Saturday News And Commentary: The Coming Tribulation

It seems that each day in the news has a central theme. Today is no different. Sadly.

But keep in mind, the future that we know is coming, namely - the Tribulation - cannot happen with a strong and free America.

The U.S. Dictatorship

This is no longer a theoretical nightmare. It's here now in living color:

Obama’s latest outrageous violation of the laws of the United States demonstrate that the nation has arrived at its destination: a dictatorship lorded over by an imperial ruler.

Since he was voted into office by deluded citizens who believed he would pay for their rent and food, Obama has enacted by fiat or worked with Congress to pass a number of bills that have increased the power of the executive and the unconstitutional authority of the federal government.

Hyperbole? Look at this list.

National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)

This monstrous statute allows the government to circumvent the Fifth Amendment. The NDAA gives the government the authority to designate American citizens as terrorists and indefinitely detain them without recourse to courts or due process of law and without specific charge.

Unconstitutional wars

In May, the Secretary of War, Leon Panetta, said Obama will “seek international permission” to launch new wars.” He declared the “commander in chief has the authority to take action that involves the vital interests of this country” without consulting the American people.

Obamacare

Article 1, Section 8, Clause 3 of the Constitution is known as the Commerce Clause. It states that “Congress shall have the power… to regulate commerce with foreign nations, among the several states and with the Indian tribes.” It does not permit the government to force you to buy insurance from a government preferred and protected monopoly.

In Federalist No. 45, James Madison wrote that the clause spells out that the powers delegated to the federal government are “few and defined,” while those left to the states “are numerous and indefinite,” although you wouldn’t know that if you listen to Democrats and far too many of their Republican colleagues.

Treaties

He would subvert the American judicial process by implementing the International Criminal Court. It will ultimately be used against American citizens. Professor Charles Rice of Notre Dame University Law School has stated that we will be confronted by “a monster” that effectively “repudiates the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence.”

The Law of the Sea Treaty will create another international bureaucracy that will limit the sovereignty of the United States and impose globalist regulations.

The Small Arms Treaty would circumvent the Second Amendment, the cornerstone of the Bill of Rights. If ratified, it will impose even tougher licensing requirements, confiscate and destroy all “unauthorized” civilian firearms, ban semiautomatic weapons, create an international gun registry, and override our cherished national sovereignty.

Executive Orders

National Defense Resources Preparedness: This EO, signed in March of 2012, renews and updates Obama’s authority to seize control of all civil energy supplies, including oil and natural gas, and control and restrict all civil transportation. It essentially reaffirms a large number of FEMA-related executive orders issued since the national security state was installed in 1947 and is another element in an intricate structure that will enable martial law at the president’s discretion.

Kill the Constitution

From the Department of Justice’s high-handed attempt to prevent Arizona from protecting its borders to restrictive EPA rules that impose unreasonably burdensome financial costs on the states, Obama’s federal government has turned into a tyrannical leviathan dictating policy and law at gunpoint

His latest move to further weaken the immigration laws of the United States is simply more evidence that the federal government will continue to run roughshod over the Constitution and the natural rights of the American people, an incremental plan implemented by the elite that is now approaching its zenith.

"This Is What A Dictator Does"

Lurching Toward Tyranny

Congress won't pass the DREAM Act? No problem. Who needs the consent of the governed or their elected representatives?

Instead of controlling itself, however, government has become the biggest and most pervasive lawbreaker in America.

The fact is that government no longer treats the Constitution as law binding it. As a result, government not only violates the Constitution with greater frequency and even more contempt, but government bureaucrats violate the very laws they enforce that are subordinate to the Constitution.

The Environmental Protection Agency, for example, violates the Clean Water Act and other laws the agency is charged with enforcing. It's not just the EPA. In my experience, every government agency I've dealt with has violated laws that they are charged with enforcing.

Going Rogue

Remarkably, President Obama has gone rogue, running as no other Democrat before him, openly declaring war on America. The opposing armies are Obama's entitlement-minded-social-justice-zealots vs. hardworking Americans -- patriots who love their country and respect our Constitution.

To win re-election, Obama has "gone rogue," boldly going where no Democrat has gone before. Obama in essence has said, screw it. I am not going to masquerade as a moderate. I am going to campaign as a full blown anti-capitalism, anti-Constitution progressive socialist!

Obama's re-election scheme includes dividing Americans into mini-voting blocs, all perceiving themselves to be victimized. He promises college kids lower tuition interest rates. To secure the gay and Hollywood vote, Obama came out in support of gay marriage. To secure the hardcore feminist vote, Obama ignored the Constitution, forcing religious institutions and taxpayers to fund contraception and abortion services against their faith.

In essence, Obama has declared war on working, successful, self-respecting, and self-reliant Americans. We are engaged in an unreported epic battle for the heart, mind, and soul of America -- Obama's army vs. the rest of us.

Destroying our economy is a part of Obama's re-election campaign -- make life so horrible that voters will turn to big government via Obama to be their savior. Yes, I said it. Obama is destroying our economy on purpose.

American household wealth dropped 39%. Forty-five million Americans are on food stamps and that number is growing.

Obama believes that the Constitution and capitalism are unfair and must be replaced with social justice.

No, you are not asleep, not having a nightmare. Nor am I describing an episode of The Twilight Zone. Obama's war on our country and responsible Americans is very, very real. God help us.

The Styrofoam Pillars Collapse

Ralph Peters reminds us America still has foreign enemies; and that is a dangerous thing to contemplate when the incumbent is in the process of selling everything that isn’t nailed down. He writes that “the low point of the American presidency over the past half-century wasn’t Watergate, which is almost trivial compared to the corruption of the Obama administration, from treasonous leaks of classified material to the Justice Department’s assault on honest elections. No, my fellow Americans, the lowest point of the presidency occurred a few months back when President Obama, caught by a microphone he didn’t know was hot, told Russia’s then-president, now prime-minister, Dimitry Medvedev to relay to strong-man Vladimir Putin a request for patience. Essentially, Obama said he needed time to fool the American people until the November elections then he could cut the deals that Putin wanted.”

Whack-A-Democracy

The Arab Spring, the Tahrir Square, the entire works boiled down to a choice between a military dictatorship and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Now it looks like the whole glorious circus is about to end with a limited military dictatorship pushing the reset button back to where it was before, but without Mubarak. And that’s a best case scenario.

The one thing we should take away from this, is that the entire history of the last two years, every news article, from the glowing celebrations of the people’s revolution to the rise of the Brotherhood to the dissolution of the new reforms, should be printed up, rolled up into a newspaper and used to whack anyone who calls for “democratic change” in Egypt, or any relatively stable Muslim country that isn’t openly at war with us, across the nose.

Keep whacking them across the nose until they reread the entire history of their disaster and learn something from it.

Oh and Syria, all the people telling you that intervening to overthrow Assad and replace him with the Muslim Brotherhood would be a terrible idea… they’re right too.

There is no choice between a secular moderate national regime and a dictatorship. There is a choice between a dictatorship and Islamists. Choose one or the other, but don’t pretend that there’s a third option on the table. Not unless you can show us where that option has taken root.

Now, back to Europe and the rest of the world:

Once again, Caroline Glick nails it:

Dreamy Foreign Policies

This is a long article - well worth reading. I'll cut to the bottom line:

With her unbridled hostility towards Israel, the EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton provides us with an abject lesson in what happens when a government places its emotional aspirations above its national interests.

To put it mildly, Ashton is not a friend of Israel. Indeed, she is so ill-disposed against Israel that she seems unable to focus for long on anything other than bashing it. Her obsession was prominently displayed in March when she was unable to give an unqualified condemnation of the massacre of French Jewish children by a French Muslim. Ashton simply had to use her condemnation as yet another opportunity to bash Israel.

Her preoccupation with Israel was again on display on Tuesday. During a boilerplate, vacuous speech about President Bashar Assad’s slaughter of his fellow Syrians, apropos of nothing the baroness launched into an unhinged, impassioned, and deeply dishonest frontal assault against Israel.

The woman US President Barack Obama has empowered to lead the West’s negotiations with Iran regarding its illicit nuclear weapons program stood at the podium in the European Parliament and threw an anti-Israel temper tantrum.

Ours is a dangerous world and an even more dangerous neighborhood. Everywhere we look we see cauldrons of radicalism and sophisticated weaponry waiting to explode. The threat environment Israel faces today is unprecedented.

At this time we cannot afford to be seduced by our dreams that things were different than they are. They are what they are.

International Spotlight On Greek Elections

Although politicians outside Greece are avoiding overt statements on Sunday's election, plans are being made for the worst case scenario. Member states have been discussing the extent to which they can impose capital controls and border checks should Greece leave the eurozone.

Central banks around the world have been preparing for shock market reaction to the election outcome by ensuring liquidity.

The polls open at 6am Brussels time and close 12 hours later. The first exit polls are expected to be released soon after voting finishes.

Egypt Faces New Revolution After Political Shake-Up

Just over a year after ousting a decades-long dictatorship, Egyptians may be facing a new revolution as they prepare to go to the polls in the nation's run-off presidential election.

On Saturday, Egyptians will begin voting for either Muslim Brotherhood candidate Mohammed Mursi or secular candidate Ahmed Shafiq as their next president. Mursi and Shafiq came in first and second, respectively, in the first round of voting last month, but neither man was able to win an outright majority, thus necessitating a run-off.

But just two days before the fateful vote, Egypt's highest court made the dramatic decision to dissolve the nation's new parliament, which was voted in in December and January.

Many Egyptians saw the weekend maneuvering as a last-ditch effort by former Mubarak loyalists, including the military leadership, to keep the Muslim Brotherhood from taking over the country. The problem is that the Brotherhood won control of the parliament and is poised to win the presidency with the backing of a public majority. Attempts to reverse that will be seen as a return to Mubarak-style dictatorship, and are likely to spark a fresh revolution.

On the other hand, a full Muslim Brotherhood takeover would put Egypt on a path toward Iran-style radical Islam, which Shafiq has been vigorously warning against.

Either way, Egypt's revolution appears to be far from completed, and in many ways may be just beginning

Eurozone Approaching Its Moment Of Truth

We need to add to the mantra "Big Crisis = Big Change" to "Big Crisis = Big Change = More Centralized Government Control (as we head towards the Tribulation)":

We are approaching a moment of truth for the eurozone. After more than two years of uncertainty, instability and slow growth, decisions taken over the next few months could determine the economic future of the whole European continent for the next decade and beyond.

I have argued for a year now that the eurozone need to follow the “remorseless logic” of monetary union towards much greater fiscal integration. In countries like the UK and the US we are familiar with the features of a stable single currency area. The solution in the eurozone doesn’t have to be a full-blown United States of the eurozone, but if it is to be successful it is likely to include some form of most of the mechanisms that make other currencies work: more support from stronger economies to help weaker economies adjust; more pooling of resources, whether through common Eurobonds or some other mechanism; a shared backstop for the banking system through a banking union; and as a consequence, much closer collective oversight of fiscal and financial policy.

Putin: Russia Ready To Respond To U.S. Missile Defense

Russia has every possibility to provide a proper response to the projected deployment of a U.S. missile shield in Europe, though Moscow would like to see the U.S. plans revised, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday.

“We should look forward and give response [to these plans] in a timely manner,” Putin told servicemen at a Russian air base.

“Of course, our partners should better not do this [implement their missile shield plans] as this move would drive our response,” he added.

The president stressed that regardless to the rhetoric western politicians use to describe the shield deployment plans, “this remains a part of the arms race.”

“We have every possibility to provide a proper response,” he said.

In liaison with this, Putin stressed the importance of timely implementation of state defense orders. “We must implement state defense orders strictly on time, with the necessary quality and at reasonable prices. If we do it, there will be no particular threat to us.”

From Russia With Death

The low point of the American presidency over the past half-century wasn’t Watergate, which is almost trivial compared to the corruption of the Obama administration, from treasonous leaks of classified material to the Justice Department’s assault on honest elections. No, my fellow Americans, the lowest point of the presidency occurred a few months back when President Obama, caught by a microphone he didn’t know was hot, told Russia’s then-president, now prime-minister, Dimitry Medvedev to relay to strong-man Vladimir Putin a request for patience. Essentially, Obama said he needed time to fool the American people until the November elections then he could cut the deals that Putin wanted.

When an American president trusts Russia’s leaders more than he trusts our country’s voters, things in the Oval Office are rotten to a degree far beyond a bunch of clumsy burglars breaking into a campaign office. This is a betrayal that would have been unthinkable even to Bill Clinton.

Moscow backs the Assad regime for several reasons (not least, just to rub our snouts in our cowardice and impotence, thanks to President Obama’s dreadful deal-making). Syria is Russia’s last major Arab client-state. Syria buys more than three-quarters of its weapons from Russia’s ailing arms industry. The Assad regime has provided a naval base at Tartus to Moscow, allowing Russia’s rusty fleet to operate in the Mediterranean. And Russia desperately wants to preserve Iran’s influence in the Middle East as a counterbalance to America’s oil-state allies. So.Russia protects and supports Iran; arms and shields the Assad regime; and gives us the middle finger.

Obama’s response? Nothing.

Russia’s pro-democracy protesters face beatings, arrests, imprisonment, constant harassment, the loss of jobs, eviction, and denied access to education. These are courageous human beings struggling against a cynical regime with the odds stacked terribly against them.

Once elected, leftist regimes don’t want to be bothered with the electorate.

So we now have a president who thinks it’s just fine to cut deals with a brilliant thug like Putin behind the backs of the American people. And make no mistake: For all his targeted brutality, Putin is a brilliant leader-he’ll be in power long after the next administration in Washington has passed on the torch.

The quotes above are just the beginning of this long, tragic article. The conclusion? See below:

Our hands are tied; our president’s blind, hapless and helpless; Iran’s still pursuing nuclear weapons; Putin can expect more unilateral concessions from us after November (if Obama returns to office); Putin continues to dismantle Russia’s last pretenses at democracy (while we dare say nothing); our troops are hostages in Afghanistan, where the president’s policy has been an utter disaster; and the butchery in Syria continues.

Big Powers Move In On Syria: Russia Troops For Tartus

A contingent of Russian special forces is on its way to Syria to guard the Russian navy’s deep-water port at the Syria’s Mediterranean coastal town of Tartus, Pentagon officials informed US NBC TV Friday, June 15. They are coming by ship. According to DEBKAfile’s sources, the contingent is made up of naval marines and is due to land in Syria in the coming hours.

In a separate and earlier announcement, US Defense Department sources in Washington reported that the US military had completed its own planning for a variety of US operations against Syria, or for assisting neighboring countries in the event action was ordered – a reference, according to our sources, to Turkey, Jordan and Israel.
The Syrian civil war is now moving into a new phase of major power military intervention

The rate at which the world is moving towards the Tribulation is astonishing. The world desperately needs a leader who appears to have the solutions. And the world will receive this scenario. Unfortunately, this leader will end up being the most feared, brutal dictator the world has ever known.

"For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world...and never to be equaled again" (Matthew 24:21)

The world will quickly realize that they have empowered the worst that human government and human leadership has to offer. Unfortunately, it will be too late for them:

"For the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night...destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman and they will not escape" (1 Thessalonians 5:2-3).

Fortunately, the bride of Christ awaits a much different fate:

"For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath, but to receive salvation through our Lord Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 5:9)

And what happens to those who have received salvation through Jesus, and what are our instructions?

"...to wait for his Son from Heaven, whom he raised from the dead - Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath" (1 Thessalonians 1:10)

"I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is to come upon the whole earth..." (Revelation 3:10)

And better yet:

"For the Lord himself will come down from heaven...and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord Forever." (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17)

Now...Predictably, we'll see comments that will attempt to perform scriptural gymnastics and tell you that the clear, obvious scriptures above are not what they are. Don't let them steal your joy at the coming of Jesus.

For those who accept His gift of salvation, Jesus has already taken God's wrath on the cross. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

How did the apostle Paul define the hope of the rapture?

"Therefore encourage each other with these words" (1 Thessalonians 4:18)

Is it encouraging to tell people that they will have to face God's wrath when Jesus has already done so, for His bride?

What did Jesus say we should do in the midst of these last days signs?

Did Jesus say that we should brace for the coming Tribulation and prepare for the carnage?

Did Jesus say that we should prepare to face God's wrath (again), although He has already done so for His believers?

Let's take a look at what Jesus said:

"When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift your heads, because your redemption is drawing near." (Luke 21:28)

"Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near." (Luke 21:31).

Does that sound like a warning to face the coming Tribulation?

OR - do you see perfect harmony and consistency in these scriptures above?

Now. Predictably we'll see people come here (like moths to light) and tell you that you aren't "interpreting" the above correctly. That the simple, clear instructions above aren't what they appear to be. Then, scriptures that are completely unrelated to the above will be brought up and the focus will be shifted from the hope and encouragement of the above - to 1-2 random scriptures which bear no relation to the clear messages given to us by Jesus.

Rather than doing as Jesus said - which is to look for His return - in the midst of these signs - you will be told to shift your focus to muddled, convoluted views of different scriptures, while the above are either ignored or twisted into a scriptural pretzel.

Don't allow it. Jesus gave us nothing but hope in His salvation, and the promise that He alone took God's wrath on our behalf - and the incredible gift of salvation through accepting His gift.

And for those who do accept this gift - in the words of the apostle Paul, we are not expected to await the Tribulation and face God's wrath. Rather, "to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead - Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath"

Maranatha!

Jesus will come for His Bride. Its a guarantee and a rock-solid promise. Don't let anyone ever steal this joy.