the war that will destroy us

From the book "Opening the Seven Seals", by Richard D. Draper, about the book of Revelation, speaking about parallels between the last downhill slide of the Nephite civilization and where we are today -

"...Ironically, there was a proliferation of churches at this same time. However, the record shows that these were not built up to serve God but to justify getting gain. As the people denied goodness, they feverishly sought security in pseudorighteousness. Thus, they promoted wickedness and drank deep of the pernicious poision of the beast and his false-prophet who were yet on the earth. These churches began not only to deny the true church of the Lamb, but also to fight against it. Persecution of the righteous escalated........the Nephites 'did not dwindle in unbelief, but they did wilfully rebel against the gospel of Christ; and they did teach their children that they should not believe' (4 Ne. 1:38). In their willful rebellion, they taught their children 'to hate the children of God' (v.39). The result was a war - a war that destroyed the nation."

Sound like the news today? The push to demonize traditional religious principles or values, and have them pushed into the closet as a "new (a)morality" in which everything goes and there is no right or wrong is not only tolerated but promoted and promulgated, taught to children in schools, as they are taught that any other (the traditional Christian) point of view is illegitimate, outmoded, "intolerant", and just plain detestable. They use the courts of the land and the media to wage their war on the gospel of Christ, which I see destroying the strength and unity of our nation before our eyes...

And it is not enough to push their agenda, but they do it under a cloak of "pseudorighteousness" - it's not just an attack on Christian values/societal mores, but they insist upon doing it from "within" - that churches must change their definitions of God's commandments to accommodate their preferences and predilections. They insist that it is they, not "Christians", who are truly "Christlike" and "tolerant".

The Church of What's Happening Now

March 31, 2009

See how Barack Obama’s church, the United Church of Christ (of WHO??) is now going to be handing out condoms to kids at church. To save lives, they say. What a sad commentary on how watered down faith becomes. “What doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world [his mortal life?] and lose his soul?” The whole idea that commandments matter, that our behavior matters, that there are certain standards of eternal law that must be obeyed if happiness is our design, is passé.

There are some natural consequences which God has built in to violation of certain commandments; one of them being the sexually transmitted diseases that are rife today. But the attitude “du jour” seems to be, we can mock God, “cheat” so to speak – remove the consequences, redefine “sin”, so kids (people) can sin and still remain physically “clean” – forget the moral aspect of cleanliness. That obviously isn’t selling anymore, so let’s just take it off the shelves. We’re living in a material world, after all. The Material is our new god. Amazing to me the effrontery people have – how little faith in God it truly shows they have – or how little their “god” truly is. If their god is so ineffectual, and impotent, that they can change the definition of commandments or expecations of behavior or right and wrong to suit their own predilections, what kind of God is that? A changeable, ephemeral, wishy-washy god indeed. And that is the faith and the power that is theirs.

Peace on earth? I don't think so

Feb 23, 2009

Iran has just announced successful completion of its first successful test of a nuclear power plant. Scary news. Watched program on History Channel last night about the many different prophecies in cultures around the globe (ancient England with the “Merlins”; Mayans; Chinese I Ching; etc.) of an apocalyptic, doomsday event occurring on December 21, 2012. End of the world? Or beginning of the end? Strange that in such divergent cultures with no contact with one another at the time, that date consistenly emerges. There is a cosmic significance; alignment of earth, sun, and center of Milky Way which is some type of “black hole” phenomenon – predictions include a switching of the earth’s poles, which would lead to cataclysmic natural disasters worldwide. In any case, whether that date is significant or not we do certainly need to be prepared, as our Church leaders are really stepping up their references to the drastic changes that are coming very soon – I’m wanting to get some guns as well; Conrad is not at all happy about that. Violent crime is already on the rise; gangs are trained specifically in home invasion, for example. I don’t want to be a sitting duck. I want to be able to protect myself and my family; and a shotgun won’t even slow those guys down. They’ll know I can’t hit them except at close range, and their weapons can blow us away from 800 yards or more.

Yet the Lord continually reminds us, through the scriptures and his latter day servants, that we should not fear! Which I do need to work on; and reading scriptures and gospel study really does help there. Also really important is the concept that “if ye are PREPARED ye need not fear.” So I’m really focused on getting prepared, in every way I can think of, and stressing a bit on trying to make sure I’m covering all the bases and not leaving anything out! The gun thing is part of that for me, especially after reading the Great and Terrible. The kind of anarchy that would prevail in the case of some type of nuclear attack, or EMP, is pretty scary; REALLY scary if you couldn’t protect yourself, cause there would be noone else there to protect you. I have no desire to be one of those grim survivalists holed up in my bunker and gleefully watching the remnants of civilization starve around me; it is my goal to store more than our needs and be able to help those we can. But I don't want my family to be among those slowly starving to death and helplessly victimized by the predators that will be running amok in such a scenario.

Also interesting aside in the area of protection (Conrad thinks we have to rely on the government to protect us, which AINT gonna happen) – I was told recently police cars no longer have “to protect and to serve” on their cars – they don’t see that citizen protection as the main part of their mission. Or perhaps they have given up already on their ability to do that. Seems their focus has changed to try to maintain some sort of collective order, rather than pretend that they can protect each individual’s safety.