Living In The Shadow...

...of the Tribulation, that is, as it so rapidly approaches. 

It seems that the birth pains leading into the Tribulation are picking up in frequency. It is completely expected so we shouldn't be the least bit surprised. As shocking as recent news are, we should be prepared for the movement towards a global financial system and a global governance to increase. This will continue as we simultaneously watch the destruction of the U.S. - another essential element of the approaching Tribulation (I have always contended that the rise of a global government and the antichrist would never happen with a strong, free America). Not to mention the fact that the U.S. is nowhere to be found in the detailed description of the Tribulation in Revelation 6-18. 

All of the above are happening now. 

Is this a source of pessimism? 

Absolutely not: 

Jesus said it best:

36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

37 “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.

Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

Not to mention the reassurances of these two gems as seen in Luke 21:28-31:

"When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."

"Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near."

So according to Jesus, we are not to be dismayed or sad. We have another kingdom to look forward to - the real kingdom. The only one that matters - the kingdom that we will inhabit throughout eternity. The things that we see happing here on earth right now are of no real consequence (other than reaching as many people as possible - to bring them into the same kingdom).  We are supposed to be looking up. 

One more point worth making and it is a point worth considering on a daily basis. The "powerful leaders" on the planet today? Those same leaders who are leading this world towards destruction? 

What does God have to say about them and their plans?

Psalm 33 gives us direction:

"The Lord foils the plans of the nations;

he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.

But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever...

From heaven the Lord looks down and sees all mankind;

from his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth - 

He who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do. 

No king is saved by the size of his army; 

no warrior escapes by his great strength.

But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him,

on those whose hope is in His unfailing love...

We wait in hope for the Lord; 

He is our help and our shield.

In Him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in His holy name

May your unfailing love rest upon us O Lord, 

even as we put our hope in You."

So. In summary. "They" can take our money. They can take our homes and our land. They can enslave us. They can imprison us. They can beat, humiliate, starve and kill us. They can attempt to instill fear in us.

But they can't take Jesus from us. They can't take our salvation. They can't remove what was done on the cross for us. They can't steal eternity from us. 

Keep those points in mind during these coming days. 

Our kingdom is in heaven - with our savior Christ Jesus. 

It won't be long now - He will come for His Bride. It's a guarantee. 

So meanwhile - look up. Our redemption is drawing near. 

Now, with that in mind to the "bad" news (aka "birth pains"):

Trans-Pacific Partnership fast track authority passes as U.S. sovereignty takes devastating blow: Obama now a “dictator” – Intellihub

In what will surly go down as one of the worst attacks on US sovereignty and overall freedom in American history, the Republican controlled Senate has given President Obama the fast track authority in what amounts to the passing of the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

By a vote of 60-38 the Senate handed over US sovereignty to multinational corporations and other globalist interest groups despite intense opposition from certain Tea Party Republicans and old school liberals within the Senate.

The TPP will cover 12 countries and over 40% of the world’s economy, eventually making the idea of a North American Union a reality through a global governance structure similar to the European Union.

The United States Congress will no longer have legislative control over things such as immigration, trade, and currency.

“Well it took them ten years to ram it through… in fact ten years ago the mainstream media said it didn’t exist. Now they admit it merges the North American Union and the European Union with the Asian Union… it’s the TPP.”

“This is, in the 240 year history of this country, the biggest blow to our sovereignty ever.”

Sections of the TPP published by Wikileaks have revealed the treaty’s vast influence over multiple areas including individual rights, internet freedom and even the rule of law itself. Unelected corporate boards and the President can now wield unprecedented control over almost every aspect of human activity.

[…]

Secret TPP chapters regarding immigration also grant President Obama an even greater ability to erode the country’s Southern border.

“Obama will be able to finalize all three of the Obamatrade deals, without any Congressional input…” notes Breitbart.

The TPP, which covers 12 countries and more than 40% of the world’s economy, will place North America under the same global government structure as the European Union, where laws are increasingly crafted outside of public influence.

As the mainstream media and a vast majority of the American people continue to focus on the horrific Charleston, South Carolina shooting and the ridiculous subsequent narrative around the Confederate flag, Congress has literally taken a major step towards the end of America as we know it.

Thanks To Your Congress, President May Now Use Fast-Track TPA Authority For Gun Control - The Daily Coin

“A nightmare scenario took a giant leap toward reality on Thursday, June 18 when 218 members of Congress voted to grant the president ‘trade promotion authority (TPA),’ the so-called ‘fast track’ “, reports ‘TheNewAmerican.com’ (and many others).

With this new power, the president is free to unilaterally issue international executive orders that are binding on the United States, so long as those orders concern trade.

And this includes your firearms and ammunition…

Is there any question whether President Obama will use this new power over “trade” to implement the provisions of the UN’s Arms Trade Treaty?

President Obama remembers that not too long ago, 53 senators voted “to uphold Second Amendment rights and prevent the United States from entering into the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty.”

But guess what… now it doesn’t matter so much. Your Congress has just voted to relinquish much of their own powers regarding trade treaties and have granted the president unprecedented authority.

Gun-grabbing politicians ALWAYS take immediate advantage of any tragedy in which a psychotic shooter implements harm on others. We now have the Charleston shooting, and they’re at it again. Not only are the usual suspects politicizing the tragic event, but now we have United Nations joining the chorus of confiscators while taking advantage of the Charleston shootings. A United Nations ‘Working Group’ has just ‘demanded’ that “urgent measures” be taken to reduce gun violence. They now have a working president in their pocket, and one with new TPA powers.

Do you really think that the current president and his gun-grabbing cohorts will overlook the opportunity to shut down more of your firearm and ammunition choices (or worse) now that he has this new unprecedented power?

Will Americans once again acquiesce to President Obama’s assumption of illegal authority and relinquish their rights and weapons regardless of the reasons they should not do so?

‘Roberts laughed’: SCOTUS tears down the rule of law before our eyes - Liberty Unyielding

People who like the outcome of King v. Burwell today have no refuge in law. There is no firmament beneath their feet.  Nothing to appeal to, now that the Supreme Court has decided, in a 6-3 decision, that the Obamacare law doesn’t mean what it is written to mean.

All the cheerleaders have is their enthusiasm for this ruling, about this law.

They’re going to find out much sooner than they might imagine that the protection they have enjoyed, under the aegis of the rule of law, is gone.  The dam has been breached.  The straw has broken the camel’s back.  Whatever metaphor you want to use:  the rule of law in the United States has been fatally compromised.

We know, of course, that Jonathan Gruber, one of the law’s chief architects, explicitly saidObamacare was intended to limit subsidies to policies purchased in state exchanges, because that would induce states to join the program and set up exchanges.

But we didn’t actually need to know that.  The law means what the law says, and the court’s charter (per Scalia, again) isn’t to repair the law but to interpret it as written.  It’s the legislature’s job to repair the law, if it has a consequence that eventually becomes unintended.

Fittingly, as reported by Josh Gerstein of Politico, Chief Justice John Roberts “smiled and laughed” when Scalia read out his scathing criticism of the Court’s rewriting of the law, and suggested that Obamacare should be known now as SCOTUScare (h/t: Business Insider).

Yes, what a joke.

Legal minds will write more detailed briefs about the ins and outs of the decision in King v. Burwell.  But what’s more important at this turning point is a sense of history, and what it means for a people when its last governmental refuge for black-letter understanding self-detonates.

America can’t remain the country we have been under these circumstances.  The high walls protecting the people against a weaponized government have collapsed.  There are still many who don’t see that – including conservatives – and I am deeply sorry for their blindness and unpreparedness.  Many of them mean well, or at least want to.

Today, the bulwarks of modern civilization have been collapsing around us, throughout the globe, for at least the last four years: faster and more dramatically than anyone would have predicted – and indeed at an accelerating pace.  We can expect the process to continue speeding up, even if it’s hard to predict from day to day exactly what events will mark its progress.

Those who predicted that we would end up this way, from decades of tempting fate by straying further and further from the intent of our Constitution and the character of a people fit for liberty, were right.  Those same people are right today.  This is the time of emergency, when things have gone too far and the country we live in is not the one we intended to preserve.  How fortunate we are to have such clarity on that today, with the lying, obfuscation, and abuse of law and government so glaringly obvious.

So we must be watchmen on the walls.  Liberty and limited government never just happen.  They always have to be established – over the objections of the fearful; over the objections of the small-minded; over the objections of people who want to deny their benefits to their fellow men.

Few generations are ever privileged to see the truth about what is happening to them as clearly as we do.  In some ways, it is an awesome thing (in the sense of inspiring solemnity and reflection) to witness the events of today’s world.  And keep in mind: the end of wisdom and enlightenment is not death, but life and hope.

ECONOMIC SLAVERY FOR ALL: While we were distracted with the Confederate flag flap, Congress quietly forfeited our entire economic future via fast-track trade authority - The Daily Coin

While America was distracted by a contrived, pre-planned Confederate flag distraction, the U.S. Congress forfeited the entire economic future of the country by quietly passing so-called “fast-track authority” which will allow President Obama to approve the TPP “free trade” agreement.

The TPP, as you may have heard, outright surrenders U.S. sovereignty to multinational corporations, handing them total global monopolies over labor practices, immigration, Big Pharma drug pricing, GMO food labeling, criminalization of garden seeds and much more. In all, the TPP hands over control of 80% of the U.S. economy to global monopolists, and the TPP is set up to enable those corporations to engage in virtually unlimited toxic chemical pollution, medical monopolization, the gutting of labor safety laws and much more.

Plus, did I mention the TPP will displace millions of American works as corporations outsource jobs to foreign workers? While corporations rake in the profits from new global powers, everyday American workers will lose their livelihoods and their jobs (not to mention their pensions).

Essentially, America just got sold out by people like Marco Rubio. And it was incredibly easy to pull off, too. First, America was distracted by a contrived, pre-planned mass hysteria / outrage event now known as the Confederate flag flap. Hilariously, this literal false flag controversy doesn’t even involve the actual Confederate flag. It involves a battle flag that people mistakenly think is the Confederate flag. (But who needs historical accuracy when there’s hysteria to spread?)

While Amazon.com was frantically deleting Confederate flag products from its websiteand everybody was going bat-crap insane over the 1970’s comedy TV series Dukes of Hazzard and its use of the so-called Confederate flag on a hot rod car, Republicans and the President were busy committing outright treason at the highest levels: surrendering American sovereignty and economically enslaving all of America’s future children.

And that’s the tragic irony of all this: While the political left falsely believed it was denouncing slavery by pressuring every online retailer and government entity to ban the Confederate flag, the U.S. Congress was busy enacting a whole new level of total economic enslavement for everyone, regardless of their skin color.

While ignorant “activists” ran around in mass hysteria, thinking they were banishing a symbol of enslavement to the history books, they were actually providing the necessary public distraction for quiet passage of the TPP’s fast-track authority.

In other words, they played right into the hands of the real slave masters: the globalist, monopolist corporations and their fascist government puppets who betray the People at every opportunity.

All Americans are now the “property” of multinational monopolist corporations that have turned national governments against their own people. The Confederate flag flap was merely a useful distraction to trick the population using political sleight of hand to fool everyone about the real agenda being pursued in Washington.

America is now officially a nation of slave workers beholden to multinational corporate interests. How does your silly flag outrage feel now?