That Whosoever Believeth…

There were shepherds "out in their fields, keeping watch over their flock" perhaps in route that very night to the Passover, shepherds who heard the angelic message: "... unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior..."And this shall be a "sign" unto you... "the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger."

"They came with haste, and found" the babe swaddled in strips of cloth used for wrapping the dead, and cradled in a feeding trough, perhaps one of their own. That night, they alone understood this was "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," and they BELIEVED and "made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds" (cf., Luke 2:8-20).

The "Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" has already paid the debt for every sin we have ever committed or will yet comment (cf., 1John 2:2), BUT ONE MORE THING IS REQUIRED:

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever BELIEVETH in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that BELIEVETH on him is not condemned: but he that BELIEVETH not is condemned already, because he hath not BELIEVED in the name of the only begotten Son of God" (John 3:16-18; emphasis added).

How can I be saved?

The Night Before Christmas

Raiders of the Lost Menorah

The pontiff, in negotiations earlier this year urged the release of U.S. held communist spies to improve U.S.-Cuban relations. A few hours ago President Obama announced a Cuban-American agreement that included that provision.

However, the Vatican has yet to urge the release of Jonathan Pollard, 30 years into his radically disproportionate life sentence for spying “for” an American ally. Unfortunately, Rome has a 2000 year history of Semitic bias:

Rome’s Arch of Titus depicts the triumphant return of Roman’s legions from the destruction of Jerusalem. Titus, on horse drawn chariot, accompanied by the winged goddess Victoria leads a laurelled procession carrying the temple menorah, the symbol of the Nation of Israel. Biblical Archeology Review (July/August 2005), with cover featuring that relief, recounts a meeting between Israel’s Minister of Religious Affairs Shimon Shetreet and Vatican officials: A “tense silence” was reported when Shetreet suggested that Israel’s golden menorah may be in a Vatican storeroom and requested the Pope’s assistance in its location. The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs explains why this and similar requests have met with a similar response:

The requests by Shetreet, the president, and the chief rabbis reflect the long-held belief that the Catholic Church – as the inheritor of Rome, took possession of the empire’s booty – as documented by the Arch of Titus. … This is not to say that 2,000 years or so have been enough time for the [Vatican’s] Foreign Ministry to formulate a policy on the matter. Unofficially at least, we look forward to the restoration of the treasures of the Jewish people … but do not anticipate this will occur before the coming of the Messiah.

How can I be saved?

Little Red Riding Hood

“The Good Book says don’t throw stones at glass houses…” Our President advised during his recent in-your-face justification of executive amnesty nullifying our Union. His “extra-biblical” “glass houses” quote was intended to allude to the passage that begins with the verse that every spiritual reprobate knows by heart and in the King James no less; “Judge not, that ye be not judged….” (cf. Matthew 7:1-5 ).

However, once again his army of ghost writers let him down as on a 2010 pre-election campaign stop:

"I came to my Christian faith later in life and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead. Being my brother's and sisters’ keeper, treating others as they would treat me..." (President Barack Hussein Obama during a pre-election campaign stop in Albuquerque, N.M.).

Remember Little Red Riding Hood and that one particularly intense moment when she says: "Grandmother, what big teeth you have"? No matter how hard the big bad wolf tried, there are some things a wolf just can't fake.

Same with President Obama today. Even with an army of ghost writers scripting the answer for an obviously staged question, faking faith just isn't easy. Here are just a few of the words of Scripture Team Obama got woefully backwards:

"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them..." (Matthew 7:12).

How can I be saved?

The Prodigal

That’s my father on the right with a string on his finger. On the left his younger brother David on leave from the Navy. Together again with their sister on that all so familiar Missouri farm late in November. The “Dust Bowl Days” were past and “Great Depression” over. It had been a wonderful time, that Thanksgiving of 1941. And it was after 2 AM as my father gently triggered the camera shutter. A few hours later, the “prodigal” was again on his way.

The U.S.S. Oglala, bucking the waves under full power, being urgently propelled toward its Pacific destination. It had to arrive at the appointed time. However, fatigue eventually took its toll on the minelayer, a WW1 converted passenger steamer. Silently adrift, it summoned assistance. After a tow cable was attached and the feverish pace resumed, David commented to his superior: “If we go any faster that cable is ‘gona’ snap.” And “snap” it did!

The U.S.S. Oglala entered Pearl Harbor during the early morning hours of December 7, the last to arrive. It moored “side by side” with the U.S.S. Helena, completing the formation of "Battleship Row."

And as the sun rose on “December 7, 1941,” most of the Oglala crew, including her commanding officer, were still “out on the town.” However, the men in the boiler room, the cook, the second in command, and a few others including David were at their stations. When the sound of revving planes and whistling bombs punctuated the morning tranquility, General Quarters was sounded. The second in command screamed, “Man the Guns”! David screamed back: “What guns”! Someone found the keys, unlocked the magazine, and after some fumbling a 3"/50 cal. A.A. gun and three .30 cal. machine guns were manned and returning fire.

Then as several enemy planes strafed the deck, a buddy standing immediately behind David was struck in the face, then a Zero flying low and amidships, then a torpedo and its contrail as it converged on the Oglala. It would soon be over! The Oglala lifted out of the water, but he was still alive! The submerged munition had gone under the Oglala and struck the Helena on the other side.

They continued firing, reporting some “definite hits.” However, the Oglala’s hull had ruptured and was flooding rapidly. For an hour and a half the meager crew was uninterrupted in returning fire as the Oglala continued to list to her port side. 5°, 10°, 15°, 20°. Then as the commanding officer finally returned, the Oglala listed to its side, and those who could swam away.

Back on a farm in Missouri, a family had but one thought: “Is he alive.” The phone was never unattended. A speaker in the kitchen was connected remotely to the wireless in the library. And as hours turned to days, a mother listened and waited. And during the days before Christmas, sleep was haunted by the thought of “tapping” sailors trapped in the hulls of sunken ships….

In the years that followed David never forgot that day or his buddy, and the question: "Why him, not me?" The “prodigal” returned to the soil, married, had children, and as aimless years went by, he was haunted by the question: "Why not me"?

Then one night in a small church, down on his 70 year old knees, he found the answer:

“I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son.... And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him…. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found….” (Luke 15:18-24).

Not long ago, his pastor was at the hospital with his wife and son. "Dad, you are the best father a son could ever have." David, gasping for breath from the decadence of earlier years, with effort and in kind responded "you are the best son a father could ever have." And as final exchanges waned, his pastor ask: "David, do you want the service at the church or the funeral home?" Then David with joy and peace and a smile consistent with his latter years shot back: "SURPRISE ME"!

"Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us" (Hebrews 12:1).

How can I be saved?

Der Übermensch

A conservative writer recently raised the question: "Should the President be impeached?" The question is not IF but CAN!

The President has ingratiated himself to every nation of the world at the expense of his own. He has succoured media collaboration, consolidated a consensual military by purge, and amalgamated what is essentially a single party system. In addition he has been uncontested in superseding the constitution, and at discretion has constitutionally endowed emergency powers i.e., a legal form of martial law. And of course the "Snowden factor" i.e., the ultimate power that comes from knowing the thoughts and intents of the heart of every cyber-connected soul on earth. Something a "Watergate" world could never conceive in it wildest dream.

He has amassed a political "infrastructure" eclipsing "der Übermensch" and will retain the presidency until such a time that he distains it, or God ordains otherwise.

"Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God" (Romans 13:1).

How can I be saved?

The Insurrectionist

Does Obama even have a foreign policy?"Yes, of course he does, he is the "Insurrectionist," his foreign policy consummated the Arab Spring that metastasized into an "Arab Winter."

He accomplished this by subverting powers "ordained of God."

"Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation (Romans 13:1-2).

Our President signed a secret order authorizing covert support for anti-Gaddafi rebels, give support to anti-Mubarak rebels, and sent arms and intel to the anti Assad rebels.

Our "Insurrectionist" President is playing a part in the play that will eventually fulfill the "Word of the Lord": 'Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears" (cf. Joel 3:9-10).

"Schwerter zu Pflugscharen - Jewgeni Wutschetitsch - Geschenk der Sowjetunion an die UNO - 1959" by Neptuul - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Schwerter_zu_Pflugscharen_-_Jewgeni_Wutschetitsch_-_Geschenk_der_Sowjetunion_an_die_UNO_-_1959.jpg#/media/File:Schwerter_zu_Pflugscharen_-_Jewgeni_Wutschetitsch_-_Geschenk_der_Sowjetunion_an_die_UNO_-_1959.jpg

Jerusalem

Mother of Exiles

Liberty Enlightening the World 

(La Liberté éclairant le monde) (1886) by Edward Moran. 

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame 
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name 
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand 
Glows world-wide welcome… 
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she 
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, 
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, 
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. 
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, 
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Emma Lazarus' words, so misconstrued. Lazarus never intended her sonnet a convenient ploy for all the “leftists” of the world and their grasping adherents demanding “social justice” based entitlements.

Lazarus' 1883 sonnet "The New Colossus" was an intercession “for such a time as this” reminiscent of her ancient counterpart Esther for the life of her "people," “the Jews” (cf. Esther 4:13-14; Esther 7:3-4).

Mordecai (her father) answered “... Esther, Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house, more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall... deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this” (Esther 4:13-14)?

"Then Esther the queen answered and said, If I have found favour in thy sight, O king, and if it please the king, let my life be given me at my petition, and my people at my request: For we are sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to perish. But if we had been sold for bondmen and bondwomen, I had held my tongue, although the enemy could not countervail the king's damage” (Esther 7:3-4).

Konstantin Pobedonostsev was the “eminence grise" of imperial Russian politics during the late nineteenth-century reign of Alexander III. In his capacity as Ober-Procurator of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Pobedonostsev proposed a solution to the “Jewish problem”:

"One-third was to emigrate, one-third was to die, and one-third to disappear (i.e. be converted)." (Edward Flannery, "The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Anti-Semitism," New York: Macmillan Company, 1965, pp. 189-190).

With prose contagious with Semitic ardor and poetry imbued with lyrical and Hebraic fire, Emma Lazarus lifted her “lamp beside the golden door!" And they came! Between 1881 and 1914, approximately two and a half million Jews emigrated to Western Europe and America, one of the largest mass migrations in recorded history.

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame 
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name 
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand 
Glows world-wide welcome...

Emma Lazarus [“Mother of Exiles”]

How can I be saved?

The November Crisis

A few hours ago Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear agency signed a contract with Iran to build two nuclear reactors and tentatively expand the total number of Iran’s Russian reactors to eight. The deal comes just two weeks before Tehran’s self-imposed November 24 deadline to consummate what would essentially have been a nuclear non-proliferation agreement with the U.S., Russia and four other global powers. However, the new Russian Iranian alliance threatens to preempt all previous diplomatic effort, leaving the world hurtling all the faster toward the “midnight hour.”

“… Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20).

How can I be saved?

The Flying Dutchman

On Nov. 10, 1942, a C-47 called The Flying Dutchman was ferrying replacements and supplies from Port Moresby to an airstrip near Pongani, New Guinea. This may have been the day my father and his best friend were alone guarding the strip when a sniper made a choice that gave me life.

Seven were killed, and two groups of four shortly went for help, leaving the remaining eight seriously injured and burned survivors alone on what had come to be known as "Ghost Mountain" where even the moss-covered trees illuminated the night with a phosphorescent glow.

It was the eeriest place I ever saw. The trees were covered with moss a half a foot thick. We would walk along a hogback, straddling the trail, with a sheer drop of thousands of feet two feet on either side of us. We kept hearing water running somewhere, but we couldn’t find any. We could thrust a stick six feet down in the spongy stuff we were walking on without hitting anything real solid. It was ungodly cold. There wasn’t a sign of life. Not a bird. Not a fly. Not a sound. It was the strangest feeling I ever had. If we stopped, we froze. If we moved, we sweated (Lt. Paul R. Lutjens, Co. E, 126TH).

In a moment of time they were caught up in a surrealistic world, a land of headhunters that inhabited both the shadows of darkness and dreams. But they had one small Bible with which to prepare for the “midnight hour.”

In 1967, the Pacific wreck of the The Flying Dutchman was found, and on one of its doors, the following inscribed, including the last recorded prayer, December Thurs-24:

Crashed 1:30 Tues - 10 of Nov. - 1942
Tues-10 17 men alive
Wed-11 16 men alive
Thurs-12 4 men started for help
Fri-13
Sat-14 Tried to put up balloon
Sun-15 Cracker and cheese
Mon-16 4 men started for help-due South leaves eight men left
Tues-17 Small piece cheese
Wed-18 Chocolate bar
Thurs-19 Found one chocolate bar
Fri-20 1/3 can tomato juice
Sat-21 1/3 can tomato juice
Sun-22 Drank last 1/3 can of tomato juice
Mon-23 Last cigarette-even butts
Tues-24 First day-no rain
Wed-25 2nd day-no rain
Thurs-26 Rain today-also clear in morning
Fri-27 Bucket full water this morn-still got our chin up.
Sat-28 Clearest day we have had
Sun-29 Nice clear day. Boy we're getting weak still have our hope
Mon-30 Still going strong on imaginary meals
December Tues-1 My summer is here - went to spring today
Wed-2 Just slid by but Boy it rained
Thurs-3 Kinda cold and cloudy today-still plenty hungry-Boy a cig. would do good
Fri-4 Same ole thing-clear this morn
Sat-5 Boy nothing happened-just waiting
Sun-6 Had service today. Still lots of hope
Mon-7 Year ago today the war started-Boy we didn't think of this then
Tues-8 Nice day - still living on thru this
Wed-9 Cloudy. God is looking out for our water supply
Thurs-10 Just thirty days ago. We can take it but would be nice if someone came
Fri-11 Cold rainy day. We would like to start out before Christmas
Sat-12 Fairly nice day-still plenty of water
Sun-13 Beautiful morning everyone has high hopes
Mon-14 Waiting
Tues-15 Waiting
Wed-16 New water place today
Thurs-17 Running out of imaginary meals. Boys shouldn't be long in coming now. Six more shopping days
Fri-18 Nice and warm this morning. Rained in the afternoon
Sat-19 Pretty cold last night. Cold this morning too. Water pretty low. Five more days till Xmas
Sun-20
Mon-21 Plenty of water
Tues-22 Rained all three days
Wed-23 Thinking about home and Christmas. Still hoping
Thurs-24 Tonite is Christmas eve. God make them happy at home
Fri-25 Christmas Day
Sat-26
Sun-27 Rain every day
Mon-28
Tues-29
Wed-30 Johnnie died today
Thurs-31
Fri-1 New Year's Day
Pat
Mart
Ted

How can I be saved?

No Cure but to be Annihilated

As Iran, U.S. and EU diplomats extended Tehran’s nuclear program negations a second day, Israel, not a party to the talks, insisted that Iran is covertly developing a nuclear arsenal. In response, Iran continued to contest that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only, and refused to curb enrichment capacity.

Many nations and multinational entities have imposed sanctions against Iran, pertaining to it nuclear ambitions, since Iran's 1979 revolution. In addition the U.N. in recent years has also passed Iranian Security Council Resolutions 1696, 1737, 1747, 1803, 1835, 1929, 1984 and 2049.

Iran obviously welcomed today’s negations as a continuing means of lifting sanctions, as was the case a year ago when U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry coordinated negations that concurrently eased sanctions while recognizing Iran's right to continue enriching uranium,” Iran's non-negotiable pre-condition.

Reiterating Iran's official line, Ali Akbar Velayati, a top aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted by Iranian media as saying the Islamic Republic would not abandon its nuclear "rights" but was committed to the negotiations under Khamenei's leadership. (Warren Strobel, Iran, U.S., EU nuclear talks in Oman seen going to second day, Reuters, 11/9/2014).

Khamenei’s overriding strategic objective, eliminating all outside influences in the region, continued unabated on Saturday as:

“Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei took to Twitter… where he unleashed a string of vitriolic tweets against Israel. 

"This barbaric, wolflike & infanticidal regime of #Israel which spares no crime has no cure but to be annihilated. #HandsOffAlAqsa…." 

He also tweeted that the "only means to confront a barbaric regime like Israel is arming West Bank." The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that US President Barack Obama sent Khamenei a letter suggesting cooperation in the fight against Islamic State (JPOST STAFF, Khamenei on Twitter: No cure for barbaric Israeli regime but to be annihilated, The Jerusalem Post, 11/09/14).

“No weapon that is formed against thee [Israel] shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD” (Isaiah 54:17).

After the May 1945 fall of Berlin, Nazi flags were gathered and doused with gasoline and set aflame. A lone camera man recorded the mesmerizing Swastika-emblazoned¹ remembrances of the Third Reich frantically contorting and finally expiring in the flame.


¹Hitler Youth propaganda pamphlet "The Life of the Führer": “Our beloved swastika flag…. The Führer himself designed it…. We see the social in the red, the movement’s national thinking in the white, and in the swastika we see the symbol of the victory of Aryan humanity… which was always anti-Semitic and will always be anti-Semitic” Source: Reichsjugendführung, Pimpf im Dienst (Potsdam: Ludwig Voggenreiter Verlag, 1938).

How can I be saved?

Good Cop Bad Cop

Republicans had a not so rare treat today, a Capitol Hill, remake of “Good Cop Bad Cop” staring "Stonewall" Boehner reassuring his constituency, but off set promising bad cop Obama whatever. Reid is still in the running for Best Director, and McConnell for Best Adapted Screenplay.

A sad commentary on the America that once was, but is no more:

“None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity…. speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter” (Isaiah 59:4-14).

How can I be saved?

The Swords of Armageddon

The first and last use of tactical or strategic nuclear weapons occurred almost 70 years ago on two days in early August, 1945 when the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were decimated. Since that time America has grown increasingly complacent regarding the “Swords of Armageddon.” As the world continues to converge on the "midnight hour," few are even aware of the “nuclear alert” that occurred during the 1973 Yom Kippur war when U.S. Strategic Air Command, Continental Air Defense Command, European Command and the Sixth Fleet forces were placed on DEFCON 3:

On Yom Kippur, Israel’s most holy Shabbat (1973), the forces of 13 Arab nations, and Cuban and Palestinian troops converged on Israel to destroy her.

On that fateful Day of Atonement, the Israelis were outnumbered and outgunned by staggering margins. In Sinai, for example, exactly 450 Israeli troops faced an invading force of 100,000 Egyptians, who enjoyed a superiority in artillery of 40-1 and a force of 1,350 tanks against Israel’s 91. On the Golan, the Syrians had eight tanks for every Israeli tank, and even higher ratios of troops, guns and planes; later the Syrians would be bolstered by contingents of Iraqis, Jordanians, Palestinians, Saudi Arabians, Kuwaitis and Moroccans. In addition, the Arabs were equipped with the latest in Soviet rocketry, against which Israel had virtually no defense (Matt Nesvisky, The Lessons We Learned in 1973, The Jewish Journal, 2004-09-24).

Of those young men who stood between Israel and death, Golda Meir later recalls, ‘They fought and fell like lions’ (Peter Colon, The Yom Kippur War, Israel My Glory Oct/Nov 1997 p.15).

After the first day, the enemy in the Golan with tactical, logistical, and numerical superiority, the element of surprise, and Soviet supplied night-vision virtually destroyed Israeli resistance and was headed toward a strategic crossroads and Israel’s divisional headquarters. During the night, Lieutenant Zvika Greengold, a young blond son of Holocaust survivors, unattached to any unit, hitchhiked to the conflagration. Removing the dead from a Centurion tank, he took command.

For the next 20 hours, Zvika Force [koach Tzvika], as he came to be known on the radio net, fought running battles with Syrian tanks—sometimes alone, sometimes as part of a larger unit, changing tanks half a dozen times as they were knocked out. He was wounded and burned but stayed in action and repeatedly showed up at critical moments from an unexpected direction to change the course of a skirmish (Abraham Rabinovich, Shattered Heights, The Jerusalem Post, September 25, 1998).

His and a few remaining Israeli tanks succeeded in stalling the enemy who apparently thought they were confronting a superior force. Concurrently Prime Minister Golda Meir, conceding the Golan, began implementing the Samson Option (Judges 16:30):

During the 1973 Yom Kippur war, Israel came close to making a nuclear preemptive strike when it seemed to be facing defeat at the hands of Syrian armor, according to a half dozen former U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials familiar with the still-classified incident…. According to a former senior U.S. diplomat, by Oct. 8, Israel's northern front commander, Maj. Gen. Yitzak Hoffi, had informed Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan that he couldn't hold out much longer against the 14,000 Syrian tanks rolling through Israeli defenses on the Golan Heights. The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Dayan was ‘attacked by acute panic’ and declared to advisers: ‘This is the end of the Third Temple.’ But if Israel was to perish, it would take Damascus and Cairo with it. According to a former senior CIA official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, Dayan sought an urgent meeting with Prime Minister Golda Meir and secured her authorization to arm 13 intermediate-range Jericho missiles with nuclear warheads. Eight F-4 Phantom fighter aircraft were also to be given nuclear arms, former senior U.S. officials said (Richard Sale (UPI Terrorism Correspondent), Yom Kippur: Israel's 1973 nuclear alert, United Press International, 9/16/2002).

Unlike the "Army of One" recruiting ploy, the day is coming when every Jew of Israel will literally be a Zvika Force of One:

In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem. The LORD also shall save the tents of Judah first,that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem do not magnify themselves against Judah. In that day shall the LORD defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the LORD before them (Zechariah 12:6-8).

How can I be saved?

Just Before Midnight

BlackEnergy

EE Times (Electronic Engineering Times) the electronics industry's “premier” publication reported yesterday: “The US Department of Homeland Security's Industrial Control System Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT) recently released an alert regarding malware that is targeting popular human-machine interfaces (HMIs) of industrial control systems. Based on a variant of the BlackEnergy malware toolkit, the malware infects HMI systems that have a direct connection to the Internet” (Rich Quinnell, BlackEnergy Malware Targeting Industrial Control SCADA attacked, 11/5/2014).

What does this mean in layman's terms? President Obama’s hallmark trillion dollar ARRA “infrastructure” initiative failed to correct critical infrastructure deficiencies and leaves America vulnerable to cyber-attacks, as incapacitating as nuclear, and a few more seconds closer to Midnight.

ABC News reported today: “A destructive ‘Trojan Horse’ malware program has penetrated the software that runs much of the nation’s critical infrastructure and is poised to cause an economic catastrophe….” “The hacked software is used to control complex industrial operations like oil and gas pipelines, power transmission grids, water distribution and filtration systems, wind turbines and even some nuclear plants. Shutting down or damaging any of these vital public utilities could severely impact hundreds of thousands of Americans” (Jack Cloherty and Pierre Thomas, 'Trojan Horse' Bug Lurking in Vital US Computers Since 2011, 11/6/2014).

How can I be saved?

The Enemy Within

On September 27, 20013, a list was compiled, twenty-five Senator names long, inscribed in indelible parliamentary ink; a dark list of those who perfected the art of cowering in plausible deniability and unconscionable adherence to the enemies of truth, justice, and our sacred honor.

Each name on that list was transcribed from the heart of one who knew to do good but did it not. It is beyond time to expose it to the light:

"Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin" (James 4:17).

Mitch McConnell (R-KY), John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Bob Corker (R-TN), Lamar Alexander (R-TN), John Cornyn (R-TX), Dan Coats (R-IN), Tom Coburn (R-OK) John Barrasso (R-WY), John Hoeven (R-ND), Roy Blunt (R-MO), Johnny Isakson (R-GA), John Boozman (R-AR), Mike Johanns (R-NE), Richard Burr (R-NC), Ron Johnson (R-WI), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Jeff Chiesa (R-NJ), Thad Cochran (R-MS), John Thune (R-SD), Roger Wicker (R-MS), Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Lisa Murkowksi (R-AK) Susan Collins (R-ME)

These twenty-five Republican senators— Instigated by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and Sen. John McCain (Ariz.)--voted to invoking cloture on the House-passed resolution to fund the government past Monday, giving Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) the option of stripping the bill of its ADA defunding provisions.

How can I be saved?

The Sisterhood of Death

After President Obama placed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on abortion advocate Gloria Steinem's neck, she commented “I would be crazy.... if I didn’t understand that this was a medal for the entire women’s movement,” i.e. the "Sisterhood of Death" including such eminents as Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger and anarchist-feminist Emma Goldman.

Margaret Sanger inculcated the phrase "birth control" into America's vernacular and advocated it in the June 1914 edition of her yellow-rag The Woman Rebel. The "Sisterhood of Death" was then consummated with Emma Goldman's followup speaking tour that disseminated contraceptive "options."

Goldman, the "consummate" anarchist had frequent confrontations with the law. On June 15, 1917, Federal Agents raided Goldman's office, arrested her and her editor Alexander Berkman, and recovered "a wagon load of anarchist records and propaganda." The New York Times further reported that when Goldman asked to change into a more appropriate outfit, she emerged in a gown of "royal purple." How appropriate to array herself as the "whore" of Babylon (cf. Revelation 17:1-5).

And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication.... drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus... (Revelation 17:4-6).

The Steinem, Sanger, Goldman "Sisterhood of Death" continues unabated today, succoured by roots tapping even earlier days.

On October 29, 1901 Emma Goldman was arrested for complicity in the assassination of President William McKinley.

How can I be saved?

The Eschaton

Does it really matter anymore what happens in those once hallowed halls of Congress or on the first Tuesday in November?

Only a matter of time until America collapses into chaos from within, disintegrates in the ashes of a nuclear conflagration, succumbs to the bloody pestilence, or is consumed by the long overdue Wrath of God.

Many wonder why there is no Eschaton (End times) allusion to America in Scripture. Apparently "there is NO America"!

“... we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12).

How can I be saved?

To all the Soccer Moms

Recent genetic and statistical evidence implicate the President’s border policies, policies that actually expedite the immigration of carriers of the deadly EV-D68 enterovirus. Policies that apparently facilitated an epidemic afflicting thousands of children in recent months, some with polio-like paralysis, and even death in at least three cases:

“Kinley Galbreath, from Hamilton, has spent the past three weeks in intensive care at Children’s of Alabama, where she remains on a ventilator– paralyzed from her arms to her legs,” reads an Oct. 8 TV report from Alabama.

“Her mom, Kim Nichols, has remained by Kinley’s side since the [five-year-old] little girl was admitted to the hospital and diagnosed with the potentially fatal respiratory illness enterovirus D-68.”

Speaking exclusively to ABC 3340, the mother said: “As she was getting ready to doze off, she said ‘Mommy, my hands are going numb,’ and by that point she started to lose movement in her neck.”

“On the third day is when she lost movement from her legs down,” her mother continued. “The only thing she’s had control of has been her toes. And that’s what she wiggles to let me know something’s wrong. And she’ll blink her eyes for yes, and won’t blink her eyes for no.’” (Neil Munro, Obama’s Border Policy Fueled Epidemic, Evidence Shows, The Daily Caller, 10/31/2014).

How can I be saved?

Simulations

“This week, several top infectious disease experts ran simulations for The Associated Press that predicted as few as one or two additional infections by the end of 2014 to a worst-case scenario of 130. ‘I don't think there's going to be a huge outbreak here, no,’ said Dr. David Relman, a professor of infectious disease, microbiology and immunology at Stanford University's medical school. ‘However, as best we can tell right now, it is quite possible that every major city will see at least a handful of cases.’ Relman is a founding member of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services advisory board for biosecurity and chairs the National Academy of Sciences forum on microbial threats” (Martha Mendoza, Scientists Try to Predict number of US Ebola Cases, Associated Press, 11/1/14).

Northeastern University professor Alessandro Vespignani using the university's Laboratory for the Modeling of Biological and Socio-Technical Systems, in early September, arrived a much lower worst case projection for the immediate future, however he alludes to a set of modeling variables no one has yet included: "My worry is that the epidemic might spill into other countries in Africa or the Middle East, and then India or China. That could be a totally different story for everybody."

The World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control either have yet to conduct modeling simulations outside the West African epicenter, or have declined to publish them.

How can I be saved?

Critical Mass

Negotiations in Geneva over Iran’s nuclear program reached "critical mass" this morning [11/24/2013] at a predawn ceremony in Geneva’s Palace of Nations as diplomats "cowering" in Tehran's shadow signed the formal agreement recognizing Iran's right to continue enriching uranium,” Iran's non-negotiable pre-condition!

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, not party to the talks, asseverated that Israel was not bound by the agreement, restating that “Israel will not allow Iran to develop military nuclear capability,” and that Israel's only recourse may be to strike Iran, alone!

The unreported reality is that Iran "currently" has weapons-grade nuclear material, and will now be unabated in enriching more. With the requisite material, a nuclear device could be assembled and docked with a pre-prepared delivery system within hours!

The Geneva consensus is essentially a "green light for genocide," reminiscent of the nine-day international conference, President Roosevelt initiated at the French resort of Evian on the shores of Lake Geneva in the summer of 1938 purportedly to facilitate Jewish immigration from Germany and Austria.

Very important people were here and all the delegates had a nice time. They took pleasure cruises on the lake. They gambled at night at the casino. They took mineral baths and massages…some of them took the excursions to Chamonix to go summer skiing. Some went riding, some played golf. Meetings. Yes, some attended the meetings. But, of course it is difficult to sit indoors hearing speeches when all the pleasures that Evian offers are waiting right outside (Rene Richier as quoted in Peggy Mann, When the World Passed by on the Other Side (Manchester Guardian Weekly, 7 May 1938).

Here are the recollections of an uninvited delegate, Golda Meir, former Prime Minister of Israel:

… sitting there in that magnificent hall and listening to the delegates of thirty-two countries rise, each in turn, to explain how much they would have liked to take in substantial numbers of refugees and how unfortunate it was that they were not able to do so, was a terrible experience, I don't think that anyone who didn't live through it can understand what I felt at Evian – a mixture of sorrow, rage, frustration and horror (As quoted in, The Evian Conference - Hitler's Green Light for Genocide, Annette Shaw, 2001, Quoted by permission of Stephen D. Smith, Director, Beth Shalom, (Letter 15/3/2000), Perspective, Vol. 1, Issue 1, July 1998, "Nobody Wants Them,” p. 21).

"At the end of the nine-day conference, Hitler had his Green Light" (Annette Shaw, The Evian Conference - Hitler's Green Light for Genocide, 2001).

Nobody wants them' claimed the German newspaper Völkischer Beobachter after the Evian Conference in July 1938 and Hitler gloated, saying, 'It is a shameful spectacle to see how the whole democratic world is oozing sympathy for the poor tormented Jewish people, but remains hard hearted and obdurate when it comes to helping them (Perspective, Beth Shalom, p. 21).

How can I be saved?

Confession Withdrawn

The CDC removed a poster from the organization's website that previously conceded that Ebola could be transmitted by “droplets that are coughed or sneezed. “ CDC Officials were unresponsive to queries regarding the redaction.

See also:  http://just-before-midnight.blogspot.com/2014/10/confessions.html

A Photo Op

Confessions

“The CDC said it doesn’t spread at all by air, then Friday they came out with this poster.” “They admit that these particles or droplets may land on objects such as doorknobs and that Ebola can be transmitted that way.” (Dr. Meryl Nass, of the Institute for Public Accuracy in Washington, DC).

This surreptitiously published poster reportedly states: “Droplet spread happens when germs traveling inside droplets that are coughed or sneezed from a sick person enter the eyes, nose or mouth of another person."

Dr. Meryl Nass according to her profile is a physician in private practice who is known for uncovering the use of anthrax as a biological weapon in Rhodesia. She has shown that many studies indicate anthrax vaccine is one cause of Gulf War Illnesses. She has provided testimony before two Institute of Medicine committees on Gulf War Illness exposures (Dec. 15, 1999). Dr. Nass discussed experimental anthrax vaccine use in testimony to the House National Security Subcommittee on April 29, 1999, and discussed accelerated drug licensing and abbreviated testing of vaccines and drugs intended for responding to bioterrorism in testimony for the House Government Reform Committee hearing on Nov 14, 2001 ("Preparing a Medical Response to Bioterrorism").

See also:  http://just-before-midnight.blogspot.com/2014/10/an-inconvenient-truth.html

The Valley of Elah

A major Jewish American policy group today insisted that the administration “hold to account” the senior U.S. official who cursed Benjamin Netanyahu. Even the National Jewish Democratic Council, articulated “surprise and disappointment at the profane and inappropriate language attributed to a senior administration official in describing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.” Undoubtedly a manifestation of top-down administration contempt for Netanyahu.

Who is this senior U.S. official “that he should defy the armies of the living God?” (cf. 1Sa 17:26); this is not a trivial transgression:

Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. This day will the LORD deliver thee into mine hand… that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel” (1Sa 17:45-46).

As the "Midnight Hour" approaches, so also the “Day” when the “God of Israel,” a phrase repeated over 200 times in Scripture, will recompense His namesake:

“… Blessed is he that blesseth thee, and cursed is he that curseth thee” (Numbers 24:9). “I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land. And they have cast lots for my people; and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink” (Joel 3:2-3). "And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left” (Mat 25:32-33).

“It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31).

How can I be saved?

It's Slowing?

The World Health Organization (WHO) reported from its Geneva headquarters today that “we are seeing slowing rate of new [Ebola] cases, very definitely” in Liberia.

However, the timing of the WHO’s announcement seems suspect, exactly one week before elections and before justifying statistics were officially posted on the WHO website; quite consistent for the Geneva based organization: “GENEVA — At the U.N. agency spearheading the fight against swine flu [the WHO], key decisions are based on more than just health issues — politics plays a big role, too…. measures such as travel bans, border closures, and raising alert levels can meet stiff political opposition” (Associated Press, 5/3/2009)

Also, WHO’s self-edifying statistics based on low patient count and empty beds at Liberian Ebola treatment centers are "intentionally deceptive," e.g., “MONROVIA, Liberia — Even as Liberians fall ill and die of Ebola, more than half the beds in treatment centers in the capital remain empty, an unintended consequence of the government’s order that the bodies of all suspected Ebola victims in Monrovia be cremated” (Associated Press 10/23/14).

How can I be saved?

Complicity of Silence

Bellevue Hospital Center was forced to transport all its intensive care patients to NYU Langone Medical Center, to accommodate the care a “single patient”!

Ian Michaels, New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation Director of Media Relations, explains “It’s not to free up space. It’s to free up staff.” “All the staff working with the Ebola patient are from the ICU,” i.e., New York City’s first confirmed Ebola case, Dr. Craig Spencer.

The math that everyone seems to ignore is not that complicated, i.e., ONE HOSPITAL per Ebola patient, and according to a confident CDC, New York City has seven more. “… Bellevue Hospital is one of eight New York State hospitals that Governor Cuomo has designated to treat Ebola patients.” (CDC, News Release, Thursday, October 23, 2014).

There appears to be a media and other entities complicity of silence as the flu, Ebola, open borders, and election season approaches.

How can I be saved?

The Snowden Chronicles

The Snowden chronicles revealed that mankind has developed the capability to globally monitor connectivity and store without bandwidth constraint the constituent text, voice, video, and GPS coordinates of every transaction initiated on the "Omnipresent" internet; the archived data to be processed by algorithms yet to be imagined. Such is the propensity of mankind for Omniscience, albeit a synthetic Omniscience.

"And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:4-5).

However, Omniscience is more than just knowing, 'Scientia Potentia Est' i.e., “Knowledge is Power”, the ultimate power that comes from knowing the thoughts and intents of the heart of every cyber-connected soul on earth, a power that even the serpent never had until now!

How can I be saved?

Horse Sense

Appended are excerpts from a recent letter to the editor of the Lewiston Morning Tribune from a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM); essentially a comparative study of the divergent quarantine standards of “man and beast.” Hard not to emphasize with the author’s subtle lament that "horse sense" i.e., the institutively obvious is no longer an attribute of those who guide our nation.

“If I wish to import a horse into the United States from Liberia or any African country other than Morocco, the horse needs to undergo a 60 day quarantine period at a USDA approved quarantine facility prior to mingling with the general population of horses in this country….” “I can't legally cross state lines in the United States with a horse or cow without a health certificate signed by a USDA accredited veterinarian stating that the animal has been inspected and found free of infectious disease….” “[but] If I am a resident of Liberia incubating Ebola, to enter the United States all I need to do is present a valid visa, and lie when asked if I have been exposed to Ebola. Within hours (no quarantine required) I can be walking the streets of any city in the United States.”

How can I be saved?

Come November

Bellevue Hospital predictably had a case of “lab-coat flu” on Friday; Bellevue, the hospital hosting New York’s first Ebola patient. The isolation ward in particular was literally an “isolated” ward with many out “sick” or to traumatized to enter Doctors Without Borders Dr. Craig Spencer’s isolation chamber.

Come November, if the winds of November bring us a confluence of indistinguishable flu and Ebola, will a multiplicity doctors and nurses and other professionals and staffers decide it is time to retire or find other employment? If so, can any hospital remain sufficiently functional and profitable to remain open?

“He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap” (Ecclesiastes 11:4).

How can I be saved?

The Blood

Nina Pham, in caring for Liberian national Thomas Duncan, the first Ebola patient diagnosed in America, became the second. The 26-year-old nurse walked out of a Maryland hospital today having joined the fellowship of those who received life from the blood, i.e., the blood of Samaritan’s Purse doctor Kent Brantly. Freelance cameraman Ashoka Mukpo, also received life from Brantly’s blood: “[Brantly’s] generous blood donation played a pivotal role in my recovery.” Fellow missionary and Samaritan’s Purse doctor Richard Sacra infected in Liberia also received life from Brantly’s blood.

During the 1800s doctors discovered the life giving power of the transfused blood of those who had survived bacterial and viral infections. However, the efficacy of the blood goes back further, to the People of the Book “...the life of the flesh is in the blood… for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul” (Leviticus 17:11).

Last fall, Kent Brantly moved with his wife and young children to work at a hospital in Monrovia, ELWA (Eternal Love Winning Africa). Last March when he and a few colleagues learned of the outbreak, they were led to prepare for a contingency to help contain the outbreak. Although there was resistance, it was granted:

“The only available space… a yellow cinderblock tin-roofed chapel in the hospital's courtyard, where the staff gathered each morning for devotions. Now they rolled in six beds and separated them with plastic tarps. They cleaned the floors and walls. They placed a sign out front that read, ‘Isolation unit. Authorized personnel only.’ And then they waited” [On an evening early in June the call came.]

“[later in July] Brantly, covered head to toe in protective gear, identifiable only by his blue eyes peering through goggles, spoke into the camera for a video being put together by Samaritan's Purse” [begged] "Please come help us." (Lena H. Sun, Brady Dennis, Lenny Bernstein and Joel Achenbach, “How the world let Ebola spread,” The Washington Post, 10, 7, 2014).

Then as other doctors and nurses were becoming sick, some dying, Brantly continued battle against the invisible foe, that they might know the blood of Him that could make them whole, that is, until he became one with them.

He later recalled: “I held the hands of countless individuals as this terrible disease took their lives away from them. I witnessed the horror firsthand, and I can still remember every face and name. “When I started feeling ill on that Wednesday morning…. When the result was positive, I remember a deep sense of peace that was beyond all understanding.”

“Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant” (Hebrews 13:20). “… made peace through the blood of his cross….” (Colossians 1:20).

“... if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1John_1:7).  

How can I be saved?

The Beasts of the Earth

"Frankly, if we had not gone through our 10-year slide in research support, we probably would have had a vaccine in time for this that would've gone through clinical trials and would have been ready" (National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins deflecting criticism of his organization’s failure to develop a hemorrhagic fever vaccine).

“And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth” (Revelation 6:8).

The Greek word for "beast" here is "therion," (G2342) i.e., the diminutive form of the word “ther” meaning a small, little, or tiny beast. Perhaps a virus or bacteria.

How can I be saved?

An Inconvenient Truth

The only information forthcoming from those coordinating the response: “It's spiraling out of control. It is getting worse. It's spreading faster and exponentially,” and the mandate that the only measure that may belay a viral conflagration will not be imposed.

Unmentioned is the “inconvenient truth” that proactive diagnostic capabilities quintessential to combating this scourge are essentially impossible until after full metastasis or death? As well as that heads up of several decades ago:

"Those monkeys [infected with a hemorrhagic fever virus comparable to Ebola] were dying in a pattern that was certainly suggestive of coughing and sneezing — some sort of aerosol movement." "They were dying and spreading it so quickly from cage to cage. We finally came to the conclusion that the best action was to euthanize them all." (Dr. Charles L. Bailey, Executive Director, National Center for Biodefense and Infectious Diseases)

Dare I say it, i.e., the other pending “inconvenient truth”?

“... behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth” (Revelation 6:8).

How can I be saved?

A Tide in the Affairs of Men

Our President’s continued refusal to restrict Ebola-stricken West African travel appears to be irrational, but he has his reasons.

When a tide in the affairs of men turns, jeopardizing a legacy of great power and authority, what will be his probable behavior, and the consequence for those under his shadow?

Walter C. Langer, Consultant, M.O. Branch, OSS compiled a comprehensive psychological analysis of Adolph Hitler to answer just such a question. Langer begins with a multiplicity of observations and apt summations e.g.,

His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it" (Walter C. Langer, Office of Strategic Services, Washington, D.C., "A Psychological Analysis of Adolph Hitler, date illegible, (declassified, 12, March, 1968).

Langer concludes with a number of potential scenarios, the more dramatic seem most characteristic of the Fuehrer's rhetoric, "We shall not capitulate...no, never. We my be destroyed, but if we are, we shall drag a world with us...a world in flames."

The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and... He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision (Psalm 2:1-4).

How can I be saved?

It's Spiraling Out of Control

Our “we are no longer a Christian Nation” President, in an unprecedented display reminiscent of the panic stricken radio reporter witnessing the Hindenburg conflagration, recently confessed:

"… Ebola is now an epidemic of the likes that we have not seen before.... It's spiraling out of control. It is getting worse. It's spreading faster and exponentially. Today, thousands of people in West Africa are infected. That number could rapidly grow to tens of thousands… And if the outbreak is not stopped now, we could be looking at hundreds of thousands of people infected with profound political and economic and security implications for all of us."

The United Nations Security Council is expediting a resolution coercing countries into providing the urgent aid required to mitigate the contagion-stricken region.

The World Bank approved a $105 million stopgap grant to help cope with the economic impact of the plague.

The Department of Defense pleaded for "an additional $500 million in Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funds to combat the pestilence, while the U.S. military has been charged with an unprecedented logistical challenge for which it is totally unprepared.

The C.D.C.’s "commensurate" response to the pandemic: “among the largest deployments of C.D.C. personnel ever.”

“The World Health Organization's failed response to the Ebola crisis showed anew that the group is more a politically minded policy-making body than a relief agency. The WHO claimed that it lacked the resources to respond to Ebola, but while the outbreak was spiraling out of control in West Africa, the organization had plenty of time and money to mount an international campaign to combat what it flagged last month as a ‘grave concern.’ Not Ebola, but electronic cigarettes.”

“The Department of Homeland Security's inspector general issued a highly critical report finding that DHS lacks sufficient supplies and preparedness to handle a domestic pandemic…. We're still far less prepared than we should be, and far more vulnerable than we're admitting.” (Scott Gottlieb And Tevi Troy, Ebola's Warning for an Unprepared America, The Wall Street Journal, Sept. 16, 2014).

“The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God…. Arise, O LORD; let not man prevail: let the heathen be judged in thy sight. Put them in fear, O LORD: that the nations may know themselves to be but men. Selah” (Psalm 9:17-20).

How can I be saved?

The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way....” So begins A Tale of Two Cities in “the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five.” A tale of nations and souls when it was "the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

“It was the time of unraveling. Long afterward, in the ruins, people asked: How could it happen?… It was a time of disorientation. Nobody connected the dots or read Kipling on life’s few certainties: 'The Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire and the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire.' Until it was too late and people could see the Great Unraveling for what it was and what it had wrought.” (Roger Cohen,The Great Unraveling, The New York Times, Sept. 15, 2014).

"And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh...."
For some "the best of times." For some "the worst of times.

Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning (Mark 13:35) ."

How can I be saved?