MythBusters Case#11: Four More Years of Purgatory – John Tetzel Rides Again!

 

It’s a sad day in Muddville.  The Mighty Mitt struck out.

Following the 2012 election evangelicals are snarling at one another.  “You have the blood of the innocents on your hands!” says one side.  “You supported a heretic!” says the other.

Different people had different strategies to “stop Obama.” Some stayed home.  Others only voted on local candidates and issues.  Still others voted for a third party candidate.  Others voted for snake oil.  What will it take to bring evangelicals together?  The confusion masks a deeper problem, or which Barack Obama is only a symptom.

Myth: Four more years of an Obama presidency will destroy America.

It is not an Obama presidency that is destroying America.  It is the fabric from which Obama is cut.  It has been with us for decades.  It has led us “progressively” down the spiral toward perdition.  Romney is cut from the same cloth.

Both men have been influenced and aided by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), created in 1922.  The chief architect was Edward Mandel House.  The chief end was world peace through domination of world Government.  Its membership consists of Democrats and Republicans, labor and industrial leaders, “liberals” and “conservatives,” and various other so-called antagonists.

In American politics, the phrase, “May the best man win!” is a call for the most ruthless and cunning to take control and implement their agenda—perhaps to be tossed under the bus when he has served their purpose.  At present, it’s a win-win situation for the “progressives.”

MythBusters primary conclusion is this:  Both candidates were selling snake oil to perpetuate the status quo, much the same as John Tetzel sold indulgences to aggrandize the Papal power of the 16th Century.   It was CFR “A Team” versus CFR “B Team.”  The Tetzel’s of the world distract us from the only real solution (see below).

How did “the greatest country in the world” ever get into this predicament?  The Enlightenment battle against the divine right of kings has been successful, but at a terrible cost.  Mankind has traded it for the divine right of the people.  They rejected “Vox Rex, Vox Deo” and embraced “Vox populi, Vox  Deo.”  In both cases, we are led by the whims of man, be it one or many—I the king or we the people.  Neither is the voice of God.  The neglected alternative is  “Vox Scriptura, Vox Deo.”   It is our only hope.

The Enlightenment mindset can be traced much further back — not for decades, not for centuries, but for millennia–back to the Tower of Babel mindset.  There men first presumptuously imagined themselves the arbiters of their own destiny.  This is the soil from which our modern-day Obamas and Romney’s ultimately spring.

Digressing even further back into prehistory, we find ourselves in the loins of Adam, defying Yahweh face to face.  No wonder we’re in trouble!  God’s law was simple in Eden.  Do anything your heart desires except eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  The Creator determines that, not you or me.

That one act of disobedience unraveled all subsequent history.  It gave us expulsion from Paradise, the first murder and many thereafter, defiance and confusion at Babel, Chattel slavery and misery in Egypt, unthankfulness for deliverance, idolatry, blasphemy, Greed, theft, adultery, revolution, tyranny, and people looking for relief in all the wrong places.

Case Closed: Romney was not the panacea to the “Obama problem.”  Had he won, then we would have the “Romney problem.”  Sinful man is the problem, and he has an uncanny way of digging himself in ever deeper when he tries to become the captain of his own soul.  We are admonished by a merciful God to “trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not to thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6).

The way back up is through faith in Jesus Christ and repentance toward God.  We need to repent of our personal sins and our national sins.   In practical terms this means calling on our culture to turn back to the civil laws of Yahweh and away from the whims of men.  We must call on all men everywhere to recognize the crown rights of our risen and reigning Savior.  Let us delight to walk in obedience to Him.  Let build Christ’s kingdom in defiance of carnal empire building and let the world know that none of us are wiser than He whose kingdom rules over all.  This is the vision that will unite evangelicals in America and around the world.

MythBusters Case#10: How Safe Are Our Public Schools From Homosexual Predators?

You might well ask how safe are our public schools, period.  So why are we focusing on homosexuals in this particular case?  Is there is a devious mind-set afoot in high places breaking ground for acceptance of a perverted lifestyle?  Doesn’t the gay community consist of a particular group of people who simply want to be accepted socially and economically as other minority group?  For example, how does same-sex marriage threaten heterosexual marriage?  Why can’t they peacefully coexist?  Furthermore, what has all this got to do with public schools and predators?

Myth: We should  just treat sodomites fairly and let them have social benefits that real married people enjoy?

Several states have already legalized same-sex marriage  A case in point is the Maryland state legislature’s passing of such a bill and Governor Michael O’Malley’s signing it into law.  It is to become effective on January 1, 2013, but the people of Maryland are not buying it.  Enough petition signatures have been gathered to place it on the ballot as Question 6, which many hope to be voted AGAINST.

Michael Anthony Peroutka of The American View tells us why in no uncertain terms under the following headline:

 Maryland’s Question 6 Is About Government-Authorized Child Abuse

 For years now, the sodomite lobby in Annapolis has been desperately seeking to redefine the God-given and God-ordained institution of marriage. Now the people of Maryland will cast their votes to approve or to disapprove of this foolishness.

During this entire time, the sodomite strategy is to appeal to your sense of fairness: “Why can’t we just treat sodomites fairly and let them have social benefits that real married people enjoy?”

Here’s what they are NOT telling you:

The reason why it is so desperately important to homosexuals to redefine marriage in written “un-law” has little to do with “fairness” and much to do with gaining access to straight, normal, decent Maryland children from straight, normal, decent Maryland families.

You see, homosexuals can’t reproduce. So they must recruit.

Please consider carefully: Homosexuals can’t reproduce. So they must recruit. And the best place to recruit is in schools where they can have unfettered access to children—your children—and your grandchildren.

Public schools are where the recruiting goes on and on and on. It is being made part of the curriculum. In pre-kindergarten, your children are being taught that queer is good and it’s good to try it. They are taught to disregard the morality of their parents. And if you vote “yes” on Question 6, this tampering with the morals of your children will become official public policy.

Stripped of all its phony “fairness” language, what is being pushed is nothing short of government-authorized perversion of Maryland children. It’s a license for child sexual abuse.

I have heard from multiple sources that in the homosexual community, you and I are referred to as “breeders”—that is, suppliers of children that they desire to convert to their death-style.

We urge you not to fall for the phony “fairness” routine. Vote “Against” on Question 6. —Michael Anthony Peroutka

Case closed: So, same-sex marriage is only one part of this hydra-headed monster.  Several states have already imposed on their citizens a redefinition of this God-given institution of holy matrimony.

 Now you can see why we cannot be silent in whatever state this deceptive rhetoric poses its active danger.

Please, take the next step to protect your children from all the abuses of the public school system.  Enroll them in a real time on line high and Junior high school—King’s Way Classical Academy.  Click HERE and learn

MythBusters Poll: The Great Tribulation

MythBusters Case#9: Five Questions the Futurist Can’t Answer

What Christians think about the culmination of history is very important.  Do we expect things to get worse and worse until the kingdom of Anti-Christ is fully revealed (Futurism)?  Or do we expect things to get better and better until the kingdom of Christ is fully revealed (Preterism)?

Self-fulfilling prophecies are very powerful.  It all hinges on whether or not we believe the Great Tribulation is in the past or in the future.  If you are a Futurist the thought that the Great Tribulation was in the past probably strikes you as absurd.  But is it?

MythBusters accepted the case and during the course of our investigation identified five questions that aren’t being answered by the Futurism school of prophetic interpretation in its current configuration.  We found a recurring pattern of futurism accepting the Tribulation myth a priori, then searching for Bible verses that seem to support it.   They also tended to be influenced more by the negative influence of current events than the promises of victory that appear in the prophetic literature.

Myth:  Things are going to get worse and worse until the Anti-Christ is revealed in the midst of a Great Tribulation.

A review of the literature found at least five questions that are either being ignored by futurism or that are forcing them to depart from the literal interpretation they so fervently endorse.  At the same time, they aren’t  recognizing figurative or poetic language that is easily interpreted in light of Old Testament idioms.  For example, Israel represented by sun, moon and stars in Joseph’s dream.

1) The key question that can not be ignored is related to the time marker in Matthew 24:34 where Jesus said that it was His contemporaries who would see the termination of national Israel (Mt 24:29) accompanied by The Great Tribulation (Mt 24:21).

Truly I say to you, This generation will not pass away until all these things take place.

Generation means “a multitude of contemporaries.”  That is the literal, plain, and natural interpretation.  Some preterists pointed out that is the obvious meaning of “this generation” everywhere else it is mentioned in the New Testament, including Matthew 23: 36, just a little bit earlier in the discourse.  Why would it mean something different in Matthew 24:34, we asked ourselves?  Had Jesus meant some future generation wouldn’t He have used the word “that” rather than “this.”

Q1:  So, the really big question is, If Jesus said flat out that the Great Tribulation was going to occur in His generation, by what authority does the Futurist contradict the words of Christ and declare that it will occur in some future generation?

2) Related to this is the identification of the Beast. We reasoned that if John told the Christians to whom he first sent his letter of Revelation to “count the number of the Beast” (Rev. 13:18) then the Beast had to be somebody alive in the first Century whose number John’s first readers could count.

Q2:  So the second question is “if the Beast was somebody that John’s primary audience could recognize in the first century, how can the Beast possibly be somebody who would appear centuries later during a Great Tribulation that Jesus told us also occurred in the first century?”

3) In addition, at the beginning and the end of the Book of the Revelation John told his primary audience that the prophecies of Revelation would be fulfilled “shortly” (1:1), “near” (1:3; 22:10), and “quickly” (22:20).  The only 1^st Century event we could find answering to these time indicators was the Great Tribulation that occurred during the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.  This was Christ coming in judgment on the Jewish nation.  The Christians were warned to flee to the mountains as soon as they saw the Roman legions approaching, and history records that they did.

Taking their cue from the Futurists, skeptics like Bertrand Russell also missed the point.  In “Why I Am Not A Christian”, he said one reason for his unbelief was Jesus mistaken belief that His second coming would occur within a generation. He wrote:

For one thing, He certainly thought that His second coming would occur in clouds of glory before the death of all the people who were living at that time. There are a great many texts that prove that and there are a lot of places where it is quite clear that He believed that His coming would happen during the lifetime of many then living.

Because of this, the futurist view, with its many failed predictions, contributes to the unbelief of many.  One researcher counted over 1,000 false predictions of the anti-Christ during 2,000+ years of church  history.  If you push these events into the future, then you either have to ignore Matthew 24:34, distort it, or agree with CS Lewis that Matthew 24:34 is “the most embarrassing verse in the Bible.”

Q3:  So a third question is by what authority does Futurism contradict the Words of the Apostle and conclude that the events described in Revelation are going to occur hundreds and thousands of years in the future?

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4) The 96 A.D. dating of Revelation is based on one obscure historical reference that clearly does not comport with the Bible. In Revelation 11:2 John is given a rod and told to measure the temple of God, so it is impossible for the Revelation to have been written after the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D. Reliable estimates place the date at 66 A.D, just prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.

Q4:  Fourth, why does Futurism date the writing of Revelation at 96 A.D in contradiction to the Biblical evidence?

5) In describing Nebuchadnezzar’s image, Daniel 2:42 records that the feet and toes made of iron mixed with clay was a characteristic of the original 4th kingdom — NOT an imaginary “Revived Roman Empire” which does not appear in the text. That would require that the toes be cut off and cast 2000+ years into the future or stretched out over the whole page as one artist portrayed it.

Rome was crushed by the stone which was Christ “in the days of those kings” at His first coming, death, resurrection, ascension, and inaugural procession to receive the kingdom (Dan 7:13,14). That stone (kingdom) is now growing to become a mountain that will fill the whole earth. Likewise, the gospels compare the kingdom to a mustard seed that grows and gradually fills the whole earth following the first coming of Christ.

Q5:  Thus, a fifth question is, “If Jesus was given “dominion, glory and a kingdom” at his ascension and coronation procession (Dan. 7:13,14) and told His disciples “all power on heaven and earth has been given unto Me” (Mt 28:19,20) by what authority does the Futurist push His kingdom off into the distant future?

Case Closed:   This MythBusters’ investigation identified five questions that cannot be answered on the presuppositions of Futurism.  The Futurist writers have no apparent grounds for dating the Great Tribulation in the future without violating the very words of Christ Himself, the words of the apostles and the laws of logic.