international community has said that they don't want any significant deals with Iran to be consummated due to their unwillingness to shut down its nuclear program...well, Germany obviously doesn't much care about that.

His promises are true and binding...Germany will be a part of the invading force.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1215331161065&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull