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Why We're Getting Close to Christ's Coming

Freedom Gasping for Breathe

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Freedom Gasping to Breathe

Communication Tyranny

The International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) recently reported that many established global democracies are moving toward authoritarianism. “More countries than ever are suffering from ‘democratic erosion’.”

“The number … has never been so high,” it said, referring to the regressive changes in areas of checks and balances within government, judicial independence (from political influence), media control, and human rights.[1]

This is highlighted within the United States as big tech screens communication messages and electronic publishing. Opinions are replacing facts. Many news stories are blocked or “spun,” preventing independent thinking and conclusions.

  • This was dramatically accentuated with Trump’s rousing speech August 7, 2022 at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
  • Only C-Span reported it. Even mainly conservative Fox News failed to broadcast the address.

“Free speech is on its last legs in this country.”[2]

Horrifying is the recent admission by Mark Zuckerberg, head of META and its subdivision, Facebook, that his companies censored and suppressed accurate reporting regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop. It contained massive amounts of information about the family’s scandals, including overseas’ business operations that at times involved America’s enemies. These dealings provided profit to Joe Biden.[3],[4] Many conclude that this influenced the last presidential election.

Sarah Muscroft had served as head of the U.N. Office for the coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory. She was fired August 2022 for condemning Palestinian Islamic jihads “indiscriminate rocket fire” into Israel.
 

  • She apologized (though her concern for civilian deaths was justified). Twitter closed her account, and the U.N. fired her.
  • “Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, sent a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres protesting Muscroft’s dismissal….
    “This norm effectively grants the Palestinian players and the local U.N. staff an ‘unwritten veto’ over U.N. statements, and stands in clear contradiction with the basic principles of objectivity and neutrality that the U.N. claims to hold.”[5]

Congressional Democrats introduced HR8404 July 7, 2022, with the “innocent” title “Respect for Marriage.” Deceptively, it, supports “open marriages,” even between an adult and a minor, or any definition a state may endorse between two individuals.
 

  • For Christians this is an assault on morals and long-established cultural norms by redefining the meaning of an expression or a word, such as “marriage.”
  • World Net Daily suggests that this redefinition of words will be used as a weapon against Christian influences, already rising in intensity. “Crush anyone who opposes our [progressive] liberal positions.”[6]

Digital Censorship

The World Economic Forum (WEF), which has become the “administrative face” of the New World Order, is proposing a new way to censor online content. “With only the need for a few trained experts,” they could identify “misinformation” and “abusive content” that could be easily deleted, punishing even its author.

  • Their initial concern was “child abuse, extremism, disinformation, hate speech, and fraud. “Extremism and hate speech” have already been used to label Christians. These could mean anything they wish.
  • “Human moderators” would determine what is dangerous – what can be trusted and safe! How might disinformation, hate speech, and fraud be defined in support of their geopolitical agenda?

This “oversight” could be programmed for many cultures and languages. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had previously advised “big tech” to watch Covid-19’s population restrictions. Programing could monitor the locations and activities of people in various parts the world. Disgracefully, cultural control by the CDC was based on faulty facts and assumptions, which the CDC promoted and is now backtracking on![7]

  • This cost people billions of dollars, destroyed jobs, limited mobility, and led to restrictive vaccination mandates. These vaccinations are now known to be of limited value and safety.

Social media companies are already putting a positive spin on abortion and transgenderism. Browsing search engines are identifying areas of support, resistance, interest, and even random curiosity in these areas.

The growing negativism toward Christianity from promotion of these issues is part of a programmed cultural reaction by elites, now dubbing them “Christian nationalists” (a new negative label).

  • Could this antagonism rise against specific religious beliefs?
  • Could major legal punitive restrictions follow such “discovery”?

Who might define how far Christianity should be controlled? Could coercive mandates even influence a worship experience?  

“‘The future is built by us, by a powerful community such as you here in this room,’ WEF founder and chairman Klaus Schwab told an audience of more than 2,500 global business and political elites” in their annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.[8] This is a solemn warning that “everything is on the table” for the globalist agenda, how to live and even think.

Economic Uncertainty

David Bahnsen, chief investment officer at Bahnsen Group, recently noted in a Breitbart News interview that society has “abandoned the lessons of economics to go with what is politically expedient.”

“People … are personally plagued by a lack of purpose or lack of identity.” “I believe that we were made to work. I believe we were made to be productive.” “But a Keynesian economics world has taught us that we were made to consume, that we were made to go buy things/shop – [and] social media plays into it, modern technology plays into it.’”

“Economically, I want to refocus people on what man was created [by God] to do, which is produce, to be a productive member of society.” That is “anti-materialistic economics. What’s materialistic [and political] is telling people, we can make them happy by giving them things.”[9]

In his discussion he said that a Marxist economic philosophy (which is infiltrating America) “deteriorates” freedom. This can only lead to financial uncertainty.

Jamie Dimon, the “boss” of Wall Street banking giant J.P. Morgan Chase, said this month that economic “storm clouds” are on the horizon…. Brace for an economic ‘hurricane’.”[10]

An insightful expositor notes: “The great deceiver will persuade men that those who serve God are causing these evils [natural disasters and economic hardship]. The class that has provoked the displeasure of Heaven will charge all their troubles upon those whose obedience to God’s commandments is a perpetual reproof to transgressors.” They will declare that this group “has brought calamities,” and “are troublers of the people, preventing their restoration to divine favor and temporal prosperity.” [11]

Moving into this “helpless” and “uncertain financial” arena is shortly anticipated.

  • The U.S. economy is going to fall into a recession next year, according to Steve Hanke, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, and that’s not necessarily because of higher interest rates. “We’re going to have one whopper of a recession in 2023.
  • Meanwhile, inflation is going to remain high because of “unprecedented growth” in money supply in the United States, Hanke said.[12]

Religious Intolerance

Many church leaders are indicating that religious liberty is “hanging by a thread.” Recent decisions in the Supreme Court have moved the goalpost toward progressive thinking!

  • Gloating over this is the leftwing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). It previously smeared the conservative D. James Kennedy Ministry, labeling it a “hate group.” The late Pastor Kennedy was outspoken on Biblical moral issues.
  • Recently, Supreme Court Justice Alito, referencing the Obergefell v. Hodges decision, noted that it did, though in support of same-sex marriage, restrict free speech (June 2015): “I assume that those who cling to old beliefs will be able to whisper their thoughts in the recesses of their homes, but if they repeat those views in public, they will risk being labeled as bigots and treated as such by governments, employers, and schools.”[13]

Speaking in Rome July 2022, Alito raised alarming thoughts regarding religious liberty:

Questions are being raised as to whether our interpretation of the Constitution’s words have been understood properly. There is such an intense challenge against the justice of tradition: “We can’t lightly assume that the religious liberty enjoyed today in the United States, in Europe, and in many other places will endure.” He noted that “many legal academics who write on religion no longer believe that it merits special protection,” for they maintain that “a liberal society…. should be value neutral, and therefore it should treat religion just like any other passionate personal attachment,” such as “rooting for a favorite sports team, pursuing a hobby, or following a popular artist or group.”

He noted that “religious liberty is not absolute. It can be combined with public safety decisions, law and order, and even health decisions, shrinking its present scopes. This is especially relevant in a society where respect for religion is in decline. Therefore, secular judicial logic might even question, ‘What does it really mean to be a human?’ Public safety, order, and health will trump religious liberty.”[14]

Pope Francis weighed in on the changing attitudes in the United States. He noted that many are persecuted because of confessing Christ’s name and living its values. Listing areas of concern:

  1. Forcing religious institutions to facilitate sterilization, contraception, and abortion-inducing drugs.
  2. Catholic charities losing licenses because they oppose placing children with same-sex couples.
  3. Discrimination against small churches from renting public schools on the weekends.
  4. Requiring churches to help human trafficking victims to provide abortion and contraception services.

He later secularized his tune, stating “Mother Earth” groans and begs us to stop our “abuse” of creation: “As he has done on other occasions, Francis blamed the destruction of the earth on ‘consumerist excesses’ before proceeding to plug the upcoming United Nations climate change conference to be held from November 6 to 8, 2022 in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.”

He prays that the U.N. summit will “unite the human family.” God nor Christ were included in his words.[15]

“Satan is no idler; he watches his chances, and takes advantage of every opportunity to win souls to his side. He constantly sows his tares in every heart that is not barricaded with the truth. The people of God are in a condition of slumber; they do not discern what favorable opportunities for winning souls they are letting slip by.…. Satan is stealing a march upon us. The law of God through the agency of Satan is to be made void in our land of boasted freedom; religious liberty will come to an end.”[16]

Skewed Views on Violence

In 2021 there were 836 homicides in the city of Chicago. Many sociological theories as to why this occurred were published. Each avoided any lack of religious or moral directions.[17]

Christian News Service (CNS) posted an informative editorial:

  1. As municipalities call for defunding the police, there is less criminal deterrent.
  2. As the requirements for bail decrease or are even canceled, any financial deterrent is removed.
  3. The media, in key cases like George Floyd’s, claimed that everyone in “blue” was a villain.
  4. Civil orders given officers to “stand down” in the face of violent activity has increased violence.

The cry for more gun control by the left is fearless and ceaseless. The majority of shootings in Chicago have been by guns illegally obtained. This city, New York, and Los Angeles already have the most aggressive gun restrictions in the nation. They are not a deterrent.

There is an identifiable growing proneness of young people toward violence. Video games and the Internet are often implicated. Little attention is given to the moral strength and redeeming value of Christianity.[18]

Christ said: “And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man” (Luke 17:26).

  • The Genesis story at the time of Noah is fearful.
  • “The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence” (Genesis 6:11).
  • “And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth” (Genesis 6:13).
  • Christ specifically alludes to violence as a horrific characteristic of the end of time.

Weighing in on the recent knife attack of Salman Rushie’s life, Judith Miller of Fox News concluded that this reveals two dangerous political trends:

  • Growing hostility toward free speech.
  • The legitimization of violence as a form of political protest.

According to the most recent annual surveys conducted by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, two-thirds of students said that it was acceptable to shut down speakers on campus, twenty-five percent said that it was acceptable to use violence to stop someone from speaking.

“Writers, who presumably should most highly value free expression, have often failed to defend it. ‘We live in a culture in which many of the most celebrated people … believe that words are violence. In this, they have much in common with Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini,’ free speech advocate Bari Weiss recently complained on Substack….

“Researchers at the University of California, Davis found that 20.5% of the 8,620 people surveyed said that political violence was sometimes justifiable to achieve a specific objective. Over 42% agreed that ‘having a strong leader for America is more important than having a democracy.”[19]    

“Never before has there been a time when the responsibility resting upon men was so great, never before has the position of Christ's followers been so solemn, as at the present time. God's messengers are now bearing a testimony that condemns those who refuse to accept it…. ‘When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?’ As the end approaches, we look for sin and violence to increase. The present state of the world answers to the terrible word-picture Inspiration has given through the apostles.”[20] 

Police State

Ambassador J. Kenneth Blackwell, former mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio, is senior fellow for human rights and constitutional governance at the Family Research Council. Following the FBI’s raid on former President Trump’s house, he said:

“For the first time in American history, a president’s administration has sent armed federal agents to raid the personal home of his predecessor, who is also a leader of the opposition party.

“This is the clearest evidence that Biden is comfortable with turning this constitutional republic into a police state.”[21]

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that the raid on Trump’s home represents “another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies against the Regime’s political opponents.”

Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state under Trump, said that executing a warrant against a former president of the United States set a “dangerous” precedent.

“The apparent political weaponization of DOJ/FBI is shameful. [The] AG must explain why 250 years of practice was upended with this raid,” Pompeo wrote. “I served on Benghazi Com where we proved Hillary possessed classified info. We didn’t raid her home.”[22]

The land beast (a nation) of Revelation 13:11-17 receives its “inspiration” and authority from the sea beast (a nation with global influence – vs 1), which, in turn, received its power from Satan (vs 4):

  • Then John shares that this earth beast’s power becomes evil and coercive. It functions with police state authority to force a “mark of the beast” on everyone (a religious mandate against God’s people, associated with the sea beast).
  • Those resisting are finally barred from buying and selling and are eventually sentenced to death.

This stunning prophecy means that a power, a nation (some feel it to be the United States), must (1) become a coercive world power; (2) have an oppressive religious objective (it is even  later called the “false prophet” – Revelation 16:13, 19:20, 20:10). (3) A “preparation” and “circumstantial opportunities” must be in place to fulfill this terrifying police state prediction.
(4) It also means that there will be a mechanism to determine individual commitment for or against this “mark.” (5) It suggests that free religious expression will be curtailed.

The prejudices of the religious naive will eventually haunt God’s people. “Finding them” will likely be an easy discovery. The United Nations just recruited 110,000 “information warriors” to police the internet for “misinformation” on social media platforms and internet forums.

  • This intent was disclosed in October 2020 through a podcast by the World Economic Forum.
  • On August 18, 2022, a Melissa Fleming from the UN noted that these information volunteers had been identified. “They will be ‘digital first responders.’”

It is becoming an axiom that any “government body [like the UN] that can silence its critics will have license for every atrocity.”[23]

This cadre of “digital cops” joins the suppressive “screening” that Facebook (Meta), Twitter, and Instagram have already been conducting. They previously colluded with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to censor Covid “misinformation,” as one example.

  • Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s children’s Health Defense Fund was shut down by social media, allegedly educating on Covid misinformation.
  • Kennedy’s agency had been a leading critic of experimental Covid-19 vaccines, publishing the dangers, even to life.

The Fund noted that our Constitution framers recognized the peril of government censorship and incorporated the First Amendment to protect free expression of dissenting opinions. These media sites are acting as surrogate enforcers for the federal government.[24]

Vaccine Mandate Reasons Crumble

CDC guidelines initially said that without Covid-19 vaccination a person would not be protected. This led to mandates, threatened employment, education, even for those in military service. Millions lost their livelihoods, even basic medical care. There was inadequate testing of this experimental treatment before its widespread use!

  • Yale University epidemiologist Harvey Risch wrote that two doses of vaccinations are useless.
  • Many refused the “shots” based on “religious accommodation” only to lose in the courts.

Attorneys for “Liberty,” “U.S. Freedom Flyers, and First Liberty Institute have appealed for reversal of these requirements.”[25]

The prestigious The New England Journal of Medicine found that two doses of the mRNA vaccine increased the risk of Covid-19 infection.[26]

Most worrisome has been the conclusion that new and recurrent cancers after mRNA vaccines are on the increase.[27]

Inventor of the mRNA vaccine and cautious scientist Dr. Robert Malone warned that devastating “immune imprinting” can occur after a second booster shot. This was posted immediately after Anthony Fauci of the CDC signaled his backing of a second Covid-19 vaccine booster for all Americans ages 5 and older!

Dr. Malone is among the scientists noting that vaccinated people are now (July 2022) getting chronic infections, increased hospitalizations, and dying predominantly from this vaccine medication.[28]

One ponders with the millions of mandated doses given, what the long-term morbidity and mortality will be. Restricting choice, misinformation, politicizing treatment, and projecting fear will likely have future deleterious consequences. The duplicitous comments by the powerful Anthony Fauci have been fearful. He recently said (which is double talk):

“There’s no doubt that the vaccines themselves, particularly vaccine plus a booster at the appropriate time when you become eligible for a booster, for more than one booster – if you’re over 50 years old, you get eligibility for two boosters. (What is he even implying?)

“One of the things that’s clear from the data is that, even though vaccines, because of the high degree of transmissibility of this virus don’t protect overly well …

“‘They protect quite well against severe disease leading to hospitalization and death,’ he added.”

What is the “right time”? How does one know his/her disease will become severe? His confusion fails to help the medical profession nor Americans in general![29]

The Rome Factor

Fascinating and disconcerting is the report by Archbishop Paul Gallagher that the Vatican’s exchanges with the Biden administration are frequent.

“‘Compared with the previous administration, it’s easier now,’ Gallagher said in reference to the Trump presidency, adding that ‘I think we found that we didn’t see quite as eye-to-eye with the previous administration as we do with this one.’” Yet, things are going downhill with the Biden administration.

Then he said, “This is especially true in ‘matters of immigration and climate change.’”[30] What does this all mean? The Biden agenda is harming America. Yet, the execution of executive policies is getting sympathy from Rome.

Looking at the Climate Agenda

On June 12, 2022, 1,100 plus scientists and ambassadors signed “The World Climate Declaration.”[31]

“The U.K. website the Daily Sceptic reported one of the lead authors of the declaration, atmospheric physicist Richard Lindzen, has called the current climate narrative ‘absurd.’ Yet relentless propaganda from grant-dependent academics and agenda-driven journalists has generated a widely accepted narrative that the science is ‘settled.’”

  • Compounding this horrific fraud on the citizens, the president just signed the “Inflation Reduction Act,” which allocates $368 billion for green energy.
  • “The climate models ‘are not remotely plausible as global policy tools,’ ignoring, for one, the benefits of carbon dioxide, which is ‘not a pollutant.’

“‘It is essential to all life on Earth,’ the declaration says. ‘Photosynthesis is a blessing. More CO2 is beneficial for nature, greening the Earth; additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass. It is also good for agriculture, increasing the yield of crops worldwide.’

“There is no statistical evidence, the signatories say, ‘that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and such-like natural disasters, or making them more frequent.’

‘There is no climate emergency.’”[32]

Steve Milloy, senior fellow at the Energy and Environment Legal Institute, said on a Breitbart News Daily podcast: “Americans must be wary of ‘falling for the climate agenda’ [of the Biden administration]…

“The whole thing is a hoax. It’s a lie. It’s all about controlling us. It’s not about controlling the climate or the environment or the weather.”[33]

Conclusion

Trump’s arrival on the political scene in late 2015, with the America First movement, quickly became an existential threat to Democrats. Their opposition effectually spread throughout the world.

  • Today, with the Biden and Democratic failures becoming more painful to the average American, they and the establishment are increasingly afraid of a Trump comeback.
  • The hiring of 87,000 IRS agents who can use “deadly force” means that they wish to not only become an “armed intimidation” force but a police state.

“A now mostly obscure early 20th-century critic of big government, Albert Jay Nock, made this simple but powerful observation: ‘In proportion as you give the state power to do things for you, you give it power to do things to you.’” “Big government is voracious, eating up a nation's prosperity, trampling rights to achieve misbegotten ends, and always intruding into every corner of people’s lives, reducing people to forms of servitude.”[34]

The late conservative journalist Charles Krauthammr once said: “We are living at a time when truth doesn’t matter.” A spirit of delusion is prevalent. Might this be fulfilling “for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie” (II Thessalonians 2:11)?

We are on a downward slope toward tyranny, which God predicts will happen just before the end (Revelation 13). “Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (II Timothy 3:13).

Jesus notes that “because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Matthew 24:12).

Paul said that at the end people will be “without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good” (II Timothy 3:3).

Freedom is morphing into relativity. Stable laws that brought liberty, prosperity, and honest debate are being ignored or minimized. Preparation for the fulfillment of many apocalyptic prophecies is inviting.

 

Franklin S. Fowler, Jr., M.D.
Prophecy Research Initiative – non-profit 501(c)3 © 2022
EndTime Issues…, Number 262, September 1, 2022

 

References:
 

[11] White, Ellen G.; The Great Controversy, pp. 589, 590; (1911 ed) (emphasis added).

[16] White, Ellen G.; The Home Missionary, February 2, 1890.

[20] White, Ellen G.; Manuscript Release, vol. 18, p. 88 (emphasis added).