Sunday, February 28, 2010

Most christians would hate the 1,000 year reign of the Messiah anyways...

I wanted to write a bit today about some of the things we can expect to see during the 1,000 year reign of the Messiah.

As the title of this post suggest, most mainstream American christians would utterly hate living during this time.  I guess it is a good thing for them that only those who Keep the Torah and have the testimony of the Messiah get to partake of this 1,000 year reign!

You see, the religious leaders of mainstream christianity have sold you a false bill of goods.  They teach the exact opposite of what the Hebrew Messiah taught!  They teach you in direct opposition to the Messiah, that the Torah is abolished, and that obeying the Creator, or obeying Yahushua of Nazareth’s command to do and teach the Torah is legalism!  O yes my friends, christians will turn red in the face and shake with anger, if you dare suggest keeping the feast of YHWH, and not keeping Satanic Feast like Christmas and Easter.   When christians do this, they prove that they are actually Anti-Messiah, as they reject the very teachings of the Messiah, in favor of what their religious leader told them Paul said!

(if you are new to the fact that Easter and Christmas are pagan I suggest you click the right hand side of this blog, and read the threads under Babylonian sun god worship!)

Many times I am called a “Judiazer or Legalizer” because I keep the Feast of YHWH,  and because I keep his eternal Torah.  I do these things because the “New Testament” commands us to do them!  We are commanded to walk as Messiah walked!  Messiah is listed in the gospels as keeping the Feast, keeping the Sabbath, and teaching his followers to DO and TEACH the LEAST of the Torah!  1 John also makes it clear if we do not keep the Torah, we are liars, and the truth is not in us!

So let us take a look at just a few of the prophecies for the 1,000 year reign of the Messiah!

Isaiah 66:15-24 For behold, Yahuwah will come with fire And with His chariots, like a whirlwind, To render His anger with fury, And His rebuke with flames of fire. 16 For by fire and by His sword Yahuwah will judge all flesh; And the slain of Yahuwah shall be many. 17 “Those who sanctify themselves and purify themselves, To go to the gardens After an idol in the midst, Eating swine’s flesh and the abomination and the mouse, Shall be consumed together,” says Yahuwah. 18 ” For I know their works and their thoughts. It shall be that I will gather all nations and tongues; and they shall come and see My glory. 19 “I will set a sign among them; and those among them who escape I will send to the nations: to Tarshish and Pul and Lud, who draw the bow, and Tubal and Javan, to the coastlands afar off who have not heard My fame nor seen My glory. And they shall declare My glory among the Gentiles. 20 “Then they shall bring all your brethren for an offering to Yahuwah out of all nations, on horses and in chariots and in litters, on mules and on camels, to My holy mountain Jerusalem,” says Yahuwah, “as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of Yahuwah. 21 “And I will also take some of them for priests and Levites,” says Yahweh. 22 ” For as the new heavens and the new earth Which I will make shall remain before Me,” says Yahuwah, “So shall your descendants and your name remain. 23 And it shall come to pass That from one New Moon to another, And from one Sabbath to another, All flesh shall come to worship before Me,” says Yahweh. 24“And they shall go forth and look Upon the corpses of the men Who have transgressed against Me. For their worm does not die, And their fire is not quenched. They shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.”

Friends let us take a look at some of these things.

#1  The Creator promises to bring judgment upon those  who eat swine’s flesh and unclean things.

#2 Some of the Gentiles will be taken for Priest and Levites.

#3  The Renewed Moons, Sabbaths and Feast will be kept.    Notice as the feast are being kept and we go up from Sabbath to Sabbath we see bodies of those who refused to keep the Instructions of the Creator for righteous living!  Their worm does not die and their fire is not quenched!  As you can see this will be quite the reign of us “legalist” who keep the Feast and Sabbaths and obey the Creator!

Let us take a look at some more!

Isaiah 2:2-5 - And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of Yahuwah’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it. 3 And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of Yahuwah, to the house of the Elohim of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of Yahuwah from Jerusalem. 4 And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.

What is this my friends?  We will walk in the Creator’s paths and keep his Torah!  The Torah shall go out from Jerusalem!  Man the 1,000 year reign is like the ultimate dream of the “legalist” who obeys the Creator instead of his religious gurus!  I cannot wait!

This is awesome!  How about some more!

Zechariah 14:12-21 And this shall be the plague with which Yahuwah will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet, Their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets, And their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths. 13 It shall come to pass in that day That a great panic from Yahuwah will be among them. Everyone will seize the hand of his neighbor, And raise his hand against his neighbor’s hand; 14 Judah also will fight at Jerusalem. And the wealth of all the surrounding nations Shall be gathered together: Gold, silver, and apparel in great abundance. 15 Such also shall be the plague On the horse and the mule, On the camel and the donkey, And on all the cattle that will be in those camps. So shall this plague be. 16And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, Yahuwah of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. 17 And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, Yahuwah of hosts, on them there will be no rain. 18 If the family of Egypt will not come up and enter in, they shall have no rain; they shall receive the plague with which Yahuwah strikes the nations who do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. 19 This shall be the punishment of Egypt and the punishment of all the nations that do not come up to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. 20 In that day “HOLINESS TO YAHUWAH” shall be engraved on the bells of the horses. The pots in Yahuwah’s house shall be like the bowls before the altar. 21Yes, every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be holiness to Yahweh of hosts. Everyone who sacrifices shall come and take them and cook in them. In that day there shall no longer be a Canaanite in the house of Yahweh of hosts.

Take a good long look at this my friends!  Satanic holidays like Christmas, will no longer be kept!  You will keep the true birthday of the Messiah, the Feast of Tabernacles!  Wait!  What is that you say?  “Keeping the Feast is legalism!”  Well my friend if you do not keep that feast in the 1,000 year reign, you will be struck with plagues, and your nation will receive no rain for a year!  THIS IS A DEATH SENTENCE!  IS IT NOT AMAZING HOW MAINSTREAM CHRISTIANITY IN DIRECT OPPOSITION TO THE MESSIAH TEACH THAT KEEPING THE FEAST IS LEGALISM AND “ATTACKING THE GRACE OF JESUS (WHICH IS A FALSE NAME)!  NOT ONLY DO WE HAVE THE MESSIAH’S EXAMPLE OF KEEPING THE FEAST AND HIS ORDER TO DO AND TEACH THE LEAST OF THE TORAH, WE KNOW 100% THE FEAST WILL BE KEPT DURING THE 1,000 YEAR REIGN, AND THAT THE CREATOR WILL POUR OUT HIS WRATH ON THOSE WHO CHOOSE TO MAKE UP THEIR OWN RELIGIOUS HOLIDAYS INSTEAD OF OBEYING THE CREATOR!

My friends this is a small look at the 1,000 year reign!  Your religious leaders have sold you a false bill of goods and have lied to you!  The Torah is not abolished, the Feast are not abolished, the Sabbath is not abolished!  Start reading the Gospels!  Messiah upheld the Torah of Moses, while rejecting the man-made religion of the Pharisees which added and subtracted from the Torah!  Christianity makes the Pharisees look like choir boys!  They teach that the entire Torah is abolished, WHEN THE MESSIAH WARNED YOU FROM THE VERY START HE WOULD NOT DO THAT!  WARNED YOU FROM THE START TO DO AND TEACH THE LEAST OF THE LAW!

Folks you have 2 choices in life.

#1  Play religion

#2  obey the Creator of the Universe, and obey his Son Yahushua the Messiah!
You cannot eat at the table of both the Creator and the Devil!  You cannot partake of the Passover Lamb (Yahushua) and partake of the Easter Ham (the Jesus person the churches teach).  Easter is the Babylonian sex and fertility goddess also known as Ashtoreth, the Queen of Heaven, Easter, Semiramis, Dianne, etc etc.  Her son Tammuz who was born on December 25th is the Easter Ham! (Read my section on Babylonian sun god worship!)

LEAVE YOUR RELIGIOUS DOG AND PONY SHOWS BEHIND, GET OFF YOUR GROVES OF OAK PEWS, AND START FOLLOWING THE MESSIAH!  START OBEYING THE MESSIAH YOU CALL KING, AND START WORSHIPING YAHUWAH THE KING OF THE UNIVERSE!





[Via http://bigritchie.wordpress.com]

Saturday, February 27, 2010

27 feb 2010 - moving on

moving on… it has been 3 years in this place… i thought i’d spend a far longer time here… but turns out my body just cannot go along with this plan…

yesterday was ok, i managed to escape the mild fever that sets in whenever i go out these days… i just came home exhausted, and when that happens i tend to eat too much… i hv to learn to regulate the eating… i hv a small frame, it won’t do to tax it with too much blubber… not to mention how ghastly it looks – a fat skinny girl? ugh!

i hate having to attend to admin details… gotta do some shit today for someone… i hope this wld be the end of it… oh no, not quite, cos when i am done with this place, the whole cycle will begin again, the admin of selling the place etc …

i m so pressed for time… i just wish i cld concentrate fully on my work, which i love and that is what i came here to do anyway… oh well, life aint perfect…

foggy day again, it’s so damp… rheumatic all day from the damp… i have the dehumidifier on all day… but it is noisy… ok ok ok time to get out of this place yes for sure… each time i feel uncertain, my body reminds me loud and clear…

as for pixie… u know, if u genuinely care for someone, that person always remains inside ur heart… and so he is there… but as with all other things in my life right now, i m moving on… i wish him well, if he is happy with that shallow idea of what love is, then well and good, for that is what i want for those i care about, that they find their measure of happiness… but the shallow pools will never be enough for me… i cannot say “i love u” to a fantasy effigy of my own creation and then change my mind when it turns out to be less than the perfect form i wanted it to be… i still care for the blue frog too… cos for me, love, in whatever way – friendship, family, lover – is something far deeper, embracing, accepting of all things, giving and persevering thru imperfections and tough situations… but i hv learnt a very valuable lesson – it took me a few encounters but that’s ok, cos i m autistic and it takes longer i guess – that ppl who utter words in haste seldom ever mean to follow thru… i hv very immediate feelings, but when i say something, i mean to follow thru… that is NOT the norm for other people and it wld do me good to remember that… :-)

finding balance and moving on… that will be what i need to do in this part of my journey… and embracing life with the same passion i was born to do…

[Via http://spunkykitty.wordpress.com]

Thursday, February 25, 2010

It starts with a hat...

During one of my many shopping excursions I picked up this very cute hat hair during an old 50L Fridays. Didn’t know when I’d wear it, or what I’d wear it with, but I knew I needed to have it. Sometimes I see an article of clothing and I can envision a story, rather than the style. A vibe rather than a fashion trend. Romanticism rather than trying to look all hip. I’ve never thought myself to be a trendsetter, lol! Far from it, there are many times I have dressed rather dorkily, or different than those I hang around with in world. I just love dressing up :D

It starts with a hat…I love this hairstyle from Clawtooth. I love that it was 50L. It’s not my usual hair color or length. But when I saw it, I saw a character in a book I wanted my ava to portray. Idk..I’m weird like that lol :)

Sweet Dream’s Picture Details:

Hat/Hair – Clawtooth – Love Letter – past 50L Friday
Skin – :Curio: – Sundust – Beach2 – Black Pearl2
Eyes – Pididdle – Lost Princess Eyes
Lashes – LeLutka – Diva Lashes
Coat – Coco Designs – Check Swing Coat – Gray
Cig – Taste – (made by RC Cluster’s Redd Columbia)
Dress – Kyoot – Low Back Ruffle Mini Dress – Taupe – past 50L Friday
Leggings – DP Yumyum – race leggings – Champagne
Boots – Truth - Foxley – Group Gift
Poses – Leafy – Past Bunny Hunt gift

[Via http://sweetdreambeautifulnightmare.wordpress.com]

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Confused Folks

We have a church of some kind across the street from our church building. When we arrive on Sunday morning, they are in full bloom with their loud instruments. Their auditorium is very small, yet their preacher needs a loud sound system and preaches to the drummer’s back beat.  We can hear most of what they say and sing all the way across the street, even if we can’t understand the words. The people inside must be nearly deaf.  For the record, false doctrine isn’t any more true if shouted.

We also have a billboard less than a mile away boasting a start-up church where their husband and wife pastor team proclaim their motto for the year:  “No Sin in 2010.”

How long do you think that lasted? (Romans 3:23; 1 Peter 5:8).

It is heartbreaking how confused people are in the religious world. *sigh*

[Via http://fellowshiproom.org]

Sunday, February 21, 2010

I Feel A Weight On My Shoulders

As I sit here and think about what I believe as oppossed to what I don’t want to believe, and how I want to live my life as oppossed to how I am living my life, I feel a weight on my shoudlers. I can’t breathe. I feel claustorphobic. I feel like I am carrying around so much weight that I can hardly stand up sometimes. It’s so hard to go throughout the day a lot of the time with the things that are on my mind 24/7.

I feel like this weight won’t be lifted until I am finally true to myself.

[Via http://discoveringself2.wordpress.com]

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Galatians 2

Outline:

I. Personal: The Preacher of Justification (1:1-2:21)
B. Apostolic Credentials (1:10-2:10)
C. Apostolic Confidence (2:11-21)

Section 1: Defending the Gospel (vv. 1-10)

Out of these verses, I would like to focus on verses 3-5:

3 Yet not even Titus who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. 4 And this occurred because of false brethren secretly brought in (who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage), 5 to whom we did not yield submission even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.

Let’s break this down verse-by-verse, starting with verse 3.

  • Verse 3:
    The Judaizers claimed that circumcision and other Mosaic regulations were prerequisites for salvation.  The example of Titus shoots down that claim.  Titus was a Gentile and a true believer, but he was not circumcised.  Salvation is not by grace through faith plus something, whether it be works, law, or whatever; it is by grace through faith alone.
  • Verse 4:
    The church is always in danger, as the enemy (Satan) sends his “spies” into the midst of us.  Their plan is to take us from our freedom in Christ to bondage to a system of works-righteousness.  Let us be diligent and remember that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone through Christ alone.  Sola gratia.  Sola fide.  Solus Christus.
  • Verse 5:
    Paul and Titus did not budge from their position of salvation by grace alone through faith alone.  We must not give in to compromise for even one second, but instead stand firm in that belief.

Section 2: No Return to the Law (vv. 11-21)

In verse 16 we find a verse that states this doctrine of justification by grace through faith alone that I keep referring to:

knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified.

It is so important that we understand and believe this, “for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain” (v. 21).  If salvation comes through good works or keeping the law, then there was no need for Christ’s death.  Perish the thought.  Christ did not die needlessly.

The last thing I want to look at is verse 20:

I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

This verse essentially says three things:

  1. We have been crucified with Christ, meaning that “when a person trusts in Christ for salvation, he spiritually participates with the Lord in His crucifixion and His victory over sin and death” (John MacArthur Study Bible).
  2. Having been crucified with Christ, our old sinful self is gone and is replaced by a new self, which is constantly being transformed to become more like Jesus.
  3. Christ’s death on the cross is the greatest possible manifestation of His love for us.  “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends” (John 15:13).  “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

On to Galatians 3 tomorrow and more on justification by faith.

[Via http://inthebible2010.wordpress.com]

Thursday, February 18, 2010

18 feb 2010 - pain

pain… one never does get used to it, does one? no matter who, what, where, there will be humans crying out in pain of all kinds… so yes, pixie, i am “just like everyone else”… words haunt me, they ring inside my head with loud audible tones, and i m still trying to process ur many contradictory words, even tho u r no longer with me, and even tho in my intellect, i do understand and i do not harbour blame or bitterness… u r, after all, “just like everyone else” too…

there is a very strong ache and stiffness all over my right side… of course, the computer is to blame, poor inanimate machine that helps us do so much of our work nowadays, we attribute such ills to it… i m to blame, i spend far too much time in front of the screen, large as it may be, my eyes are now deteriorating, and my muscles wearing down… but i hv no choice at the moment, becos i chose to put myself in this position, i chose to do this project and now i must see it to the end and the best completion that i can muster.

scoring, video, photos, communication – all thru my trusty computer… take this away and i wld hv little of a life right now… but i long for the day when i wld use it less intensely… i long for the living where i can go out and do more with my hands and body… fresher air, better perspectives… when i can begin my other journey, of painting, making sculptures, teaching and inspiring others to develop their talents and stretching personal boundaries, bringing art and music into their everyday joys… and the computer wld just be my tool for writing my books and communicating… ah, my dreams, which i shall fiercely pursue and find ways to make happen…

but for now, it is cold, wet and foggy, i m shut up inside my cramped studio, chair and in front of the screen… i MUST finish this… pain and all… sore aching strained muscles, ulcers, arthritis, headache, vertigo, tinnitus, TMJ… still, i hv to do this for myself, becos i owe it to myself… and those who believe in me to believe in myself…

[Via http://spunkykitty.wordpress.com]

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

2010.22: Teach me O LORD

Psalm 119: 33-40

“Teach me, O LORD, the way of thy statutes; and I shall keep it unto the end. Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law; yea, I shall observe it with my whole heart. Make me to go in the path of thy commandments; for therein do I delight. Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and not to covetousness. Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken thou me in thy way. Stablish thy word unto thy servant, who is devoted to thy fear. Turn away my approach which I fear: for thy judgments are good. Behold, I have longed after thy precepts: quicken me in thy righteousness.”

See also,

Commandments of God are love
The royal law

[Via http://learnthebibleca.wordpress.com]

Sunday, February 14, 2010

A call to all muslims, a call to all non muslims:

Muslims, defend the actions in the following video. Non muslims, defend your inaction in the same video. The western civilization has overwhelming power to stop these atrocities, they don’t have the will. Obama and his tribe sit idly by as does the rest of the west and focuses on rights for Islamic terrorists and GITMO. They all , muslims and the west have their heads up their @sses. Muslims, wake up and save your “religion” unless you by your inaction condone what is being done. “Leaders” (and I use the term loosely) of the west get your heads out of your @sses and stop this genocide. WTF are all you people (and I use that term loosely) thinking.

[Via http://boudicabpi.wordpress.com]

Saturday, February 13, 2010

Poelitics

These contradictions
savage convulsions
distractive compulsions
deceptions in spirit
manifest my nation
as politicians
disguised delegations
of rabid religions
dangerous liaisons
spewing insinuations 
drumming hatred 
into all situations
reducing conversations
to vote-bank transactions
outrageous crucification
shameless acts of deception.
millions in conversion
abnegation of commonsense
creating selfless me-too-isms’
now faith in damnation
logical extension 
of these convoluted creations 
multi-colored confusions.
More production
yet increased deductions 
in inverse proportions,
agricultural devastation
starving population,
farmers’ suicides in continuation
but more superannuation 
for our Administration.
More entertainment on television,
Ministers get pay revisions,
our country is on a mission.
My unanswered questions
turn killing accusations
if they kill me by strangulation
what happens to my children?
A vote at some polling station
with irreverence and gumption
I’m made a statistical assumption
told in repetition,
on my knees, that’s my position
submission is salvation
forever in condemnation 
a no man’s destination
This is my Nation’s new proclamation
Freedom is an illusion
traded for cheap compassion
sin is a passion
it’s ready for assassination. 
Dreams will be rationed
nothing will ever happen
in my nation without
the Master’s sanction.
Welcome Citizen, let’s begin
our spiritual prostitution.


[Via http://lightafiretonight.wordpress.com]

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Catch us in your net

A prayer based on Isaiah 6 and Luke 5

We pray to you, Lord Jesus Christ,
speaker of the Word of God.
Your words
touch the deep places of our souls –
places where we have laboured and come up empty
places where the hunger for holiness
waits for the feast of your promises kept
places where our fears make us small and timid.
Speak hope into our emptiness
and help us hear and believe
Speak truth into our sinfulness
and purify us with your great mercy
Speak love into our woundedness
and heal us.
Catch us in the net of your holy purposes
for our lives, for this city, for the world.
We pray to you, Word of God,
Word of Life,
Word of new beginnings,
LORD. Amen

[Via http://christinejerrett.wordpress.com]

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

debt

I heard some guy say

that he was more in debt

than an honest man could pay.

                            .

I bet I don’t check my check book but

My needs are nameless

And exceed;

 what a deceitful man might utter,

 what a sweet woman might offer,

 even all a clever man can never call.

                                 .

I’ll ache,  Cah  Rist! icy bone fingers,

I’ll arch-stretch wide and hard, outward to  outsides.

To outsides,  otherwises,  outreaching,

beseeching, imploring.

Discretely exploring

the notion

the ocean

of need

[Via http://namelessneed3.wordpress.com]

My Angel Danielle

I first met you in a time of war,
You spoke from the heart until I could take no more,
I pushed you away from fear of love,
But you were like my angel sent from above,
You showed me strength and true bliss,
But by the time I realized it was to much to miss,
You heart weakened from the pain I gave,
And from that point on I became your slave,
I fell in love with the girl so great,
That I tried so hard to make up for the hate,
I can not offer you riches or gold,
But only my heart that could never be sold,
I made many mistakes over the last few weeks,
I wish I could take back all the tears and shrieks,
I want to be there for you and your child,
But I’m afraid I scared you away my love is to wild,
I would do anything to prove you my worth,
You are my purpose my reason for birth,
All I ask is true love and honesty,
And in return I want you to marry me,
I know we are young and our lives have just begun,
But I can’t imagine my life without you, you are the one…

[Via http://dkarges.wordpress.com]

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Of God

It took the love of God, to send the Son of God, to die and be resurrected so that we could become the children of God as we read in the Word of God as witnessed to by the Spirit of God.

John, the beloved apostle, simply said “of God.” “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4).

How did we come to be “of God?” John wrote, “But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13).

We are the sons of God by virtue of a second birth. For we know that we were all born of the flesh, but those of us who are sons of God were born of the Spirit as well (ref. John 3:5-6).

If we then are the sons of God, the children of God, then let us live in such a way as to honor our Father with our lives.

The Word of God always endorses children to be in subjection to their parents. “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right” (Ephesians 6:1) .

The passage also says, “Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth” (Ephesians 6:2-3).

Therefore we are to Honour God also, as our heavenly Father, and the church, who is our mother (ref. Galatians 4:26, Psalm 87:5, Isaiah 66:7-11).

Now I suggest to you that, the Love of God, sent the Son of God, to make us children of God, as explained in the Word of God, as revealed by the Spirit of God, how hard is it to believe that the church also is of God?

Well that’s what it says in Acts 20:28 and throughout the Word of God.

In fact, if you read it’s all “of God.” The kingdom of God, the city of God, the house of God, the temple of God, the people of God. The Word of God is full of that phrase of God.

Jesus said, “if any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself” (John 7:17). Even the doctrine is of God.

And this is no suprise, let’s look at the words of John again in 1 John 4. “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1).

Now, what are some ways to know what is “of God” and what is not? John gives us several ways, but look at one he emphasizes.

1 John 3:16-17 “Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?”

1 John 4:7 “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.”

Now some will say what they do for charity or what they’ve done for this one or that one… but we’re not talking about your giving or your efforts on another’s behalf, we’re talking about a 1 Corinthians 13 type of love and not just for other saints. The Word of God let’s us know we must also love our enemies and pray for those who despitefully use us and persecute us as well (ref. Matthew 5:43-45).

We have to love like God loved. It says the love of God, not the love of man. The same love that prompted God to send His only begotten Son to die on the cross for those who had turned their backs on Him; a world full of lost sinners, for the lowest and vilest of us.

Jesus said,”if you love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even publicans the same?” (Matthew 5:46). Everyone gets along with those that love them back, but who treats the person who has done them wrong with that 1 Corinthians 13 love? Who loves that one that’s trying to get them fired? Who loves that one that’s mistreated their child? Who loves the one who’s stole something from them, or ran off with thier wife or husband, or has hurt them in some way? I’m not talking about  just tolerates when they come around, but if they hunger, feed them; if they thirst, give them drink (ref. Romans 12:20)… not with a bad attitude (“I hope they choke on it”), but with love which thinketh no evil, which suffereth long and is still kind. Which endureth all things… which seeketh not her own. In other words you’re not just seeing what you can get out of it, or hoping to be repaid in kind, but you’re doing it out of heartfelt love.

The Word of God lets us know that “…though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, an though I give our body to be burned, and have not charity, it profited me nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3).

How can we do this? How is this possible? How can anyone expect this to be manifest in someone’s life? Romans 5:5 says, “the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”

We can’t do it in our own strength. We’ll kill ourselves (or somebody) if we try to do it within our own strength, but “the love of God shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost…”

Now just because you’re not sanctified doesn’t mean you can fall short. The Holy Ghost is not in you, but He is with you and will guide you (ref. John 14:17). Yet the Spirit empowers us and enables us to go beyond what you can do of yourself, therefore it is necessary to go on to perfection, that ye may be, “made perfect in love” (ref. 1 John 4:17-18).

[Via http://csog.wordpress.com]

Saturday, February 6, 2010

The Haitian Revolution:From the First of the Blacks to the First of the Whites

Wednesday, February 03, 2010 3:06 PM By Immortal Technique     

Rapper/activist Immortal Technique (nee Felipe Coronel) has composed a lengthy editorial dissertation on the present chaos in Haiti, which has graced headlines since the 7.0 earthquake on January 22, 2010. “From the First of the Blacks to the First of the Whites – Reflections on the Haitian Revolution and Present Condition” is a delicate mixture of opinion and history. Furthermore, Immortal Technique addresses why Haiti has been perceived as cursed or that there was some “deal with the Devil” in the past. This is a two-part write up that is informative and captivation for those interested in unearthing the truth. 

Since the recent tragedy that has befallen the proud and persevering nation of Haiti, there has been an outpouring of support followed by a few disturbing falsities being spread about the history of the island and its people. I wrote the following to shed some light on events during and around the Haitian Revolution. Please remember memorizing and reiterating should never pass for learning. Deciphering the significance of individuals and events is what truly teaches us not just about history, but also about ourselves.

There is a wide spectrum of beliefs behind what has caused Haiti to suffer ceaselessly over the years. Some see the problem as being mostly political, bad governance, modern day colonialism, or the perceived necessity to make an example to the world of what a successful slave revolution will get you. There are even those on the fringe who cling to an ancient superstition that the island was freed by a mythological pact with Satan. In order to shed light on the issue I am forced to go back in time. Obviously not to the beginning of occupational history, but far enough to give a realistic perspective on Haiti and it’s struggle.

We join a story centuries in the making. It is the year 1794 and the scent of musket powder blows over all of Europe. The French Revolution may have changed the face of the world, but its unintended consequences that influenced its colonies would come to overshadow France’s own glory. It was during this year, on the 4th of February, that France’s First Republic Convention (under pressure from massive slave revolts) decided it had to transcend the stumbling efforts of the ‘enlightened monarchs’ of Europe and abolish slavery. Yet in the customary fashion of our own Declaration of Independence’s “We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal,” the gesture, much like these words, became a glaring example of self-righteous insincerity. Equality, the fraternal twin brother of Independence, was aborted at the fetal stage of development and the Revolution came to betray itself.

Known then as “Saint Domingue”  (French for Santo Domingo), the colony that we now call Haiti, yielded great fortune to those who possessed her. It was rich with sugar, cotton, tobacco, cocoa and other valued resources. So much so that the European Superpowers of that day fought bitterly against each other to control the island and her inhabitants. After all, the African slaves living on Saint Domingue were the proverbial engines that ran the machine. From among them appeared a man who was born a slave but who would become free and lead all his countrymen toward that same destiny. He was a glitch in the matrix, an act of nature, and a mistake to be corrected in the eyes of the island’s autocratic semi-feudal society. His name was Francois-Dominique Toussaint soon to be heralded, “L’Overture.”

As a former servant and carriage driver, he had abstained from participating directly in previous uprisings stemming from the refusal of slave masters to honor “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.” He had waited patiently and then allied himself with other rebel leaders who had risen to the task of overthrowing colonial rule. His ideas were innovative and his guerrilla tactics highly disciplined. No wonder then that he rose through the ranks of the rebellious forces so quickly. 

Before fighting alongside the French against other colonial powers, Toussaint had been in league with the Spanish, who along with Great Britain were at war with France. The Spanish were used as a support system for his designs when white colonials refused to endorse the full rights of citizenship to free blacks given by the French edict of 1792. In other words, for Toussaint they were there to serve his vision rather than him serving theirs. Having so many different nations vying for a piece of the pie proved a difficult task to navigate. To his credit, Toussaint had managed to out-maneuver them all, cleverly using their own tactics of pitting one against another. But when Spain and England did not follow through with their promises to free slaves, he discarded his allegiance to them.

After grueling and hard-fought campaigns against the Spanish and British, he took control of the French Colony. Toussaint promoted reconciliation among the races, which wasn’t any easier then than it would be now. He also engaged and renegotiated better terms of trade with Britain and the new American Republic alike. Catholicism was adopted as the national religion and slavery was abolished. The news traveled around the world like lightning- the African Slaves were undergoing the course of reversing 300 years of domination. 

As news of the Independence of Haiti was circulating, the reaction was mixed. Toussaint’s actions openly received the approval of Alexander Hamilton, who saw Europe’s weakening in the West as an opening for America’s bid for commercial supremacy. He even aided in the drafting of the precursor to the island’s first constitution in 1801. However, when Thomas Jefferson came to power, American support was reined in. Jefferson openly owned slaves and had even fathered children with the now famous girl, Sally Hemmings. But much more than his personal stake in legitimized servitude, it was the perceived international threat that most likely shaped his opinion. The surrounding colonies and his new Republic being destabilized by the idea of a successful slave revolt obviously frightened him. His assertion being that their freedom would suddenly cripple the economy built around them. He is quoted as saying that it was necessary at all costs to “confine the plague to the island.” I guess “My emancipation / don’t fit your equation.”

By 1801, Toussaint was in full control of Saint Domingue. In a moment of perhaps self-preserving foresight and/or genuine altruism, he advanced onto the Spanish side of the island. His army defeated the remaining white colonial powers and freed all the slaves, showing the people of color the first glimpses of freedom they’d known practically since the time of Columbus. He rejected the ancient custom that dated back to the Middle Ages, of sending his children as hostages to his ‘Suzerain’ as a symbol of fidelity. He further declared his intentions in a famous letter addressing Napoleon himself. It was titled: “From the First of Blacks to the First of the Whites.” In it he pledged his loyalty to France. He stated firmly that slavery would be utterly annihilated; that he (Toussaint) would remain governor indefinitely (a suggestion from Hamilton and then Sec. of State Pickering). Furthermore Saint Domingue would be a free and independent state. The correspondence must have come as a shock to then Consul Napoleon. It was probably the sheer audacity of a former slave proposing terms of independence, albeit in the most polite and articulate manner, that struck him. This man was obviously more dangerous than he could have ever imagined. Toussaint and his people represented something that had to be proved false no matter the cost.

See the very existence of their independence showed the entire human race a side of history that we are only now truly rediscovering. European society had relied mainly on creating divisions and the spread of epidemics, not simply superior military prowess, to overcome the indigenous populations of Africa and the Americas. The Haitian Revolution exposed the façade of European invincibility, and it tore away at their justification for invasion on the grounds of Christianization. The mythology of racial superiority began to take the shape of an ancient death mask from classical antiquity.

Napoleon (seen left) would hear no more and dispatched his brother-in-law Gen. Charles LeClerc, to the island with a huge force of infantry troops and warships. His stated intention was to secure the new state. At first confrontation ensued, but they arrived at a truce once Toussaint had been promised that the French would not attempt to reinstate slavery. However, the moment he let his guard down he was almost immediately betrayed. Toussaint and his entire family were arrested. Restoring the island to France’s control, LeClerc had Toussaint sent to prison in France. But this was just the beginning. He quietly moved to begin the process of re-enslavement. “Since terror is the sole resource left me, I employ it…destroy all the mountain negroes, men and women, sparing only children under twelve years of age,” read his report to Napoleon.

The French now shifted their focus to using the former so-called “Mulatto” people who Toussaint had defeated in previous military campaigns to maintain control of the island. They, the “Mulattos,” had been at odds with elements of the Revolution earlier, although they had suffered almost equally from the torments of slavery. The very concept of the “Mulatto”, that still to this day plagues the African, Latin American, Caribbean, and so Called West Indian world, merits an explanation all to itself.

The Latin ‘mulus,’ became the Old Spanish or Old Castillian ‘mula,’ finally evolving into the Spanish and Portuguese “Mulatto,” that symbolized the reverse anthropomorphic semblance of a human being. A mule is the physical combination of a horse and a donkey. This part is simple enough. But the symbolic nature of this has a racial connotation that tears apart our society even today. The horse symbolizes the White European, elegant, regal and highly valued. And the donkey embodies what they thought the purpose of an African/Indigenous slave should be; a beast of burden to be worked until the day that ‘it’ dies. 

The combination of a horse and a donkey creates a species that rarely if ever is capable of reproducing. The male is always born sterile, and the female is exceptionally similar in this way. Hence the idea that nothing good can come from them. This concept then became permeated in the portrayal of the “tragic mulatto” in 19th century American literature, leading into classic Hollywood cinema. It is a theme symbolized by the downfall of a “Mulatto” or “Quadroon”/”Octoroon” attempting to pass for white. It also focused on the conflict of those trapped between two races. Those who despised and pitied their darker half and their own skin color, while needing the approval of whites to validate themselves. In most of the stories peace is only found for the said main character in death. The very definition of its existence solidified the role of White and Black in the American caste system, whose remnants we all still presently reside in. It also laid out the role of Blacks to themselves, without many of them even to this day understanding the loaded straw man argument about race posed within the terminology.

It was the Haitian Revolution that challenged the very idea of slavery and the existence of a lesser man. It put the “enlightenment” of Europeans on trial, and forced America to confront what she was becoming as opposed to what she was supposed to be. The usage of concepts like the “Mulatto” were necessary for late 18th century white society to put institutionalized racism on life support for another 150 years, and create a violent split in the psychology of Mother Earth’s first children.

“From the First of the Blacks to the First of the Whites – Reflections on the Haitian Revolution and Present Condition”

It was the Haitian Revolution that challenged the very idea of slavery and the existence of a lesser man. It put the “enlightenment” of Europeans on trial, and forced America to confront what she was becoming as opposed to what she was supposed to be. The usage of concepts like the “Mulatto” were necessary for late 18th century white society to put institutionalized racism on life support for another 150 years, and create a violent split in the psychology of Mother Earth’s first children.

 

They had used a traditional stratagem inherited from the Romans/Byzantines of understanding an empire’s limited capacity for multi-dimensional warfare on a global scale, and employed the service of a smaller state to outflank its opponents in conflict. Only this time it was not using the Visigoths to fight the Huns (Battle of Chalon, 451 A.D.) or the Cumans to fight the Pechenegs (Levonium, 1091 A.D.). Napoleon and those that served his court were innovators of the worst kind. They perfected what other colonial powers beforehand had only begun. They created virtual new age “foederati” for their designs by ripping a subsection out of the very people they sought to subjugate. In return for cooperation, the French promised the desperate “Mulattos” more rights and more privileges in what they painted as a new Saint Domingue. Effectively this action created a safe haven for racism that is even now nestled like a neonate Viper storing the poison of generation after generation. The idea built itself within the conscious and subconscious mind of an enslaved people, to keep them in bondage psychologically even if they found themselves physically free. This is evident not only in the continued degeneration of Black and “Mulatto” relations well into the mid 1800’s under Jean Pierre Boyer, but in present Black & Latino society’s obsession with skin color.

 In other words, the French colonization efforts efficiently solidified adding dimensions to racism and the notion of racial superiority by creating a different “race” in our own minds. It was wicked and brilliant in its service to the cause of reducing man to property as it was to being duplicitous to the so-called ‘Mulatto’ himself. For in the end he was closer to his Master in his eyes only. To the French he was still little more than an animal, subject to an active and de-facto ‘Code Noir’.

 (The cruel logic of the seemingly schizophrenic reflections in King Louis XIV’s Code Noir of 1641, is regarded as a predecessor to the U.S. Black Codes, which shaped the legal standing of former African slaves in the post civil war Era. It covers everything from the immediate persecution and expulsion of Jews, to laws concerning a slave’s position, methods of torture and capital punishment that could be implemented.)

Click to read the Code Noir http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/d/335/

 Tricknowledge, is a late 20th century Harlem terminology for an old cosmopolitan strategy. It is used to describe an imperial power not having the physical force to conquer a people, and therefore resorting to the art of deception to achieve victory. Calculating lies are used to manipulate the target into compromising positions before it is attacked. Yet even with all of her elegantly worded deception, sweet-accented mandates, and counter-mandates, France would only hold the beautiful island prisoner for a few more fleeting moments of history. Once the Revolution was set into motion there was no opposing inertia capable of stopping it. Toussaint may have been taken under arms to France, where he lived incarcerated in a frozen fortress near Bensancon (eventually succumbing to pneumonia although some suspected poison), but the Revolution rolled on. In fact, right before Toussaint’s death, a perhaps karmic parting gift of yellow fever swept Saint Domingue weakening the French garrison and even claiming the life of Charles LeClerc.

 Napoleon’s Saint Domingue police state barely lasted a year, until it became blatantly evident that slavery was to be reinstated just as it had been on Guadeloupe. In the end, after watching the brutal conflict and horrific mistreatment of his own people, it was one of Toussaint’s young Generals, Jean Jaques Dessalines (who had ironically allied himself with LeClerc when Toussaint was captured), who decided to emerge as the leader that would avenge his people. Truthfully though, and perhaps more important to his own soulful vanity, he really sought to avenge himself. To hear him described by the contemporary European authors of his time, he sounds like the very manifestation of chaotic violence. But every scar has a story, and Dessalines had many scars. In fact a large percentage of his body was covered in painful grooves, partially healed lacerations and whip marks that made some of his skin look like it had melted over itself. He had received some of these in very visible places, and even the most sensitive areas of a man, for his perceived ‘insolence’ as a slave.

It is said General Dessalines would look upon his scars in the mirror and cry out in rage before battles. Then crashing into his enemies he fought with the valiant nature of a man seeking freedom, and persistent fury of a heart that would only be quenched by vengeance. His aim became to ensure the small Revolution’s continued success at any military cost. He was determined to maintain it by implementing the same campaigns of terror that the slave owners had recently utilized on him and his people. And this is what terrified white Europeans to the core of their being. Provoking most landowners and slave masters to flee. Some of them though, daring to look, must have surely seen a piece of themselves in him and been rattled. This is thought to be what initially led to the invention of stories about his pact with the devil and deals with voodoo spirits, as these then served the impertinent need to differentiate his actions from theirs.

 To better understand how the slaves were treated and what exactly he sought to repay his former masters for, I chose this famous quote from Henri Christophe’s personal secretary. He, who was once a slave, describes in sick details the daily torture inflicted on the enslaved Africans of Saint-Domingue by the French.

“Have they not hung up men with heads downward, drowned them in sacks, crucified them on planks, buried them alive, crushed them in mortars? Have they not forced them to eat s**t? And, having flayed them with the lash, have they not cast them alive to be devoured by worms, or onto anthills, or lashed them to stakes in the swamp to be devoured by mosquitoes? Have they not thrown them into boiling cauldrons of cane syrup? Have they not put men and women inside barrels studded with spikes and rolled them down mountainsides into the abyss? Have they not consigned these miserable blacks to man eating-dogs until the latter, sated by human flesh, left the mangled victims to be finished off with bayonet and poniard?”

 His preferred mechanism for punishing European colonials, many of whom were former slave masters, was indeed ruthless. He implemented “Black Rage” as both his foreign and domestic policy, which meant the absolute destruction of the white colonists, soldiers, and civilians. Before him others had angrily suggested this sort of retribution but none had the gall to carry it out. After all, ideologues may design a Revolution and dismantle an empire verbally, but ideas are powerless without the hand that wields them mercilessly. In the end a combination of this, and allowing remaining whites to live without owning any property and having little say in government, was the result.

Jean-Jacques Dessalines (seen below) was one leader of the Haitian Revolution and the first ruler of an independent Haiti

I make no attempt here to justify the actions of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, but a person cannot be made a slave unless they are terrorized and de-humanized. Unless they are mentally, spiritually and in many cases physically castrated, unless their women are raped before them and children are sold and tore from the womb in front of their eyes. He did in essence what he was taught to do by those that shaped his world.

 His collective punishment & scorched earth policy frightened the remaining white colonials to such a degree that most migrated en masse to the other side of the island or to the mainland. General Dessalines fought many battles and eventually claimed the independence of Haiti on January 1, 1804. During this time period he had ravaged the Eastern side of the island and having swept away all opposition, made himself Emperor in 1804. His absolute rule inspired anger and resentment, and only 2 years after his coronation he was assassinated. The country divided itself between North and South until power was consolidated again. The legend of Dessalines came to life upon his death. Stories grew out of the resentment of the white exiles that had once owned his people and now happily welcomed his demise. Even the “Mulatto” section of Haiti that never received his trusting and felt shunned by him. His immediate demonization followed in these circles, without a thought or a backtracking moment in history to consider what circumstances caused him to be. No context that showed the nature of the slow, functional genocide of his people.

 Just silence. And that silence without context continues even today while people suffer one of the worst natural catastrophes that has ever be known to mankind.

 Not a word from proud France who defied the American War machine over Iraq, but has kept silent over these two centuries when concerning the 150 million gold francs it extorted from Haiti in 1838. The number was later lowered to 90 million gold francs but the factual story behind the extortion goes as such. Under the guise of a cessation of hostilities (a promise to curb re-invasion), repaying indemnities and for the loss of “property” (slaves) during the Revolution, France demanded payment. And of course since Haiti had no such sum in their treasury at the time, French bankers eagerly paid the first 30 million gold francs at exorbitant almost mafia-inspired interest rates. So high that it was not until 1947 that Haiti was actually able to repay THAT particular “loan.” By the mid to late twentieth century the IMF’s policy of changing it’s agricultural focus and conditional foreign aid had since indebted the island nation beyond ruin. In the wake of this current tragedy, I believe France should immediately repay the blood money it stole years ago no matter its legal apprehensions of reparations. This isn’t about reparations for slavery, it’s about the over 20 billion dollars in the modern equivalent paid to a reinstated tyrannical king. It is not the pinnacle of restoring Haiti, but the beginning of repair.

I would be remiss to not pause here and point out that this was written as a moderately detailed historical account of events in and around the Haitian Revolution. It is not the entire history of the island and does not go in depth into the modern self-defeating racial and political schism between Haiti and the Dominican Republican during the mid 20th century. I purposely steered clear of recent events concerning Jean Bertrand Aristide because it deserves an article on it’s own. I also cannot and will not lay the blame solely on Europeans for the condition of Haiti. The French themselves cannot be demonized anymore than the Spanish, English, Portuguese or Belgians, etc. for their role in colonization. Although to rule out foreign intervention for Haiti’s condition would be ignoring a huge amount of independent variables that affect the equation. While military backed World Bank policy has always kept the island as an economic vassal, the mismanagement of resources and corrupt leaders also bled the nation dry.

 At some point we have to accept the personal responsibility for repairing the framework of society ourselves, and not relying on the people that ruined our indigenous civilizations to fix them all the time. Brutally repressive dictators, such as Duvalier, who were allowed to exist by the U.S. because of their stance against Communism, must be put into their proper context as well. They are not simply a Western invention, but rather the natural order of bequeathing absolute power to an agent of “stability,” an experiment that could easily be repeated in our own Republic. And so we as a nation cannot claim ignorance in our understanding of this political formula anymore, whether at home or abroad. The sad truth is that we as a public entity or a people may understand this relationship and dissect it now, but our own government has recognized it since the founding of the nation.

 We may sometimes point to these historical figures and attribute superstitious characteristics to them in order to either justify or vilify their position. My main problem is when it starts becoming obvious that our own government uses complete and utter falsities to promote a military objective. The following is an account written by a Soldier who participated in the ousting of then President Aristide, it sheds light on the deliberate dissemination of such information:

 http://www.ibiblio.org/prism/May96/haiti.html

 If he (Dessalines) really made a pact to deliver his nation to absolute evil then why only the leader of the one successful slave revolt on the hemisphere? Why just him and not every other military commander throughout history that faced insurmountable odds? And when is that sort of such vindictive and violent force ever justified? See, that my friends is at the very core of what Haiti and it’s historic Revolution truly represent. That undiluted tactic of delivering oneself from slavery and oppression through physical force. The French Revolutionaries beheaded their King and did not pay his family restitution. The American Revolution gave Britain no reparations and in fact collected the land of it’s Indigenous allies after England ceded it without so much as a word to the Native American’s still living there. Yet only in modern history have enslaved people of color been trained to think suffering through the worst of what an oppressor can punish them with is the only way to gain legitimacy or victory.

 Are we “tragically Mulatto?”

Are we as Black and Indigenous people only noble and righteous in an emasculated form of confrontation against such a fate? Are we only correct in our undertaking of a non-violent approach to confronting Imperialism or Fascism? More of white America praises Martin Luther King Jr. as peacefully resistant and the preferable alternative to Malcolm X’s truth without modesty. More would rather hear the scholarly Fredrick Douglass than experiencing the fear-invoking Dessalines. I do not seek to discredit the legacy of either Douglass or King. We are all indebted to the vital parts of the struggle for freedom that they played historically. But why are Europe and American spared the same constant criticism by present day historians. Would we turn the other cheek to Hitler? What would a non-violent march and a hunger strike against the Confederate South have accomplished? Without colonial militias, Native American Warriors, and the French & Spanish Armadas, wouldn’t the U.S. Constitution have ended up as British toilet paper? As a matter of fact, if Gandhi’s tactics had been used in the American Revolution, wouldn’t he have been lying in a ditch in Virginia some 234 years ago? Without the purchased attention of a global media outlet, is shaming the world even possible? And even if we managed to procure one, how could a profit margin be replaced by a soul, when that’s the one thing that a multi-national news corporation will never have?

 I believe a balance is always necessary, and that might never makes right. It just makes right now. Having the power to take land, force payment or enslave others doesn’t make your cause justified. In fact I would argue that an oppressor who lies to his slaves about their ten thousand year old history, and presents them as a fraction of a human being to all, is in truth more savage than that which he has reduced his fellow man to. Strength and power are the tools that can reinforce a document, a government, a people and a nation. Without them there is only the word, and unfortunately we are not as evolved as we would like to believe because we do not respect words, not even the words of God when we write them in our own image. We are taught to only respect fear and violence.

 I am not arrogant enough to claim to have all the answers, but I come rather humbly myself to pose these questions so that you may discover the answer. May we repay the slave master by acting like the slave master? Or have we already gone this route before? Perhaps in our forgotten history we have already employed these strategies amongst ourselves. Can it be that we treated each other this way when Rome was yet to be conceived and Greek civilization was still an adolescent student of Egypt? Why is violent Revolution coupled with diplomatic conflict settlement only the recourse of the Super powers alone? Why is it presented to us as fruit from the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden? Perhaps it was our oppressor’s pact with the devil that made it so. These are question that are easy to answer only if a personal bias already exists within us, they are harder to answer when they speak to all of humanity, and what it reflects about the future of our species.

The earthquake itself did not discriminate by skin color when deciding who would die in the collapsing buildings. It cared nothing for their religion, family connections, or politics. Corrupt diplomats have perished within the same epicenter as innocent hard-working families, and dedicated public servants. The old and the young perish together subtracted from both sides of the equation. Our evolution is the rediscovery of the past, not an invention of a mythical future. Will we always be a small, petty people as a complete and single human race that we do not look beyond what is obvious in our faces as opposed to what is obvious in the actions that our hearts strive us towards?

HAARP: High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program – Gakona, Alaska

As I look at the proud, resilient and suffering nation of Haiti. I have heard every sort of theory for this tragedy, an act of God, HAARP, and even superstition backed by the hands of social senility wielding faith. In the end I am left to ponder what role did the world’s super powers play in burying Haiti before the Earthquake, and what sort of role will we now play in digging her, and our own collective human soul, out of the rubble?

Beyond this though, I think we should begin to seriously change the way that we look at each other around the world. We are a global community, a single race of people who might one day all become Haitians.

 To all my brothers & sisters: Those that I know personally, and those I do not, who have lost family and are suffering… 

My Condolences along with Revolutionary Love & Respect, 

Immortal Technique     Felipe Coronel 

http://www.standwithhaiti.org/haiti

http://hashaiti.org/

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/

http://www.yele.org

1.

[Via http://dreysay.wordpress.com]

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Understanding Christian Truth

Berkouwer emphasizes that, if we are to understand God’s truth, we must take account of two important points:
* The question of truth in itself cannot be asked without also involving ourselves in the question of truth for me.
* To ask the question of truth for me is to find that truth for me has its foundation in truth in itself (Holy Scripture, pp. 9-10).
We will explore the relationship the relationship between truth in itself and truth for me by looking at what Berkouwer says about (a) God; (b) Man.
(a) God
Insisting that the question of God is more than an abstract question concerning His existence, Berkouwer maintains that we must enquire about God with the kind of religious attitude expressed in the words of Micah 7:18 – ‘Who is a God like Thee, pardoning iniquity, and passing over transgression … ‘. When we ask the question of God in this way, we open ourselves to the atmosphere of ‘a latent doxology, a rapturous hymn (A. Weiser)’, an atmosphere ‘that leaves all doubt behind as it revels in admiration of Israel’s God’. Observing that ‘(m)any of the questions of our time arise not in doxology but in doubt’, Berkouwer points out that discussion of the traditional arguments for the existence of God is a far cry from asking the question of the living God. While the God of the old natural theology can be discussed abstractly, the living God can never be removed to such a comfortable distance. Maintaining that the God of Christian theology – the God of revelation – is more than a deduction which can drawn from the traditional proofs for His existence, he insists that we must move beyond the question ‘Does God exist?’ to the next question, ‘Who is God?’. Describing this second question as ‘a most existential and relevant question’, he contrasts it with the first question, pointing out that it is ‘not a theoretical question about God’s existence as a “thing”‘. He insists that asking the question, ‘Who is God?’ involves us in our entire experience of life as we enquire about its meaning and purpose. Enquiring about God in this way leads us on to further questions – ‘What do we mean by his presence in the world? Where does he reveal himself here and now?’. An openness to God and His revelation allows the possibilty of asking the question of God doxologically. Doxology is the only appropriate alternative to doubt. Doxology does not depend on the foundation of a faith that is built on a natural theology. On the basis of God’s salvation (and not that of natural theology’s attempt to prove God’s existence), the believer is deeply moved to worship God (A Half Century of Theology, pp.76-77; General Revelation, p.134).
(b) Man
For much of modern theology, the question, ‘What is man?’ must precede the question, ‘Who is God?’. The approach which begins with man (theology from below) is often set against the approach which begins with God (theology from above). In this situation of much confusion – with one side speaking out against the other side without really listening to what is being said from the other side – , Berkouwer’s doctrine of man has been commended as ‘a middle course between conflicting theologies … achieved by a strenuous independence of mind’ (These words of A. Willingdale – from a review in The Evangelical Quarterly – are cited on the front / inside dust cover of Berkouwer’s book, Man: The Image of God).
* Berkouwer emphasizes that man cannot be understood properly apart from God – ‘man’s nature … is not self-enclosed, and … can never be understood outside of its relation to God’ (Man: The Image of God, pp.22-23).
* He insists that divine sovereignty and human freedom are not be set over against each other. Emphasizing that the divine superiority is ‘the personal superiority of love and grace which in man’s experience is making room for him to act by not destroying his freedom’, he writes, ‘The divine act makes room, leaves open the possibility for man’s act. That possibility is not absorbed or destroyed by divine superiority, but called forth by it’ (Divine Election, pp. 49, 46).
* He emphasizes that man’s relation to God is inescapable so that, even in his guilt, the life of man is affected by divine grace. Taking full account of the radical effect of sin by emphasizing that there is ‘not … some last reserve in man, some untouched and untouchable ‘part’ of man which has escaped the power of in and corruption’ Berkouwer insists tha man has not been dehumanized. Despite the fact that we have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory, we still remain man created in God’s image and called to glorify Him in our life as His creation – ‘Man stands and remains standing in his human responsibility and in his human guilt over against God’ (Man: The Image of God, pp. 127, 135).
* In emphasizing the relation beteen God and man, Berkouwer takes care to avoid the ‘erroneous’ interpretation of ‘the concept of relation’ which suggests that ‘man exists only in relation to God, and God exists only in relation to man’. Over against any suggestion that God is no more than a figment of our imagination and we are no more than a figment of His imagination, he maintains that, in using the concept of relation – God and man are understood in relation to each other – , we must speak also of ‘reality’. By emphasizing both reality and relation, we are maintaining ‘the Biblical outlook’ which ‘does not sacrifice reality to relation’ (p.35). When we emphasize the relation between man and God, we acknowldege that we cannot, without reference to God our Creator and Redeemer, give an adequate answer to the question, ‘What is man?’. When we ask this question Biblically, we think not only of man but also of God. To enquire – in a Biblical way – about the meaning and purpose of our human experience is to move from the pathway of defiance – we don’t need God – into the pathway of doxology – we worship God. In worship, we do not only ask, ‘What is man?’. We ask, ‘What is man that Thou art mindful of him … ?’ (Psalm 8:4)..
Returning to our initial observation regarding truth in itself and truth for us, we make two important points concerning Biblical truth.
* Biblical truth is truth in itself regardless of whether we believe it. If, however, we persist in unbelief, it is, in our experience, truth which stands over against us as a judgment upon our sinful unbelief. We cannot escape the presence of God simply by asserting, ‘I don’t believe in Him’. We may choose not to take God seriously. He will continue to take us seriously – in His judgment.
* Biblical truth remains truth which stands over against us in judgment until, through faith in Jesus Christ our Saviour, it becomes truth for us, a powerful, life-changing truth which leads us to glorify God as we learn to honour Him as our Creator and Redeemer.

[Via http://gcberkouwer.wordpress.com]

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

The Mystery of Iniquity

Christianity loves to talk about the mystery of Iniquity when it comes to the pre-tribulationr rapture.

But just what is the “Mystery of Iniquity” that was going on at the time of the Apostles and that will culminate in these last days.

Shaul was the one who wrote of these things, and Shaul was also the one who called the Anti-Messiah, the Lawless one, or the Torahless one!
The word Iniquity is the exact same word as lawlessness.  ANOMIA.  A meaning without, Nomia meaning TORAH.
Even in Shaul’s time the early start of the Roman church had begun, hence the need for the Apostle’s letters to correct the teachings going around at that time.   This Torahlessness had begun in the days of the Apostles, and has culminated in these last days with mainstream christianity teaching that obeying God or the Messiah is “legalism”.

7For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.

Here we have the mystery of Torahlessness, that Shaul warned about, it was already at work in his day.  When Shaul says “Until he be taken out of the way”, he is not speaking about the “Holy Spirit” (Holy meaning Set-Apart), Shaul is speaking of Satan himself, who has the right and authority to go before the Throne of the Creator and accuse the saints

8And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:

This next verse is further proof, and THEN the wicked one shall be revealed!  When?  When Satan is authority to go before the throne of God is revoked and he is cast down onto the earth.  Satan is the one that will be destroyed with the coming of the Messiah.

9Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,

The very definition of a False Prophet is given in the Torah.  It is a person empowered to perform signs, wonders, and miracles, for the express purpose of testing the people of Elohim to see if they will Keep the Commandments!
10And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

What is unrighteousness?  SIN.  What is Sin?  Sin as defined by the New Covenant is transgression of the law!  What group on earth in direct opposition to the teachings of the Messiah, teaches that the “Law is abolished, and obeying the Creator and the Messiah is legalism?   These people perish as a direct result of the mystery of Torahlessness, because instead of obeying the Messiah and DOING AND TEACHING THE LEAST OF THE TORAH, they chose instead to play religion.  What is the truth?  Two things in the Scriptures are defined as “Truth”, the Torah, and the Messiah!  These people instead choose to reject the truth of the Torah and the teachings of the Messiah, choosing to believe the mystery of Iniquity the religious leaders and gurus teach!

11And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:

Because the people chose to not obey the Creator and the Messiah, they are sent a strong delusions that they should believe this lie.  What is the lie?  The mystery of Torahlessness!  The very same people who teach keeping a feast of Yahuwah is legalism, yet keeping a satanic holiday like Christmas or Easter is ok!  They do not want to know the truth!  They want to play religion, have their traditions.  Instead of obeying Elohim they love to say cute things like “God knows my heart”   Yes folks, he does know your heart.  He knows you would rather play religion then obey him!

12That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

These people had pleasure in Sin.  Sin is transgression of the law.  They loved the soothing sayings of their religious leaders that they no longer had to obey God or the Messiah!  They loved the false doctrines and teachings of the Babylonian religious systems!  What happens to those who believe not the Torah or the Messiah?  Just as the Torah and the Messiah himself said in Matthew Chapter 7, THEY ARE DAMNED.

Folks, do you love the truth?  No matter what that truth is, do you love it?  If it conflicts with your religious beliefs, do you make the truth fit your beliefs, or do you change your beliefs to conform to the truth!

The problem with people on this planet is they view THE TRUTH, through the lens of their belief systems!

WHEN IN REALITY YOU MUST VIEW YOUR BELIEFS SYSTEMS THROUGH THE LIGHT OF THE TRUTH!

RELIGION IS A ATTEMPT TO VIEW TRUTH THROUGH A RELIGIOUS SYSTEM.  LEAVE YOUR MAN MADE RELIGION BEHIND, GET RID OF ALL THE PAGAN BABLYONIAN SUN GOD WORSHIP, GET OFF THAT PEW OF YOUR RELIGIOUS DOG AND PONY SHOW CHURCHES, AND START OBEYING GOD AND THE MESSIAH!

[Via http://bigritchie.wordpress.com]