On a day when Jews mourn the destruction of the Temple almost 2,000 years ago, the Temple Institute made a giant step towards the rebuilding of the Temple by beginning to rebuild the sacrificial altar. The sacrificial altar is the location in the Temple where the Jews once offered sacrifices to the Lord, but there have been no sacrifices made since 70 A.D. when the Roman army destroyed both Jerusalem and the Temple.
It is difficult to understate the significance of the rebuilding of the sacrificial altar. You see, the sacrificial altar was the center of Temple worship. It was located near the center of the Temple, and upon that altar the priests would offer the numerous sacrifices that are commanded in the Torah.
The Temple Institute has previously rebuilt many of the other required instruments and vessels for the Temple, but rebuilding the sacrificial altar represents another huge leap forward in their goal.
Of course the Temple Institute is not able to rebuild the sacrificial altar in its proper location on the Temple Mount, so they are building it off site and will transport it to the Temple when it is rebuilt in the future.
The rocks for the sacrificial altar were gathered from the area around the Dead Sea and they were individually wrapped in order to ensure that they are not touched by metal as the Torah requires.
For students of Bible prophecy, this development is very exciting because it represents another huge step towards the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem as the Scriptures foretell.
In fact, the Bible tells us that one day the Antichrist will set himself up in God’s Temple and proclaim himself to be God. Just read what it says in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4…..
Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for (that day will not come) until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.
But should the Temple Institute be doing this? Should anyone be trying to rebuild the Temple without direct instructions from the Lord?
We know that it WILL be rebuilt, but is it proper for them to be doing it right now? After all, the first two Temples were only built after the Lord gave direct instructions that they be built.
What is your opinion? Feel free to tell us in the comments section below.
The vast majority of average Americans never spend much time thinking about things like “population control” or “eugenics”, but for the ultra-wealthy of the global elite and for the politicians that serve them, population control and eugenics are issues of the highest priority, and in fact it would be difficult to overstate the sick obsession that these elitists have with reducing the population of the planet.
Most of the time this sick obsession with population control does not make headlines, but a couple of recent news events has brought these issues back to the forefront once again. The first involved Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
In an absolutely stunning interview with the New York Times, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg alluded to the fact that abortion is all about getting rid of certain types of people that the elite do not want to have around:
“Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”
Now in what kind of sick world is it EVER acceptable to use the phrase “populations that we don’t want to have too many of”?
That has got to be one of the most offensive statement made by any public figure in recent memory.
Yet the mainstream media has mostly let is pass without objection.
Fortunately, at least one member of Congress took notice. Representative Joseph Pitts, a Republican from Pennsylvania, gave a stirring speech on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives denouncing Ginsburg’s comment. If you have not seen his one minute speech addressing this yet, then you definitely need to watch this video:
Unfortunately, Ginsberg’s comments are hardly an isolated case. The reality is that the top levels of government are filled with officials who are obsessed with population issues.
For example, John P. Holdren, Barack Obama’s top science advisor co-authored a book in 1977 in which he advocated mass sterilization using the food and water supply, mandatory bodily implants that would prevent couples from having children, forced abortions for American couples trying to have too many children and a global police force to enforce population control.
Really?
Yes, really.
Now keep in mind, this is Barack Obama’s number one science advisor.
Holdren advocated these insane proposals in a 1977 textbook entitled “Ecoscience”, which he co-authored with Paul Ehrlich (who worked in the Bush administration) and Anne Ehrlich.
When rumors of Holdren’s book first began to surface, they were quickly dismissed by many because it just seemed so inconceivable that the top science advisor to the president of the United States would advocate such bizarre ideas.
What followers are some of the more shocking quotes from Holdren’s book.
On page 837, the book states that compulsory abortion is perfectly legal under the Constitution of the United States:
“Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.”
On page 786, it says that single mothers should have their babies taken away by the government and that they could be forced to have abortions if the government decides that is what is best:
“One way to carry out this disapproval might be to insist that all illegitimate babies be put up for adoption—especially those born to minors, who generally are not capable of caring properly for a child alone. If a single mother really wished to keep her baby, she might be obliged to go through adoption proceedings and demonstrate her ability to support and care for it. Adoption proceedings probably should remain more difficult for single people than for married couples, in recognition of the relative difficulty of raising children alone. It would even be possible to require pregnant single women to marry or have abortions, perhaps as an alternative to placement for adoption, depending on the society.”
On pages 787 and 788, the book advocates the mass sterilization of humans by putting drugs in the food and water supply:
“Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock.”
On pages 786 and 787, the authors discuss the involuntary sterilization of women after their second or third child:
Involuntary fertility control
“A program of sterilizing women after their second or third child, despite the relatively greater difficulty of the operation than vasectomy, might be easier to implement than trying to sterilize men.
The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control. The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births.”
On page 838, the authors state their belief that there is nothing wrong or illegal about the government dictating family size:
“In today’s world, however, the number of children in a family is a matter of profound public concern. The law regulates other highly personal matters. For example, no one may lawfully have more than one spouse at a time. Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from having more than two children?”
On pages 942 and 943, the authors call for the creation of a “planetary regime” that would control the global economy and enforce population control measures:
Toward a Planetary Regime
“Perhaps those agencies, combined with UNEP and the United Nations population agencies, might eventually be developed into a Planetary Regime—sort of an international superagency for population, resources, and environment. Such a comprehensive Planetary Regime could control the development, administration, conservation, and distribution of all natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable, at least insofar as international implications exist. Thus the Regime could have the power to control pollution not only in the atmosphere and oceans, but also in such freshwater bodies as rivers and lakes that cross international boundaries or that discharge into the oceans. The Regime might also be a logical central agency for regulating all international trade, perhaps including assistance from DCs to LDCs, and including all food on the international market.”
“The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries’ shares within their regional limits. Control of population size might remain the responsibility of each government, but the Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits.”
On page 917, the authors advocate the surrender of national sovereignty to an armed international police force:
“If this could be accomplished, security might be provided by an armed international organization, a global analogue of a police force. Many people have recognized this as a goal, but the way to reach it remains obscure in a world where factionalism seems, if anything, to be increasing. The first step necessarily involves partial surrender of sovereignty to an international organization.”
It would be easy to dismiss Holdren as an eccentric nutjob, but the truth is that his views are an accurate representation of what is commonly believed among the global elite. They are obsessed with the notion that this planet is massively overpopulated, and that if strict population control measures are not implemented quickly it will have catastrophic consequences for the planet.
Scientists who advocate eugenics and radical population control are funded and promoted by the global elite. In fact, prior to becoming Obama’s top science advisor, Holdren was the Teresa and John Heinz Professor of Environmental Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
The truth is that academia is littered with nutjobs such as this who want to see the vast majority of humanity wiped out. Another example of this is Professor of Biology at the University of Texas at Austin Eric R. Pianka.
First, and foremost, we must get out of denial and recognize that Earth simply cannot support many billions of people
This planet might be able to support perhaps as many as half a billion people who could live a sustainable life in relative comfort. Human populations must be greatly diminished, and as quickly as possible to limit further environmental damage.
I do not bear any ill will toward humanity. However, I am convinced that the world WOULD clearly be much better off without so many of us.
So the world “might” be able to support half a billion people?
What about all the rest of us?
Oh yeah, we apparently have to die.
But these nutjob scientists would not have the influence and positions they do if they were not funded by the ultra-wealthy global elitists who are also obsessed with population control.
On May 5th, 2009, Bill Gates, David Rockefeller Jr., Warren Buffett, George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, Ted Turner, Oprah Winfrey and a number of other ultra-wealthy Americans gathered for a super secret meeting in Manhattan. Reportedly the goal of the meeting was to evaluate how their combined wealth could be used to slow the growth of the world’s population.
There was a total news blackout by the American media of this clandestine gathering. The group reportedly met at the home of Sir Paul Nurse, a British Nobel prize biochemist and the president of Rockefeller University. The secret meeting supposedly so discreet that many of the billionaires’ aides were only told they were at “security briefings”.
Fortunately, however, some details about the secret meeting have emerged.
According to one major U.K. newspaper, one anonymous person who attended the meeting said that “a consensus emerged that they would back a strategy in which population growth would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat.”
The same article included some other incredibly shocking quotes about the meeting from that same anonymous source…..
“This is something so nightmarish that everyone in this group agreed it needs big-brain answers.”
“They need to be independent of government agencies, which are unable to head off the disaster we all see looming.”
So the super-wealthy “big-brains” are going to come up with the answers to overpopulation and impose those answers on the rest of us?
How arrogant can they possibly be?
You know all of that money that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett donated to “charity” some time ago? Well, the reality is that a whole lot of it is going for population control programs – especially in the third world.
The reality is that this secret meeting is just another example of the sick obsession that the global elite has with population control.
Even in the western world now it seems as though there is a non-stop program to promote abortion, sterilization, family size limits, lower birth rates and other even more extreme population control measures.
Porritt also said that curbing population growth through abortion and contraception is absolutely necessary if the fight against global warming is going to be won.
And it is the “environmental movement” that is behind much of this. It is becoming increasingly popular to think of humans as a “virus” that are destroying the planet, and that what we need to do is to radically reduce the population to bring things back into balance.
For thousands of years, the freedom to marry and reproduce and to raise a family has been one of the most cherished and most basic of all human freedoms.
But now all of that is changing. Now you have governments like China that have implemented a “one child policy” and you have other governments that are starting to talk about limits on family sizes.
But even without formal government action, today there are many, particularly in the Western world, who are been convinced by government propaganda to willingly restrict their own reproductive capabilities.
For example, one 27 year old woman named Toni Vernelli told the Daily Mail why she decided to get permanently sterilized: “Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population.”
Some “environmental activists” have even gone to the absolute extreme by forming “The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement” which seeks to reduce the presence of humanity on earth completely.
Their motto is: “May we live long and die out”.
Doesn’t that sound wonderful?
So is what they are saying true?
Is the ballooning population of the planet a huge threat to the environment?
Do we need to implement strict population control for the good of humanity?
The truth is that the world has more than enough space and resources for everyone if the elite were not so greedy, but instead the elite are pushing the governments of the world to implement population control programs.
We have started to see some of these population control measures begin to pop up in the Western world…..
*In the U.K., one influential think tank says that it is an “eco-crime” to have too many childrenand that we really need to examine the impact our large population is having on the earth.
Did you know that American tax dollars are being spent to sterilize the women of Peru?
The reality is that the desire by the global elite to limit the population of the earth has been around for centuries. Between 1798 and 1826, English economist Thomas Malthus published six editions of his work entitled “Essay on the Principle of Population”, which argued that population growth inevitably outstrips food production.
The primary argument advanced by Malthus was that the English working class was poor not because they were exploited, but rather because there were way too many of them. Malthus opposed welfare and higher wages because he believed they would allow the poor to survive and breed, thus compounding the overpopulation problem and leading to more poverty. Of course Malthus was completely and totally wrong about all of this, but nonetheless his theories gained wide acceptance among the English elite of his day.
Many years later, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, vigorously promoted this type of twisted thinking in the United States. The following is one of Margaret Sanger’s most infamous quotes:
“The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”
Now keep in mind that this quote came out of the mouth of the founder of Planned Parenthood.
Unfortunately, the sick viewpoints of Malthus, Sanger and other population control advocates did not die out. Rather, they seemed to gain steam as the population of the world absolutely exploded in the 20th century.
U.S. environmentalist Paul Ehrlich, in his 1968 book entitled “The Population Bomb”, argued for very strict population control measures, especially in the poorer areas of the world. He warned that if we did not implement such measures we would be facing catastrophic problems very quickly. Of course most of his dire predictions have now been documented to have been completely wrong, but his theories continue to wield a great deal of influence to this day.
Dr. Arne Schiotz, World Wildlife Fund Director of Conservation, said this in 1984:
“Malthus has been vindicated, reality is finally catching up with Malthus. The Third World is overpopulated, it’s an economic mess, and there’s no way they could get out of it with this fast-growing population. Our philosophy is: back to the village.”
Unfortunately, the philosophies of Erlich, Schiotz and other population control advocates have garnered a substantial following even among powerful members of the United States government. Just check out the following shocking quotes from Thomas Ferguson, who formerly worked in the State Department Office of Population Affairs…..
“There is a single theme behind all our work–we must reduce population levels. Either governments do it our way, through nice clean methods, or they will get the kinds of mess that we have in El Salvador, or in Iran or in Beirut. Population is a political problem. Once population is out of control, it requires authoritarian government, even fascism, to reduce it….”
“Our program in El Salvador didn’t work. The infrastructure was not there to support it. There were just too goddamned many people…. To really reduce population, quickly, you have to pull all the males into the fighting and you have to kill significant numbers of fertile age females….”
“The quickest way to reduce population is through famine, like in Africa, or through disease like the Black Death….”
Unfortunately, the quotes above are typical of the mindset of the global elite. The call for radical population control has grown louder than we have ever seen before. College professors are given standing ovations by their students when they call for a 90 percent reduction in the human population of the planet. Ted Turner makes the radical statement that, “A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal,” and the global elite applaud him for it. The Georgia Guidestones which call for us to “maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature” are increasingly cited by our leaders as an important, and perhaps even necessary, goal.
When did it become “a good idea” to wipe out 90 to 95 percent of mankind?
Even Prince Philip, the husband of Queen Elizabeth, is obsessed with reducing population:
“You cannot keep a bigger flock of sheep than you are capable of feeding. In other words conservation may involve culling in order to keep a balance between the relative numbers in each species within any particular habitat. I realize this is a very touchy subject, but the fact remains that mankind is part of the living world…. Every new acre brought into cultivation means another acre denied to wild species.”
Are you starting to understand how the global elite sees us?
The truth is that they see us as a “flock” that must be culled from time to time.
How incredibly sick is that?
In fact, Prince Philip, the “Eco-Warrior”, also once said that he would like to come back to earth as a disease after he died to help reduce the human population.
But Prince Philip is far from alone on this issue. The call for human depopulation is coming from a myriad of other sources as well:
John Guillebaud, professor of family planning at University College London has said this: “The effect on the planet of having one child less is an order of magnitude greater than all these other things we might do, such as switching off lights. An extra child is the equivalent of a lot of flights across the planet.”
He also made this shocking statement: “The greatest thing anyone in Britain could do to help the future of the planet would be to have one less child.”
The infamous Club of Rome is certainly clear about who they think the “enemy” is…..
“In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill…. But in designating them as the enemy, we fall into the trap of mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.”
–Club of Rome, The First Global Revolution, 1991
Mikhail Gorbachev has also weighed in on his view on overpopulation. Many were stunned when he made this shocking statement: “We must speak more clearly about sexuality, contraception, about abortion, about values that control population, because the ecological crisis, in short, is the population crisis. Cut the population by 90% and there aren’t enough people left to do a great deal of ecological damage.”
The truth is that we are getting increasingly closer to the kind of world where the “useless eaters” that Henry Kissinger talked about will be “eliminated”.
Is this the kind of future that you anticipated for your children and your grandchildren?
A world where the human “flock” is regularly “culled” to please the global elite?
Not that it matters that the world is not even experiencing runaway population growth.
While the earth’s population is indeed growing, the rate of growth is definitely slowing. The population of the world grew by 140% between 1950 and 2000. However, authorities are predicting a rise of only 50% between 2000 and 2050, and a rise of just 11% in the 50 years beyond that.
In fact, in Russia they are actually starting to pay people to have children because the population there has been declining too much.
But the global elite have decided that the earth should only have about 500 million people, and that they are going to have to get rid of about 90 percent of us.
And one of the truly sad things is that many of you who will read this article actually agree with the global elite. Many of you believe that we need sterilization, family size limits, forced abortion and even more draconian measures in order to avoid an environmental catastrophe.
The truth is that you have been brainwashed.
The truth is that you have been lied to.
The truth is that you have bought into a philosophy of death which completely devalues human life.
But this is what is being taught in universities all over the United States and Europe. The population control and eugenics agenda of the global elite is being being propagandized by professors, scientists and government officials who have bought into this madness.
However, what most people do not realize is that the global elite not only intend to theorize about population control and eugenics. They fully intend to radically reduce the population of the earth in their lifetimes – whether you like it or not.
Pope Benedict says that we need a world government.
That is one of the main themes of his brand new encyclical entitled Caritas in Veritate, or Charity in Truth. In it, Pope Benedict publicly calls for a “true world political authority” with “real teeth”. At a time when many other prominent world leaders are openly calling for a “New World Order”, to have the Roman Pontiff openly state that we need a world government is more than a little alarming, and it is yet another clear sign that we are living in the last days.
The 144 page encyclical is the result of an intensive 2 year effort by Pope Benedict to bring Catholic social teaching up to date on issues such as economic development, terrorism, sex tourism, population issues, bioethics and the environment.
“There is a strongly felt need… for a reform of the United Nations Organisation, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth… there is urgent need of a true world political authority.”
“Real teeth”?
What in the world would a global government with “real teeth” look like?
According to Pope Benedict, the job of such a world political authority would be “to manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result.”
So it is not just a one world government that Pope Benedict is advocating.
He is also officially recommending that the one world government would “manage” a one world economic system.
Has Pope Benedict been reading the writings of Karl Marx?
Since when is it the job of the Pope to advocate the “large-scale redistribution of wealth”?
Apparently that would mean taking wealth away from Americans and Europeans and giving it to others.
When Pope Benedict puts out an encyclical that recommends the adoption of a one world government and a one world economic system, it shows all of us how close to the last days that we really are.
What will Pope Benedict call for next?
A one world religion?
After all, most Bible prophecy scholars agree that three of the main pillars of the Antichrist’s system will be a one world government, a one world economic system (the Mark of the Beast, etc.) and a one world religion.
Pope Benedict’s declaration that we need a one world government and a one world economic system should be a huge wake up call for all of us.
Has the United States now decided to that they are going to allow Israel to strike Iran’s nuclear program? If new remarks from Vice President Joe Biden are to be taken seriously, then that indeed appears to be the case.
In a stunning new interview with ABC’s George Stephanoupolos, vice president Joe Biden stated the following: “Look, Israel can determine for itself — it’s a sovereign nation — what’s in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else.”
In response, Stephanoupolos asked whether Israel can do what they want whether or not the U.S. agrees with that course of action.
Joe Biden’s response?
“Whether we agree or not.”
Subsequently, Biden also added this:
“And so there are separate issues. If the Netanyahu government decides to take a course of action different than the one being pursued now, that is their sovereign right to do that. That is not our choice. ”
Stephanopoulos sought to clarify this point by asking this question:
“But just to be clear here, if the Israelis decide Iran is an existential threat, they have to take out the nuclear program, militarily the United States will not stand in the way?”
In response, Biden answered this way:
“Look, we cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do.
This was the very first time that an Obama administration official has publicly left the door open for an Israeli military strike against Iran’s nuclear sites.
In addition, there are now reports circulating in the mainstream media that Saudi Arabia has agreed to turn a blind eye to Israeli warplanes flying over their territory in a raid on Iran’s nuclear sites.
Officially, these reports are being denied, but they are very intriguing.
You see, Saudi Arabia would not be too thrilled with Iran getting their hands on nuclear weapons. Saudi Arabia is a Sunni Muslim nation, while Iran is the largest Shiite Muslim nation in the world. There is a long history of violence between Sunnis and Shiites. While both sects of Islam believe in Islamic world dominance, both are also deeply committed to seeing their own particular “brand” of Islam triumph in the end.
Therefore, Saudi Arabia has a vested interest in making sure that Iran does not acquire nuclear weapons.
So, it appears that everything is starting to line up for an Israeli military strike on Iran’s nuclear program.
The truth is that Israel never intended to let Iran acquire nuclear weapons.
Nor should they.
Let us just hope that when they do strike that it will not spark a larger war.
Are we witnessing the decline of Christianity in America? When you examine all of the most recent poll numbers, the answer is inescapable. Christian churches in America are losing members rapidly, and this trend is especially dramatic among young Americans.
According to a stunning new survey by America’s Research Group, 95 percent of 20 to 29 year old evangelicals attended church regularly during their elementary and middle school years. However, only 55 percent of them attended church regularly during high school, and only 11 percent of them were still regularly attending church when in college.
Those numbers have got to be incredibly sobering to the evangelical Christian leadership in the United States.
The reality is that young Americans are deserting the Church in America in droves.
The other day we came across an article in Advertising Age that blew us away. The article was discussing marketing and religion, but what impacted us so profoundly were some figures from the American Religious Identification Survey by the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society & Culture at Trinity College.
According to that survey, 15% of Americans now say they have “no religion” which is up from 8% in 1990.
That would be bad enough news for evangelical Christianity.
But there is some more news from that survey that is much worse.
In that same survey, 46% of Americans between the ages of 18 to 34 indicated that they had no religion.
Forty. Six. Percent.
It is important to realize that not all of those 46 percent are unbelievers. According to a survey by Bohan Advertising/Marketing, the Barna Group and the United Methodist Church, 62 percent of Americans in that age group consider themselves to be “spiritual”, and 43 percent of them have prayed to some higher power in the last 2 months.
But what it does mean is that almost half of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 do not identify themselves with any particular religion.
And when you look at more recent poll numbers for Christianity in particular, the numbers become even more staggering.
Another new survey by the Barna group reveals that less than 1 percent of all Americans between the ages of 18 and 23 hold a Biblical worldview. This new poll data clearly demonstrates that the youngest adults in America are clearly rejecting traditional evangelical Christian teaching.
The Barna survey defined “a Biblical worldview” as holding all of the following six key beliefs:
1) Believing that absolute moral truth exists.
2) Believing that the Bible is completely accurate in all of the principles it teaches.
3) Believing that Satan is considered to be a real being or force, not merely symbolic.
4) Believing that a person cannot earn their way into Heaven by trying to be good or by doing good works.
5) Believing that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth.
6) Believing that God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe today.
So what do all of these poll numbers mean?
They mean that evangelical Christianity has totally lost almost an entire generation of American young people.
Meanwhile, the Christian Science Monitor recently published an article about the “coming evangelical collapse” that they believe is coming. They openly predict that “within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants.”
Ouch!
The reality is that nearly all Christian denominations are rapidly losing members at this point.
The most recent American Religious Identification Survey demonstrates this fact very clearly. According to that survey, the percentage of Americans who call themselves Christians has dropped more than 11% since 1990. The survey also reports that Catholics, Baptists and other mainline Protestant churches have seen very large drops in numbers.
However, Islam, Wicca and eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism showed large gains in the survey.
The long-term trends look even more frightening for the churches in America. According to LifeWay Research, membership in Southern Baptist churches will fall nearly 50 percent to around 8.7 million Americans by the year 2050 if current trends continue.
But even more bad news for evangelical Christianity in America is that those who still call themselves Christians do not necessarily hold to traditional Christian beliefs any longer. Two other recent surveys reveal that the majority of American Christians believe that accepting Jesus Christ as savior is NOT the only way to eternal life.
USAToday recently reported on an almost unbelievable new survey that found that 52 percent of American Christians believe that eternal life is not exclusively for those who accept Jesus Christ as their savior.
A different survey that was taken last year by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life found that 57 percent of evangelical Christians in America believe that “many religions can lead to eternal life”.
That shocking study revealed what many evangelical leaders have known for a long time – large number of “Christians” in the United States are throwing traditional Christian doctrines into the dumpster.
Evangelical Christians have traditionally been those who follow the teachings of the Bible most literally. But these new surveys indicate that even a majority of them do not believe in the most fundamental precepts of the Christians faith any longer.
For example, in John 14:6 Jesus says the following:
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
If there was another way for our sins to be forgiven, then why did Jesus need to die on the cross? If there were other ways to salvation, then Jesus could have come down to earth, pointed out a bunch of other ways to get to heaven, and then could have gone back up to heaven without having to deal with the cross.
But the reality is that there was no other way for our sins to be paid for.
And yet these new surveys reveal that a majority of American Christians now believe that there are plenty of other ways to get to heaven.
The Pew survey referenced above also revealed that 45% of Americans say that they seldom or never read their religion’s holy books.
Perhaps if more American Christians were actually reading the Bible they would know what is truth and what is error. Instead, American Christians have surrounded themselves with preachers and self-help coaches and “feel-good” ministers who tell them what they want to hear, who always make them feel comfortable and who never, ever tell them about sin, holiness or the judgment of God.
The current situation in the churches of America reminds us of 2 Timothy 4:3…..
For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
The reality is that past generations of America faithfully filled up churches across the nation that were preaching the Word of God, but today the vast majority of Americans stay home from church each week, and many of the churches that are still drawing crowds are watering down their messages as much as they can in a desperate attempt to hold on to the people who are still there.
Dave Olson, the director of church planting for the Evangelical Covenant Church, has done some really interesting research into the church attendance patterns of Americans.
Olson’s research found that the percentage of Americans that regularly attend church is only 18.7%.
All of these polls and surveys tell us the same thing:
Christianity in America is in a serious state of decline – especially among young people.
Many Christian leaders who read this article will try to deny it or will try to make excuses.
But all of these polls are not lying.
The truth is that we need to examine ourselves.
Is God moving where you worship? Do our churches look like the authentic Christian movement that we read about in the book of Acts? Are our lives significantly different from what we see in the world? Are our services lifeless, joyless exercises in futility? Do we truly have great love for one another and a passion to reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ?
If we want any chance to win back the next generation, then we are going to have to get back to the real thing. If you do not have “the real thing” in your church, then it is time to start asking yourself some really hard questions.
There is a new push to make the Temple Mount in Jerusalem a site that is shared by Jews, Muslims and Christians, and where a rebuilt Jewish Temple can stand side by side with the Islamic Dome of the Rock that stands there now.
Does that sound absolutely crazy and unrealistic?
Perhaps.
But there are scholars and organizations that are actually promoting this idea and working on plans to bring it to fruition.
A recent article that was published in the leading journal of religious law in Israel has sparked a great deal of debate in the Jewish community about the possibility of sharing the Temple Mount. The article in “Tehumin” discussed the potential for making the Temple Mount into “God’s Holy Mountain” – a “house of prayer” for all people (Isaiah 56:7).
Of course, to many Jews and Christians such a concept would be a blatant abomination, but there are religious authorities in Israel that are taking this idea very seriously.
The article in Tehumin envisioned a scenario where a “holy revelation” is given to an “authentic prophet” that would authorize that the Temple be rebuilt in peaceful proximity to the Dome of the Rock and nearby Christian shrines.
The article also seems to think that such a scenario would be in keeping with the words of the famous 12th Century Jewish sage Maimonides that Christianity and Islam are part of God’s ultimate plan “to direct the entire world to worship God together.”
As unlikely a scenario as this may seem right now, the truth is that this sets the stage for the Antichrist to come on the scene as “an authentic prophet” in the future with a peace plan that would propose just such a thing.
Yoav Frankel, the director of the project promoting a vision of “God’s Holy Mountain” acknowledges the skepticism that many have regarding the project but at the same time expresses a great deal of long-term optimism:
“We offer this vision for a long and deep discussion, and of course want to continue with a parallel research from other religions.”
There is even a website for the project promoting a vision of “God’s Holy Mountain”:
The website depicts a harmonious future for the Temple Mount where Muslims, Christians and Jews mingle between the Dome of the Rock and a rebuilt Jewish Temple.
The project is headed by Jewish members of the Interfaith Encounter Association, and they are actively encouraging all three faiths to consider a new theological outlook which would allow for all three religions to worship there.
However, with tensions increasing seemingly with each new day in the Middle East right now, such a scenario for the Temple Mount is not likely to come to fruition any time soon.
But many Bible prophecy teachers have believed for a long time that just such a scenario some day will come to pass. After the next great war involving Israel, many on both sides will be crying out for peace.
In such an environment, the Antichrist may just be able to convince both the Muslims and the Jews that a shared Temple Mount would be a great symbol of peace.
But as students of Bible prophecy we know how that would turn out.
For the first time, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly endorsed an independent Palestinian state. Netanyahu’s speech at Bar-Ilan University on June 14th in Ramat Gan, Israel was billed as a major foreign policy event, but most analysts did not anticipate how stunning this speech would turn out to be.
Netanyahu did place conditions on a future Palestinian state, however. He said that any future Palestinian state would have to be unarmed and would have to officially recognize Israel.
Netanyahu’s speech was widely seen around the world as his response to the intense pressure that the Obama administration has been putting on him. His speech struck a defiant tone in that regard, as he refused to heed Obama’s call for an immediate freeze of construction on lands Palestinians claim for their future state.
In addition, Netanyahu also clearly said that Jerusalem must remain under Israeli sovereignty.
This goes directly against what Barack Obama has been promising to the Palestinians.
U.S. President Barack Obama has been promising the Palestinians a capital inside the city of Jerusalem and has expressed his desire that the holy sites be taken away from Israel and be put directly under international jurisdiction.
WorldNetDaily recently reported that President Obama told Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during a recent meeting that he foresees the creation of a strong Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.
Abbas’ top political adviser, Nimer Hamad, reportedly told this to WorldNetDaily: “Abu Mazen (Abbas) heard from Obama and his administration in a very categorical way that a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital is in the American national and security interest.”
It is in America’s national interest for the Palestinians to have a capital in the city of Jerusalem?
Are we all suddenly in an episode of the Twilight Zone?
Talk about a really, really, really, really bad idea.
How does anyone come up with an idea that bad?
But giving the Palestinians a capital in Jerusalem is not the end of Obama’s plans for the holy land.
And what is Israel supposed to get for all of this?
Peace guarantees that the Islamic terrorists will break within 6 months?
Both Netanyahu and Obama are quite foolish to try to give away the land of Israel.
The truth is that God gets really, really, really angry when people start trying to give away parts of Israel, and He seems to get even angrier when people mess around with the city of Jerusalem.
On a sister blog, we recently put together a comprehensive article that documents many of the natural disasters that have hit the United States when the U.S. has tried to give away pieces of the land of Israel over the past couple of decades.
But has the government learned anything from these warnings?
Not at all.
The U.S. government seems more determined than ever to carve up the land of Israel and to take the holy sites away from the jurisdiction of Israel.
The truth is that God will not bless the U.S. if it continues these kinds of policies.
It has been said that if the U.S. ends up being successful in dividing the land of Israel that God will divide the United States.
After so many thousands of years of seeing what happens when you mess with Israel, you would think that we all would have learned something.
But the reality is that politicians will continue to mock and ignore God and will try to do what they think is best. Unfortunately their foolishness will only bring disaster on all of us.
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The preparations for the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem are heating up! The Temple Institute has announced the creation of two golden censors known as the Bezichin which will be used in the service of the Temple by the priests once the Temple has been rebuilt.
This is very exciting for those of us who are looking forward to the return of Yahshua the Messiah. The fact that the preparations for the rebuilding of the Temple are taking place is yet another sign that we are living in the last days.
The Scriptures tell us that the Jewish Temple will be rebuilt and that the anti-Messiah will desecrate it in the last days. The anti-Messiah will do something so evil in this rebuilt Temple that the Scriptures refer to it as “the abomination of desolation” (Matthew 24:15).
For hundreds of years, scholars mocked and said that the Temple would never be rebuilt in Jerusalem. But the truth is that the Word of God is true and nothing man can do can stop it from being fulfilled.
The two golden bezichin – frankincense vessels, referred to in the above passage from Exodus, as “spoons,” are an essential element of the golden show bread table and the service of the showbread. These two bezichin were used to contain the two handfuls of frankincense that the priests were instructed to place upon the showbread table beneath the twelves loaves of lechem hapanim – showbread. The twelve loaves were replaced every Shabbat and the loaves that were removed were eaten by the outgoing shift of priests in the Chamber of the Hearth, located along the Temple Courtyard. New loaves were set in their place simultaneously, and with them the two bezichin of fresh frankincense. Our sages tell us that the showbread never grew stale, that it remained hot and fresh, and that even a morsel of the bread was filling and satisfying the priests that ate it.
The Temple Institute has also produced a short little YouTube video on these vessels that we have embedded below for you…..
The reality is that we are living in the last days and the signs are all around us.
Praise God that we get the privilege of living in such extraordinary times!
