In The News: The Tribulation Rapidly Approaches

If you can't see it, you aren't paying attention. 

The signs of the generation that we have been given - all of them - including the rise of the revived Roman Empire (EU/Med Union - see Daniel 2&7), the generational signs given by Jesus (world war, famine, pestilence, persecution, quakes, etc.), the revealing of the prophetic scrolls, the rapid increase in "knowledge" and "travel" (Daniel 12), the push for a world-government, financial system, single currency (Revelation 13&17), America's rapid decline and descent into a banana republic (exclusion from Revelation 6-18), loss of freedom, movements towards totalitarianism, worldwide financial collapse (Revelation 6-18), the Middle East situation today including the various alliances as seen in Ezekiel 38-39, Isaiah 17, etc... Most of these signs actually point to the Tribulation, and because we know that the Rapture of the Church is destined to occur prior to the 'official kickoff' of the Tribulation (Daniel 9:27) at the confirmation of the covenant, we watch the signs as the Tribulation approaches. 

Like the proverbial frog in the water, with slowly increasing temperature, reaching the boiling point without the frog realizing his peril, the same is happening with the humans on this planet. The signs above have been appearing and increasing over the course of this entire generation - initially, quite insidiously, but gathering steam as the 'birth pains' increase in frequency and severity. 

Watching the news in the presence of the Holy Spirit, for appropriate discernment, it is crystal clear that the Tribulation is just a step away. Of course, that is good news for the prophecy watcher, as that can only mean that Jesus is just on the verge of coming for His Bride. 

As we remain here, for whatever brief period remains, the signs that the Tribulation is approaching hits the Christian prophecy watcher by a 2x4 (that's a big piece of wood for the non-Americans reading!)

First some Middle East Updates:

U.S. Marines To Deploy On Jordanian-Syrian Border

A large American military force disembarked Tuesday, June 4, at the southern Jordanian port of Aqaba - ready for deployment on the kingdom’s Syrian border

The force made its way north along the Aqaba-Jerash-Ajilon mountain road bisecting Jordan from south to north, under heavy Jordanian military escort.

Our sources disclose that this American force numbers 1,000 troops, the largest to land in Jordan since the Syrian civil war erupted in March 2012. They are members of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Force carried aboard the USS Kearsage amphibious assault ship, which has been anchored off neighboring Israeli Eilat since mid-May. Upon landing, the marines took to the road in a convoy of armored vehicles including Hummers.

According to our US sources, the arrival of the US force in Jordan was not directly related to the regular exercise but decided on at an emergency meeting at the Pentagon on May 31, which was attended by top military and civilian Defense Department officials. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, who is away from Washington, took part by video conference.

The meeting decided that the military situation evolving in Syria and threats it posed to Jordan – including widening evidence of chemical weapons use in Syria - were urgent enough to warrant the dispatch of extra American military strength to Jordan, over and above the contingents participating in the joint exercise. The Israeli Air Force will provide air cover for the force until the F-16 jets are in place for the drill.

U.S. 'Deeply Troubled' Over Iran's Nuclear Reactor Plans

[Of course, we know American 'leadership' won't do anything about this...unless of course the Saudi leadership dictates such, but I digress]

The United States said on Wednesday it is "deeply troubled" over Iran's plans to launch a new heavy water reactor in 2014 while failing to provide the UN nuclear watchdog with necessary design information about the plant.

Western diplomats and experts say the Arak reactor could yield plutonium for nuclear bombs if its spent fuel were reprocessed, something which Iran says it has no intention of doing. 

The UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says Iran must urgently provide it with design data about the facility, warning that it would otherwise adversely affect its inspectors' ability to monitor the site effectively.

"We are deeply troubled that Iran claims that the IR-40 heavy water reactor at Arak could be commissioned as soon as early 2014, but still refuses to provide the requisite design information for the reactor," US Ambassador Joseph Macmanus told a meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors.

He cited IAEA rules that a member state must inform theVienna-based UN agency about a nuclear facility, and give design details, as soon as it has decided to build it.

"Iran's refusal to fulfil this basic obligation must necessarily cause one to ask whether Iran is again pursuing covert nuclear activities," Macmanus said.

Report: Russia Not Yet Training Syrians On S-300

Russia is training Syrian military officers on anti-aircraft missile systems but not yet on the advanced S-300 system, Interfax news agency reported on Wednesday, citing a Russian military source.

Russia has said it will resist pressure to scrap a contract to sell Damascus S-300s, which Western governments say could prolong Syria's civil war, but President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that S-300 missiles had not yet been sent to Syria.

Syrian officers are among about 250 foreigners from 19 countries being trained by a Russian military academy that is responsible for air defense weapons, Interfax cited an unidentified source as saying.

"Training of Syrian officers under the S-300 program is not yet taking place," the source was quoted as saying. He said most of the Syrian officers had arrived before the uprising against President Bashar Assad began in March 2011. 

Some Western diplomats have suggested Moscow is using the systems as a bargaining chip to try to amplify its voice in efforts to end more than two years of bloodshed in Syria.

Why Turkey Matters

The riots in Turkey can turn our world upside-down fast.  Turkey's geographical position as a European and an Asian nation which commands the natural straits into the Black Sea are important as long as sea lanes have value.  The history of this land -- the home of Troy, the place where Constantine founded his great city and empire, the marches across which Achaemenid emperors sent their polyglot hordes against the fledging city-states of Greece, the center of much of the early Christian church -- makes Turkey as important in atlases of the past as Rome or Persia.

When Iran was lost to the West, it not only affected the Cold War and condemned millions of Afghans to the nightmare of the Taliban, but it also meant that a nation which had normal diplomatic and trade relations with Israel suddenly condemned Israel to its present tag as the "Little Satan."  Turkey, unlike the Arab Muslim world, has had normal relations with Israel.

If Turkey becomes another Iran, if the belt of non-Arab Muslims from Kazakhstan to Malaysia become viscerally and inalterably hostile to the existence of Israel, if these nations do what seemed four decades ago unthinkable in Iran, then we may be quickly faced with two very powerful forces: the hatred of Israel, which could propel conventional war and more against the Jewish state, and the absolute determination of the vast majority of Israelis to survive in the nation they made.

And Don't Forget About Earthquakes

Food for thought: 

If you can't recognize the creeping totalitarianism by this point, you probably never will. Just glancing at the daily headlines, this bit of information reaches out and grabs you by the throat. Tyranny and totalitarianism is approaching so rapidly it makes your head spin. It's coming, and its coming very very fast. The antichrist must be pretty excited because he won't have that much work to do in order to fulfill his wishes. The road has already been paved. 

As far as the situation in the United States goes - have you noticed that nothing has been done? No corrective action? Have you noticed that the criminals in the Obama administration continue to get promoted and absolutely no [real] disciplinary action has been taken?  Have you noticed that these various scandals became public via the administration itself?

Is it possible that these stories became public in order to reveal to the public that the administration will do as it chooses, without any penalty? Is it possible that all of this is becoming exposed as a warning? A warning that Christians and freedom lovers in America will be harassed [at best - with far far worse coming] and there is absolutely nothing that will be done to stop it? Is it possible that this administration is attempting to reveal these very things to the public in an ominous showing of unstoppable power? 

The Evil Of Banality

In a book published in 1963, Hannah Arendt immortalized an expression that since has become the signature line to describe a person who commits acts of prodigious evil simply in the process of following orders. The individual in question was Adolf Eichmann, whose trial resulted in her treatment titled, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Eichmann was banal, all right; in fact, as alluded to in T. S. Eliot's famous poem, "The Hollow Men," he resembled Mister Kurtz in Joseph Conrad's chilling Heart of Darkness -- "hollow at the core." Which did not prevent him from carrying out horrific acts befitting a moral cypher whose only defense was "do not judge me."

Such a sentiment, along with a reverse formulation of Arendt's famous line, lurk beneath the responses of those called to testify before Congress to justify their behaviors in the three scandals currently being investigated by outraged Republicans as well as a smattering of concerned and perhaps embarrassed Democrats. Variations of responses that range from "I don't recall," and "I have no memory of that detail," to a simple "I don't know" pepper the testimonies of thickly credentialed functionaries whose main goal, it seems, is to barricade themselves behind pillars of paperwork that shield them from efforts to ascertain professional responsibility. Call this the Eichmann-Kurtz defense, which was manifested to a ridiculous extreme by Lois Lerner at the IRS, who proclaimed innocence of any wrongdoing -- and then took the Fifth Amendment for protection from self-incrimination.

It is the moral core that is lacking, that falls short of the levels of responsibility involved. One senses an ethical hollowness that reduces otherwise "respectable" public servants into bastions of banality capable of inflicting evil in the American democratic republic. Or rather, their moral development reaches only to the level of banal officiousness, but not to that deeper level where moral courage prevails.

In the superb documentary series, The World at War, Lawrence Olivier narratesan account of a German woman who witnessed a synagogue burning after Kristallnacht. She noted an observer saying, "Shame to our culture!" A Gestapo agent standing nearby immediately reported him to the government. The lesson was clear; you don't take a position against government policy and get away with it.

This is an extreme example, of course. But still frightening and instructive nonetheless. And these cases -- Benghazi, the IRS, and journalist intimidation -- cannot be dismissed as mere "distractions" or footnotes in the adventures of partisan politics. Together they are daggers aimed at the heart of the American democratic process, and perhaps, God help us, harbingers of worse things to come. All of which is more than just "chilling." It's evil. The evil of banality.

IRS Agent To Pro-Life Group: 'Please Explain In Detail The Activities At Your Prayer Meetings'

[To consider appropriate perspective - can you imagine the reaction this would have created in the late 1700's in this once proud nation?]

“This passage could have come directly from George Orwell’s imagination, emphasis mine,” Allahpundit writes atHot Air, linking to testimony from Sue Martinek, president of the Coalition for Life of Iowa, to the House Ways and Means Committee today:

“[T]he IRS continued questioning us,” Martinek continued. “On June 22, 2009, IRS Agent Richards sent us additional written requests, as follows: ‘Please explain how all of your activities, including the prayer meetings held outside of Planned Parenthood are considered educational as defined under 501(c)(3).”

She added: “Organizations exempt under 501(c)(3) may present opinions with scientific or medical facts. Please explain in detail the activities at the prayer meetings. Also, please provide the percentage of time your organization spends on prayer groups as compared with the other activities of the organization. Please explain in detail the signs that are being held up outside of Planned Parenthood and explain how they are considered educational.’

As Allahpundit writes:

Yes, when I pray to our Lord, I usually check in with my local IRS office to ensure I’m not transgressing their authority by appealing to Him.  We are The Bureaucracy, and thou shalt have no other God before us.

More importantly, though, note that this began in June 2009 — long before Citizens United, with the Tea Party movement still in its nascent stage.  This demonstrates a hostility to conservative, pro-life activism that existed within the IRS well before the supposed triggering event from the Supreme Court.  It came well before the eruption of outrage at Congressional town-hall events during the recess of August 2009 that put the Tea Party movement on the national radar.

As Mark Steyn wrote in his Friday column, the process is the punishment.

Let's take a look at that one:

The Process Is The Punishment

“When the most lavishly funded government on the planet comes after you, eventual guilt or innocence is irrelevant: The process is the punishment,” Mark Steyn writes in his weekly column:

You know what to do next.

Every day brings revelations that the IRS conservative crackdown went way beyond the Tea Party. McClatchy Newspapers reports that a woman known only as “Ms. Richards” in the Cincinnati office of the IRS told Coalition for Life of Iowa that their application for nonprofit status could only be approved if they signed a letter promising not to picket in front of Planned Parenthood. Mark Drabik, a military veteran, became politically active and started giving to conservative groups only to have the IRS challenge his church donations. Catherine Engelbrecht founded True the Vote to protect ballot integrity, and within a few months her family’s business, farm, and personal taxes had all attracted IRS audits. Hundreds and hundreds of groups were consigned to the purgatory of “pending” — a term for IRS customers not as favored as Malik Obama can stretch leisurely from six months to ten to twenty to thirty, and beyond. When the most lavishly funded government on the planet comes after you, eventual guilt or innocence is irrelevant: The process is the punishment.

IRS Employees: We Targeted Conservative Groups On Orders From Washington

Ahead of new hearings on the IRS abuse scandal, the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee has releasedtranscripts of depositions it has taken with IRS employees. The employees directly contradict IRS honcho Lois Lerner’s claim that the targeting was merely the work of “rogue” employees in the IRS Cincinnati office.

Q: So is it your perspective that ultimately the responsible parties for the decisions that were reported by the IG are not in the Cincinnati office?
A: I don’t know how to answer that question.  I mean, from an agent standpoint, we didn’t do anything wrong.  We followed directions based on other people telling us what to do.
Q: And you ultimately followed directions from Washington; is that correct?
A: If direction had come down from Washington, yes.
Q: But with respect to the particular scrutiny that was given to Tea Party applications, those directions emanated from Washington; is that right?
A: I believe so.

The claim that “rogue agents” came up with the Be On the Lookout (BOLO) list never made any sense. The claim that “rogue agents” came up with the many detailed questions that conservative groups were subjected to never made any sense. The claim that “rogue agents” would come up with so much extra work for themselves, outside their normal responsibilities and outside their union contract, never made any sense. Getting unionized workers to do extra work requires the union’s buy-in. Getting bureaucrats to do extra work requires orders from their superiors. That’s how government works.

Collaboration With Terrorists

As the Obama administration seeks to move beyond a welter of scandals, a new report by investigative journalist Patrick Poole reveals that the frenzy isn’t quite over yet. On top of the IRS’s targeting of conservatives, the DOJ’s seizure of reporters’ phonerecords and the coverup surrounding the murder of four Americans in Benghazi, the White House’s years-long collaboration with supporters of terrorism is finally getting the scrutiny it deserves.

Poole uses a quote by Andrew McCarthy, who prosecuted the Blind Sheikh, toencapsulate the insidiousness of this policy. “I marched into the courtroom every day for nine months and proved that there was an undeniable nexus between Islamic doctrine and terrorism committed by Muslims…And when I demonstrated the straight-line, undeniable logic of the evidence—that scripture informed the Blind Sheikh’s directives; that those directives informed his terrorist subordinates; and that those subordinates then committed atrocities—the government gave me the Justice Department’s highest award,” McCarthy writes. “Today, I’d be ostracized. No longer is the government content to be willfully blind. Today, it is defiantly, coercively, extortionately blind.”

It is far worse than that. When five members of Congress led by the retiring Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) attempted to ascertain the level of Islamic infiltration into the government of the United States, members of both political parties, along with the media, excoriated their efforts to protect the American public. Their ire was further stoked by the group’s inquiry into Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s family, despite the reality that her mother, brother and deceased father are/were members of the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliate organization, the Muslim Sisterhood. Ironically, given the parameters of the Touchstone Document, it would now likely be irrelevant if Huma Abedin herself belonged to either branch of the organization.

Yet as this extensive investigation by Poole reveals, Bachmann, et al., have not only been vindicated, they may have underestimated the problem. It remains to be seen if Congress, already up to its necks in administration scandals, will be willing to take this one on as well. As the atrocity in Boston indicates, American lives literally depend on it.

How Extensive Is The NSA Domestic Surveillance?

When the Obama administration started to pursue whistleblowers they took it to a whole new level than previous administrations by going aggressively after the journalists—the government watchdogs, and their whistleblowing sources by misusing government agencies. 

We saw it recently with AttorneyGeneral Eric Holders’ Justice Department targeting of FOX Newsreporter James Rosen and by secretly collecting two months of telephone records from reporters and editors at The Associated Press.
The question that must be asked and answered now is does the National Security Agency (NSA) domestic surveillance program apply to the U.S. citizens in the media as well? The reason this question must be asked is because it appears, myCanada Free Press colleague, private investigator of the Northeast Intelligence Network, journalist, and popular radio show host of the Hagmann & Hagmann report, Doug Hagmann, has apparently been caught up in the NSA’s media dragnet.

This is particularly disturbing for many reasons.
First, the Utah Data Center, also known as the First Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cyber-security Initiative Data Center, according to a whistleblower, has software that eavesdrops on domestic phone calls. 

The NSA is for external surveillance, not inside the United States. It appears that the NSA is doing domestic surveillance on American citizens. While Hagmann’s reporting appears in an international publication, Canada Free Press, so do James Rosen’s reports appear internationally on FOX News.

Now read the paragraph below very carefully and contemplate (and consistent with the theory I proposed above in large, red print):

What is really being protected is the cover-up of what has been going on inside the Obama administration. Make no mistake about it. These investigations are intended to intimidate and silence the media and the whistleblowers. What do you suppose the possibility is that even the ring-back on Hagmann’s phone was actually an intentional subtle threat—both for him and his whistleblowing sources. No national security secrets have been put at risk. No spies have been put at risk of being exposed either. The only risk is exposing the extent of the Obamaadministration’s gunning operations into Syria and the real reason behind the Benghazi attack.

Eric Holder and the Justice Department have already misused domestic surveillance assets and personnel. The apparent use of the NSA’s assets and tools against Hagmann raises an entirely different measure of concern that falls within the purview of a separate Congressional investigation. Just when you thought it couldn’t get bigger than Holder, the IRS, and Benghazi, the NSA pops up. How many ugly, squirrely critters might we find when we roll this rock over?You can bet , like what happened with FOX News and the Associated Press at Justice, Hagmann and Jewel are the tip of the iceberg at the NSA.

2/3 Of America To Lose Everything Because Of This Crisis

[It is crystal clear that all of what we are watching is part of a bigger plan]

A record breaking stock market is distorting a frightening reality:  The U.S. is being eaten alive by a horrific cancer that will ultimately destroy the economy and impoverish the vast majority of its citizens.

That's according to Peter Schiff, the best-selling author and CEO of Euro Pacific Capital, who delivered his harsh warning to investors in a recent interview on Fox Business.

"I think we are heading for a worse economic crisis than we had in 2007," Schiff said.  "You're going to have a collapse in the dollar...a huge spike in interest rates... and our whole economy, which is built on the foundation of cheap money, is going to topple when you pull the rug out from under it."

Schiff says that, despite "phony" signs of an economic recovery, the cancer destroying America stems from a lethal concoction of our $16 trillion federal debt and the Fed's never ending money printing.

Currently, Bernanke and company is buying $1 trillion of Treasury and mortgage bonds a year. That's about $85 billion per month against a budget deficit that is about the same level.

According to Schiff, these numbers are unsustainable. And the Fed has no credible "exit strategy."

Eventually interest rates will rise... and when they do, Schiff says, stocks will tank and bonds dip to nothing. Massive new tax hikes will be imposed and programs and entitlements will be cut to the bone.

In his most recent book, "The Real Crash" How to Save Yourself and Your Country", Schiff writes that
when the "real crash" comes," it will be worse than the Great Depression.

Unemployment will skyrocket, credit will dry up, and worse, the dollar will collapse completely, "wiping out all savings and sending consumer prices into the stratosphere."

According to polls, the average American is indeed sensing danger. A recent survey found that 61% of Americans believe a catastrophe is looming - yet only 15% feel prepared for such a deeply troubling event.

All we can do now is to prepare for Jesus' arrival - to be looking up for His return. It's all that is left now - but it is highly appropriate and directed by Jesus Himself (Luke 21:28-31). Obviously Jesus knew exactly what we believers would be witnessing on this very day - and obviously He knew how concerning it would be. Jesus gave us specific instructions, that when we see these things to be looking for Him and His return. That's good news in the midst of living in very very dark days on this planet. But our time here won't last much longer. Jesus said so, and I believe Him with every fiber of my being. 

It won't be long now. 

Maranatha!