Promises And Prophecies.

I was not overly surprised to find that the Japanese tsunami has dragged the Japanese economy back into recession and there is obviously more to come regarding its nuclear power station problems - but I was surprised with the recent treatment of the, now ex, head of the IMF.

We are told by the US authorities that, according to a court complaint, an immigrant hotel maid from Guinea, who wishes to remain anonymous, thought the Presidential suite was empty but then the 62 year old Dominique Strauss-Kahn emerged from the bathroom naked.
He then, allegedly, chased the 32-year-old maid down a hallway, pulled her into a bedroom, dragged her into a bathroom, where he forced her to perform oral sex, before she managed to break free and escape.

Now, I have no idea whether Strauss-Khan is guilty or not but I have to say that if America is a land where people are presumed innocent until they are proved guilty I can’t imagine how badly they would have treated Khan if he were to be presumed guilty!

So, why am I mentioning this with the news that the Japanese economy has been forced into recession? It’s just that it seems that both might be seen as part of a process that makes sure that the world suffers another Global monetary crisis.

I expect many will have wondered if Strauss-Khan might have received far less negative publicity if he had not been head of the IMF at a time when the US dollar is under pressure from the Euro.

I hear than many French feel that it was a set-up designed to pressure Mr Khan into resigning because he was so good at his job and there is no-one else available who can hope to do it as well!

All I can say is that God works in mysterious ways…

Meanwhile, on Monday, Harold Camping insisted that his predictions have been right all along and that Judgment Day did come on May 21 - only that his interpretation had been literal when it should have been spiritual...
The whole world is under Judgment and it will continue right up until October 21, 2011." he proclaimed.

I think he may well be right this time!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I need to rewrite much of the text below as I've realised that the whole Arab/Israeli conflict revolves around one thing - The Promise.

Reading the promise that God made to the Jews it is obvious that it was made to the people and not to their religion as it is specifies that the Promise is for them and their ‘seed’...

This totally conflicts with the claim of the Zionists that The Promise covers all Jews - including converts.

It can be argued that Christ, as a prophet and Jewish descendent of King David, and therefore of the tribe of Judah, may well have had the authority to renew The Promise in the light of the corruption that had once again overtaken the Jewish faith - this time under the rule of Emperor Tiberius and his vassal Herod Antipas.

Certainly, it can be argued that Christianity became the legitimate Jewish faith - the leaders of the orthodox Jews having, once again, turned to worshiping money - the root of all evil.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anyone who has read my posts will almost certainly have noticed that I’m not a fan of ‘established wisdom’ and a great believer in looking at things for myself rather than simply accepting what people want me to believe.

After, what I considered to be, the righteous resignation of George Mitchell contrasted the shameless 'take the money and pretend to be impartial' approach of Tony Blair I listened to Obama’s recent speech on his administration’s posture on the problem’s of the Middle East and I thought I’d look into the Promises and Prophecies that surround the central issues -
After all, this is the Eve of Judgement Day (or so I read on the Internet :o)

I don’t really know the history of the Arab - Israeli struggle so here’s my ’take’ on what I gleaned from a quick scan of various Wiki articles…

You probably remember the story of David and Goliath; David (the little guy) beat Goliath (a giant) and eventually became the King of Israel.
Well, that was how the House Of David came to power.
Now, David’s son Solomon was renowned for his wisdom - you’ve probably heard of the Wisdom of Solomon - and he was a very popular king but the rich Jews were unhappy about his high taxation.

In a way it was probably a bit like President Obama at the moment asking the rich Republican’s who want spending cuts to consider losing their tax cuts while letting the poor keep theirs *see footnote.
The rich probably couldn’t see why they should have to help support the poor but, no doubt, in his wisdom, Solomon reminded them that “The love of money is the root of all evil.” and they reluctantly paid up.

However, when Solomon died it seems that his son, Rehoboam, perhaps lacking some of his father’s wisdom, refused to lower taxes and the ‘Republicans’ decided to get rid of Solomon’s son and form a Northern Kingdom. They decided not to have a king of the Davidic line and settled on Jeroboam (brought from Egypt) to be their new king...
and he chose Baal as their new god around 930 BCE.

The Northern Kingdom continued to call itself Israel while the House Of David, the Kingdom of the South (which contained Jerusalem) adopted the new name The Kingdom of Judah.

The tribes of Judah and Benjamin remained loyal to the House of David and their original God and later - according to 2 Chronicles 15:9 - during the reign of Asa, members of the tribes of Ephraim, Manasseh and Simeon fled from Israel to Judah.

Some say that the conflict between Israel and Judah was resolved when Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, allied himself with the house of Ahab through marriage… and later, Jehosophat's son and successor, Jehoram of Judah, married Ahab's daughter Athaliah, cementing the alliance.

However, the sons of Ahab were slaughtered by Jehu following his coup d'état around 840 BCE.
So it can’t really be said to have been resolved and I would argue that the bible says it never will be!

The Bible records that (around 720 BCE) Israel was invaded again by Assyria and its population was exiled, becoming known as The Ten Lost Tribes, leaving (of the original Israelite nation) only the Tribe of Judah (including the Tribe of Simeon which was ‘absorbed’ into Judah), the Tribe of Benjamin and the people of the Tribe of Levi who lived among them in the southern Kingdom of Judah.

“During the three-year siege of Samaria by the Assyrians, Shalmaneser V died and was succeeded by Sargon II of Assyria, who himself records the capture of that city thus: "Samaria I looked at, I captured; 27,280 men who dwelt in it I carried away" into Assyria. Thus, around 720 BCE, after two centuries, the kingdom of the ten tribes came to an end.”

The Kingdom of Judah continued to exist as an independent state until 586 BCE, when it was conquered by the Neo-Babylonian Empire.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So if the Kingdom Of the North, the Kingdom of Israeli took to worshiping Baal who would be expected to inherit the Promised Land?
Yes, the Kingdom of the South, of Judah!

Okay then, what happened to the Kingdom of the South?…

Well, eventually it fell to the Romans and...
Eventually the Jews were ruled by Herod Antipas
who served the head of John The Baptist to his step daughter in return for her rendition of the famous seven veil pole dance ;O)

Herod was the chap that ordered all the young male children to be slaughtered after discovering of the birth of Christ from the Magi...
(which forced Jesus's parents to take him to Egypt).

At this time serious theological differences emerged between the Sadducees and Pharisees.
The notion that the sacred could exist outside of the Temple, a view central to the Essenes, was shared and elevated by the Pharisees.

At first the values of the Pharisees developed through their sectarian debates with the Sadducees; then they developed through internal, non-sectarian debates over the law as an adaptation to life without the Temple, and life in exile, and eventually, to a more limited degree, life in conflict with Christianity.
These shifts mark the transformation of Pharasaic to Rabbinic Judaism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharisees#The_Roman_period

To be honest I thought that Jesus (wasn’t he of the line of David) was so disappointed with the corruption of the Pharisees and the teaching of the Jews of his day that he withdrew the promise originally made to the Jews and offered it instead to all who truly followed the Commandments.

When Jesus was asked which were the most important Commandments He replied "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind" and "You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”

So, unless you take the second to literally mean the people who live next door, then I suspect we’ve nearly all got some room for improvement on that one! So how does Israel treat its neighbours?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"A number of events with far-reaching consequences took place, including religious schisms, such as Christianity branching off of Judaism.

The Romans destroyed the Jewish community of the Mother Church in Jerusalem, which had existed since the time of Jesus. Many Jews left the country altogether for the Diaspora communities, and large numbers of prisoners of war are sold as slaves throughout the Empire.

The line of Jewish bishops in Jerusalem, which is claimed to have started with Jesus's brother James the Righteous as its first bishop, ceased to exist, within the Empire.

Hans Kung in "Islam :Past Present and Future", suggests that the Jewish Christians sought refuge in Arabia he quotes with approval C. Clemen, T. Andrae and H.H. Schraeder, p. 342 :-
"This produces the paradox of truly historic significance that while Jewish Christianity was swallowed up in the Christian church, it preserved itself in Islam, and some of its most powerful impulses extend down to the present day" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria_Palaestina

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Interestingly, I have also seen it argued that some from the Kindom Of The South spread into Eygpt and Syria etc. and eventually became Muslims.
Prophecies are dangerous in that you can't understand them until they are upon you... it's easy to think you're on the right side when you're on the left :O)
Perhaps there is more to the 'Arab Spring' than anyone has guessed...
or at least, dared to suggest!

I must admit I’ve always struggled with the concept of God promising land to His Chosen Ones and yet being unable to actually deliver thus forcing them into using terrorism to take possession.

Mind you, to be fair, I’ve never quite understood why God would want the Romans to crucify a nice peace abiding Prophet like Jesus for suggesting that synagogues should not be allowed to become dens for thieves and then change their minds a bit later and have them not only adopt Jesus as the head of their state religion but actually wear their crime around their necks as a mascot…
maybe religions are meant to be inexplicable!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When you look at religion, not just of the Jews but religion in general, you realise that it has become something that governments and organisations use to sanction behaviour that the actual religion itself condemns and worse they often lie, cheat, murder and steal in the process.

Deep down the people must know that their governments are dishonest, self-serving hypocrites but it doesn’t seem to make any difference… it seems that patriotism and self interest almost always triumphs over truth and for most people God doesn’t exist, or doesn’t really care, or, like the people who claim to represent Him, realises that pragmatism over-rules morality.

Naturally, come Judgement Day they will plead ignorance and expect their all knowing God to be fooled, or so forgiving that He will not care, or check the tally of how much they have donated to their church and welcome them with open arms.

Take Bush (who claimed to talk to God everyday) and Blair (who seemed to think he was a god) who cynically used the Christian religion to sanction their excuse for war (just as Hitler used the Pope to sanction his) while claiming that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that threatened the West. The reality was that it was Israel they sought to protect. It was felt that Saddam might have been able to attack Israel with his Al Samoud 2 missiles which had already been tested to a range of 183 km as reported by Hans Blix to the Security Council 27 JANUARY 2003 http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/Bx27.htm

Of course Saddam eventually allowed the Al Samoud 2 missiles to be decommissioned and this was why Hans Blix was so unhappy that Bush and Blair decided to go to war regardless (citing the very dubious evidence of Curve Ball who recently admitted he made it all up). The consequences?

A quick Google sums it up -
Iraq War Facts, Results & Statistics at April 26, 2011
4,452 US Soldiers Killed, 32,074 Seriously Wounded
http://usliberals.about.com/od/homelandsecurit1/a/IraqNumbers.htm

This sums up the God fearing, caring attitude of the US for me…
Not even a thought for anyone else involved in the war.

Not surprisingly it is very difficult to get a reliable estimate of the Iraqi dead. The lowest I could find was for Documented Iraqi Civilians :
Documented civilian deaths from violence 100,949 – 110,253
Although full analysis of the WikiLeaks' Iraq War Logs may add another 15,000 deaths.

Other estimates that try to give a more realistic count - in other words the number of dead regardless of whether they got a Death Certificate or were counted as civilians or not - range from just below half a million to a million.

There is no telling how many were wounded, suffered serious mental trauma or were forced to become part of several million refugees.
Still, no Iraqi missiles hit Israel and Iraq did get regime change several years ahead of the Arab Spring.

Yet, it must be difficult for the true God fearing people in Israel to watch what happens, to know that their government is lying, to see that the rest of the world knows that they are lying and to wonder why America always vetoes any effort to pressure them to abide by the law.

For the God fearing American who, in the main, is suffering to support an Israeli government which does NOT support America it must be even harder to understand why Obama has committed them to unconditional support of such an ungrateful leadership and to wonder just exactly what it is that forces the US to take better care of Israel’s Zionist Jews that it does of its own Christians!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The funniest thing is - they think they’re so smart
That the secret to winning is ignoring your heart
That ethics and morals are for suckers and fools
Penalties for the gullible who play by the rules

Certain that everything - can be bought and be sold
Sure that only the winners have pots full of Gold
Misguided addicts constantly hoarding their drug
Convinced we would all steal a fix - if we could

In golden dreams they have bought their roles
When for fame or fortune they sold their souls
Yet few feel their dream was worth the spend
Such dreams sour and sicken toward the end

You can’t take it with you; so they say
But why would you want to any way?
For very soon it will be Judgement Day
And for the good... Eternal play
For the bad - Eternal pay ;O)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

*NB. President Obama wants to narrow the federal budget gap and reduce debts, in part, by ending tax cuts for higher-income Americans enacted under President George W. Bush but so far Republican lawmakers refuse to consider it.

Meanwhile The United States has reached its $14.3 trillion limit on federal borrowing which leaves Congress until, effectively, the end of July to raise the threshold.
If there is no agreement then the government could default on its debt for the first time, threatening both the national credit rating and the dollar and also risking a financial panic and another recession.

Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face!