Tag: the trumpet

The Trumpet: The Republic Has Been Hacked

In The Republic Has Been Hacked, The Trumpet argues the dangers of electronic voting. It should be noted that security concerns related to electronic voting did not just appear with the 2020 Presidential election. Those concerns have been voiced by information technology professionals since the idea of electronic voting was first introduced, and their clamor rose when the Diebold machines first started making an appearance and were shown to be vulnerable almost immediately. See for example, CNN’s 2012 article How Secure Is Your Electronic Vote? or Security Week’s 2011 article Man-in-the-Middle Attacks on Voting Machines: Vote Early, Often, and Why Not Vote Remotely? or the New York Time’s 2006 article New Fears of Security Risks in Electronic Voting Systems to name only a few. Numbers computer/software experts gave advice on ways that the industry could increase security, while at the same time providing accountability, anonymity of voter preferences and actual vote, and still provide the ability for the voter to check later that the correct vote was recorded, but the electronic voting industry has thus far failed to heed these concerns.

Almost 245 years ago, America’s founders penned a document proclaiming, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” To secure the God-given rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, our founders devised a system of government where the people elect both senators and congressmen to make laws for the good of the country—and a president to make sure those laws are faithfully executed.

Generations of Americans have fought and died for the freedom of self-government. We have these heroes to thank for the hundreds of free and fair elections held throughout our history. This makes it all the more concerning that our election systems are currently under threat.

Ever since corrupt officials in Broward County, Florida, attempted to steal the 2000 U.S. presidential election, America has been moving away from paper ballots and toward electronic voting machines. This move was supposed to make our elections faster, more accurate and more impartial. In reality, it has removed transparency from our elections and replaced it with trust in scandal-plagued voting technology companies owned by shadowy private equity firms.

Hacking Democracy

Dominion Voting Systems is a technology company that provided equipment to 28 states during the 2020 United States presidential election. This company is now suing key figures who supported President Donald Trump for defamation and $3.9 billion. On January 8, Dominion filed a lawsuit in the federal district court in Washington, D.C., accusing attorney Sidney Powell of “falsely claim[ing] that Dominion had rigged the election.” It seeks more than $1.3 billion in damages from Powell.

Within three weeks of this lawsuit, Dominion filed another defamation suit accusing Rudy Giuliani of spreading a “big lie” that “went viral and deceived millions of people into believing that Dominion had stolen their votes and fixed the election.” It also seeks $1.3 billion in punitive damages from Giuliani.

And on February 22, Dominion sued Mike Lindell, chief executive of MyPillow Inc., for more than $1.3 billion in damages. As with the previous two lawsuits, Dominion claims that Lindell falsely accused their voting machines of stealing the election from Donald Trump. The 115-page complaint cites a number of different statements made by Lindell, including social-media posts, media appearances, and a two-hour film claiming to prove widespread election fraud. This documentary, titled Absolute Proof, claims a Chinese cyberattack played a key role in stealing the 2020 election.

Winning all three lawsuits would get Dominion a sum 39 times its annual revenue!

President Trump is no longer in the White House, the radical leftists’ presidential coup d’état is a fait accompli, and Dominion is emboldened to characterize these claims as a giant $3.9 billion lie. Yet neither Powell nor Giuliani nor Lindell seem deterred. So why are they so confident?

Giuliani said, “Dominion’s defamation lawsuit for $1.3 billion will allow me to investigate their history, finances and practices fully and completely. The amount being asked for is, quite obviously, intended to frighten people of faint heart. It is another act of intimidation by the hate-filled left wing to wipe out and censor the exercise of free speech, as well as the ability of lawyers to defend their clients vigorously. As such, we will investigate a countersuit against them for violating these constitutional rights.” Lindell told the Associated Press that he welcomed the lawsuit and was confident the discovery process would prove him right: “You bring it on, Dominion, because I want everybody to see.”

The irony of Dominion’s lawsuits is that they could give Donald Trump’s team an opportunity they have been denied: the chance to prove, in court, a conspiracy to steal America’s presidency.

Cyber Targets

The former director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Chris Krebs, has assured the American people that the 2020 presidential elections were “the most secure in American history.” Yet there is no way for his statement to be true. Electronic voting machines produced by companies like Dominion Voting Systems have made elections easier to rig than ever before.

For most of American history, votes were counted by hand or with a mechanical adding machine. That made America’s elections hard to rig. Any attempt to steal an election necessarily had to involve collaboration between hundreds of operatives spread throughout voting precincts across the nation. Only in instances where the election was virtually a tie (like in the 2000 U.S. presidential election between George Bush and Al Gore) could stolen or disputed votes in a small number of counties make a difference.

But now, more than 90 percent of voters use machines manufactured by only three companies: Dominion Voting Systems, Election Systems & Software, and Hart InterCivic. That means malfunctioning—or malicious—hardware or software in the machines these companies produce could dramatically change the results of an election—and it would only take a small number of people to pull off such a heist.

In December 2019, Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Mark Pocan wrote to Staple Street Capital Group llc regarding Dominion Voting Systems. Their open letter stated:

We are particularly concerned that secretive and “trouble-plagued companies,” owned by private equity firms and responsible for manufacturing and maintaining voting machines and other election administration equipment, “have long skimped on security in favor of convenience,” leaving voting systems across the country “prone to security problems.” … Election security experts have noted for years that our nation’s election systems and infrastructure are under serious threat. … Moreover, even when state and local officials work on replacing antiquated machines, many continue to “run on old software that will soon be outdated and more vulnerable to hackers.”

Dominion and other companies have responded to allegations that their machines could be remotely hacked by insisting that none of their devices are connected to the Internet during voting. But a senior technical adviser at the election security advocacy group National Election Defense Coalition told nbc News on January 10 that he had already found over 35 voting systems that were online during the 2020 presidential election. And Finnish data-security expert Harri Hursti is warning that many voting machines have modems or other forms of network connectivity that transmit data that a talented and determined hacker could intercept. And this doesn’t include the fact that putting the machines online after voting has ended still exposes the counting process to hacking.

Hursti was featured in Hacking Democracy, a 2006 Emmy-nominated documentary where he exposes previously unknown backdoors in the software of voting machines made by Diebold Election Systems. After this documentary was released, Diebold changed its name to Premier Election Solutions. Then, in 2009, Election Systems and Software purchased Premier and sold its primary assets to Dominion.

A spokesman for Dominion told the Wall Street Journal that the weaknesses Hursti uncovered were fixed in 2012. But Hursti says he tested the updated software and found it too was vulnerable. In the 2020 hbo documentary Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections, Hursti demonstrated in a mock election that by modifying a few lines of code on a Dominion machine’s removable memory card, he could alter the results. So the question is not: Could Dominion machines be used to rig the election? The question is: Were Dominion machines used to rig the election?

Statistical Anomalies

The Data Integrity Group is a group of scientists, engineers and machine-learning specialists who are checking whether votes were stolen digitally during the 2020 presidential election. On Dec. 30, 2020, group member Lynda McLaughlin, along with data scientists Justin Mealey and Dave Lobue, testified before the Georgia Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Elections that at least 30,593 votes were digitally removed from one candidate, and another 12,173 votes were digitally switched from one candidate to the other. The candidate who benefited from this fraud? Joe Biden. Based on information published on the Dominion Voting Systems website, the voting machines Georgia uses are manufactured by Dominion.

“[W]e actually have fraud that we can prove in this election,” said Mealey, a former programmer for the National Counterterrorism Center. “There was fraud in Georgia’s election; we can prove it with data. The voting will of the people of Georgia is not reflected in what was certified by the secretary of state.”

Since Biden won Georgia by only 11,779 votes according to the official count, just the 12,173 switch votes that the Data Integrity Group is talking about would have been enough to steal the state.

The story was the same in Pennsylvania. An analysis by the Data Integrity Group obtained by the Epoch Times found that 432,116 votes were digitally removed from President Trump’s total in Pennsylvania. In the official count, Biden won Pennsylvania by 81,660 votes. In reality, Biden lost by hundreds of thousands.

Dr. Peter Navarro, an economist who served as President Trump’s director of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, has chronicled 136,155 voting machine irregularities in Georgia, 195,755 machine irregularities in Michigan, and 143,379 machine irregularities in Pennsylvania. He does not specify whether these irregularities favored Donald Trump or Joe Biden, but in the third volume of his study, Dr. Navarro highlights that the “margin of error” in these states is much higher than Biden’s margin of victory.

It’s a fact: It is possible that Dominion machines were used to steal the election from President Trump!

Last Chance

As Harri Hursti pointed out in Kill Chain: The Cyber War on America’s Elections, hacking voting machines is cyberwarfare against America that foreign nation-states or lone wolf actors could carry out. Some security analysts, such as former National Security Agency analyst Kirk Wiebe, are even warning that operatives within the U.S. government could have hacked the election to force President Trump from office.

The idea that agents of the U.S. government would hack their own country’s elections sounds shocking, yet a sobering Bible prophecy reveals that this level of corruption will exist in the end time. The Prophet Isaiah wrote, “Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment” (Isaiah 1:4-6).

As Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry explains in his book Ezekiel—The End-Time Prophet, these verses mean that America’s power structures are terminally ill from top to bottom. The government agents are sick; the legislators are sick; the judges are sick; the financiers are sick; the inventors are sick; even the executives counting our votes are sick. This is why a clique of shadowy technology executives is picking our leaders. The sins of the people have allowed sickness and corruption to fill our government until there is no soundness left in it.

Yet another prophecy on Amos 7 reveals that God will pass by end-time Israel (which consists of the United States and Britain primarily) one last time so that people have a chance to repent of the spiritual sickness that has led to so much corruption in government. “And the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline. Then said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more: And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword” (Amos 7:8-9).

In his article “Why I Believe Donald Trump Is Still Coming Back,” Mr. Flurry explained that President Trump is an end-time type of King Jeroboam ii, which means God is going to pass by America one last time. God will temporarily spare America from punishment, saving it by the hand of Donald Trump (2 Kings 14:26-27).

President Trump is going to regain power in America, possibly by exposing massive election fraud. “God is invested in this,” Mr. Flurry wrote. “I still believe He is about to do some massive exposing of how the election was stolen and other crimes the radical left is committing.” The legal battles on the horizon between Dominion and President Trump’s legal team may be the way much of this corruption is exposed!

The Trumpet: How the 2020 Election Was Saved

Stephen Flurry at The Trumpet tells us How the 2020 Election Was Saved by entrenched interests.

Last week Time magazine published a 6,500-word article admitting the existence of “a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage, and control the flow of information”—all for the purpose of protecting the 2020 election.

And, Time tells you, this was all a good thing.

This is the propaganda media in action. It is a vivid sign of just how wrong the world we live in has become.

Time admitted that it was revealing the “secret history” of a “cabal,” wielding enormous power over a “vast, cross-partisan campaign” and “hundreds of millions of dollars,” committing a “conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes” of “unprecedented scale” that was ready, among other things, to “flood the streets.”

This is not a conspiracy theory blog or even a conservative commentator. This is liberal, mainstream Time magazine. And this is an outright admission that liberals committed a nationwide conspiracy to change the election—including changing laws and changing your perception.

This is an attempt to admit the conspiracy that you suspected (and were scoffed at for suspecting) is real—because the truth is leaking out anyway—but to make you believe this was all a good thing.

The conspirators “were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it.” They were not destroying the Constitution; they were rescuing democracy! They were not destroying your rights; they were “saving” the election.

Just weeks ago they were telling us, “Conspiracy? What conspiracy?” Now they are telling us, “Oh, of course there was a conspiracy—and it was a good thing.”

Read this Time article, and you will better realize how badly America is afflicted.

Here are quotes, in context, straight from the February 4 Time magazine article by Molly Ball titled “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election.” (The context is: Believe that this was all a good thing.)

This is the inside story of the conspiracy to save the 2020 election, based on access to the group’s inner workings, never-before-seen documents and interviews with dozens of those involved from across the political spectrum. …

That’s why the participants want the secret history of the 2020 election told, even though it sounds like a paranoid fever dream—a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage, and control the flow of information. They were not rigging the election; they were fortifying it.

They were controlling information and changing rules and laws, but even though the average rational person would consider this rigging the election, you had better believe that they were “saving” and “fortifying” the election process!

Who were they? How did they control your information? How did they influence your perception? This article gives shocking detail about some of that, even admitting the threat of violence that the leftists were using to control the election—while constantly reminding you: We will let you confirm that it was a conspiracy, but you must believe it was a good conspiracy.

In a way, Trump was right. There was a conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes, one that both curtailed the protests and coordinated the resistance from ceos. Both surprises were the result of an informal alliance between left-wing activists and business titans. The pact was formalized in a terse, little-noticed joint statement of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and afl-cio published on Election Day. Both sides would come to see it as a sort of implicit bargain—inspired by the summer’s massive, sometimes destructive racial-justice protests—in which the forces of labor came together with the forces of capital to keep the peace and oppose Trump’s assault on democracy.

If anyone thought the 2020 election was 155 million American voters choosing between the qualifications of two candidates and having their eligible votes counted and added up to determine the winner, the liberals at Time and elsewhere know differently. But remember: It’s good that liberals conducted a massive assault on voters’ perceptions (to say nothing of voters’ ballots) because, remember, Donald Trump was assaulting democracy.

This group, ranging from street rioters to billionaire executives, had an army on standby in case they needed to “save” the election by conducting a massive, violent coup!

The handshake between business and labor was just one component of a vast, cross-partisan campaign to protect the election—an extraordinary shadow effort dedicated not to winning the vote but to ensuring it would be free and fair, credible and uncorrupted.

Time magazine says that protecting the freedom, fairness, credibility and soundness of the election was the job of an “extraordinary shadow effort”—and that the people laboring in these shadows did not care who won. They had no intention to influence the outcome—only to make sure it was “fair.” Is your mind performing all the necessary contortions to believe what Time journalists and executives are telling you?

The article continues:

For more than a year, a loosely organized coalition of operatives scrambled to shore up America’s institutions as they came under simultaneous attack from a remorseless pandemic and an autocratically inclined president. Though much of this activity took place on the left, it was separate from the Biden campaign and crossed ideological lines, with crucial contributions by nonpartisan and conservative actors. The scenario the shadow campaigners were desperate to stop was not a Trump victory. It was an election so calamitous that no result could be discerned at all, a failure of the central act of democratic self-governance that has been a hallmark of America since its founding.

How altruistic! These leftists and conservatives were motivated not by stopping President Trump’s reelection. They just care so much about democratic self-governance! Forget about the fact that many of them have been desecrating and destroying the memories of the Founding Fathers who established democratic self-governance. Believe instead that they spent hundreds of millions to make sure each voter could freely choose whichever candidate he or she thought was best for this country, just as the founders intended. Believe that changing the outcome of the election by manipulating millions of people was the furthest thing from their minds!

Their work touched every aspect of the election. They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding. They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers, and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time. They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears. They executed national public-awareness campaigns that helped Americans understand how the vote count would unfold over days or weeks, preventing Trump’s conspiracy theories and false claims of victory from getting more traction.

After every election, the votes are counted and the winners are announced on election night. Except for 2020. This time, they planned for the count to take longer. And they colluded to implement information campaigns to influence Americans to expect the count to take longer. Some of their media assets prepared voters before the election and included social media posts telling people to “relax” because “good things take time.” Time says you must believe that this virtually unprecedented delay—a delay they were planning to have ahead of time—was “protecting the integrity” of the election.

Protecting the election would require an effort of unprecedented scale. As 2020 progressed, it stretched to Congress, Silicon Valley and the nation’s statehouses. It drew energy from the summer’s racial-justice protests, many of whose leaders were a key part of the liberal alliance. And eventually it reached across the aisle, into the world of Trump-skeptical Republicans appalled by his attacks on democracy. … The first task was overhauling America’s balky election infrastructure—in the middle of a pandemic. For the thousands of local, mostly nonpartisan officials who administer elections, the most urgent need was money.

Good thing the liberal super-rich and all the organizations they fund have a lot of money!

Private philanthropy stepped into the breach. An assortment of foundations contributed tens of millions in election-administration funding. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative chipped in $300 million.

Time says you should view super-rich elites spending hundreds of millions to change the actual administration of the election process—and just in the swing states that would determine the outcome of the election—as philanthropists courageously “stepping into the breach.”

The article also admits that it was this same “loose” liberal cabal—which, you might suspect, is probably not all that loose—that organized and initiated the violent, destructive summer of 2020 Black Lives Matter protests and riots.

The billionaire executives of Facebook and Twitter, for example, Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey, both met with “civil rights” leaders who were warning them that they had better silence pro-Trump “rumors.”

Time also admits that they coordinated to create online information campaigns to convince Americans that a delay in vote counting was normal. “The Voting Rights Lab and IntoAction created state-specific memes and graphics, spread by e-mail, text, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok [which is controlled by China], urging that every vote be counted. … The organization’s tracking polls found the message was being heard: the percentage of the public that didn’t expect to know the winner on election night gradually rose until by late October, it was over 70 percent. A majority also believed that a prolonged count wasn’t a sign of problems.” Time insists it was a good thing the billionaires and radical activists succeeded in changing the beliefs of the average American—otherwise people might think there was a problem with the election.

Finally, Election Day came on Nov. 3, 2020. And there were problems with votes being cast. And there were a lot of problems and delays with counting the vote—especially, for some reason, in the swing states that would determine who won the election.

The article says that following Election Day, the conspirators “monitored every pressure point to ensure that Trump could not overturn the result.”

Who were some of their leaders? Norm Eisen, “a prominent lawyer and former Obama administration official who recruited Republicans and Democrats to the board of the Voter Protection Program” (emphasis added). Did this former Obama official also not care who won the election, but only wanted to guarantee fairness?

Another organizer was a man named Mike Podhorzer, who set up mass teleconference calls to keep everyone coordinated. “The racial-justice uprising sparked by George Floyd’s killing in May was not primarily a political movement. The organizers who helped lead it wanted to harness its momentum for the election without allowing it to be co-opted by politicians. Many of those organizers were part of Podhorzer’s network, from the activists in battleground states who partnered with the Democracy Defense Coalition to organizations with leading roles in the Movement for Black Lives.”

“Democracy Defense,” “Voter Protection,” “Protect the Results,” “Civil Rights.” These sound like groups of people interested in lawful, constitutional, free and fair elections. Right?

Well, it turns out they did have a preferred candidate. And if that preferred candidate did not win on Election Day—or whenever the delayed vote-counting was finally done—they had a massive network of “protesters” ready to be unleashed at any moment.

This was a threat!

The article continues:

But behind the scenes, the business community was engaged in its own anxious discussions about how the election and its aftermath might unfold. The summer’s racial-justice protests had sent a signal to business owners too: the potential for economy-disrupting civil disorder.

This was part of the means of persuading those executives who might not have been quite ideologically liberal enough to participate in this election manipulation: use of force. This is describing a violent, government-overthrowing coup!

Meanwhile, the liberals’ “messaging”—more accurately, deception—was that the nation must live in fear of Trump voters rioting and staging a coup! But in truth, Trump voters reacted to losing a highly unusual, highly suspect election mostly by getting up and going to work the next morning.

The summer uprising had shown that people power could have a massive impact. Activists began preparing to reprise the demonstrations if Trump tried to steal the election. “Americans plan widespread protests if Trump interferes with election,” Reuters reported in October, one of many such stories. More than 150 liberal groups, from the Women’s March to the Sierra Club to Color of Change, from Democrats.com to the Democratic Socialists of America, joined the “Protect the Results” coalition. The group’s now defunct website had a map listing 400 planned postelection demonstrations, to be activated via text message as soon as November 4. To stop the coup they feared, the left was ready to flood the streets.”

This may seem like a lot of different “action committees” and “research groups” and other organizations. But where do they all get their funding and their marching orders? In many cases, it traces back to the same few billionaires. Not quite as “loose” a coalition as it seems.

At 11 p.m. on election night, President Trump’s results were better than anyone expected. (Even after the delayed, largely fraudulent vote-counting, he ended up with an official total of 74 million—an all-time record second only to, somehow, Joe Biden’s 81 million.) In response, this “election integrity”-minded group signed in for an emergency teleconference call.

Hundreds joined; many were freaking out. “It was really important for me and the team in that moment to help ground people in what we had already known was true,” says Angela Peoples, director for the Democracy Defense Coalition. Podhorzer presented data to show the group that victory was in hand.

While he was talking, Fox News surprised everyone by calling Arizona for Biden. The public-awareness campaign had worked: tv anchors were bending over backward to counsel caution and frame the vote count accurately. The question then became what to do next.

The conversation that followed was a difficult one, led by the activists charged with the protest strategy. “We wanted to be mindful of when was the right time to call for moving masses of people into the street,” Peoples says.

They were perhaps minutes away from setting off mass protests and, undoubtedly, riots. But they were afraid that enough Americans might finally react against everything that had been going on, and the liberals on the conference call decided to trust their system.

So the word went out: Stand down. Protect the Results announced that it would “not be activating the entire national mobilization network today, but remains ready to activate if necessary.” …

Activists reoriented the Protect the Results protests toward a weekend of celebration. “Counter their disinfo with our confidence & get ready to celebrate,” read the messaging guidance Shenker-Osorio presented to the liberal alliance on Friday, November 6. “Declare and fortify our win. Vibe: confident, forward-looking, unified—not passive, anxious.” The voters, not the candidates, would be the protagonists of the story.

The planned day of celebration happened to coincide with the election being called on November 7.

This is what the liberal activists and elites were telling their people to think and feel and express for the purpose of locking in their win. And the fact that the planned day of celebration was the same day that the mainstream media, in coordination, called the 2020 presidential election for Democrat Joe Biden was only a “coincidence.”

Remember the celebration? Did you see all the coronavirus-scare-mongering liberal politicians and their followers thronging in the streets without masks—and wonder why they weren’t celebrating in their homes, wearing two masks and sitting at least 6 feet apart?

This is the art of the steal. The swamp is deep! The “deep state” is deep! This is what Donald Trump warned about: powerful, influential elites who are “enemies of the people.” There truly is a conspiracy at work.

And you can take the liberals’ own word for it! Time executives were very deliberate about the words they used to describe this. Conspiracy, cabal, protest strategy, reprising the summer demonstrations—these are not words that accidentally slipped by editors. They want you to know there was a conspiracy—perhaps because you would find out anyway—and they want you to think it’s a good thing.

Read this Time article and come to a stark realization: The world you live in—which seems fine on the surface—is hanging by a thread. And the thread is rotten.

The only answer, the only hope, is not the Republican Party or some new party or even the ideals of conservatism. Your only hope is to see the world and even this once-great nation for what it is and to use this opportunity for what it is: one last chance to repent.

See also The Organic Prepper’s The US Ministry Of Woke Propaganda Wants To Cancel You, Me, Fox, & Anyone Else Who Disagrees

The Trumpet: Nancy Pelosi’s Coup D’état

Stephen Flurry of The Trumpet talks about the strangeness of the current impeachment proceedings in Nancy Pelosi’s Coup D’état

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is leading a coup d’état against the United States government. Last week, she called Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Mark Milley to ask what she could do to prevent President Donald Trump from accessing nuclear launch codes. Then she attempted to coax Vice President Mike Pence into invoking the 25th Amendment to have President Trump removed from office. When neither effort succeeded, she introduced articles of impeachment to Congress.

Why is she so desperate to remove President Trump from office if he is going to be gone in about a week?

The impeachment articles introduced to Congress yesterday have more than 200 Democratic co-sponsors. They charge President Trump with “incitement of insurrection,” saying that he “gravely endangered the security of the United States and its institutions of government” by calling on his supporters to stage a “Make America Great Again Rally” in Washington, D.C., last week. Even though the president condemned the violence at this rally and reaffirmed that the Republican Party is the “party of law and order,” Democratic lawmakers still plan to hold an impeachment vote in the House of Representatives tomorrow.

Even liberal law professor Jonathan Turley says this snap impeachment is unconstitutional. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says the Senate would not have time to hold a trial until after the president has left office. So why hold the vote?

Pelosi is either the most impatient woman in America or scared of what President Trump might do in the next eight days.

Some Democrats are even talking about impeaching President Trump after he has left office, which probably isn’t even possible. But that does not matter to the radical left. The rules, the Constitution, the law—none of that matters. Pelosi even called the military to see if she could trigger a military coup d’état.

So who are the real authoritarians in America? Who are the tyrants today?

Radio personality Rush Limbaugh says the real reason Pelosi and the Democratic Party are unwilling to wait for President Trump to leave is that they are terrified he will expose their political corruption by declassifying confidential information. “Pelosi has called the military and put them on standby in case Trump launches the nuke codes. Whom are we going to nuke?” Limbaugh said last Friday. “What are they terrified of? They are terrified that Trump is going to unleash classified documents. You know he has a bevy of them, folks. He has classified documents about the hoax, the four-year coup. … There are all kinds of people who broke the law; all kinds of people who are quaking in their boots. They are worried silly that Trump is going to unleash some of these classified documents.”

In a 60 Minutes interview that aired Sunday night, Pelosi admitted that a significant motivation for President Trump’s impeachment is to eliminate any chance he has of being elected again.

The Democrats fear Donald Trump because he exposes them. They want weak-willed Republicans like Mitch McConnell and Ben Sasse who will stand by and let them destroy the Constitution.

We are witnessing the most astonishing attack on free speech in American history: President Trump and tens of thousands of his supporters have been banned from social media. Now the Washington establishment is doubling down in its efforts to ensure that the president cannot expose any more of their corruption.

My father drew particular attention to Nancy Pelosi when she was first elected speaker of the House in 2007. “The new speaker of the House is a Democrat from San Francisco, Nancy Pelosi,” he wrote in the January 2007 Trumpet. “This woman, who is now second in line for the presidency after Vice President Dick Cheney, is pro-abortion and pro-homosexual ‘marriage’; she wants to allocate federal spending for stem-cell research, which involves experimenting on unborn babies. Democrats are excited by the fact that endorsements of ‘San Francisco values’ now echo through Washington’s halls. Is this what America needs? … What did God think of these elections? … This election marks the final chapter for the United States. We mourn to see America’s downfall. We are about to see a tsunami of problems sweep over the world!”

These statements have turned out to be dead right. The radical-leftist takeover that started in 2006 has advanced to the point where liberals can steal elections and then silence anyone who dares criticize them for it. If these people get full control, they will utterly destroy America’s constitutional republic.

2 Kings 14:26-27 describe a crucial moment in Israel’s ancient history that is prophecy for modern Israel (for proof, read my father’s article “Why Donald Trump Will Remain America’s President”). That passage reads, “For the Lord saw the affliction of Israel, that it was very bitter: for there was not any shut up, nor any left, nor any helper for Israel. And the Lord said not that he would blot out the name of Israel from under heaven: but he saved them by the hand of Jeroboam the son of Joash.”

America today is suffering grievous affliction. These verses show that there is no one left who can help the nation—no one in Congress, no one in the courts, no one in the Trump administration. That is why God has to personally intervene and save America by the hand of an end-time type of King Jeroboam ii. If He did not, then the radical left’s coup d’état would succeed.

We are still in the final chapter of America’s downfall, but God is going to intervene in such a way as to allow His warning message to go out to the nation one last time (Amos 7:1-8). My father’s conclusion to his 2007 article rings truer now than ever: “We live in the midst of the most eventful moment in human history! God’s warning must be delivered before this tidal wave of catastrophes descends.”

The Trumpet: The Biggest Threat to American Democracy

The Trumpet talks about the dangers of big tech censorship in The Biggest Threat to American Democracy

Former United States President Barack Obama is denouncing conservative media as “the single biggest threat to our democracy.” In his most recent effort to increase governmental control over news and technology companies, Mr. Obama contended that Facebook, Twitter and other media platforms needed to use stronger censorship to stop conservatives from spreading “crazy lies and conspiracy theories.”

“The First Amendment doesn’t require private companies to provide a platform for any view that is out there,” Mr. Obama told the Atlantic on Nov. 11, 2020. “At the end of the day, we’re going to have to find a combination of government regulations and corporate practices that address this, because it’s going to get worse. … If we do not have the capacity to distinguish what’s true from what’s false, then by definition the marketplace of ideas doesn’t work. And by definition our democracy doesn’t work.”

Mr. Obama blamed Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and “the entire right-wing media ecosystem” for interfering with his administration’s plans to fundamentally transform America.

Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and other liberals are broadcasting the narrative that the media does not censor conservatives enough. Yet Big Media and Big Tech are already notorious for censoring conservatives, labeling them racists as if it were objective fact.

Now evidence is piling up that these companies tried to interfere with the 2020 presidential election by censoring stories that would hurt Democrat Joe Biden’s chances of election.

Undercover investigators working for Project Veritas caught Google executive Jen Gennai on camera in 2019 boasting that only Google could prevent “the next Trump situation.” And in October 2020, Facebook executives announced that they were deliberately changing their search algorithms to limit users’ ability to share a story on the Biden family’s business dealings in China, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine.

Twitter went a step further. When the New York Post uncovered this story and others based on the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop, Twitter locked its account and blocked users from sharing the story.

The conservative Media Research Center reported out of the 1,750 Biden voters it surveyed, 1 in 6 would not have voted for him if they had known about scandals suppressed by the media.

Google, Facebook, Twitter—some of the biggest and most powerful corporations in the world—are altering what Americans can see and hear to censor conservatives and support liberals.

But Barack Obama says they aren’t biased enough.

The Bible foretold that truth would be cast down to the ground by an organized host of people in the end time. You need to understand the inner workings of this network and the dark spirit that empowers it!

Election Rigging

One of the biggest threats to free and fair elections in the United States is media bias and censorship. For eight years, behavioral psychologist Dr. Robert Epstein, a liberal, has warned that Google can easily determine the outcome of elections by adjusting its search algorithms to favor one political party over another. Research shows that Google handles over 86 percent of all search queries worldwide. And when Google’s search results come up, 95 percent of the clicks are on the very first page of search results.

When Google pushes a site off of the first page, very few will ever click on it.

“Google’s search algorithm can easily shift the voting preferences of undecided voters by 20 percent or more—up to 80 percent in some demographic groups—with virtually no one knowing they are being manipulated,” Epstein wrote in a 2015 editorial, “How Google Could Rig the 2016 Election.”

Epstein based his calculations on experiments he conducted with Ronald Robertson and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Epstein told Fox News on Nov. 23, 2020, that he believed search engine manipulation shifted a “bare minimum” of 6 million votes to Joe Biden. If true, President Donald Trump would have won the popular vote as well as the electoral vote if Google had not biased its news coverage against him.

Former Google employee Zachary Vorhies went public as a whistleblower in 2019, leaking over 950 pages of internal Google documents to Project Veritas and the Justice Department. The information confirmed that Google has biased its algorithms to promote liberalism and suppress conservatism. It also revealed that Google has blacklists of search terms and a blacklist of websites.

Vorhies warned that “the reason why I collected these documents was because I saw something dark and nefarious going on with the company, and I realized that they were going to not only tamper with the elections, but use that tampering with the elections to essentially overthrow the United States.”

For 230 years, the U.S. has been a constitutional republic where people freely elect the representatives who govern them. Now Google’s board of directors is trying to change that, not by abolishing elections, but by gradually increasing its control over what people learn and know. If it can manipulate what people think is true, it can fundamentally change America into whatever it wants!

Deep State Media

Barack Obama was known as “Silicon Valley’s president.” Executives from Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter had close relationships with his administration. Data from the Campaign on Accountability shows that Google representatives attended meetings at the Obama White House more than once a week. Almost 250 people switched from the Obama administration to Google or vice versa. Now Mr. Obama is pushing for a Biden administration to continue colluding with Big Tech.

Investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson noted that a major reason Big Tech is so willing to cooperate with progressive politicians and “deep state” agents is to protect their monopolies. The Trump administration is pressing an antitrust review of tech giants to determine whether or not to prosecute them and divide them into smaller companies. So money and lobbyists from Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Twitter are flooding Washington, D.C., to protect these companies’ control over Internet searches and social media.

But the alignment between Silicon Valley and the deep state goes far beyond shared business interests. These two centers of power are also in ideological lockstep.

A 2017 survey by scientists at Stanford University quantifies what most people already know: Tech entrepreneurs are liberal. They favor abortion, gun control, homosexual unions, open borders, universal health care, wealth redistribution and other progressive causes. This explains why Google, and other tech companies went to such drastic lengths to bury stories critical of Biden while promoting stories critical of President Trump. They are tampering with elections “to essentially overthrow the United States” and transform the nation into a technocracy run by elites in the tech, media and political world.

Project Veritas caught nine current and former Twitter employees on hidden camera admitting that Twitter algorithms purposely hide tweets that use words like “God” or “America.” Twitter also restricts advertisements from pro-life organizations while promoting pro-abortion ads from Planned Parenthood. This type of censorship does not combat “fake news,” nor is it aimed to help Twitter establish a monopoly. It is an outright ideological attack on “God” and “America.”

Communist Connections

Mainstream media are becoming shockingly bold in the offensive to fundamentally transform America. An Atlantic article unequivocally declared that in the conflict between freedom of speech and government censorship, China is right and the United States is wrong.

“As surprising as it may sound, digital surveillance and speech control in the United States already show many similarities to what one finds in authoritarian states such as China,” wrote Jack Goldsmith and Andrew Keane Woods. “Constitutional and cultural differences mean that the private sector, rather than the federal and state governments, currently takes the lead in these practices, which further values and address threats different from those in China. … Significant monitoring and speech control are inevitable components of a mature and flourishing Internet, and governments must play a large role in these practices to ensure that the Internet is compatible with a society’s norms and values” (April 25, 2020).

In other words: to rein in conspiracy theories, the U.S. government needs to control Americans like the Chinese Communist Party controls Chinese.

The New York Post reported that Facebook’s Hate-Speech Engineering Team includes at least six foreign nationals recruited from Communist China. This team suppressed news reports about how Joe Biden’s son worked for a Shanghai investment firm that helped sell American technology with military applications to China.

Internal company documents released by Project Veritas show that Facebook actually favors Chinese and Korean visa workers over American citizens. These are the computer engineers secretly building artificial intelligence algorithms to recognize and suppress opinions they disagree with in your news feed. And the only reason we know they exist is because outraged whistleblowers are sounding the alarm.

The OpenPower Foundation—a nonprofit led by Google and ibm executives—set up collaboration between Chinese company Semptian and U.S. chip manufacturer Xilinx. They are creating microprocessors that analyze vast amounts of data more efficiently. China is using these microprocessors to enhance its Internet surveillance and censorship capacities. One Semptian employee sent documents to The Intercept showing that the company has developed a mass surveillance system named Aegis, which allows government spies to see “the connections of everyone,” including “location information for everyone in the country.”

According to The Intercept investigative journalist Ryan Gallagher, “Aegis equipment has been placed within China’s phone and Internet networks, enabling the country’s government to secretly collect people’s e-mail records, phone calls, text messages, cellphone locations, and web browsing histories, according to two sources familiar with Semptian’s work. Chinese state security agencies are likely using the technology to target human rights activists, pro-democracy advocates, and critics of President Xi Jinping’s regime, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of reprisals” (July 11, 2019).

This is the type of power the Chinese Communist Party has to silence people who disagree with it. But where did key elements of that power come from? It came from the same tech companies Barack Obama is working with to stop “crazy lies and conspiracy theories.”

A Dual Prophecy

Many Americans do not believe in the devil. Still, the Bible reveals he is “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2). The devil’s primary way to deceive people is by broadcasting attitudes of selfishness, vanity, lust, violence, envy, bitterness and resentment against authority. He also speaks through “the children of disobedience,” more directly influencing the lives of people who are vulnerable to him.

An end-time Bible prophecy reveals how the devil uses a host of people to cast truth to the ground. “Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down. And an host was given him against the daily sacrifice by reason of transgression, and it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised, and prospered” (Daniel 8:11-12).

King Antiochus Epiphanes fulfilled this prophecy when he desecrated the temple in Jerusalem with an idol of himself. But the book of Daniel is primarily for the end time (Daniel 12:4). This prophecy about Antiochus is also being fulfilled in God’s Church and in America in our time.

Strong’s Concordance defines “host” as “a mass of persons (or figuratively, things), especially reg. organized for war (an army).” Depending on the context, the expression can refer to an army of demons, angels or men. The host referred to in Daniel 8 is an army of demons and evil men who help an end-time Antiochus in God’s Church and an end-time Antiochus in the United States of America.

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry explains in America Under Attack that the spiritual Antiochus “cast down the truth to the ground” inside God’s Church, and a political Antiochus is doing the same thing in the United States. The most anti-Bible president in American history, Barack Obama, fulfills the role of the political Antiochus. He is out of office now, but he and his powerful allies have been at work in the mainstream media trying “to essentially overthrow the United States.”

A host of bureaucrats, military leaders, intelligence agents, media moguls, tech entrepreneurs, Wall Street financiers, and Chinese spies are helping Antiochus cast truth to the ground. This network is the biggest threat to America today. It aims to destroy the United States, its Judeo-Christian history, its constitutional form of government, and the biblical principles this form of government is largely based upon.

God is exposing the corruption in U.S. politics so people have a chance to repent before a lawless spirit destroys America, by replacing the rule of law with the horrifying rule of powerful deception and brutal force. When people do not sincerely love the truth, they come to believe lies (2 Thessalonians 2:9-12).

The values that helped make America great are being cast to the ground, but Antiochus and his supporters are only able to do this by “reason of transgression.” The devil is exploiting America’s lawlessness and lack of faith. God will allow this until people come to truly see the need for repentance toward God!

The Trumpet: The Hidden Lesson of the First Thanksgiving

The Hidden Lesson of the First Thanksgiving at The Trumpet talks about some lesser known Pilgrim history and how a failing commune turned itself around.

This month is the 400th anniversary of the Pilgrims’ arrival in New England. The story of how the pilgrims fled religious persecution in England, established the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts, and celebrated the first Thanksgiving is repeated annually in America. This story tells how 102 pilgrims arrived in Plymouth in the middle of winter. It tells how 45 of those pilgrims starved to death before spring. Then it tells how the pilgrims befriended the Native Americans Samoset and Squanto, learned to grow corn, and gave thanks to God for their blessings during a Thanksgiving feast that autumn.

If you have heard that story, you have not heard the whole truth.

The pilgrims gave thanks to God in a three-day Thanksgiving feast in 1621, but their harvest was not bountiful. They only grew a fraction of the food they needed to survive the coming winter, so the Wampanoag tribe provided much of the food they ate during the first Thanksgiving. Many pilgrims starved the following winter.

In his History of Plymouth Plantation, the governor of Plymouth Colony, William Bradford, wrote that many pilgrims became so desperate the following winter that they sold their clothes and bed coverings for food. Others became servants of the Wampanoag tribe, cutting their wood and fetching them water in return for a cap full of corn. Still, others stole from their fellow pilgrims and from the Wampanoag.

The pilgrims had to learn a lesson about the Bible before God blessed them with abundance.

Something most people do not know about the pilgrims is that they were communalists. The communalist movement was a form of socialism that taught that communities should pool their resources and share their production. Those more capable were to do what they could, and those less capable were to take what they needed. As the atheist Karl Marx later phrased this way of thinking, “From each according to their ability, to each according to their needs.”

It did not take Governor Bradford long to realize that something was seriously wrong. In his History of Plymouth Plantation, he wrote that the young men resented having to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense. Meanwhile, the old men resented having to accept equal rations as those who had not served the community as long. And the women resented having to cook and clean for men who were not their husbands. The end result of all this resentment was that many refused to work and the food supply dwindled because “much was stolen both by night and day, before it became scarce eatable.”

After three years of scarcity, Governor Bradford rectified the situation by abolishing communalism. After discussing the matter with the leaders of the community, Bradford assigned every family a parcel of land and arranged for all the young boys to be assigned as members of some particular family. He then told each household that they could keep whatever they produced, or trade it away as they saw fit.

The change was startling!

Governor Bradford noted that “the women now went willingly into the fields, and took their little ones with them to plant corn, which before would allege weakness, and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.” The pilgrims produced so much food during the summer of 1623, that there actually was great abundance during the Thanksgiving feast they celebrated that autumn. The next year, the pilgrims actually had a surplus of food they could sell to surrounding settlements.

Governor Bradford repented of his role in establishing Plymouth as a commune.

He wrote in his History of Plymouth Plantation, “The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years, and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato’s and other ancients, applauded by some of later times—that the taking away of property, and bringing in community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort.”

In other words, Bradford and the other pilgrim leaders had to repent of espousing the socialist ideas of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato above the laws of God. Plato rejected the concept of family and private property in his book Republic, but God considers the family unit to be the basic building block of the economy.

The Apostle Paul wrote that “if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” (1 Timothy 5:8).

The pilgrims had to learn the hard way that a godly economy is built on a foundation of strong families that produce enough to take care of themselves and give to others. After they learned this important lesson, they were undoubtedly more thankful during the third Thanksgiving than they were during the first Thanksgiving. This is because they learned to be thankful for more than the food the Native Americans gave them; they learned to be thankful for the law of God that taught them how to build a prosperous society.

The British historian Paul Johnson wrote an article in the Sunday Telegraph titled “No Law Without Order, No Freedom Without Law” in 1999. In it, he wrote: “[B]oth in Virginia and in New England to the north, the colonists were determined, God-fearing men often in search of a religious toleration denied them at home, who brought their families and were anxious to farm and establish permanent settlements. They put political and religious freedom before riches …. Thus took shape the economic dynamo that eventually became the United States—an experiment designed to establish the rule of God on Earth ….”

But these colonists had to learn that establishing the rule of God on Earth means keeping the Ten Commandments—the basis of all righteous law. This is the true lesson of the first Thanksgiving; a lesson lost on most Americans today, who give little thought to why they have been blessed with such abundance. At a time when the rule of law in America is under constant attack, Americans need to relearn this hidden lesson of the first Thanksgiving.

Reading Bradford’s History of Plymouth Plantation is a great way to learn about the pilgrims’ experience. And reading Character in Crisis, by Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry, puts the Founding Fathers’ quest to establish the rule of God on Earth in prophetic perspective.

The Trumpet: What Does the U.S. Constitution Say About the Election Crisis?

The Trumpet talks about what the Founding Fathers said in regards to solving contested elections in What Does the U.S. Constitution Say About the Election Crisis?

The rule of law is under attack in America. Evidence shows politicians are trying to transform the nation by emphasizing ends over means. Former United States federal prosecutor Sidney Powell claims to have evidence exposing large-scale voter fraud. During an interview with Fox Business, Powell said she had “staggering statistical evidence” that a leading voting machine firm, Dominion Voter Systems, stole votes from U.S. President Donald Trump.

“Well, I can hardly wait to put forth all the evidence we have collected on Dominion, starting with the fact it was created to produce altered voting results in Venezuela for Hugo Chávez and then shipped internationally to manipulate votes for purchase in other countries, including this one,” she told Lou Dobbs on November 13. “It was funded by money from Venezuela and Cuba, and China has a role in it also. So, if you want to talk about foreign election interference, we certainly have it now. We have staggering statistical evidence.”

What Powell is talking about is the biggest political scandal in U.S. history—if proved true.

If corrupt politicians can get away with using Communist-funded software to rig an election, then we no longer live in a constitutional republic. We live in an authoritarian technocracy.

Shockingly, most political and media figures do not want to give Powell a chance to present her evidence. News sources from the center-left Washington Post to the center-right Wall Street Journal have condemned Powell’s claims as a conspiracy theory. Former President Barack Obama said in an interview with 60 Minutes that President Trump needs to “put the country first” and concede the election right away. A group of 1,000 attorneys published a letter on November 10 making similar demands. They accused President Trump of violating his oath to the U.S. Constitution by claiming there was evidence of voter fraud.

Of course, none of these figures say what specific clause of the Constitution President Trump had violated. That is because the Constitution does not prohibit presidents from investigating voter fraud. In fact, as the nation’s chief law enforcement executive, you could say the Constitution mandates that he investigate these fraud allegations.

Those accusing President Trump of violating the rule of law are ignoring a major aspect of constitutional law. The Constitution does not give the media the power to pick the president, nor does it give attorneys the power to pick the president. It does not even give the American people the power to pick the president. The supreme law of the land gives the electoral college the power to pick the president. This means every politician, lawyer and soldier who has taken an oath to the Constitution is bound to accept the president chosen on December 14 by the 538 electors of the electoral college.

The recounts and court cases that happen before then are an attempt to inform these electors how their state voted. Electors are not constitutionally required to vote for the candidate who won their state, and six electors did not do so during the 2016 presidential elections. Only 33 states have laws punishing electors for not voting the way their state did.

The framers of the U.S. Constitution also wrote specific provisions on how to solve a contested election. They empowered Congress to be the backup if the electoral college could not decide on a winner. The 12th Amendment specifies that if no candidate receives 270 votes in the electoral college due to disputed ballots, or some other reason, the House of Representatives shall immediately choose between the three leading candidates. In this congressional vote, the representation from each state has one vote.

In regard to the current election crisis, law professor Donald Brand wrote, “If neither candidate gets to 270 electors due to disputed ballots, the House would have to decide the election. Though the House has a Democratic majority, such an outcome would almost certainly benefit Trump. Here’s why: In a concession to small states concerned their voices would be marginalized if the House was called upon to choose the president, the founders gave only one vote to each state. House delegations from each state meet to decide how to cast their single vote. That voting procedure gives equal representation to California—population 40 million—and Wyoming, population 600,000. This arrangement favors Republicans. The gop has dominated the House delegations of 26 states since 2018—exactly the number required to reach a majority under the rules of House presidential selection.”

Many Democrats hate the electoral college and want to replace it with a system where the winner of the popular vote becomes president. But they cannot condemn President Trump for violating the rule of law for refusing to concede an election before the electoral college has even convened. The framers of the U.S. Constitution established provisions on how to decide contested elections, and the only people violating the rule of law are those trying to circumvent those provisions by letting the media pick the president.

In 1999, British historian Paul Johnson wrote an article in the Sunday Telegraph titled “No Law Without Order, No Freedom Without Law.” He wrote: “The rule of law, as distinct from the rule of a person, or class or people, and as opposed to the rule of force, is an abstract, sophisticated concept. It is mighty difficult to achieve. But until it is achieved, and established in the public mind with such vehemence that masses of individuals are prepared to die to uphold it, no other form of progress can be regarded as secure. The Greeks had tried to establish the rule of law but failed. The Romans had succeeded under their republic but Caesar and his successors had destroyed it. The essence of the rule of law is its impersonality, omnipotence, and ubiquity. It is the same law for everyone, everywhere—kings, emperors, high priests, the state itself, are subject to it. If exceptions are made, the rule of law begins to collapse—that was the grand lesson of antiquity.”

Americans today do not understand “the grand lesson of antiquity” as our founders understood it. That is why the nation is on a dangerous path toward lawlessness.

For decades, activists have striven to fundamentally transform America by emphasizing ends over means. If a policy lacks support to be passed by the lawmaking branch of government, radicals call for the president to enact it via executive order, or for the Supreme Court to enact it via judicial activism, or for protesters to take to the streets. They accuse President Trump of violating the rule of law when he investigates lawbreaking, but they attack the supreme law of the land if the electoral college votes in a way they do not like.

The Prophet Isaiah described such lawless thinking 2,700 years ago: “None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity. They hatch cockatrice’ eggs, and weave the spider’s web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper. Their webs shall not become garments, neither shall they cover themselves with their works: their works are works of iniquity, and the act of violence is in their hands” (Isaiah 59:4-6).

This passage is a prophecy about end-time America (as our free book The United States and Britain in Prophecy, by Herbert W. Armstrong, proves). Today, corrupt politicians “speak lies,” “conceive mischief,” and “bring forth iniquity.” But God will not allow them to “cover themselves in their works.” He will expose the corruption so people have a chance to repent before a lawless spirit completely destroys America by replacing the rule of law with the horrifying rule of brute force!..

The Trumpet: The Death and Rebirth of America’s Cities

A looter carrying boxes of shoes runs past National Guard soldiers and bystanders in Hollywood on June 1. Anthony Kwan/Getty Images Our celebrated cities are succumbing to decay and violence. But an inspiring resurrection awaits.

From The Trumpet, The Death and Rebirth of America’s Cities

t has been a rough year for America’s cities. Their residents have been locked in their apartments for fear of coronavirus. Their attractions, offices, restaurants and stores have been evacuated. Their wealth has bled out because of ailing economic life, lost jobs and dwindling tax revenue.

Worse, their streets have choked with violent mobs vandalizing monuments, smashing storefronts, looting businesses, burning public buildings. Their law enforcement has been bridled by politicians more sympathetic to criminals than to law-keepers. Their protectors are being disrespected, disparaged and defunded, giving their enemies more license, more space to destroy. Their people are suffering rising rates of violent crime, including murder.

Yet these troubling recent events only aggravated a trend that has been wounding the nation’s crowning cities for years, even decades.

Legacy cities like Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, St. Louis and Buffalo have fallen from glittering heights of America’s industrial power. Shifts in the nation’s economy have cost hundreds of thousands of jobs and a loss of wealth. This has been exacerbated by race problems, “white flight,” cutbacks in law enforcement, and escalating crime. These factors have hollowed out many an American metropolis, leaving impoverished slums, empty buildings and decaying infrastructure.

In more recent years, failed welfare policies and lax law enforcement have turned cities into sanctuaries for homelessness, makeshift tent cities, drugs on the streets, garbage and filth, illegal immigration and criminality. Investigative reports have detailed how these problems are afflicting San Francisco, Portland, Seattle and other celebrated cities. Citizens are disgusted with their beloved cities being overtaken by trash, overpopulated by wastrels living off government largess, and overwhelmed by problems caused by bad governance.

All these crises have intensified this year. Animated by the twin specters of pandemic and race revolution, they are overtaking more and more of the nation’s urban landscape.

The effects of these trends will be far-reaching and disturbing, affecting not just city-dwellers, but every American.

Changing City Demography

covid-19 has made population density a bad word. In areas where protests have turned destructive, a cascade of aftereffects are pummeling city-dwellers: jobs lost; stores destroyed and shut down; business costs skyrocketing as insurance premiums soar. And in far too many places, mayors and governors are encouraging these curses. They are shuttering companies in the name of public safety. They are permitting, even applauding, marches and mayhem. And in the vacuum left by their failed leadership, revolutionaries are growing more bold, brazen, aggressive and ambitious.

“Urban dwellers are resilient, but these simultaneous events have forced people to face a hard reality,” wrote Daniel Henninger in the Wall Street Journal. “In just three months it has become clear that modern urban progressivism is politically incompetent and intellectually incoherent. … The message being sent is that progressive governance is, at best, ambivalent about maintaining civil order. The net result the past three months has been a sense in many cities of irresolvable chaos, stress and threat.”

At the same time that city life is becoming more unpleasant, virus restrictions are forcing much of life online. Schools nationwide are shifting to distance learning, and businesses are asking people to work from home. Social distancing restrictions and reduced foot traffic mean that costly big-city office space or storefront makes less and less economic sense. Consumers were already buying more and more online; this accelerates the trend. And many analysts are convinced some decentralization in the workforce is likely permanent.

The cost-benefit analysis is convincing many city folk to make a move. If you’re working remotely anyway, why pay big-city rent? And social distancing is far easier in suburbia, or in the country.

In San Francisco and Manhattan, when covid hit, many people left. Vacancies rose; home prices and rental rates dropped. Home sales in the suburbs around New York City soared, with many well-off city residents buying properties sight unseen based off Internet ads. The New York Times reported a 44 percent increase in home sales in nearby suburban counties in July compared to the previous year; 73 percent in a county just over the state line into Connecticut; 112 percent in Westchester, just north of the city. Meanwhile, the number of properties sold in Manhattan plunged 56 percent.

Nationwide, home mortgage applications are up 33 percent compared to last year, and are still rising. FoxBusiness.com credits this to more Americans working remotely, and more families doing school from home and thus needing more space.

The people escaping the cities are people of means. Thus the concentration of impoverished people with no other options is growing. This at the same time that jobs are drying up, businesses are vacating, properties are being destroyed, law enforcement is pulling back, and crime is rising.

This is casting a pall over the future of America’s cities. And illuminating some of the most chilling end-time prophecies of the Bible.

The Bible foretells scenarios about America’s cities so nightmarish, some are difficult to conceive. But these recent destructive trends definitely make these prophecies far easier to imagine.

The Prophesied Fate of Cities

Many of the prophecies in the book of Isaiah are for our day, this period concluding man’s rule on Earth. Of the modern nations descended from ancient Israel—most prominently America—Isaiah foretells this: “[Y]e will revolt more and more …. From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores …. Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers” (Isaiah 1:5-7).

America has witnessed the ghastly fulfillment of this prophecy, scenes of cities burning terribly at the hand of lawless people who seek to dismantle the American system. Crowds of protesters have chanted “Death to America”—echoing Islamists on the streets of Iran!

But this is only the outer edges of the destruction to come. Several prophecies describe a coming time of “great tribulation” worse than any in history (Matthew 24:21). This is God’s terrible punishment for modern-day Israel’s rebellion.

Like Isaiah 1:7, these prophecies describing the coming tribulation place unusual emphasis on what happens in the cities. They show that cities will be hit first—and in some ways hit hardest. And a great many of the problems will be curses we bring on ourselves. This lamentable reality is foreshadowed in the way we are behaving and treating each other in our cities even today…(continues)

The Trumpet: Where Will All the Hate End?

From Brad MacDonald at The Trumpet, Where Will All the Hate End? about how hate feeds upon itself.

When you look at this world, you see so much hate. This ought to terrify more people and make us think much more seriously about the next few months and years.

Exhibit one, of course, is Black Lives Matter (blm) and Antifa, and the radical left in general. These people openly confess to harboring a deep hatred for America and Britain, and especially for Donald Trump and his supporters. Led by fanatic politicians, academics and celebrities, and backed by the mainstream media, these people vehemently hate traditional, Judeo-Christian America.

But the surging hate isn’t confined to blm and Antifa. All across the world, hate and all its offspring—harassment, intolerance, abuse, protests and riots, persecution, violence and murder, even genocide—flourish. In his Trumpet Brief yesterday, Joel Hilliker revealed the shocking hate Buddhists in Myanmar have for the Rohingya, a Muslim minority group. Anti-Semitism is rising. Racial and ethnic conflicts are universal. Citizens increasingly despise their leaders and governments. We learned this week that Russian President Vladimir Putin despised his political opponent so much, and no doubt hated the thought of being toppled by him, he had him poisoned. Everywhere you look, hate grows.

Here’s why this is utterly terrifying: It is the nature of hate to stimulate more hate. Hate manifested—whether in heated arguments, the perversion of justice, dishonest journalism, destructive riots, beatings and murders—always encourages more hate. Even when the victim does not initially hate the aggressor, the persistent mistreatment and abuse compel him to frustration, anger and, eventually, hate. Hate is reciprocal.

This cycle of hate was on display last weekend in downtown Portland, Oregon, which continues to be held hostage by Antifa and blm. For three consecutive months these people have hurled vile attacks on America and on President Trump and his supporters. They have violently attacked people and smashed and burned homes, businesses and government buildings, inflicting millions of dollars’ worth of damage. On Saturday, the object of blm’s and Antifa’s hate responded. Hundreds of trucks loaded with Trump supporters traveled in a caravan through downtown Portland; they were expressing their disgust with the rioters.

We saw what happened. There was tension, conflict and violence. Scuffles and fights broke out. Trump supporters shot the rioters with paint balls. A Trump supporter was publicly executed, after which the rioters were heard singing in celebration.

This was inevitable. This is how hate works. It will happen again.

What happened in Portland last Saturday did nothing to soothe the hate of either side. To the contrary, for blm, Antifa and the left, the Trump supporters’ resistance only confirmed their view that they are racists and deserving of hate. Meanwhile, the Trump followers—including the millions who watched it unfold on a screen—undoubtedly came away with a stronger grasp of how much they are hated. It’s impossible that after witnessing this, many Trump supporters will not despise blm, Antifa and those who support these groups even more.

This is how hate works. It rarely fizzles; it only intensifies. This is where America is right now, and there is no turning back. When it reaches a certain point, there’s no way to stop the cycle of hate. It appears America has passed this point.

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry recently pointed to a quote by Abraham Lincoln, delivered in Springfield, Illinois, in January 1838. Lincoln was only 28 years old. There was a lot of hatred between the abolitionists and pro-slavery advocates at the time. America was sliding into “mob law” and social disorder, and the government’s response was apathetic and slow-footed.

Facing these conditions, Lincoln said, “[G]ood men, men who love tranquility, who desire to abide by the laws, and enjoy their benefits, who would gladly spill their blood in the defense of their country; seeing their property destroyed; their families insulted, and their lives endangered; their persons injured; and seeing nothing in prospect that forebodes a change for the better; become tired of, and disgusted with, a government that offers them no protection; and are not much averse to a change in which they imagine they have nothing to lose” (emphasis added).

Lincoln’s observation is a warning: Even law-abiding, peaceful people will become filled with anger and hatred when “their property [is] destroyed; their families insulted, and their lives endangered; their persons injured.” This is the way human emotions work. Without divine intervention (more on this later), hate reciprocates.

When people are attacked, viciously and personally, when they see their nation and livelihood under threat, their cities burning, and when they see that those in authority are unwilling to defend them, they are compelled to respond. It is human nature to protect one’s self, including your family, your home and livelihood, your community and friends. And your nation. In America, law-abiding citizens who love their country are being forced to choose: Surrender to the radical left and lose everything, or grow angry and fight.

People are being driven to hatred and retaliation because the only alternative is death. But their resistance, which is entirely rational, only entrenches the irrational views and hatred of the attacker. To the aggressor, the victim’s resistance only confirms his belief that he is right, and that the victim must be punished.

This is where we are today. Any person accused of being a racist who denies being a racist, must be despised as a racist. Any person unwilling to support blm must hate blm and what it stands for and is, therefore, the enemy. The more Antifa, blm and the radical left are filled with hate, the more the anger and hate of their victims grow.

How does this cycle of hate end?

Have you ever seen footage of a pile of tires on fire? A tire fire is often impossible to extinguish. It stops only after the tires have burned out. It’s the same with the cycle of hate. It will stop only after the hate has burned itself out. It will stop only when those with the hate are gone.

Sadly, the cycle of hate in America now appears far past simply simmering down. The destructive hate coursing through America’s cities is only growing.

And it’s not just America. Look at its brothers—the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada. While we have yet to witness scenes of hate as dramatic as those in Portland or Kenosha, the same fault lines and emotions are welling in these nations. The radical left thrives in these countries too. And it’s deep, deep hatred of these nations’ traditional Christian heritage is deepening the anger, resentment and hatred of those it seeks to destroy.

Just like the United States, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and all the other Commonwealth nations are trapped in a devastating cycle of hate!

Bible prophecy tells us how this will end. In Matthew 24:22, Jesus is talking about the end of the age of man and warns, and He says: “And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved ….” Humanity will be so filled with hatred, which will be demonstrated through mass violence and worldwide war, man will bring himself to the cusp of extinction. The “great tribulation,” as Jesus Christ calls it in verse 21, is one colossal explosion of hate.

“And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another,” verse 10 says.

Man does not fully comprehend the destructive power of hate. This is because he doesn’t understand the ultimate source of this powerful emotion. The Bible reveals this source. It is revealed in passages such as 2 Corinthians 4:4, Ephesians 2:2 and Revelation 12. These passages reveal the presence of Satan the devil, a spirit being who embodies hate, whose every thought and action is inspired by hatred toward God, His truth and His plan.

Revelation 12 gives insight into just how much hatred the devil has for God and His plan. In verses 3-4, he’s referred to as a “great red dragon” who tries to “devour” God’s people. Verses 7-8 describe how the devil actually waged a colossal war on God. During this battle, the devil was cast down to Earth, where he is now confined (verse 9). Verse 12 addresses those on Earth today, warning that “the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.”

All the hatred on the streets of America’s cities and tumbling from the lips of politicians and media pundits on cnn and the like—it all originates from the devil’s bottomless well of “great wrath.”

The Apostle Paul calls Satan the “god of this world” who “blinded the minds” of men, and the “prince of the power of the air.” In Chapter 2 of Mystery of the Ages, the late Herbert W. Armstrong explained these verses in detail and revealed how the devil broadcasts to human beings through our emotions, attitudes and impulses. And when it comes to emotion, Satan’s favorite language is anger and hatred. He is the grandmaster of hatred, and one of his favorite pastimes is teaching humans how to hate.

This is why the Bible cautions us to be careful with our emotions and attitudes, especially with feelings of anger and hatred. Consider Paul’s words in Ephesians 4:25-27: “Therefore, putting away falsehood, let every one speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil” (Revised Standard Version).

In this passage, Paul recognizes that there is a time for righteous indignation, or godly anger. Righteous indignation is an aspect of God’s love. It gets angry at sin. It hates sin, but not the sinner. Sadly, we see very little of this sort of righteous indignation today. The angriest people on Earth are usually the greatest sinners.

But then Paul specifically cautions the people to be careful with their emotions, especially anger and frustration. Never let the “sun go down on your anger,” he warns. We must be extremely careful not to allow anger and hatred to fester and get out of control. And we should never deliberately stir up anger and hatred. Yet this is exactly what blm, Antifa and the radical left does. Their leaders are trained to arouse hate. These groups thrive on hatred!

This is a dangerous game. When people well with hate, Paul says, they “give … opportunity to the devil.” Unbridled anger, hatred, resentment, bitterness—these emotions are invitations to the devil, welcoming him into our minds and lives. Many of those people torching cars and tearing down buildings are under the influence of the devil.

When you look at America (and humanity) collectively, there is no evidence of any movement toward repentance that would reverse the trend toward destruction it is taking—though, if the nation did genuinely repent, God would certainly respond with mercy. Individually, though, the path to repentance is open to you. You can escape the cycle of hate, which will soon end in a massive climax called the Great Tribulation. How?

Ultimately, we escape this future by conquering our human emotions and impulses, our attitudes and human will, the powerful pulls of the carnal mind and flesh, and by surrendering our lives and minds completely to God, His law and His government. This is not an easy task; it cannot be done on human power or talent. It can only be done using the power of God’s Spirit, which we receive upon repentance and faith.

The Trumpet: Escape “the Biggest Civilizational Catastrophe”

From The Trumpet, Escape ‘the Biggest Civilizational Catastrophe’ on family collapse and resulting civilizational collapse.

America is collapsing. On our city streets, youths are terrorizing people, vandalizing buildings, burning police cars, looting stores and inflicting violence on those who oppose them. Even more shocking, many leaders permit, justify and encourage the destruction! This is what a nation on the verge of collapse looks like.

You may think this crisis erupted after the death of George Floyd. The reality is, it has been building for decades. But it didn’t originate in the halls of government, the university or even the classroom. The chaos on our streets started in our homes. It came from the decades-long breakdown in our families.

In a Fox News interview in July, commentator Heather MacDonald said, “I am going to break a massive feminist taboo here, and say that males matter. Fathers matter. Fathers bring a set of values and norms to child rearing whether it’s self-reliance or self-discipline, honor and courage. On average, it complements what mothers can bring.”

In today’s culture, this sort of language is considered inflammatory, sexist and violent. In this upside-down world, MacDonald is one of the few people still brave enough to state the obvious.

“The anarchy that we have lived through with the looting and the rioting of the last month,” she continued, “has been preceded by a more slow-motion anarchy and breakdown, which is the breakdown of the family because our prisons today are filled almost exclusively with fatherless men” (emphasis added).

MacDonald is exactly right: This has been slow-motion breakdown of the family! Children unloved, untaught and undisciplined in the home have become unhappy, unenlightened, unrestrained adults. Uncontrolled tantrums in the home have become Molotov cocktails hurled at police. Children never taught to be grateful have become rioters who loot what they can and burn what they can’t, even though they live in the wealthiest, freest, most blessed nation in world history.

Stability, discipline, happiness, gratitude, productivity, kindness: these qualities need to be learned. And they need to be taught in the home by loving, God-fearing parents.

MacDonald called the breakdown of the family the “biggest civilizational catastrophe that we’re facing today.” She said that breakdown is the “root of the spiraling crime, insane drive-by shootings that we see in the inner city, and the destruction of human potential.”

With an urgent tone, MacDonald said, “It’s a hard thing to turn this around, but we have to.” She’s absolutely right.

What she doesn’t know is that family breakdown, and the resultant societal breakdown, were prophesied. Isaiah 3:12 describes a society in which children “oppress” and women “rule.” Men, fathers and husbands, aren’t even mentioned in that verse! The family has been turned upside down and as a result, society has been turned upside down!

Thankfully, it does not have to be this way in your home. It should not be this way in your home! God gives instruction that will help you escape “the biggest civilizational catastrophe,” and build a strong, stable family.

That includes learning how to love your children God’s way, which takes unselfishness, patience, positivity, encouragement, vision and many other virtues. It includes teaching and training them in the way they should go. It includes guiding and correcting them as necessary. Above all it means getting your family structure right. The Bible provides marvelous detail about the God-ordained roles within the family (e.g. Colossians 3; Ephesians 5; 1 Timothy 3). The emphasis is on the husband and father ruling the household well. If the house is not ruled well, the results are catastrophic! A breakdown in the home leads to the breakdown of cities and society as a whole.

God sent a man in this end time in the spirit of Elijah to “restore all things” to the Church (Matthew 17:10-11). God said this man “shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers” before Christ’s return (Malachi 4:6). This beautiful scripture is talking about protecting, maintaining and strengthening the family structure! It is about getting our families right in the context of Jesus Christ’s imminent return! Why? Because God’s Family is going to be leading in the World Tomorrow. God is working with people right now who will be able to help Him in building excellent families during the Millennium and beyond. That starts with teaching them how to do this in their own physical families today.

This prophesied role was fulfilled by Herbert W. Armstrong. He taught and wrote extensively on how to build strong families. Since his death in 1986 we have carried on that work. As a starter to help you get your family life in order, we would like to offer you a free book: Child Rearing With Vision. This book will show you how to raise a family God’s way. Teaching God’s law and administering God’s government in the home is key to a happy, fulfilled life—and it trains you to teach and administer God’s way of life in the World Tomorrow!

The Trumpet: Disunited States – A Lesson We Must Learn

The Balkanized States of America

Joel Hilliker at The Trumpet writes about divisions in the USA and whether they will lead to civil war in Disunited States: A Lesson We Must Learn

Is it unjust to prejudge people according to their race? Is it wrong for people in the street to exact vigilante-style “justice” against strangers? Is it wrong to prejudicially condemn people for the sins of their forefathers? Is it criminal to steal and destroy property? Should every citizen be able to live and work free from fear of arbitrary violence? Until rather recently, societal consensus was an unqualified yes to all these questions. But suddenly, they are all topics of fierce contention.

Here is a crucial question: How long can society function if we cannot agree on such basic points?

The fact is that, as alarmed as many people are by the lawlessness plaguing America’s streets today, it seems very few grasp the existential nature of the problem. America is facing civil war. Bible prophecy specifically says it will happen.

One major reason is that we are violating a specific biblical principle of living. This principle is controversial today. But it is a foundational truth. And it vividly illustrates the relevance of the Bible for our day.

In a cbs News interview, here is how Nikole Hannah-Jones, the architect of the “1619 Project” for the New York Times, responded when asked to “interpret” the arson, thievery, criminality and violence in America’s cities: “Yes, it is disturbing to see property being destroyed; it is disturbing to see people taking property from stores. But these are things. And violence is when an agent of the state kneels on a man’s neck until all of the life is leeched out of his body. Destroying property which can be replaced is not violence. And to use the exact same language to describe those two things, I think, really—it’s not moral to do that. I think any reasonable person would say we shouldn’t be destroying other people’s property—but these are not reasonable times.”

To have mainstream voices advocating destruction, lawlessness and insurrection as appropriate and legitimate is unprecedented—and deeply corrosive to society’s survival.

“If somebody decides to loot a Gucci, or a Macy’s, or a Nike, that makes sure that person eats. That makes sure that person has clothes,” Ariel Atkins, the leader of Black Lives Matter in Chicago, told reporters. “That is reparations. Anything they wanna take, take it, because these businesses have insurance. They’re going to get their money back. My people aren’t getting anything.”

A short time ago, such thinking was simply inconceivable. Everyone knew that indiscriminate destruction was evil. There was no controversy over the foundational understanding that arson, theft, looting, physical assault and violence were crimes. Everyone agreed that people should be safe, and their property should be safe. Someone who owns a business should be able to run that business, provide jobs, deliver goods and services to the community, contribute to the economic health of society, and earn a living—without fearing or actually suffering hatred, violence and destruction.

Stunningly, this is no longer something we all agree on. Rioters, journalists, commentators, professors, and even mayors, governors and members of Congress—influential, powerful people—do not believe it. They now insist that criminal destruction of property and assault on fellow citizens is understandable, even acceptable, even righteous, for the sake of “social change” in this “historic moment.”

This spirit is changing America. Prodded by such reasoning, cities are defunding police and allowing the predictable increases in crimes. And even more astoundingly, a growing number of people don’t even recognize these as problems—because they view them as mere symptoms of the real problems of racism and inequality.

Behold the consequences of adopting moral relativism as our society has been for decades—even generations. People have lost their elemental sense of right and wrong. They cannot recognize evil even when it is lighting their own city on fire.

Here is where the Bible is so supremely valuable. It gives us absolute standards—our Creator’s laws of right and wrong—that never change. It is a refreshing contrast to the moral standards of leftists, which change from year to year and sometimes from moment to moment. Yesterday’s heroes are today’s villains. And the most blatant evils are excused or even glorified.

Consider a few examples.

The Bible says God is no respecter of persons. He evaluates based on a person’s character. He judges the heart, not the outward appearance. He holds everyone to the same unchanging standard of right and wrong.

Accepting this truth is critical to a fair, just, stable society. All societies are flawed, but less so the ones that treat each person as a child of God, made in God’s image. This idea is articulated in America’s Declaration of Independence—that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with rights that include life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…(continues)

Click here to continue reading at The Trumpet.

The Trumpet: Hagia Sophia and a Clash of Civilizations

Hagia Sophia church being converted for opening as mosque

From The Trumpet, Hagia Sophia and a Clash of Civilizations:

Turkey has just taken Orthodox Christianity’s greatest cathedral and turned it into a mosque.

There’s a lot of history here. When Hagia Sophia was opened by Emperor Justinian in a.d. 537, it was the largest, and possibly the most impressive, building in the world.

This one building may have impacted the lives of billions. Early Russian history records the story of Vladimir the Great, ruler of the Rus in the 10th century. Vladimir wanted to choose a religion for the Rus, and sent out envoys to neighboring civilizations. Once the envoys saw Hagia Sophia, their minds were made up. “We no longer knew whether we were in heaven or on Earth,” the envoys reported, “nor such beauty, and we know not how to tell of it.” Vladimir converted to Orthodox Christianity, and that religion has shaped Russian and Slavic history ever since.

In 1453, Constantinople and Hagia Sophia fell to the Ottoman Turks. And so they turned one of Christendom’s greatest churches into a mosque.

Hagia Sophia went through a third revolution in 1934. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk transformed Turkey from an Islamic empire into a secular state—as a powerful symbol of this, he transformed Hagia Sophia from a mosque to a museum. It is now Turkey’s top tourist destination, drawing 3.7 million visitors a year.

Which is why Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s decision on July 10 to turn it back into a mosque is so significant. His political allies have hailed it as a second conquest of Istanbul. It is a deliberate statement. Turkey is no longer the secular state of Atatürk. It is an Islamic nation, aiming to become an empire.

Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk said the conversion of Hagia Sophia back to a mosque “is to say to the rest of the world, ‘Unfortunately we are not secular any more.’ There are millions of secular Turks like me who are crying against this, but their voices are not heard.”

This reversal away from secularism runs against the grain of Western thought. To many, history runs in one direction: Europe used to be religious, but is becoming very secular; this is the march of progress that all nations will eventually follow.

Erdoğan’s reversal is the latest proof that the world is not on a one-way track to secularism.

Look around the world and you can see evidence of this. In 1989, Central Asia had only 160 active mosques. Four years later, there were 10,000. Moscow had 50 churches in 1988. Four years later, it had 250. Around the same time, nearly a third of Russians under age 25 said they had switched from being atheistic to believing in God.

In the still officially atheistic state of China, the World Religion Database shows the total number of followers of all religions jumping from around 300 million in 1970 to around 700 million today. Despite government attempts to stop it, religion has spread much faster than Chinese population growth.

In South Korea in 1962, 2.6 percent of the population were Buddhist and 5 percent were Christian. Now 23 percent are Buddhist and more than 29 percent are Christian.

“In the modern world, religion is a central, perhaps the central, force that motivates and mobilizes people,” wrote Samuel Huntington in his book Clash of Civilizations. “It is sheer hubris to think that because Soviet communism has collapsed, the West has won the world for all time and that Muslims, Chinese, Indians and others are going to rush to embrace Western liberalism as the only alternative.”

Time has proved Huntington dramatically correct. He wrote his book before 9/11, when radical Islam made itself a major concern to everyone in the world. He wrote it before head coverings became one of the major political issues in Europe, the bastion of liberal multiculturalism.

The big question is, could Europe be swept along by such a trend?

At the other end of Europe is what could be Hagia Sophe’s mirror image. The Grand Mosque of Córdoba in Spain was built in the eighth century a.d. To the locals at the time, “the beauty of the mosque was so dazzling that it defied any description.”

But the Grand Mosque is now the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption, after the Spanish conquered it in 1236.

My point is not to set up some kind of moral equivalency between the two. Hagia Sophia is the fifth church of that name to be converted into a mosque in Turkey in recent years. I know of no Western country running the process in reverse.

Instead, my point is to show that Europe and the Middle East, Christianity and Islam, are closely connected. What happens in one affects the other—and has for centuries.

Religion is already rising in Europe in reaction to Islam. When Russia voted on its new constitution at the start of the month, most attention was focused on President Vladimir Putin’s attempt to extend his time in office. But the vote also added God into the constitution.

In Poland this month, incumbent President Andrzej Duda was reelected. Duda’s Law and Justice party has close links with the Catholic Church. “In hardly any other EU country are the state and church as closely connected as in Poland,” noted deutschlandfunk.de.

Across Europe, religion is making a comeback—not in terms of religious observance, but instead with symbols and rhetoric.

Across Eastern and Central Europe, leaders have made clear that they view their countries as Christian and that Muslims are not welcome. In May 2015, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said, “I think we have a right to decide that we do not want a large number of Muslim people in our country.”

“Let us not forget, however, that those arriving have been raised in another religion and represent a radically different culture,” he wrote in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “Most of them are not Christians, but Muslims. This is an important question, because Europe and European identity is rooted in Christianity” (Sept. 3, 2015).

Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico said in May 2016, “I do not want to see a Muslim community in Slovakia. … We do not want to change the traditions of this country, which are built on the Christian tradition.” The president of the Czech Republic warned in January 2016 that integrating Muslims into Europe “is practically impossible.”

The same trends are arriving in Western Europe. Since 2018 all government buildings in the German state of Bavaria have been obliged to display a cross.

In the West, upstart political parties like the Alternative für Deutschland in Germany and the National Rally (formerly the National Front) in France have taken up the mantle of politicized religion. National Rally leader Marine Le Pen pushes “a secularized Christianity as culture,” Rogers Brubaker, a sociologist at the University of California–Los Angeles, told Atlantic magazine. “It’s a matter of belonging rather than believing.” Brubaker described it as a Christianity that says, “We are Christians, precisely because they are Muslims. Otherwise, we are not Christian in any substantive sense” (May 6, 2017).

The AfD is the same way. Its election slogans, such as “Burkas? We’re into bikinis,” are hardly paragons of chastity and virtue. In the culture wars, they are on the side of the Christian right, and the Christian right is happy to accept them.

The AfD’s stunning election success—coming from nowhere to become the third-largest party in Germany’s parliament—shows the appetite in Germany for this kind of religion in politics.

In Europe it tends to be Islamist terrorist attacks or migration from Islamic countries that triggers this kind of religious fervor. Absent of that, it dies down…

Click here to continue reading at The Trumpet.

The Trumpet: Financial Reckoning – Here’s What You Can Do Right Now

Timothy Oostendarp of The Trumpet has an article up on the many people facing difficult financial times as a result of the pandemic and some basic things that you can do to regain your financial footing and stay sane – Financial Reckoning Now Confronts Millions

Whether you live in America or somewhere else, right now the biggest problem you’re likely facing is paying your monthly bills. The forced shutdown of the global economy has pulverized national and family budgets. In Canada, it is reported that federal unemployment insurance claims have rocketed to Great Depression levels.

Ding-dong, Dorothy, the economy is dead.

Last month, many Americans were living paycheck-to-paycheck. This month has seen that paycheck taken away.

There is no sense citing endless statistics. Tens of millions of Americans can’t even handle a $400 emergency. Banks and credit card companies are preparing for a tsunami of payment deferrals and loan defaults as consumers buckle.

Like boozy wastrels drunk on prosperity, millions have squandered precious time and money in the face of mounting evidence a crash was coming. Instead of having savings for a rainy day, Americans are now facing a financial reckoning that’s going to burn. The toll isn’t only financial; it’s physical, emotional and spiritual. And authorities are seeing a corresponding spike in suicides and substance and domestic abuse.

The fiscal grim reaper is here. In all fairness, he did send us many notices of his impending arrival, like the Great Recession in the late 2000s. That financial bloodbath was as long as Wall Street and up to the businessman’s belt.

Since that tender time, federal reserve banks have made themselves hoarse yelling into deaf ears. They have repeatedly warned about gross government and corporate debt, the perils of endless quantitive easing (printing money), and escalating household debt.

More than 10 long years have lapsed since the Great Recession. What did we learn? What is this latest economic jolt teaching us? We learned that we are thoroughly addicted to materialism. We learned that decadence defines our daily living. We learned we lack character. Even the poor among us live like feudal kings, yet millions are now beyond broke.

Prosperity is bankrupting us in more ways than we think. If you are suffering financially, the good news is that, if you are willing to correct your living, there is a little time left to set your financial house in order.

Here is what you can do right now.

The first step is to understand God has set basic financial laws into motion. When those laws are broken, penalties result. The penalty is a sign that laws are being broken—and signs are meant to be heeded! God has put penalties in place for broken law to help correct our thinking and our living. When God’s laws are obeyed, great material and spiritual blessings result—including freedom from anxiety, worry and fear.

When someone becomes physically sick with a cold or the flu, the body begins to immediately discharge poisons through mucus production, the eliminative system and by rest. That is the human body trying to bring itself back into alignment with God’s laws governing health. Likewise, financial poison comes in the form of debt, budget deficits (not enough money to cover your bills), and burdensome interest payments. These poisons must be ejected! This is the second step!

Without jeopardizing your health or that of your family, reduce your standard of living to pay off your debts and balance your budget as soon as possible! This means doing everything practically possible to avoid consumer and business debt. A well-considered loan will produce above its principle and interest—meaning it should profit! The wise earn interest while the foolish pay it.

Right now, many governments are offering no-strings-attached money to help small businesses and citizens. If you need to, you might have to take advantage of the assistance your taxes have already helped to pay for or will help to pay for later. God is not against accepting help in time of need. In certain well-advised circumstances, it is the prudent thing to do. There is no shame in taking a handout in a time of need—especially when we are determined to go on and use that help to correct the cause of the problem.

Consider seeking wise counsel before taking on long-term debt or loans for what could be a short-term employment problem. A bad loan will be a poison, which will seriously aggravate your financial problems! Get creative—use drive and initiative. These are some of the laws of personal and financial success. Talk to a rich uncle who might be willing to give you a hand (not handout) during these difficult times. Offer to work for the help. Take odd jobs doing handiwork. The point is, make your opportunities.

The next principle is to set a budget and track your spending. Herein we see another basic law of God: Don’t spend more than you make. Budget! Our financial problems don’t usually revolve around not having enough money but not managing it properly. Slipshod financial management is a reflection of a breakdown in character. We all have to learn to manage our prosperity—especially those who haven’t learned the first principle of working hard.

Examine your attitude toward materialism. God’s law forbids lust and coveting, but coveting drives the world economy. Is it driving your spending? God’s Word says a person trying to get the best of his employer or trying to get riches will not prosper in the end. It often leads to owning substandard possessions and always leads to substandard character.

We all must come to learn the first lesson of life: Seek God’s Kingdom and His character above riches. That is the only way to financial prosperity. Strive to better yourself in an effort to give to your employer, your family and to God—but also strive to learn to be content in your circumstances.

Get creative. Housing, transportation and food are major line items in personal budgets. Excessive car loans that stretch into five to seven years are financial folly. Maybe it’s time to evaluate cutting these areas without jeopardizing your ability to work, and without jeopardizing your health and your family’s well-being.

Another financial law of success is persistence. Don’t throw in the towel! If you’ve recently been laid off, realize many hundreds of thousands have been laid off too. Most of them will begin to waste time. Don’t waste time.

Sloth is stealing, even if it’s only stealing time that can’t be recovered. Put your time to profitable use. Stay productive. Read a good book; improve your skills; refinish some old furniture; play games with your children; go for a walk; breathe in fresh air.

“Chomp at the bit” to get back to work. A robust work ethic is at the heart of building righteous character. Begin calling prospective employers. Line up interviews. Make a job out of getting a job.

This can be a time to advance your career! Employers will start hiring again. Make sure your name is at the top of the list. God is a producer. He expects the same from us. He doesn’t waste a moment or an opportunity. Hiring may be at a momentary freeze, but you don’t have to be frozen in time or frozen in one spot. Be zealous and work hard!

Next, when you get back to a solid financial footing, start saving for a rainy day. There are two types of savings to aim for: operational savings and reserve savings. Operational savings are for emergency repairs and other out-of-the-blue expenses. Reserve savings should equal three times your monthly net income—or at least enough to cover your expenses for three months. If need be, put your budget on a diet, because austerity may be the order of the day to achieve the results you need. The old saying applies: Make hay while the sun shines. Time is fast running out.

When tragedy strikes this world, God is often accused of loafing on the job. Mankind shakes his collective fist at God. He is accused of being heartless, unwilling to lend humanity a helping hand. God gets blamed for nearly all tragedy, pain and suffering. But if He were to stop you from chasing your pleasures that lead to such destruction, you’d soon accuse Him of interfering in your life. When the tragedy strikes, who is to blame? We can’t have it both ways.

Related:

Motley Fool: What to Do If Coronavirus Cuts Your Income

CNBC: How to Build a Cash Reserve If Coronavirus Causes You to Miss Work

USA Today: How to pay the bills during the coronavirus pandemic

Fox: Coronavirus financial concerns: What to do if you can’t pay your bills

The Trumpet: The Spread of Coronavirus and Other Modern Plagues

This article from The Trumpet gives their biblical take on modern plagues.

Many of you are familiar with the pale horse of the apocalypse of Revelation 6:7-8: “[B]ehold 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.” This shows that diseases like this virus are about to get worse, spreading like medieval pandemics and killing millions of people! Whether or not this specific outbreak will cause such ruin, this prophecy is sure.

You can find a related image in Zechariah 6. It is important to note the time frame. This chapter describes a dual crown being given to a man just before Jesus Christ returns—a prophecy that was recently fulfilled (request my free book The New Throne of David for an explanation). Before that takes place, though, four chariots emerge from between two mountains, symbolizing God the Father and Jesus Christ (verse 1). God sends these chariots. He gives specific commands about what these chariots are to do. This is explained in Chapter 7 of that book.

The black horses here symbolize violence, famine and pestilence. We are already in the preliminary stages of their ride. The coronavirus is only a small part of the overall picture. Other plagues are already spreading in our cities.

Many cities are facing a crisis of homelessness. In downtown Los Angeles, for example, is a little city of homeless people. The area is awash in drugs—and human feces, rats and every imaginable kind of filth. And even now, people are contracting tuberculosis and typhoid fever! Some of the policemen have contracted these Third World diseases! Rats carry disease and spread it everywhere. Some experts warn of the onset of bubonic plague—a disease that wiped out much of Europe in the 14th century! We are ignoring that history, and officials are permitting these conditions to ripen within some of our mightiest cities!

The same circumstances are true in Seattle and San Francisco. Some travel guides tell visitors to avoid portions of San Francisco and other big cities to avoid catching bubonic plague.

It is a most awful scene; we can hardly even stand to hear the news about it! Yet it is just a small foretaste of the plagues coming to America and Britain and Judah if people don’t repent before God!

…Where is this leading? We are already experiencing the preliminary stages of what the Bible terms “great tribulation,” in which one third of the populations in America and other Israelitish nations will die—before being directly attacked by foreign enemies!

These black horses—violence, famine, pestilence—are going to overtake the Earth! God is beginning to send a number of globe-rattling events our way! He is going to let the world see where their evil ways lead them.

God has a lot to accomplish with His people in the midst of an explosion of satanic chaos! He sends these angels out with specific jobs, all in preparation for the Great Tribulation, the Day of the Lord and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ! He is already preparing for that crisis of crises!

The Trumpet: America Has Been ‘Fundamentally Transformed’

The following article from The Trumpet and pastor Gerald Flurry of the Philadelphia Church of God makes the claim that there is deliberate effort being made to move the US away from being a constitutional republic toward being only a mob-rule democracy. The opening of the article is below, but it is quite a bit longer through the link.

America’s government has been embroiled in a shameful impeachment charade for months now. The Democrats are demonstrating that there is virtually no limit to what they are willing to do to attack the president and undermine the last election—and the next one. Meanwhile, revelations continue to emerge about their abuse of the intelligence agencies to spy on Americans, even the president himself.

People need to understand what a dangerous threat this is to the very foundation of this nation!

What is happening in the Democratic Party is an extension of and intensification of a process started by the previous president.

When Barack Obama promised to “fundamentally change America” during his 2008 presidential run, few people knew what he really meant. Now that he is out of office, it is becoming clearer all the time that the change he was talking about was something far more dangerous than many people assumed.

He meant changing America from a constitutional republic. And what we are witnessing in the country today shows that, to an alarming degree, he succeeded!

In an address to Democratic donors this past November, Mr. Obama said that if Democrats want to be elected, they need to conceal their radical views. “This is still a country that is less revolutionary than it is interested in improvement,” he said. “Even as we push the envelope and we are bold in our vision, we also have to be rooted in reality. The average American doesn’t think we have to completely tear down the system and remake it” (emphasis mine throughout).

The average American doesn’t think that, but he does, and these donors do! And he wasn’t telling them to abandon that goal—only to be more underhanded about it!

Mr. Obama is contemptuously and openly discussing what he meant by fundamentally transforming America. Now that he is out of office, he tells us what his real goal was and still is—“to completely tear down the system and remake it”!

In the past, such revolutions usually caused millions of people to spill their blood.

If you think my view is unreal, consider this: Never have we seen a more bitterly divided America, and this man who fundamentally transformed America caused much of this division. He almost destroyed America’s constitutional republic. Never have we seen such hatred between American people.

All this ought to terrify every American. Many revolutions end in a civil war filled with suffering and death.

In America’s civil war, neither side will win. Bible prophecy thunders a deadly message that an enemy nation will conquer us. We must wake up and repent for God to save us this time…

Click here to read the entire article at The Trumpet.

The Trumpet: How Close Is the US to Civil War?

Continuing with the increasing number of voices clamoring about the possibilities of civil war in the USA, here is an article from the January 2020 Trumpet edition – How Close Is the US to Civil War? Being The Trumpet, this article takes a Biblical approach to the answer.

Prominent observers are discussing the possibility of civil war in America. In November, the Democratic Party began an impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump. At least 228 Democrats in the House of Representatives support this inquiry, and it only takes 218 to impeach the president. Some polls, if they can be trusted, indicate popular support for impeachment (though others do not); one betting website puts the odds of the president being impeached at 78 percent.

Article i, Section 2, of the U.S. Constitution gives the House of Representatives the sole power to impeach officers of the federal government, including the president. An “impeachment” is a formal charge of misconduct. If the president is impeached, he is tried in the Senate. If two thirds of senators vote to convict him of “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors,” he is removed from office.

With Democrats controlling the House of Representatives (and likely to impeach), and Republicans controlling the Senate (and likely to acquit), President Trump may become the first impeached president in U.S. history to run for reelection. Whatever happens, the 2020 U.S. presidential election is set to be the most contentious since the American Civil War.

Democrats are accusing Republicans of obstructing justice to protect a corrupt president. Republicans are accusing Democrats of attempting a coup d’état. The impeachment process, whatever its outcome, will exacerbate this division. A Georgetown University poll showed that two thirds of Americans believe the U.S. is “on the edge of civil war” (emphasis added).

Think about that for a moment. The American Civil War took 620,000 American lives—more deaths than all other American wars combined. Could America really be on the edge of another such catastrophe?

Click here to read the entire article at The Trumpet.

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