Posted on 03/09/2011 4:37:14 AM PST by captjanaway
After Japan’s devastating surprise attack against the US at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, concerns arose over the ability of a seriously wounded American Navy to defend our country against a future attack, let alone challenge Tokyo’s control of the Pacific. Over the following three and a half years, those concerns proved unwarranted as we became very effective at taking the fight to the Japanese, who—in launching their military strategy—never again achieved the tactical surprise they did at Pearl Harbor. While the resolve and courage of our fighting forces was a factor, so too was the fact we had—unbeknownst to the Japanese—broken their naval code. Accordingly, almost every move the Japanese made on their tactical chessboard was eventually checked by an Allied counter-move, leading to one Japanese defeat after another. Meanwhile, in the European theater, the Allies achieved a similar intelligence windfall (known as “Ultra”) after breaking Germany’s code. It prompted Winston Churchill at the war’s end to comment, “It was thanks to Ultra we won….”
(Excerpt) Read more at familysecuritymatters.org ...
As a Christian, I believe the Lord is in control of history. While the Muslims think they can dominate the USA by immigration, God intends their plan to put their members in a land where the Gospel is preached freely. This is the real and lasting solution against sharia - preaching the Gospel of Christ.
One of the churches in our denomination is close to a Philly suburb where there is a significant Islamic population. They have held “dialogues,” working with a great Christian mission: Church Without Walls.
http://www.pefministry.org/zaka.html
Another great Christian organization is Answering Islam:
http://www.answering-islam.org/
Agreed. The next Great Awakening must occur in the Muslim world. The strongholds of satan built up by Islam can only be torn down by the message of Christ. He alone is the weapon of choice for a free people. There will be those, even among us, who will wail and thrash against the Lord but His is the strength that can defeat this terrible enemy of humanity and of the spirit.
While I'm quite sure that in your case, Madam, that is a genuine and righteous belief, it is in many other cases the excuse of the sluggard and the battle cry of the coward.
In any event, generally speaking the Lord allows us to get involved in history and on occasion has even encouraged it. Nor would all our efforts thwart or diminish his control; no harm no foul, eh?
This is a good work and an excellent approach to the problem.
Exactly correct Madam.
While I'm quite sure that in your case, Madam, that is a genuine and righteous belief, it is in many other cases the excuse of the sluggard and the battle cry of the coward.
Also exactly correct. When Israel came into the promised land they KNEW that God would give them the land. Yet they also KNEW that they would have to get into the battle and swing their swords.
God gives us one free gift - Salvation. The rest of His blessings almost always require us to do something. At the least we have to go gather them in (Manna in the desert for example)
In any event, generally speaking the Lord allows us to get involved in history and on occasion has even encouraged it. Nor would all our efforts thwart or diminish his control; no harm no foul, eh?
Again exactly correct.
I believe the moslem problem will be resolved in one of two ways. Either (1) the Lord will come back (after sending His spirit to convert many more moslems than are converted today) and take us home and send them to judgement or ...
(2) we will be forced to eradicate everything moslem on earth. Man, woman, child, anything that has been contaminated by islam. This will be done out of self defense or defense of innocents (Killing someone who is about to send others into hell by killing them before their time is a good thing).
Islam has clearly demonstrated that it is unwilling, indeed incapable of living peacefully with civilization. We will have war as long as islam exists. So like any cancer it must be destroyed.
The biblical parallel is the nations that infested the promised land before Israel arrived there. God commanded them to utterly destroy those peoples (so that they would not infect Israel). The times when Israel disobeyed and did not utterly destroy the cancer caused endless problems for Israel as the people did infect Israel with their sin.
If the Lord is returning soon we probably won't see a world war against islam. If He is not the war will result with either the death of every last Christian, or the death of every last moslem. The koran leaves no room for any other ending. And since we know that God always wins, the moslems will all cease to exist one way or another.
(And to be totally honest I don't really care how they cease to exist, whether by conversion or by death, as long as they cease to exist. A moslem convert can NEVER be trusted as their scriptures COMMAND them to lie if they can gain advantage by it. It truly is a satanic religion)
I suggest you spend a little more time with the literal Hebrew in Genesis 16 & 17 so that you know a bit more about whom you are dealing with, as the verbal symmetries with the promises G_d made to Avram are astonishing. The angel said he would multiply Hagar greatly. Hagar called the angel G-d and worshiped him, but he did not tell her that he was not the Lord but a messenger. Hence, we know that the angel was Satan and that Islam isn't going away until the end as it was set up to be the adversary of the people of G_d from the beginning.
IOW scenario 2 is unlikely, yet we are to love our enemies while trying to convert them, resisting evil with love to the bitter end if necessary, placing our faith in HaShem.
As to logistical and military tactics, we've got it all wrong. The key was in the Sabbath for the Land.
well stated...
having walked most of my life in darkness, it took all of that cumulative experience to reach where i am today...
i would be a fool to believe that the rest of the human 'world' that exists in that same darkness, is immune from the effects of a 'come to jesus' moment...
maybe that moment arises from lookin at the muzzle of my rifle, who knows except the Lord...I *cant* harm His people even if I try...
That calls to mind an expression (not mine, alas) I’ve always enjoyed sharing: If the Lord’s not ready to take you, nobody can kill you; and if He is ready, nobody can save you.
Needless excerpt #2 for today.
Keep it up blog pimp - you’re on a roll.
6But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold, thy maid is in thine hand; do to her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly with her, she fled from her face.
7And the angel of the LORD found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur.
8And he said, Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence camest thou? and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai.
9And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under her hands.
10And the angel of the LORD said unto her, I will multiply thy seed exceedingly, that it shall not be numbered for multitude.
11And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Behold, thou art with child and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the LORD hath heard thy affliction.
12And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man's hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren
Hence, we know that the angel was Satan and that Islam isn't going away until the end as it was set up to be the adversary of the people of G_d from the beginning.
Now there I think that you are wrong. the Bible seems to say that it IS the angel of the Lord. There are no doubt various views about this angel, as there is about everything in the Bible. However, many evangelical Christian theologians consider that whenever the term "angel of the Lord" occurs, as opposed to just an "angel", that it refers to the pre-incarnate Christ.
I won't argue the Hebrew with you, as it is outside of my area of expertise. But that's my opinion, also.
However, you are undoubtedly correct, IMO, that Islam was set up from the beginning to be an adversary to the Lord. But the Arab peoples would also have had the free choice that God gives everyone.
Upon what basis? Because "people in authority" say so?
I have learned from hard experience that such sources are far less reliable than commonly supposed, and I have proven as much.
the Bible seems to say that it IS the angel of the Lord. There are no doubt various views about this angel, as there is about everything in the Bible. However, many evangelical Christian theologians consider that whenever the term "angel of the Lord" occurs, as opposed to just an "angel", that it refers to the pre-incarnate Christ.
That is a stretch.
I won't argue the Hebrew with you, as it is outside of my area of expertise. But that's my opinion, also.
It doesn't have to be. Between the Interlinear Scriptural Analyzer and the BlueLetterBible Strong's search engine, you can learn a very great deal about the Scriptures that were previously only the province of experts.
Right. Still,I don’t thinkit was Satan. I’ll research what you say when I have some time.
In the meantime, well, the prophecy came true, didn’t it? Isn’t that one of the tests if the prophecy is from God?
there are other instances where the angel of the lord is referrred to as God.
Here is a listing I snatched off Wikipedia
The term angel of the Lord occurs 65 times in the Hebrew Bible (always singular), whereas the term angel of God occurs 12 times (2 of which are plural).
Genesis 16:7-14. The Angel of the Lord appears to a woman named Hagar. The Angel speaks as God in the first-person, and in verse 13 Hagar identifies the visitor as God.
Genesis 22:11-15. The Angel of the Lord appears to Abraham and, again, refers to God in the first-person.
Genesis 31:11-13. The Angel of God speaks to Jacob in a dream and tells him “I am the God of Bethel”.
Exodus 3:2-4. The Angel of the Lord appears to Moses in a flame in verse two, and God speaks to Moses from the flame in verse four.
Numbers 22:22-38. The Angel of the Lord meets the prophet Balaam on the road. In verse 38, Balaam identifies the Angel who spoke to him as God.
Judges 2:1-3. The Angel of the Lord appears to Israel and identifies Himself as God.
Judges 6:11-23. The Angel of the Lord appears to Gideon. In verse 14 the Angel refers to Himself as God; in verse 21 the Angel allows Gideon to sacrifice to Him as to God (”Then the angel of the Lord put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand, and touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes; and there rose up fire out of the rock, and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes. Then the angel of the Lord departed out of his sight.”), and in verse 22 Gideon fears for his life because he was in the presence of God.
Judges 13:3-22. The Angel of the Lord appears to Manoah and his wife, and, in verse 22, is identified as God.
When a biblical character sees an angel identified as the angel of the Lord, this is often interpreted as a theophany.[2]
And she knew, how?
Really, I don't have time for this today when you haven't done the study yet. You will need to go into each Hebrew root and look at the broken symmetries in usage between the two encounters. It should take about a month, give or take. That's what it takes. That's what I do.
Good for you!!
Thank you, I’ll pass, I think. It makes sense to me the way I stated it.
The Bible distinctly states, in English (KJV), that it was the angel of the Lord. It seems to me that the said Bible would have mentioned that it was Satan deceiving the woman if that had been the case.
I will say this, with no disrespect to scholars of any stripe. They can only work with what they have. I would think the literary sources from ancient times now available would be far less than those that were written at the time, which in turn would be far less than the oral usages of the language.
What I’m saying is that the scholars may not know everything. So I’m going with what seems right based on the context. Am I right, or wrong? I guess God will let me know one day.
Well that's a problem all right. Here's why: Most of our understanding of the Tanakh (the "Old Testament," a term offensive to the very Jewish people Paul teaches us to make jealous with righteousness) comes from the writings of the Jewish sages for whom Mr. Tyndale had great respect. Most of them dared not deviate from ancient sources. Hence, we are stuck with our understanding of the Tanakh held hostage to the political constraints the rabbis faced during the Second Temple Period.
The teaching on shnah ha Shemitta or "year of the release" is exactly such a case, where Ex. 23:11 reads "rest and lie fallow" with regard to the land in nearly every translation, including the Jewish Publication Standard (until very recently when chabad.org adopted the same terminology as my translation). The literal Hebrew however, reads "release and abandon." Although that verse is the first mention of the Sabbath for the Land and therefore holds the greatest interpretive authority, it is not even mentioned once in the entire two volumes of the Jerusalem Talmud dedicated to the topic.
Why? Well it's very simple: the reason is military. There is no way the Persians, Selucids, or Romans would have EVER allowed Israel to store food in secret in the field and practice guerrilla war once every seven years! Now, I know that may sound radical to you, as it does to virtually any scholar, (some of whom are reviewing my book now), but once this more literal translation is adopted, I can explain EVERY blessing and curse in Leviticus 26 by normal military, environmental, economic, and social metrics. There is no mystery at all. The interpretation is also supported by the chiastic symmetries in the double parasha contained in Lev. 25 & 26, as well as the Septuagint Greek.
So, why did everybody miss it? Well it's very simple. Most Christian scholars over the last 2000 years didn't care all that much about the Hebrew Tanakh, thinking that the Mosaic Law has been superseded by Christ's mighty works while the Jewish people dare not deviate from the Oral Torah... oh, and there's one other reason I'm sure you would appreciate.
I see nothing in the Hebrew or in the rest of scripture to support your contention.
For the sake of argument let's assume you are correct. Does it logically follow that the moslems are unbeatable because they are set up as the enemy of God's people? Obviosuly not. The nazis were the enemies of God's people. See many nazi's around today? Satan may stick around but the fools he uses are killed pretty easily.
Lots of people's have been set up as the enemies of Israel. Israel is still here and they are no more.
IOW scenario 2 is unlikely, yet we are to love our enemies while trying to convert them, resisting evil with love to the bitter end if necessary, placing our faith in HaShem.
Placing our faith in God does not mean we should not also be fighting against evil. I see no contradiction between praying for the salvation of the moslems and killing as many of them as we need to in order to provide for our peace.
As to logistical and military tactics, we've got it all wrong. The key was in the Sabbath for the Land.
You will need to expand on this as I haven't a clue what you are getting at.
I'll look at it in more depth. Who knows, I may even go so far as to buy your book. Is is still $14.95??
Still not convinced about the Angel of the Lord, though.
But it doesn't matter; I've been wrong before, and will again. Even if I'm wrong, I can't see where it affects any doctrines about salvation, which is the important thing.
False analogy. There is no mention in the Scriptures about NAZIS, but there certainly is of the descendants of Ishmael, and they are certainly living according to that prophecy.
Placing our faith in God does not mean we should not also be fighting against evil. I see no contradiction between praying for the salvation of the moslems and killing as many of them as we need to in order to provide for our peace.
I see no contradiction either. However, it seems to me that those ready and willing to war forget that it that does not mean we should not be making efforts to share with them the love and forgiveness of the Messiah.
You will need to expand on this as I haven't a clue what you are getting at.
Shemitta is an arcane corner of Biblical exegesis, being only one of every seven years. Here is a book I wrote on that topic.
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