Spiritual Warfare
The Demonic Triad
We’re now two weeks away from one of the most consequential elections of our lifetime.
I want us to ascend from hovering over the swamp and take a sweeping 30,000 foot view from a visual airliner.
I’ve been thinking recently about one of the most important clauses in Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address: “that government of the people, by the people, and for the people should not perish from the earth.”
That sentence is in serious jeopardy in 2016 America. Why?
Because of a Demonic Triad. Read More
Finally Some Common Sense About Climate Change
Since I believe in the reality of the Satanic world (the unseen presence of the devil and his fallen angels), I am constantly on the lookout for lies and untruths that are meant to hurt human beings.
Jesus the Messiah, whose birth we celebrate in two weeks, alerted us to Satan’s methods when he said, “He (the devil) was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44).
Jesus also told us two chapters later that “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10). Thus Satan’s motive is to hurt people through deception.
There are many lies circulating in our world right now. One is that many US police are racist and unfairly target minorities. Another is that the CIA routinely used barbaric torture during the War on Terror.
This week let’s look at the lie of man-made global warming and share some good news.
By many accounts, the northern hemisphere is beginning one of the coldest winters in recent memory. I was in Wyoming in mid-November when the temperature was 15 degrees below zero and the countryside blanketed with early snow pack. That week the United States saw 1000 cities and towns experience their lowest-ever recorded temperatures–and Europe wasn’t much better.
Yet, liberal progressives have been telling us for decades that human pollution is warming the planet and that a catastrophe lies in front of us if we don’t do anything about it.
As I’ve pointed out in prior articles, the lie about climate change has a number of different elements:
1. MONEY: Some climatologists and business people make billions of dollars in research grants and development funds by pushing the theory of global warming. Follow the money trail.
2. POWER: Forcing nations to unreasonably curtail greenhouse gases and the like, such as the USA’s recent “deal” with China, is a fashionable form of tyranny, i.e. controlling people’s lives via the environment. As Jonah Goldberg points out, it is the preferred brand of liberal fascism in the 21st century.
3. POVERTY: If we do all the things that the radical environmentalists desire, then mankind will go back to the Dark Ages–which wasn’t a pristine existence. It is the surest ticket to poverty and misery.
In other words, deceiving us about an impending demise of Arctic ice is a very clever way of destroying the true progress that human beings have made on the earth in the past five hundred years.
Recently, Alex Epstein in The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels has articulated what we all should have known since grammar school–that for thousands of years people on earth feared the power of nature and lived in subjection to it.
But then came along the rise of the biblical worldview of stewarding and improving the planet.
In the past few centuries, not only have millions of people been pulled out of poverty, but far less people have been subject to the unharnessed forces of nature. In fact, a powerful, positive case can be made that the wise use of fossil fuels has been the greatest deterrent to climatic catastrophies in the history of man.
Yes, you read that line right.
Finally, some common sense about climate change.
I will let famous journalist John Stossel set the record straight.
Climate Castatrophe
By John Stossel
People argue about whether the “consensus” of scientists is that we face disaster because of global warming. Instead of debating whether man’s greenhouse gasses will raise temperatures, we should argue about how we gauge disasters.
If you take most environmentalists and climate scientists at their word, the Earth heated up about 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit over the past century, not much more than it heated up the century before that. Warming may increase, but no one can be certain of that.
Let’s agree for the sake of argument that this recent warming was partly caused by humanity. Let’s also agree that there are some negative effects, including more frequent coastal flooding or longer droughts.
If we agree that those are costs, shouldn’t we also look at the benefits? Much of modern civilization owes its existence to our use of the fossil fuels that produce the greenhouse gasses.
I don’t see that civilization as misfortune. I wish climate alarmists would weigh its accomplishments against the relatively small downsides of climate change. One of industry’s biggest accomplishments is creating a world where far fewer of us are likely to die because of weather.
Alex Epstein’s book “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels” documents the rapidly shrinking number of human beings killed by storms, floods and other climate events thanks largely to ever-growing industry, fueled mainly by oil, natural gas and coal.
On my show this week, he argues that if we compare conditions a century ago to conditions last year, we shouldn’t obsess about how much carbon dioxide is in the air — or whether earth is warming — we should look at how much safer life became.
In 2013, “Climate-related deaths were at a record low — in supposedly the worst climate in history — under 30,000,” says Epstein. In 1931, bad weather killed 3 million people. You can argue that we get some things wrong as a civilization, but thanks to our use of fossil fuels, we get something very right.
Epstein points out that humanity owes its current ability to survive harsh winters, arid deserts and other naturally dangerous environments to the same fuels that activists now condemn: “We have the luxury of being able to absorb a certain amount of climate-related damage so we can live in all of these cool places.”
His argument is unusual because environmentalists spread the idea that, without human interference, the planet is perfect.
But by what standard?
“If you went to someone 300 years ago and asked them, do you have a perfect climate?” they would think you were crazy, says Epstein. “They were terrified of climate, because climate doesn’t give you the resources that you need. It doesn’t give you water when you need it. It doesn’t give you the temperature when you need it.”
It was once common to say that humans change their environment. That shouldn’t offend people today, says Epstein. We should be thrilled that humans “create technology to master climate. … That’s why so few people today die from climate.”
Epstein correctly says that instead of talking about “climate change” — of which there will always be some, with or without human influence — we should focus on “climate catastrophe,” weather that actually kills people. Those catastrophes, measured in lost lives, are getting rarer.
Most of the changes humans make to our environment are desirable changes that help us live longer and more comfortably. “The dogma that man is ruining the planet rather than improving it is a religion, a source of prestige and a career for too many people.”
If we regard nature as pristine and think it must never be altered, we will have big problems. We will die young and lead miserable, difficult lives.
I think of industry as something that is mostly very good for us, with a few minor side effects that aren’t. Fossil fuels are a little like antibiotics, says Epstein. It’s good to draw attention to minor side effects, but it would be crazy to abandon all treatment because of them.
Fossil fuels are no catastrophe. They contribute to health and a better life.
The Secular Take-over of America
Last week I submitted a 300-page manuscript for my doctoral thesis. Its working title for future book publication is The River, and it details the five worldviews about God, why four of them are false, and how they all came from a common source.
One of the five philosophies that is battling for global supremacy is secularism. I analyzed atheism/secularism/humanism in depth for the thesis–and my studies were very enlightening. First of all, I didn’t realize there were Asian and Western versions of atheism. More on that at a later date.
The western form of secularism is in mortal combat with the Judeo-Christian worldview in the United States. This battle has been escalating for about fifty years.
However, the principalities of evil behind the lie of secularism went for the “jugular” last week when President Obama became the first president in history to endorse homosexual marriage.
This was a desperate attempt to complete the secular takeover of America. Here’s why.
First, a little history of secularism.
Man-centered atheism/secularism comprises one of the five worldviews that go back to ancient times. Yet, there has been a substantial surge in global atheism in the past four decades. What is atheism? An “atheist” says there is sufficient evidence to show that God does not exist. An “agnostic” says there is insufficient evidence to know whether God exists or not. A “practical atheist” is a person who lives as if God does exist.
I use the word “secularist,” (worldly; supreme attention to the things of this life), as synonymous with “atheist.” The term secularism was first coined by in 1846 by George Jacob Holyoake (1817-1906). If you combine the numbers for both “atheists” and the “non-religious,” the total number of secularists is about 20% of the world’s population.
Atheism developed as a fourth false tributary of the river of God’s original truth. Human beings were becoming more civilized (less dependent on God’s protection), educated (philosophical about life), industrial (more prosperous), technological (more creative), and scientific (understanding how the world works).
This growth in human development brought a mystical humanism to the East and rational secularism to the West. Both exalted man. Some replaced God with the State.
Atheism or secularism is one of the newer “religions” in the history of man–though there have been people in all ages who denied the reality of God. In the past three hundred years, we have seen the following Western forms:
- The violent French Revolution which came out of the European Enlightenment.
- Nazism under Adolph Hitler and Fascism under Mussolini.
- The various communist expressions including the Bolshevik Revolution in Russian and Mao Zedong in China.
- The social democracies of Europe (a further expression of the Enlightenment).
For much of this period, America resisted secular impulses due to its rich Christian heritage, three powerful spiritual awakenings, and active church involvement in the social issues of the day (such as the issue of slavery in the 19th century).
However, in the 20th century, the Church’s presence began to shrink from the public square and by the 1960s, due to secular indoctrination in the schools, universities and society at large, the Baby boom generation cast off the biblical worldview via the sexual revolution and its many anti-authority expressions.
Atheism/secular was gaining strength and flexing its muscles.
The acceptance of Darwinian evolution as the only theory of origins allowed to be taught in the schools gave secularists a hands up on the new generation who accepted the immoral standards of their parents and took them even further.
As Christian morals crumbled, so did the American family.
Now in the beginning of the 21st century, the map of America has changed. Many say we are now a 50-50 nation. What they mean is that half of the country still believes in America’s traditional Judeo-Christian roots and the other half leans more toward the secular view of life. They argue this is the source of political and social gridlock that we now regularly experience.
Here’s what’s really happened. For America’s first two hundred years, probably 80% of the population were either committed Christians or accepted the biblical worldview as best for society. Another 7-10% were atheists (either in philosophy or practice) and the rest were “other.” But both of these groups accepted the majority worldview and the blessings that it brought to the nation.
Today, however, 80% of Americans still profess to believe in God, but philosophical atheism has grown to about 15% of the population, and other religions have been added to the mix. Instead of the secularists appreciating the blessings of Christian culture, there has been a deliberate attempt by a powerful minority to devolve the United States into a secular majority nation–following the path of Europe.
The growing secular minority is bigger, bolder, more organized, and being led by demonic forces who passionately desire to completely destroy the biblical foundations of America’s Christian liberty.
On a human level, the secularists want to forcefully take over America.
Ignace Lepp, author of Atheism in our Time, tells us how things have changed:
“Contemporary atheism, at least in the developed countries of Christian civilization is distinguished from the atheism of other times and other civilizations above all by its extension. It is no longer a phenomenon of a few individuals protesting the taboos of society, nor the privilege of a minority who consider themselves especially ‘enlightened’ in the manner of the eighteenth century rationalists.”
“It is the common lot of at least a considerable portion, if not of the majority, of our contemporaries and is well on its way to becoming the common norm of society. The intellectuals were the first to break with traditional faith; the bourgeois followed them; then came the masses, and, finally the peasants.”
Secularism has become so brazen that in 2012, for the first time in American history, there are even rallies to promote disbelief.
On Saturday, March 24, 2012, some 20,000 atheists demonstrated in Washington, D.C. for a “Reason Rally” protesting religion. British scientist and leading proponent of atheism, Richard Dawkins, was the headliner. He didn’t appear until five hours into the event, but when he strode to the podium, the crowd cheered wildly.
He announced: “We’re never antagonistic toward religious believers; we’re antagonistic toward religious belief. There is no good, honest reason to believe in a god or gods of any kind, or indeed in anything supernatural. The only reason to believe something is that you have evidence for it.”
The crowd whistled and cheered for his familiar lines such as: “I don’t despise religious people. I despise what they stand for.” And, “Evolution is not just true, it’s beautiful.” Then Dawkins called on the crowd not only to challenge religious people but to “ridicule and show contempt” for their doctrines and sacraments, including the Eucharist.
Outrage was the parlance of the day. Television host Adam Savage told the masses: “There really is someone who loves and protects me and watches over my actions — It’s me!”
Friedrich Nietzsche is probably the greatest philosophical proponent of secularism. Here is the goal that he expressed many years ago:
“We have killed God. The most sacred and powerful force the world has hitherto possessed now bleeds beneath our knife…The grandeur of this act is too great for us. Is it not necessary that, as a result of this act, we become gods ourselves?”
Now you know the meaning of the rise of the “secular state” under Barack Obama and a few presidents that preceded him. Man is now god and the state is his fulcrum of power.
Obamacare was a major secular “grab” to control the American economy. If it remains law, it will destroy America’s ability to prosper and be a blessing to the nations of the world.
Homosexual marriage is the latest “grab” in the secular takeover of America. If inaugurated on a federal scale, it will completely destroy the religious and social foundations that Americans have enjoyed for centuries.
The spiritual powers that have deceived our current leaders showed their true colors this week by motivating Barack Obama to become the first president in history to support homosexual marriage. Yes, he did it because he’s a secularist at heart and it helps with fund-raising. But overall, it was a desperation move because he could badly lose the coming election–as well as the Supreme Court ruling on healthcare this summer.
Both of these defeats would greatly retard, if not stop the secular march to control America. So the spiritual enemy of America got mad and threw all the dice on the table. You can hear the demonic echo: Let’s stop our quiet deception and go for the jugular. We can destroy America only through belittling its faith, squashing its economy, and dismantling the family. Let’s go for it!
There is no sainthood in this decision. It’s purpose is to destroy. And I really don’t ultimately blame the president–but the spiritual forces of wickedness behind him.
Make no mistake. There’s only one group that desires to “take-over” America–and it’s not right-wing Christians. It is a powerful minority of secular radicals–inspired by spiritual darkness–who want to force a man-centered version of civilization down the throats of the Judeo-Christian majority that is barely hanging on for dear life.
Will they succeed in this generation? God only knows. We are called to humble ourselves, pray, vote for wise and godly leaders, and to resist evil.
And hope that a fourth great awakening may yet halt the tide of the secular takeover of America.