End Times

Pastor Scott Lively yesterday in an interview with Sandy Rios of the American Family Association warned that homosexuality “is the issue of the End Times.” According to Lively, the advance of gay rights will lead to the persecution and killing of Christians like in the early days of the Church and is “another sign that I believe that we’re close to the end.”

He argued that “the last straw for God before He brought [Noah’s] Flood was when they started writing wedding songs to homosexual marriage” and said homosexuality “represents the outer extent of rebellion against Him in a society and the last thing that happens before wrath comes.”

Lively: We need to remember that in the time leading up to the Flood what the rabbis teach about the last straw for God before He brought the Flood was when they started writing wedding songs to homosexual marriage and Jesus said that you’ll know the End Times because it will be like the days of Noah. There’s never been a time in the history of the world since before the Flood when homosexual marriage has been open and celebrated, and that’s another sign that I believe that we’re close to the end.

Rios: You know Scott you’re talking to thousands of the people across the country and some of them are probably pastors. What would you say to pastors out there who are facing, you know they’ve come up with these issues, these issues have come across their knowledge, they can’t escape it, whether it’s domestic partnerships or its benefits for homosexuals or whatever and it’s hurdling toward gay marriage in every state, what would you say to them by way of preparing themselves and how they should respond?

Lively: It’s time to adopt an apostolic mentality as Christians and to look to Revelation. How did they prevail? They prevailed by the blood of the lamb, the word of their testimony, and I think is most important, they did not love their lives unto death. We’re entering into a time in which standing for the truth of God is going to cost you more than just a few people walking out of your congregation and the temptation to compromise with the world, especially on this issue. I think this is the issue of the End Times, homosexuality. It’s present, if you do a careful investigation of all the scriptures dealing with this from the beginning and all the way to the end, God is painting a very clear picture that this represents the outer extent of rebellion against Him in a society and the last thing that happens before wrath comes.

Conservative columnist Erik Rush continues to test the boundaries of Poe’s Law in his latest column which argues that President Obama is part of a communist government-media-law school conspiracy that is bringing about the End Times:

At present, the snapshot looks like this: There is a dedicated communist residing in the White House in the form of one Barack Hussein Obama (This is probably not even his given name, but we won’t go there right now). Many conditions conspired to bring this about, and to keep Obama in power.

Part of it had to do with the cult of personality, particularly concerning his ethnicity. Part of it had to do with patriotic and otherwise engaged Americans having capitulated to the dictates and erroneous interpretations of American law proffered by communist academics and lawyers; this gave rise to the rise of progressive and Marxist thought and policies in America, which should have been addressed with extreme prejudice 70 years ago.

A starry-eyed press, indoctrinated into liberal-socialism by communist journalism school professors, have become no less than a state propaganda bureau. Thus, the press as most of us understand it, no longer exists. We can count on their doing all they can to aid Obama and the mission of the radical left in the foreseeable future. The most harmful realm in which they currently operate is that of nondisclosure, whereby they are withholding vast amounts of information concerning the criminality of this administration from the public, and the degree of power it continues to criminally usurp and coalesce.

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Many Americans have wondered why, like the press, GOP leaders are also withholding vast amounts of information concerning the criminality of this administration from the public. Whether they are too well-sated and disconnected to care, or they are deliberately running interference for congressional socialists, it still spells complicity.

I don’t often go out on the limb of religious doctrine, but you have to admit that in the aggregate, this all lends credence to Armageddon dogma, whether one subscribes to the Millennialist view, of if one merely accepts the Book of Revelation (there being a difference). If one recognizes neither, there’s still the dystopian science fiction atrociously-oppressive government scenario. Interpreting it as politics as usual would be, in my view, a form of desperate denial.

Whether the individual American, apprised of these facts, determines to become a full-blown prepper in response to it, or to set aside a revolver with one bullet in the chamber, the days of sitting on the sidelines are over, like it or not.

Sorry if you though the Mayan end-of-the-world thing would be our “easy out…”

James Dobson’s radio program Family Talk today aired a sermon by Pastor Laurence White, who has worked with conservative figures like Rick Perry, Glenn Beck, David Barton and Rick Scarborough as founder of the “Texas Restoration Project.” The Dobson-endorsed sermon blamed the Holocaust on the separation of church and state and warned of America’s imminent destruction mainly as a result of homosexuality and abortion, arguing that “God will destroy and God should destroy America” if the U.S. does not ban abortion. Despite White’s address, abortion rates are actually higher in countries where the procedure is banned.

Once again the nation is being led down the path to destruction and once again by and large God’s people are looking the other way. I don’t have to tell anyone in this room tonight how far that path to destruction we’ve already traveled. You see the evidence in families that are fractured and marriages that are broken; in young people that lose their way and often their lives in a maze of alcohol and drugs; in a culture that can no longer distinguish between lust and love; that is willing to tolerate the vilest perversion as an “alternative, acceptable lifestyle” while pestilence stalks the land; in public schools that have become facilitators for fornication and procurers for the abortionist knife; in a nation that has lost the moral will to distinguish between that which is right and that which is wrong: we know all too well how far down that road to destruction we have already gone.

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We can win the next election or the next ten elections, we can balance the budget, we can reduce the deficit, we can bring down taxes and build the mightiest military machine on the face of the earth, but if we do no stop abortion then God will destroy and God should destroy America.

Earlier this year, Rep. Michele Bachmann said that Muslim Brotherhood agents had penetrated the Obama administration, which she claimed was attempting to “enforce Islamic speech codes.” While Bachmann was roundly mocked and criticized for the baseless remarks, they were a hit in conspiratorial right-wing circles. Bachmann took her crusade against the supposed Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of the government to Jan Markell’s radio show this weekend, where she again claimed that Obama is “aiding and abetting” radical Islamist groups.

Markell is an End Times broadcaster and a close ally of Bachmann, who attended her “Understanding the Times” conference this year. She has previously claimed that Mattel’s Little Mommy Cuddle ‘n Coo doll is promoting Islam to children, demanded the government begin monitoring mosques and in 2007 predicted a terrorist attack as a result of a Hindu prayer in the U.S. Senate. Markell has also suggested that a tornado in Minnesota was a “warning from God” meant to punish the Lutheran Church for affirming gay pastors and alleged that the deadly 2011 earthquake in Japan was divine judgment.

Markell charged Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with supporting the Muslim Brotherhood, and Barger said that the supposed rise of Sharia law in the U.S. is proof that the Antichrist is coming.

Markell: Hillary, she’s a woman from Arkansas who used to be an attorney and rose to the White House, why would somebody like Hillary Clinton let herself get embroiled in things that are so Islamic? I’ve done entire programs on her assistant Huma Abedin connected to the Muslim Brotherhood. Why do you think someone like Hillary is getting so enmeshed in all things Muslim Brotherhood that this is absolutely a danger to the nation at this point because of the intricate nature of Muslim Brotherhood, Washington D.C., homeland security, national security, the State Department and the rabbit trails just keep going, and everybody is wondering who has looked into these kinds of issues, what is in the mind of somebody like Hillary Clinton that she is willing to sacrifice the safety of the nation by getting so embroiled in Muslim Brotherhood?

Barger: Jan, it is simply baffling to me. To be honest with you, I’ve thought about that so much and I’ve been living with this research now for several weeks that we’re using on the air. Somebody has her ear, obviously; maybe she is convinced that she can be a catalyst for world peace. You know, if you understand Islam at all you understand that the goal is not world peace, this is world domination, they have said it over and over; it’s in the Koran.

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Barger: Can you imagine Sunday sermons across our land soon being scrutinized by a panel by religious examiners to see if the words used pass the left-wing litmus test or the Muslim litmus test or however it’s viewed, to see if they become hate crimes or to see who would be called a renegade preacher is really just inciting his people? That’s where we’re going and eventually that’s the case Antichrist will make against people who disagree with him and who would stand against him and stand against everything that he will stand for. The thought police have now moved to the mouth and I think we need to see that and understand it. How soon will our legal ability to witness and defend the faith and preach the unadulterated Gospel be hampered or stopped? This is the important question, you see.

During the interview, Bachmann warned that Israel and the American people are in grave danger due to President Obama’s purported support of radical Islamists: “President Obama, if you look at nearly every decision he has made about this issue, it is to lift up the Islamists and to take down Israel.”

She also claimed that the Obama administration’s supposed “Islamic speech codes” could be “deadly for the American people.”

Bachmann also told Barger that everyone who is not an Islamist will “lose their right of speech and expression” as there is “no tolerance for dissent or disagreeing in any way with the goals or the beliefs of the Islamists.”

Bachmann: Not just verbal speech, but written, a cartoon, a painting, whatever it is, if it is in any way construed as being against Islam that is where the confrontation comes from the Islamist world and they want to stop anyone in the world from saying anything negative about Islam. Which means there is only one free speech right and that would belong to the Islamists. Everyone else would lose their right of speech and expression.

The reason why this is important is because this is the whole game, it is game over if we who are in the non-Islamist world lose the right to criticize what the Islamist does, because the Islamist tries to advocate Islamic Sharia law and so anything that we would say in the future, once you criminalized anti-Islamic speech, anything that we would say that would be critical in any way of anything Islam does would be considered criminalized. That’s why I say it is game over; the Islamists will have won everything. That’s why they are willing to put ten years into achieving this objective of silencing any form of dissent to Islam.

Barger: That goes right along with the idea that in Islam you are either a member of the house of peace or the house of war, there is no live and let live or peaceful coexistence.

Bachmann: There is no tolerance. There is no tolerance for dissent or disagreeing in any way with the goals or the beliefs of the Islamists, there is only one way.

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Bachmann: Once you take away people’s ability to be able to speak, this is not a small right, this is everything, it is game over because then all of the power and authority has been given over to the Islamist. The Islamist is the only one who gets to dictate what we can say and what we can do, and what we can print and what we not print, and who can assembly and how they can assemble, because at that point Sharia Islamic law in effect becomes the law of the land because the Islamist gets to have the authority, not anyone who opposes Islam. This is a very, very important issue.

She accused the Obama administration of supporting the Organization of the Islamic Conference’s advocacy of blasphemy laws, which the U.S. unambiguously opposed. Bachmann said that Americans must study Islamic materials in the same way people studied Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf during WWII and alleged that a letter from Muslim-American groups [PDF] regarding anti-Muslim instructional material is “proof positive” that the Obama administration wants to introduce Sharia law to the U.S.

Bachmann: That’s what I spent my whole year doing was talking about this issue of what the OIC was trying to do with their ten year plan and all of these efforts in the Obama administration. The only conclusion you could make is that they are embracing the ten year plan and are supporting it and that’s why this October 19 document is so important because that is proof positive that every piece that is put into place is leading to one direction, this isn’t deviating it’s leading to one direction, and that ultimate goal it seems to be is to allow for mandating, following, every demand of the Islamist and we know what their ultimate demand is.

Barger: Sharia law.

Bachmann: That’s right. That’s why we need to know what their belief system is; we need to know what they truly believe. That’s why the most important thing a person could do in WWII was to read the book that the leader of Germany wrote.

Barger: Mein Kampf.

Bachmann: Because he laid out very clearly what his intention was, he wasn’t hiding it, the Islamist does the same thing. They do not hide it, they lay it out very clearly. But what we’ve never seen before is the United States aiding and abetting that goal.

Bachmann concluded by making the absurd claim that Obama and Clinton are going to do away with people’s First Amendment rights and “take away the free speech rights of the American people.”

Barger: We know that our Constitution certainly doesn’t match what the OIC and the Muslim Brotherhood want, nor what the United Nations seems to be doing with Resolution 16/18 and with some other things that are going on there. How much should we worry about executive orders and how they might become, instead of the legislation that should be passed through Congress, might become the law of the land that way?

Bachmann: We’ve already seen that President Obama has given himself a very free hand at writing any executive order that he wants because he said it himself that if the United States Congress won’t agree with him, he’ll just take matters into his own hand and he’ll become his own Congress and he’ll sign his own executive order and thereby put into practical effect a law that he wants to see passed. This is completely against our Constitution.

But even more importantly, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton she helped to formulate and write and pass UN Resolution 16/18, which calls for the criminalization—anti-free speech measures. This is very concerning that she went down that road. It doesn’t specifically say Islam, it talks about religious speech, but let’s face it there is only one religion that the OIC—the Organization of Islamic Cooperative [sic]—cares about and that’s Islam. Hillary Clinton was involved from the very beginning in writing this resolution. She’s already signed this. While a UN resolution doesn’t bind United States law, how in the world could the President allow the Secretary of State to sign a resolution that indicates that we are willing to take away the free speech rights of the American people?

This is game over, as I’ve said before, because when you limit the right to dissent from the American people, the Founders made this the First Amendment because they understood this is our most sacred right, our right to speak, our right to practice our faith the way that we want to, the right to publish what we want to publish, the right to assemble and talk about whatever we want to talk about. That’s freedom, that’s the essence of freedom, that’s the First Amendment, and that is what UN Resolution 16/18 which Hillary Clinton signed, presumably with the affirmation of President Obama, and that’s the first step in a big step for taking away from you and me and all of your listeners our right of free speech and expression, religious practice, freedom of assembly, freedom of the printing press but even more importantly, it will empower the Islamist to use that against us.

Either Bachmann never read UN Resolution 16/18 or is simply misrepresenting it, as the resolution [PDF] actually defends the freedom of religion while at the same time expressing “deep concern” over religious intolerance, discrimination and violence.

Human Rights First also debunks the assertion that the resolution somehow curtails freedom of speech:

Myth 1: The U.N. resolution opens the door to limiting freedom of speech.

Wrong. The resolution acknowledges the language of article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), notably that “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.” It calls on states to take measures “consistent with their obligations under international human rights law, to address and combat such incidents.”

The United States has a reservation to that provision, to the extent that it violates the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, so it is not bound by the obligation. In fact, the U.S. has the highest threshold of free speech in the world, and the U.S. government has expressed no intention of lowering those standards. However, that does not exempt all other states from their legal obligations to fight “incitement, hostility or violence” according to article 20 of the ICCPR. After all, that is what they signed up to, so they have an obligation by law to honor their commitment.

In all respects though, the implementation of Article 20 must not infringe Article 19, which reasserts everyone’s right to freedom of expression. Rather than imposing new restrictions on freedom of speech, which it does not, the new consensus resolution opens the door to an action-oriented approach to fighting religious intolerance. That is very consistent with the U.S. policies and practices – combat violence, discrimination and hatred without restricting freedom of speech. Resolution 16/18 urges states to train government officials to address religious tensions, to harmonize actions at local and national level, to raise awareness of negative stereotyping of persons, to promote interfaith and intercultural dialogue, to foster religious freedom and to speak out against intolerance (among other recommendations. The only limitation on speech that is in the operative part of the resolution is incitement to “imminent violence”, which is in accordance with US law.

WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah has been beside himself over the President Obama’s election victory, writing that his re-election is proof that the U.S. is “where ancient Israel was before being destroyed by God.” He now claims that “the election, whether it was the result of voter fraud or stupidity or both, suggests America is turning rapidly away from God,” and now “we are in full apostasy boogie.”

Do you want to know where America is today in historical and biblical terms? It’s where ancient Israel was before being destroyed by God.

In Hosea 8, God speaks to the prophet about the precipice on which Israel stands: “They have set up kings, but not by me: they have made princes, and I knew it not: of their silver and their gold have they made them idols, that they may be cut off.”

We are in full apostasy boogie.

We have left our Judeo-Christian roots, values and heritage and are pursuing other gods. We think we’re too sophisticated for accountability to God.

God’s laws and judgments are, well, too judgmental for a secular and advanced society like America’s.

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Nevertheless, the election, whether it was the result of voter fraud or stupidity or both, suggests America is turning rapidly away from God.

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In America we are not only repeating the ancient vows, we are re-enacting the plot. We are indeed setting up kings, without regard to God. We are making princes who He knows not. And we are making idols of material things, so that we may be cut off.

Lord help us.

Leading Southern Baptist pastor Robert Jeffress quickly moved from Romney critic to Romney booster after the former Massachusetts governor won the Republican nomination, dropping his earlier claims that electing a Mormon president will lead to God’s judgment. In a pre-election sermon, Jeffress claimed that President Obama is “paving the way for the future reign of the Antichrist” and must be defeated. He attacked President Obama’s views on abortion rights and gay equality, which he says will restrict religious freedom and as a result make it “relatively easy for the Antichrist to take over without any opposition whatsoever.”

I want you to hear me tonight, I am not saying that President Obama is the Antichrist, I am not saying that at all. One reason I know he’s not the Antichrist is the Antichrist is going to have much higher poll numbers when he comes, President Obama is not the Antichrist. Nor am I saying that President Obama is not a Christian, I would never make that claim, I could not look into his heart as he cannot look into my heart. Nor am I saying the President doesn’t have some good ideas, nor am I saying that he doesn’t deserve our respect and our prayers. But what I am saying is this: the course he is choosing to lead our nation is paving the way for the future reign of the Antichrist.

You see when Antichrist comes, he is not going to be able to suddenly seize power and suddenly make these radical changes, he’s not going to be able to suddenly restrict speech and religious worship and commerce, why to do that suddenly would cause a revolution that would topple his reign on the earth. Yet Revelations 6 says when Antichrist comes he will take over power automatically, he’ll ride a horse that has a bow with no arrow on it, his overtaking the world will be effortlessly, it will be without any effort at all. How does that happen? The only way that’s going to happen is if there is a gradual erosion of God’s laws and our personal freedoms over a long period of time, and it will be that gradual erosion of our sense of morality, our adherence to God’s laws, that gradual erosion of our personal freedoms that will make it relatively easy for Antichrist to take over without any opposition whatsoever.

That’s why ladies and gentlemen I believe it is time for Christians to stand up and to push back against this evil that is overtaking our nation. To stand up and push back against these actions that are paving the way for the final world dictator. The best way to push back against unrighteousness is at the ballot box. This coming Tuesday we have a decision, the decision is not between Republicans and Democrats, the choice before us is the choice of righteousness or unrighteousness.

Joel Rosenberg, End Times fanatic and Christian author, recently spoke to Olive Tree Ministries leader Jan Markell about the imminent implosion of the United States, warning that if we do not change the course of our nation, we “could collapse economically, morally, and spiritually.” The best case scenario, according to Rosenberg, is if the Rapture comes prior to the forthcoming implosion so that “the Lord can remove [his] people [and] his church.” The one ramification of the Rapture that will truly lead to economic turmoil and the downfall of our nation, says Rosenberg, is foreclosure.

The Rapture seems like the best case scenario, that the Lord would remove his people, his church prior to the implosion of the United States, but I do think that if implosion of America hasn’t happened by the time of the Rapture that the Rapture will cause…you mention one example in your list was foreclosure, and the whole concept of foreclosure is that people can’t pay their mortgages, and therefore banks get stuck with debt when that happens in thousands, in hundreds of thousands of cases banks go under and this has a ripple effect on the economy. Well, imagine the foreclosure problems the day after the Rapture, when thirty million homeowners disappear—this is the end of the American economic system as we know it. And I go through a wider range of scenarios that would come with the Rapture here in the United States, but I think it’s possible that God might cause or allow the implosion of the United States to begin before the Rapture.

But our problems do not stop at foreclosure, cautions Rosenberg. He claims that legal abortion is worse than the Holocaust, stating that “we have killed ten times the number of human beings the Nazis killed among the Jews during the Holocaust.” Rosenberg declares that we must criminalize abortion or God will judge America like he punished Nazi Germany.

Americans are just getting very fearful that if we don’t change course, starting with the election, we could collapse economically, morally, spiritually…. I just want to point out one thing as we’re closing, I was at Auschwitz last fall, just after your conference last year, and to stand there as a Jewish young man in a gas chamber, and to realize that Hitler killed six million Jews during the Holocaust. Americans have killed 53 million babies through abortions since 1973, and we are heading toward 60 million. That means that we will have killed ten times the number of human beings the Nazis killed among the Jews at least during the Holocaust, and you have to say to yourself, we know what God did to judge the Nazi regime, what might he do to America if we do not repent, and I think that’s the real question and the heart of implosion.

During an interview with self-proclaimed prophet Cindy Jacobs, televangelist Jim Bakker warned that “America is under curse” and God let his protective hand of protection down to allow the September 11 attacks to occur in order “to get your and my attention.” Bakker tearfully decried legal abortion and limits on organized school prayer and the public placement of religious items like the Ten Commandments, telling viewers that now “God is weeping in Heaven.”

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Speaking at the Epicenter Conference in Jerusalem, radical evangelist and daughter of Billy Graham, Anne Graham Lotz, elaborated on her belief that the end times are here. Quoting from Joel 1:6, she compared the locust plague with the pornography industry, saying that it constitutes an “invasion” upon our land.

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The locust invasion that destroyed the land, was like an army, but was not a human army. So then I was asking myself, what non-human army is invading our world and destroying it? Just like that I could think of pornography. Invading our land and our nation – just subtle, seeping corruption, destroying the fabric of society, tearing apart healthy relationships and families, the very bedrock on which a nation is built. Pornography makes more money in a year, than apple, Microsoft, Google, eBay, amazon, combined. That’s a disaster.