How Much Closer?

Before today's news - just a quick footnote: The Pope's visit isn't being ignored by this site, in fact the plan is to have a more comprehensive view now that the visit is over, complete with a variety of commentaries. A quick question to ponder however is this: The Pope has had the world's attention now for about 4 days. Over this period of time, how many times has salvation through belief in Christ Jesus and what He did on the cross been mentioned? Just some food for thought. As a second thought - how would Billy Graham have dealt with a similar situation in terms of media coverage, multiple speeches etc.?

How Much Closer Are We Now?

We hear so much about "converging signs" today.  The Bible speaks about end-time signs that will increase like birth pangs near the end. I think we have passed the birth pang process, frankly.   

As a popular TV preacher said, "We're no longer in Kansas, nor the Land of Oz." Like Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz", we're looking around and seeing that everything is different. Everything we once took for granted and considered normal has been fundamentally transformed and usually not for the better. 

But God is allowing it all, even if He isn't orchestrating chaos, as He is not a God of chaos.  

Have you noted recent major stories and how they confirm the words of those of us saying that things aren't falling apart, they are falling in place. Stories like . . . 

• Russia and Iran co-operating and conspiring (Ezekiel 38-39).
• Gog is stirring. Russia has been relatively quiet for decades, but now Vladimir Putin is on the move.
• With ISIS marching towards Damascus, Syria is begging Israel to fulfill Isaiah 17.
• The United Nations, Barack Obama, the Pope, and many more, are clamoring for global government (Revelation 13).  All of these men may have interesting assignments in the kingdom of Antichrist.
• Because of the increase of wickedness, love is growing cold. (Matthew 24:12) Can you say Planned Parenthood? Have we returned to those predicted "days of Noah" where such evil as this was rampant? (Matthew 24:37)
• How about those "perilous times" (II Timothy 3)? Who other than deluded, power-drunk men and women, would give billions of dollars and nuke capacity to the mullahs who want to bring international chaos on the world so their Mahdi can return? Why would Westerners give such power to ayatollahs who want to ignite EMPs above the free world and send us back to the 1800s? Does the Mad Hatter rule? 
• Yet world leaders are crying in a Chamberlain-esque manner, "peace and safety!" (I Thess 5:3) They are calling evil good (Isaiah 5:20). Lighting the spark for Armageddon is good. Wiping out Israel is good. Making Iran the Mid East power is good. Allowing mad mullahs to mount nukes on their ICBMs, aimed at Western capitals, is good. This is leading to world peace! And the world will be one. Strong delusion!
• Europe is imploding. Barack Obama has dismantled America. The world is fundamentally transformed,thus it is awaiting a man, somewhere in the shadows, known as the Antichrist. He will  make things right, turn darkness into day, re-distribute wealth, and more. As Paul Henri Spaak, former Secretary General of NATO, said of a future "Mr. Fix-It," if he could lift us out of an economic morass, "be he god or devil, we will receive him." Note the adoration of Pope Francis. This is a foreshadowing. He is warranting the largest security effort in U.S. history. You would think he represents the Second Coming.
• Apostasy is so bad in many churches that people no longer attend church (II Timothy 4:3).
• The predicted evil is rising (II Timothy 3). The Hindu goddess Khali was beamed onto the Empire State Building a month ago. Perhaps she is the new matriarch of America, replacing our founders' dream of a God-inspired America. 
• And ALL nations are having "distress with perplexity" (Luke 21:28). ALL nations have dilemmas for which there are simply no solutions which is the meaning of "distress with perplexity".

I could go on and on but you get the point. We can't let breaking news interpret the Bible but we can see that a newspaper in one hand and a Bible in the other is complimentary. This doesn't have to be newspaper exegesis.

Scripture says that when we see these things BEGIN to  happen, we are to lift up our heads and know that our redemption draws nigh. That BEGAN to happen in 1948with the re-birth of Israel. How much closer are we now?

Everyone who is watching the signs of the times has a sense of urgency. A sense that there is a countdown. A sense that things are not the same and will never be the same again. 

And we don't have a yellow brick road that leads to a fantasy-land where all the good times will resume, but we do have our Heavenly Home where all things are perfect.

There Are Indications That A Major Financial Event In Germany Could Be Imminent

Is something about to happen in Germany that will shake the entire world?  According to disturbing new intel that I have received, a major financial event in Germany could be imminent.  Now when I say imminent, I do not mean to suggest that it will happen tomorrow.  But I do believe that we have entered a season of time when another “Lehman Brothers moment” may occur.  Most observers tend to regard Germany as the strong hub that is holding the rest of Europe together economically, but the truth is that serious trouble is brewing under the surface.  As I write this, the German DAX stock index is down close to 20 percent from the all-time high that was set back in April, and there are lots of signs of turmoil at Germany’s largest bank.  There are very few banks in the world that are more prestigious or more influential than Deutsche Bank, and it has been making headlines for all of the wrong reasons recently.

Just like we saw with Lehman Brothers, banks that are “too big to fail” don’t suddenly collapse overnight.  The truth is that there are always warning signs in advance if you look closely enough.

In early 2014, shares of Deutsche Bank were trading above 50 dollars a share.  Since that time, they have fallen by more than 40 percent, and they are now trading below 29 dollars a share.

It is common knowledge that the corporate culture at Deutsche Bank is deeply corrupt, and the bank has been exceedingly reckless in recent years.

If you are exceedingly reckless and you win all the time, that is okay.  Unfortunately for Deutsche Bank, they have increasingly been on the losing end of things.

Prior to the “sudden collapse” of Lehman Brothers on September 15th, 2008, there had been media reports of mass layoffs at the firm.  To give you just a couple of examples, CNBC reported on this on March 10th, 2008 and the New York Times reported on this on August 28th, 2008.

When big banks start getting into serious trouble, this is what they do.  They start getting rid of staff.  That is why the massive job cuts that Deutsche Bank just announced are so troubling…

Deutsche Bank aims to cut roughly 23,000 jobs, or about one quarter of total staff, through layoffs mainly in technology activities and by spinning off its PostBank division, financial sources said on Monday.

Deutsche Bank has also been facing mounting legal troubles.  The following is a brief excerpt from a recent Zero Hedge article…

The bank, which has paid out more than $9 billion over the past three years alone to settle legacy litigation, has become something of a poster child for corrupt corporate culture.

Of course the legal troubles are just the tip of the iceberg of what has been going on over at Deutsche Bank over the past couple of years.  The following is a pretty good timeline of some of the major events that have hit Deutsche Bank since the beginning of last year.  It comes from a NotQuant article that was published back in June entitled “Is Deutsche Bank the next Lehman?“…

What makes things even worse is how recklessly Deutsche Bank has been behaving.  At one point, it was estimated that Deutsche Bank had a staggering 75 trillion dollars worth of exposure to derivatives.  Keep in mind that German GDP for an entire year is only about 4 trillion dollars.  So when Deutsche Bank finally collapses, there won’t be enough money in Europe (or anywhere else for that matter) to clean up the mess.  This is a perfect example of why I am constantly hammering on the danger of these “weapons of financial mass destruction”.

If Deutsche Bank were to totally collapse, it would be a financial disaster far worse than Lehman Brothers.  It would literally take down the entire European financial system and cause global financial panic on a scale that none of us have ever seen before.

Sponsoring the Agents of Our Own Demise

According to U.S. Census Data, "the United States admits roughly 100,000 Muslim immigrants legally each year, representing the fastest growing block of [legal] immigration into the United States." 

"Pew Research has estimated that immigration will cause the population of U.S. Muslims to more than double over the next two decades—from 2.6 million in 2010 to 6.2 million in 2030. This demographic change is entirely the product of legal admissions - that is, it is a formal policy of the federal government adopted by Congress."

And over 50% of Muslims currently residing in America believe they have a choice of being governed by Sharia, instead of the Constitution and U.S. law. Their reasoning is that the Constitution was written by man, whereas Sharia is the law of Allah. As their population expands, we should expect that percentage to grow.

Similarly, National Review reported : "Dearborn, Michigan is home to just under 100,000 people, about 40 percent of whom are Muslim. In 2013, a leaked government document revealed that more people from Dearborn were on the federal terrorist watch list than from any other city except New York," and NYC has a population of well over 8 million.

Earlier this year, Senator Marco Rubio introduced an immigration legislation that would substantially increase opportunities for Muslim immigration by creating an uncapped green card program "for foreign students specializing in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields while tripling the number of H-1B visas. One of the fastest growing groups of foreign students is from Saudi Arabia, helping propel the foreign student population to an all-time high." The Saudis pretend to be our friends and allies, but the Wahhabis they spawn are the worst kind of Islamist—not that there's a best kind. And look at STEM. All the ideal fields of study for the budding terrorist. Brilliant!

We are literally sponsoring the agents of our own demise – both culturally and legally.