The following day, Mr. Armstrong and his entourage visited Woburn Abbey, which has for 400 years been home of the Duke of Bedford. Greeted by the duke’s son, the Marquess of Tavistock, his wife, the marchioness, and the Swiss Baron and Baroness Gunsberg of Geneva. Their private tour included viewings of 17th- through 19th-century artwork, a group luncheon, followed by an inspection of unique selections of china, silver and gold artifacts. The abbey visit was concluded by a drive-by viewing of its sizable animal preserve, which included partridge, pheasant, deer and elk.

The morning of May 16, Mr. Armstrong traveled to the coast to Southampton to meet the Prince and Princess of Wales. Here, at the Rothschild Estate, in Exbury Gardens, he enjoyed tea prior to greeting the royal couple. “When Mr. Armstrong was presented, the prince recounted his two previous meetings with the pastor general and explained to Princess Diana who Mr. Armstrong was” (Worldwide News, May 30, 1983).

Thereafter, Edmond de Rothschild led a tour of the rhododendron gardens, which were originally planted by Lionel Rothschild, who had plant varieties transported to England from around the world. The garden walk ended with a special performance by select students of the Royal College of Music and a formal expression of thanks from Prince Charles to the college’s U.S. patrons.

The group attended a special buffet dinner that evening at the home of Leopold Rothschild, which was made even more enjoyable by the informal seating arrangement enabling those in attendance to not only easily converse with each other but also have ease of access to the prince and princess. Mr. Armstrong spoke for 30 minutes with Edmond Rothschild, covering the subject of gardening and the grounds of the former Bricket Wood campus in Hertfordshire, offering the aristocratic gardener a tour of Ambassador College’s Pasadena campus.

He then spoke with Mrs. Solti, wife of the famed symphony maestro. “I understand that the Chicago Symphony is the top-rated symphony in the U.S. Since [Sir Georg] Solti began conducting. They have not yet appeared at Ambassador Auditorium, but I hope to have them perform,” Mr. Armstrong conveyed. Mrs. Solti commented to him, “Everything you have said was absolutely true.” Mrs. Solti assured Mr. Armstrong that she would speak with her husband about appearing at Ambassador.

It was at this time that Prince Charles came to the party’s table. “The prince then conversed with Mr. Armstrong for 20 minutes, speaking mostly of education. The prince asked questions about Ambassador College, and Mr. Armstrong explained the history and goals of the college” (ibid).

At the time, Prince Charles was the president of the World Colleges, whose objective is to foster peaceful unity in bringing many young students around the world to one campus environment. Britain’s Lord Mountbatten, Jordan’s Queen Noor and South Africa’s Nelson Mandela have all presided in the college’s presidential office. At the time, the World Colleges had six campuses, with around 25 percent enrollment from the host nation and the remainder of enrollment from internationals. Today, they boast colleges in 13 countries. At the 1983 meeting, Prince Charles invited the pastor general to visit the campus in Montezuma, New Mexico, which even today remains an active part of the World Colleges.

The Worldwide News reported, “Partway through the conversation Princess Diana sat next to Mr. Armstrong and her husband on steps leading to the upper level. When offered a chair that was not as close to the pair, she declined, saying, ‘This is much better.’ The princess chatted with the pastor general while the prince asked his aide to give Mr. Armstrong’s staff information about the college in New Mexico.” This was the third meeting between Mr. Armstrong and Prince Charles but the first between Mr. Armstrong and Princess Diana. Later “he said he thoroughly enjoyed the visit” (ibid).

After the royals departed, the Rothschilds bid Mr. Armstrong farewell and Leopold Rothschild presented him with an autographed copy of the book Exbury Gardens. He then returned to the Dorchester Hotel in London to reflect upon what had been a most uplifting, successful, royal occasion.

At the time of the royal wedding in 1981 Mr. Armstrong ensured the couple graced the cover of the mass circulation Plain Truth magazine reaching its millions of subscribers worldwide. He penned its feature article, “Britain’s Last Gasp of Joy and Splendor.” He recounted how the British throne and House of Windsor were directly descended from King David and that Jesus Christ, the son of David, would soon return to sit upon that royal throne that has been God’s all along.

Mr. Armstrong died before the world witnessed the collapse of the royal marriage and its very public divorce and subsequent sudden death of the princess. However, he did foresee problems as he recalled her removal of the word “obey” from the marriage ceremony.

Today, our editor in chief continues the royal legacy of Herbert W. Armstrong, leading in preaching, publishing and proclaiming the very law of God and explaining how today’s sufferings are destined to culminate in the prophesied Great Tribulation as a result of mankind’s lack of obedience to their Creator. Yet, within that message, he also emphasizes the great hope for mankind and the supremely royal rule to come as implemented by the royal King of all royals, the living Jesus Christ.

To read more articles by this author, click here.

If we understand God’s law and God’s love, then we can more deeply understand how to not only keep God’s law by the letter, but also by the spirit. God’s law, after all, is spiritual (Romans 7:14). So how do we go about keeping the spirit of the law? To explain this, it’s necessary that we go way back to the beginning, before the creation of man.

Lucifer Broke God’s Law

Prior to the creation of angels, God and the Word (the One who became Jesus Christ) lived in perfect harmony. In order for these two Beings to coexist in perfect harmony, there had to be government. The great law by which they lived was the overall law of love—which was outflowing and away from self. In order for this government to work there also had to be one who was in charge. God the Father fulfilled this role.

When God created the angels, He created three super archangels—Michael, Gabriel and Lucifer. One of these great beings, Lucifer, was responsible for administering God’s government here on Earth, where approximately one third of the angels were stationed. Notice Ezekiel 28:12: “… Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.” The first part of this verse is speaking of the king of Tyrus. Then the subject shifts to Lucifer. He was full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. Verse 14 says, “Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.”

Lucifer was upon the holy mountain of God. In other words, he was stationed at the very throne of God. He was trained right at God’s feet. God taught Lucifer personally and then entrusted him to carry out that law of love on the throne of this Earth. If Lucifer would have done that, he and the angels under him would have lived in happiness and unity. Instead, Lucifer led his angels into rebellion. “Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee” (verse 15).

Keep in mind that Lucifer was the supreme masterpiece of God’s creation. He was the very best. And yet even under the best possible circumstances, God will not force anyone to obey. Lucifer had to choose to obey God. He started off perfect until iniquity, or lawlessness, was found in him. In other words, he rebelled against God’s law of love and instead turned to self-centeredness, lust for power, vanity and greed. In his twisted reasoning, Lucifer somehow thought he could overthrow the government of God. When he and the angels sinned, they no longer lived in harmony. In disobeying the great law of love, they separated themselves from God (Isaiah 59:2).

When Lucifer rebelled, God knew the only way He could be sure to avoid such a catastrophe again was to recreate Himself. And that is the incredible potential man has, even though most people today do not realize this plain and simple fact taught throughout the Bible.

The Two Trees

Notice Genesis 1:26: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness ….” So man was made in God’s image. Yet instead of spirit, man was made out of matter because matter can change, whereas spirit cannot, which is why Satan cannot repent. When Lucifer and the angels chose to disobey God, their creation was complete. Man however, if he breaks God’s law, can change and turn back to God upon humble repentance. Within man, God placed a human spirit (1 Corinthians 2:11) which allows us to think and reason. That is what sets us apart from animals that may have brains the size of humans but don’t have the ability to think or reason.

But God created the human spirit to need another Spirit—the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:10). The Holy Spirit is the power of God (Luke 1:35). Without this Spirit, man’s creation is incomplete. Without it, all man can acquire is physical, materialistic knowledge. All of this is of no real value without God’s knowledge.

Within the Garden of Eden, there were two trees (Genesis 2:9). The tree of life would have given Adam this much-needed Spirit of God. This tree revealed God’s spiritual law which alone defines what is right and what is wrong. This tree provided God’s knowledge.

Also in the garden was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If Adam took of this tree, which he was commanded not to do (Genesis 2:17), he would lose access to the tree of life. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil also provided knowledge, but not God’s knowledge. This knowledge alone, apart from the spiritual knowledge, would result in death. Taking of this tree meant Adam and Eve would decide for themselves what was right and what was wrong.

In relation to God’s law of love, we could say the tree of life represented love toward God, while the tree of the knowledge of good and evil represented love toward self. Just as Mr. Armstrong taught, there are two basic ways of life.

Adam chose to rely on self instead of God. He, like Satan, thought he had a better way. And in choosing the wrong tree, Adam cut all of mankind off from God for 6,000 years. God closed off His Holy Spirit to mankind in general. The only exceptions are those few God personally called out of this world for a special purpose.

The Law of Love

As we have seen, God’s overall supreme law is love. After all, God Himself is love (1 John 4:8). But we can find in the Scriptures where that law of love is magnified. Notice Matthew 22:36-39: “Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”

So God’s law of love can be separated into two great commands: love toward God and love toward neighbor. It is the first four of the Ten Commandments that demonstrate our love for God. The last six demonstrate our love for man. This gives us a little more insight into why God’s law is spiritual (Romans 7:14).

Let’s go back to the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve took of the wrong tree, God’s Holy Spirit was cut off from mankind. The world did not have access to God’s Spirit. The world didn’t have access to God’s knowledge until God raised up the Old Testament nation of Israel. To Israel, God gave His knowledge but not His Holy Spirit. Notice what Mr. Armstrong wrote in Mystery of the Ages:

Up to that time, mankind had been denied spiritual knowledge and fulfillment from God. God now decided to give them [the nation of Israel] knowledge of His law—His kind of government—His way of life! He was going to prove to the world that without His Holy Spirit their minds were incapable of receiving and utilizing such knowledge of the true ways of life. He was going to demonstrate to them that the mind of man, with its one spirit, and without the addition of God’s Holy Spirit, could not have spiritual discernment—could not solve human problems, could not cure the evils that were besetting humanity. The nation of Israel would be His guinea pig to demonstrate that fact.

God revealed the knowledge of His law to the people of Israel. But they didn’t keep it—even by the letter, much less spiritually! In fact, God allowed them several hundred years to obey Him and they still failed. Why? Because God’s law is spiritual. God Himself is spirit (John 4:24). So it only makes sense that the law is spiritual. Also, we have seen that God is love. In order for us to keep God’s spiritual law, we must have God’s love, which the Israelites did not have, because they didn’t have access to the Holy Spirit! If the people of Israel would have had that love, they would have demonstrated it by keeping God’s commandments (1 John 5:3).

What this proves is that without God’s Holy Spirit and love, we cannot keep God’s law spiritually. This has already been proven by the nation of Israel. Furthermore, we can’t even understand God’s law without the Holy Spirit.

Christ Magnifies the Law

Jesus Christ was prophesied to come and magnify the law. “The Lord is well pleased for his righteousness’ sake; he will magnify the law, and make it honourable” (Isaiah 42:21). Millions of people today are deceived into thinking Christ came to do away with the law. Generally, the commandment to keep the Sabbath is the reason most Protestants want to do away with the law. The word “magnify” means, according to Merriam-Webster, “to cause to be held in greater esteem or respect,” not “to do away with.” Christ revealed that there was more to it than just keeping the law by the letter. He taught us to keep the spirit of the law—not do away with it completely!

In Matthew 5:17, Christ says, “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” Here is how Thayer’s Lexicon defines the Greek word for “fulfill”: “to cause God’s will (as made known in the law) to be obeyed as it should be ….”

Verse 18 continues along these same lines. “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” The Moffatt translation reads, “not an iota, not a comma, will pass from the Law.” This verse is referring to the spirit and the letter of God’s law. As Christians, we need both the written letter of the law as well as the spirit, in order to keep it properly!

Christ then begins to explain the spirit of the law in verses 21 and 22. “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment.” Did Christ go on to say that you no longer need to worry about this “Old Testament” law? Hardly! Notice what He said. “But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire” (verse 22). This verse gives us the magnified application. In other words, action follows thought. Christ was now saying that not only is the action sin, but so is the thought!

The same principle is discussed in verses 27-28. “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” Again, Christ gives us the magnified application. The spirit of the law then is the obvious intent or purpose behind each law. This is what Christ was illustrating. When you understand this overall picture, then certain judgments and decisions can be made based upon God’s law. And that’s exactly what Mr. Armstrong did. Any time there was a doctrinal question that didn’t have a straight yes or no answer in the Bible, he simply based the decision on God’s law of love! Most liberals like to do away with what they consider “minor” doctrines, if the Bible does not give a clear yes or no answer. But if you understand the law of love toward God first and your neighbor second, the answers to doctrinal questions become clear. That’s why it’s so important to understand God’s law more deeply. Then we will not only know what we believe, but why we believe it!

How to Keep the Spirit of the Law

We can’t use the old excuse that it’s impossible to keep the spirit of the law. Jesus Christ kept it perfectly (John 15:10). What we must realize is that we alone cannot keep God’s law nor understand it. We can only do it through the power ancient Israel didn’t have—the Holy Spirit. Pray for help. Ask that God might reveal His law to you through the power of His Holy Spirit. We know that we have all fallen short and have sinned (Romans 3:23), but God is concerned about our attitude and how diligently we are putting forth the effort to keep His law the way Christ did. So how do we go about keeping the spirit of God’s law?

Here are three basic points that will enable us to keep the spirit of the law more effectively:

1) Meditate on and study God’s law. Regular Bible study is a must for us to be able to understand God’s law. Approaching Bible study in a humble, teachable attitude will enable us to receive correction daily through God’s inspired Scriptures. Paul admonished us to “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15).

David took the time to study God’s Word regularly. But he didn’t stop there. He constantly meditated on these precious truths. “I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation” (Psalm 119:99).

You don’t need a degree in psychology or theology to understand the Bible. It can be done through regular study, meditation and the power of God’s Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:10).

2) Pray for insight into God’s law. David had tremendous understanding of God’s law. He knew God was responsible for that understanding. “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” (Psalm 119:33-34). It was explained earlier that man was created with a human spirit. But that spirit needs the Spirit of God to understand godly things. David had God’s Spirit (Psalm 51:11) and because of his teachable attitude, God gave him great understanding.

Those who have God’s Holy Spirit also have access to that great power. Ask God for more of His Spirit (Luke 11:13). Paul admonished Timothy to stir up the gift of God, speaking of the Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 1:6). Pray for understanding and a deeper insight into God’s law as you regularly study and meditate on that law. At the end of his life, David had learned this vital lesson. Notice some of the last instructions David gave his son Solomon. “Only the Lord give thee wisdom and understanding, and give thee charge concerning Israel, that thou mayest keep the law of the Lord thy God” (1 Chronicles 22:12). David learned the lesson and he wanted his son to learn that lesson too.

3) Obey the law. Again, David set a tremendous example for us in this area. He said, “I made haste, and delayed not to keep thy commandments” (Psalm 119:60). If you see it in the Bible and it says do it, then do it! Don’t delay. David didn’t. Mr. Armstrong didn’t. In fact, Mr. Armstrong kept God’s holy days for 14 years even though he didn’t understand what they meant. Why did he do that? Because the Bible said to! And as Mr. Armstrong obeyed God, he was blessed with the understanding.

Understanding won’t always come at once. Paul said “we see through a glass, darkly” (1 Corinthians 13:12). But the rate at which that understanding comes has a great deal to do with how earnestly we seek it. Paul criticized the Hebrews for not growing rapidly enough. “For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat” (Hebrews 5:12). Those who are new to the truth can’t learn it all at once. However, those who have known the truth for years should be desiring “strong meat.”

The Spirit of the Law—Love

In a letter from 1958, Mr. Armstrong addressed a question about how the Ten Commandments could be a law of love:

In order to make possible for man continued peaceful, happy, prosperous and joyful existence, the Eternal God designed that all things operate according to fixed, inexorable laws. We have the laws of physics and the laws of chemistry. Then, of necessity, there is the great, fundamental, invisible spiritual law that regulates man’s relationship with his Creator, and man’s relationship with fellow man. The purpose of this inexorable spiritual law, like all of God’s laws, is to make possible man’s happiness—to bring man peace and joy—to make life really worth living! … That great overall spiritual law is just simply LOVE! It is love in continual action. It is love manifested and expressed! It is love, first to God the Creator, in reverence, adoration, gratitude and obedience (because He is the supreme Creator-Ruler who alone knows what is right for us and has power to give it); and it is love, second to fellow man, expressed in peaceableness, cooperation, service. It is a way that travels the very opposite direction from greed, vanity, hate, strife, or war. This great spiritual law is a principle—a way of life —it is an attitude of mind and heart. It is the correct way to think and to live. It is not merely moral principle—it is divinely-set-in-motion spiritual law—and it operates automatically and inexorably! But since man by nature does not know what love is, God had to define this principle of LOVE by ten distinct points—the Ten Commandments.

Isn’t it plain? The spirit of the law is the law of love. It’s a way of life. God’s law and God’s love go “hand in hand.” After all, “love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10).

What Comes to Mind

When we think about God’s law and the spirit of the law, some very important terms should come to mind. First should be God the Father. He is love (1 John 4:8). He is the one who administers that law of love.

Also, we should think of godly love—love away from self. Remember the two trees in the Garden of Eden. One tree, the tree of life, would have given mankind godly love. The other tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, enabled man to attain self-acquired knowledge only. Taking of this tree produced a self-centered love and vanity. In order to keep the spirit of the law, we must have God’s love.

Another term that should come to mind is the Holy Spirit. This is what man was cut off from in the Garden of Eden. Without it, man cannot understand spiritual things. If God is spirit (John 4:24) and His law is spiritual (Romans 7:14), then we must have God’s Holy Spirit to be able to keep the spirit of the law.

Finally, we should think about God’s law when we discuss the spirit of the law. It is God’s overall law of love divided into two great commandments—love toward God and love toward neighbor—and further subdivided by the Ten Commandments—that we must keep.

If we understand how all these work together, we can more deeply understand God’s spiritual law. It is God’s law administered by the great Lawgiver Himself—God the Father. This law is based on the love of God that is not a human love. That love can only be given to mankind by God’s Holy Spirit; that is what makes God’s law spiritual. Let’s strive to keep the spirit of the law!

Even as bad as we know it will get before the return of Jesus Christ, the Bible tells us the vast majority of mankind will still refuse to repent. Jesus, of course, knew this. And yet, right before He ascended to heaven in the first century, He told His disciples to witness unto the uttermost parts of the Earth (Acts 1:8). He commanded His apostles to warn the nations about the wrath coming upon our disobedient and stubborn world.

Why aren’t there more preachers and religious groups proclaiming this message? Why do they hold out hope for man to solve the problems of this world—even as evil multiplies and the curses intensify?

At the end of Luke’s gospel, Jesus reminded His disciples that “all things” written in the law of Moses, the prophets and the psalms would be fulfilled. Everything recorded in these books about the first and Second Coming of Christ—and the universal destruction that would immediately precede His return—will be fulfilled, Jesus said (Luke 24:44). He then commanded His disciples to preach a message of “repentance and remission of sins” to all nations (verse 47).

Now why won’t the churches of this world cry out for our nations to turn to God in humility and to repent of their wicked ways? Most religious people don’t even grasp what sin is because they’ve been led to believe, erroneously, that God’s spiritual law—which regulates all human conduct—was nailed to the cross!

The only thing nailed to that stake was Jesus Christ’s crucified body—along with our guilty past, assuming we turn to God in repentance! This is why, when Jesus came into Galilee preaching the good news of the coming Kingdom of God, He told people to repent and to believe (or accept in faith) the true gospel of the Kingdom of God. In other words, we have to be willing to change our ways—to repent of sin—if we are to enter into God’s Kingdom.

This has always been the message of God’s true servants: repentance and remission of sins. It was repeatedly proclaimed by all the prophets—those same men Jesus pointed us to in Luke 24.

One of them, the Prophet Isaiah, wrote, “Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins” (Isaiah 58:1). Again, God knows most people will not repent. But He says, You witness against them anyway! That way they will be left without excuse. If God’s true servants do their job, then when the plagues come crashing down upon our peoples, the unrepentant won’t be able to say, You should have warned us!

Ezekiel is another outstanding example of one who boldly proclaimed a message of repentance and remission of sins. His entire book is about the watchman warning that must be delivered to the latter-day descendants of Jacob. Ancient Israel had gone into captivity long before Ezekiel wrote his book. His message is for us today.

“So thou, O son of man, I have set thee a watchman unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at my mouth, and warn them from me” (Ezekiel 33:7). Notice, God says, You warn them from me. It’s God’s message—as delivered through His human instrument. Eight times in verses 3 through 9, God says warn!

“Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?” (verse 11).

Repentance and remission of sins—that’s what Ezekiel was saying. That’s what Jesus commanded His faithful disciples to preach before the Great Tribulation and the coming Day of the Lord.

“For I will lay the land most desolate, and the pomp of her strength shall cease; and the mountains of Israel shall be desolate, that none shall pass through. Then shall they know that I am the Lord, when I have laid the land most desolate because of all their abominations which they have committed” (verses 28-29).

This is what it takes for mankind to finally come to know its Maker. To our great shame, we simply will not turn to God until after we have suffered widespread devastation and death.

In verses 30 and 31, Ezekiel refers to God’s own lukewarm people—those who used to deliver God’s warning message of repentance and remission of sins—and who still tune in to God’s work today, but who won’t change their evil ways! Most of them won’t repent until after it’s too late to save their physical lives.

Yet God still thunders, Warn them anyway! Tell them what’s coming!

Verse 33 tells us why: “And when this cometh to pass, (lo, it will come,) then shall they know that a prophet hath been among them.” When all of these dire prophecies come to pass, then they will know. They’ll immediately know where God was working and that the prophetic warning coming from that work was an expression of God’s outflowing love. It may be too late for them to be saved physically. But spiritually, they can still turn to God in repentance and faith.

This is why we must warn. God’s true disciples today, as Jesus said in Luke 24, are witnesses of all these prophetic events!

It really isn’t that difficult to find where God is working. Just look for the organization that is faithfully fulfilling Christ’s commission to watch and warn—the one work that is lifting up its voice like a trumpet, showing the people their transgressions and preaching a message of repentance and remission of sins.

This is the message Jesus Christ has always commanded His servants to deliver. And this is the work that the true followers of Christ have faithfully supported.

Asia

The combined amount of reserves held by Asian central banks is $3.3 trillion, which equates to 46 percent of total global national reserves. During 2011, it was these Asian nations, with China at the helm, that lunged away from the dollar the most vigorously.

Since the end of 2010, China has trimmed its holding of U.S. dollars by $27.5 billion, and, though it remains the top buyer of U.S. treasury bonds, Beijing is taking further significant strides away from the greenback. At the end of December, officials from China and Japan, the world’s second- and third-largest economies, unveiled a plan to allow direct exchange of their currencies for bilateral trade, which would negate the need for Beijing and Tokyo to buy U.S. dollars.

Syracuse University political science Prof. Horace Campbell called the swap “one more nail in the coffin of the dollar as the international reserve currency.”

The Sino-Japanese currency trade agreement comes amid a flurry of Asian trade duos moving to bypass the dollar in their bilateral trade. Among them are Russia and China, Japan and India, and China and Thailand. But given the massive size of the trade volume between China and Japan, this deal is far more significant than the other agreements.

It is also significant that the deal came during a time when U.S. leaders were amplifying rhetoric about China’s military buildup and working toward the development of a Trans-Pacific Partnership (tpp). Washington wanted Japan to become a pillar of the tpp, so the timing of Tokyo’s decision casts a dark shadow over the U.S.’s plans.

In the first week of January this year, less than two weeks after the landmark Sino-Japanese deal, Chinese media reported that China, Japan and South Korea were also constructing the framework for a free trade pact between the three largest economies in East Asia.

Asian states feel the ongoing devaluation of the U.S. dollar and the uncertainty of the euro, and they are moving to protect their economies from it. The rash of currency swap agreements represents a clear breakaway from U.S. financial domination, and also increases pressures for the Chinese currency to be internationalized as other economies follow the lead of Japan and seek exchange deals to bypass the dollar.

And Asia is not alone in its dollar skepticism.

Latin America and Africa

The last global financial crisis didn’t strike Latin America as severely as other regions, but it was jostled, and has taken measures to protect itself from possible future calamity. Among those measures was the recent establishment of a Latin American regional bank, the Bank of the South. Several nations are also building the architecture for a regional South American currency called the sucre.

Last year, Colombia proposed a currency basket that would combine local currencies with euros, yen and dollars, and could steer regional trading in a direction that decouples economies from the U.S. dollar.

In September, Nigeria became the first African nation to adopt the Chinese yuan as one of its reserve currencies, when the country’s central bank governor Lamido Sanusi announced that Nigeria would invest 5 to 10 percent of its foreign exchange reserves in the Chinese currency.

“A number of countries are participating in the [renminbi] market in Asia and … Latin America, and we are pleased to be the first African country to take the step of joining this group of countries that recognize the importance of China to the world economy,” Sanusi said.

Et Tu, Qatar?

Middle Eastern nations hope to avoid being left as the only economies still clinging to deteriorating dollars, so they are following Asia’s lead in edging away from the greenback. Writing for the Asia Times last week, Ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar, a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service, explained the trend:

Quite obviously, Persian Gulf countries are slowly, steadily probing their options in the Asia-Pacific to diversify their external relations that have been traditionally riveted to the West. With Europe in serious disarray and the U.S. in decline and its reputation in the Middle East significantly dented, this trend is likely to become pronounced.

The new inclination is for Middle Eastern countries to bypass the U.S. dollar as an intermediary in their oil sales to Asian states, and instead use their own currencies or those of their Asian customers. Among the trade duos that have already taken these steps in their bilateral trade are Russia and Iran, China and Iran, China and Qatar, China and the United Arab Emirates, and India and Iran.

Anti-U.S. maneuvers of this kind are to be expected from Iran, but the uae and Qatar have long been mainstays of Western strategy in the Middle East because they make up the bedrock of petrodollar cycles. Neither Qatar nor the uae is defiant toward the U.S. the way Iran is, but their concern is for the bottom line of economic stability. They are moving to protect against exchange rate volatility, and it may not be long before Saudi Arabia follows suit.

Leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council—comprised of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the uae—have also been bypassing the dollar to instead buy gold, and they are working toward the establishment of a monetary union with a common currency.

Only a Matter of Time

The nations of the world are waking up to the fact that the U.S. debt is over $15 trillion, and that leaders in Washington have not been able to effectively stem its growth. Back in 2009, economist Nouriel Roubini explained the dollar’s decline, saying:

This decline of the dollar might take more than a decade, but it could happen even sooner if the U.S. did not get its financial house in order. If China and other countries were to diversify their reserve holdings away from the dollar—and they eventually will—the United States would suffer. It would take a long time for the renminbi to become a reserve currency, but it could happen. The resulting downfall of the dollar may be only a matter of time.

The decision of China and Japan to diversify their reserve holdings away from the dollar was a momentous stride toward the global shift Roubini predicted, yet it has been given little coverage by the Western media. And since the U.S. has not been able to get its financial house in order, the rush of nations to abandon the greenback will gain momentum rapidly in the months and years ahead. From its earliest editions, the Trumpet has warned that the age of the dollar is coming to an end—and has explained that the greenback’s collapse is a precursor to the biblically prophesied downfall of the United States.

How did this happen?

George Friedman of Stratfor sums it up thus (January 31; emphasis added throughout):

About 40 percent of German gross domestic product comes from exports, much of them to the European Union. For all their discussion of fiscal prudence and care, the Germans have an interest in facilitating consumption and demand for their exports across Europe. Without these exports, Germany would plunge into depression. Therefore, the Germans have used the institutions and practices of the European Union to maintain demand for their products.

Early on in the creation of the eurozone, a few voices were heard predicting this outcome. Voices belonging to such as EU whistle-blower Bernard Connolly, British political economist Rodney Atkinson and the late Christopher Story, a British intelligence and economics analyst. Their warnings of the implementation of the eurozone leading to financial catastrophe for Europe to Germany’s sole gain went unheeded.

Now the prescience of those warnings is evident in the results of today’s euro crisis.

George Friedman states: “Through the currency union, Germany has enabled other eurozone states to access credit at rates their economies didn’t merit in their own right. In this sense, Germany encouraged demand for its exports by facilitating irresponsible lending practices across Europe. The degree to which German actions encouraged such imprudent practices … is not fully realized” (ibid).

As a result, we see today that even as Germany’s unemployment rate is publicized at an official record low of 5.5 percent, the unemployment rate in the rest of the EU as a bloc was 9.9 percent in December, with 23.8 million people out of work.

So, what are opinion shapers in Germany saying about this situation? In a dramatic warping of reality, with little mind to Germany’s true history, much less to that of the creation of the eurozone, the center-right Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes: “Germany has the strongest economy by far in the EU, and its lead is growing. It is also the most populous country, which isn’t insignificant in democratic terms. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the German government is making use of this clout; that’s legitimate. … Germany bears a major burden in having to overcome a crisis that others got themselves into” (January 31).

Commentary by the center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung showed a similar warped understanding of the situation in Greece in particular. It claimed that “The Germans led Greece before, and … the massacres of Distomo and Kefalonia have nothing to do with today’s euro crisis …” (January 31).

In reality, the massacres at Distomo and Kefalonia have everything to do with today’s euro crisis! Any real student of German history should know that it was those of such ilk as the elite Nazi cadre who approved the perpetration of those war crimes—including Kurt Waldheim—who went underground toward the end of World War ii to ensure the exact outcome of the creation of today’s European Union—a Europe dominated by Germany! Read the “Red House Report” and be educated on that history! (This intelligence report is reprinted in full in our free booklet Germany’s Conquest of the Balkans.)

Not only that. Perhaps Greece, for one, would not be in its present crisis had it not been for the failure of the German government to pay full reparations for the slaughterous Nazi occupation of Greece during World War ii.

Commenting on Germany’s history of failure to pay reparations for the effects of its warring actions against other nations, German Prof. Albrecht Ritschl of the London School of Economics stated in an interview with Spiegel Online: “With the exception of compensation paid out to forced laborers, Germany did not pay any reparations after 1990—and neither did it pay off the loans and occupation costs it pressed out of the countries it had occupied during World War ii. Not to the Greeks, either.”

Ritschl further commented that he believes Germany’s economic success has only been possible “through waiving extensive debt payments and stopping reparations to its World War ii victims.”

In Greece, he says, “No one … has forgotten that Germany owes its economic prosperity to the grace of other nations.”

To further explore the example of Greece in particular, during an interview with Stern magazine yet another German academic, Norman Paech, professor of international law at Hamburg University, said “that the German government was liable for compensation to the victims of the Nazi atrocities in Greece. … Paech said that Germany must ‘reconcile itself with the idea’ that a recent Greek supreme court ruling recognizing the competence of Greek courts to rule on demands for compensation over the Nazi atrocities ‘will have substantial consequences’ as some 10,000 such lawsuits were outstanding, and the total compensation involved was tens of billions of deutsche marks” (Athens News Agency, April 27, 2000).

Tens of billions! Think of what that would have done for the Greek economy. Germany obviously has a need to keep Greece in enforced penury, rather than face its obligation to pay these reparations.

There’s no doubt the hardworking nature, the thrift and the organizational ability of the German peoples has contributed greatly to their economic success today. Yet, given the true facts—from German economic experts themselves—there can also be no doubt that there is something lacking in the conscience of any German commentator who can imply that Germany’s failure to pay reparations to the nations it occupied and devastated in two world wars has nothing to do with today’s economic crisis in Europe. It has as much to do with German dominance today, and the recessionary condition of much of the European continent, as has the deliberate structuring of a European Monetary Union to favor the German economy to the detriment of the entire eurozone.

Why is Germany’s current employment rate at record high levels, while much of Europe’s population increasingly lacks gainful employment?

Look to the way that the nation’s elites have structured Europe to Germany’s sole advantage—and look to their failure to fulfill their postwar obligations of conscience. Then ask, if Germany is to lead Europe yet again—to take a phrase from Süddeutsche Zeitung, “as the Germans led Europe before”—what will really be the nature of that leadership, and what will be its outcome?

Let history teach the answer.

Prolonged spring-like weather in the dead of winter is not a good thing.

Yesterday, the high here in Edmond was 72 degrees, more than 20 degrees above normal. Folks are wearing T-shirts and flip-flops, and driving around town with their windows down drinking giant Slurpees—in Oklahoma, on the first day of February. And it’s not just Oklahoma. In New York, Japanese apricot trees are in full bloom. In Illinois, outdoor ice rinks are closing because it’s too warm, and in Iowa authorities are cancelling ice fishing on lakes and ponds.

Balmy weather in the middle of winter is like an ice-cold coke on a sweltering afternoon. It’s pleasurable, but bad for you in the long run.

The science is pretty simple. Every region on Earth has an ecosystem comprised of various flora and fauna. The health of each of Earth’s ecosystems depends on a multitude of patterns, laws and cycles, all of which must remain stable and predictable. One of the largest factors ensuring a healthy ecosystem is the weather. To remain healthy, many ecosystems need four seasons.

In many cases, a cold winter is just as important as a wet spring or warm summer.

For example, in regions that traditionally experience cold winters, many plants experience a process called vernalization. In this process, plants and seeds must experience prolonged cooler temperatures in order to germinate or blossom in the spring. For these plants, dormancy isn’t simply a needless response to colder temps: It’s a physiological necessity. Plants that experience vernalization usually have a “chilling requirement.” This is the amount of cold a plant needs in the winter to assure normal, healthy growth in the spring and summer. The total varies depending on the species. Some trees require up to 2,000 hours of freezing or near-freezing temps, others require much less.

When the “chilling requirement” of a plant isn’t met, its growth cycle can be affected. When fruit trees, for example, don’t get the required amount of “chilling hours” during winter, it can result in lower yields and poor-quality or misshapen fruit. In general, when plants that need cold temperatures don’t get them, the health of the plants suffers. Unhealthy plants are more susceptible to insect infestation, disease and drought.

This applies to some crops too. Many varieties of winter wheat, for example, have a vernalization requirement. These crops need prolonged cooler temperatures for the biological process to take place for germination to occur. When the cold weather is missing, germination and crop health suffers.

Oftentimes, warmer winter temperatures can activate plant growth, resulting in the premature flow of sap, bud burst and even leaf growth. If this happens in the middle of winter, when the chances of a hard freeze are still high, the result can be fatal. If freezing temperatures arrive, new growth is destroyed and the tree or plant goes into shock. For species that yield one crop per season, premature bud burst followed by hard freeze can destroy the entire season.

In many regions, cold temperatures are also needed for insect control. Winter time is Armageddon for many insects. When winter arrives, some bugs leave town, some hunker down below ground, and others are killed. Cold temperatures play an important role in interrupting breeding cycles, reducing activity and keeping insect populations in check.

Unseasonably warm winters often mean more mosquitoes, more ticks, and more bugs—and the diseases that often come with them.

Point is, in many ecosystems there’s a need for pleasant 70-degree days as well as chilly 40-degree days, for a warm, inviting spring and a cold, uncomfortable winter. When these needs are not met, problems set in. The fragile balance within the ecosystem falters. Think about this the next time you step into a 70-degree day in the middle of winter.

Here at the Trumpet we don’t merely report on all the crazy weather occurrences happening on this planet. We encourage readers to ask serious questions about why these abnormalities are occurring. Few realize it, but there’s much, much more to the global weather patterns than what our local weatherman, or professor, or preacher, are telling us.

The Bible clearly reveals that mankind was created by God and set in a carefully crafted ecosystem that depends on laws, including agricultural, environmental and atmospheric laws (Genesis 1). It clearly explains that God created this planet—its systems of flora and fauna sustained by weather patterns—for the express purpose of mankind’s individual and collective physical, mental and spiritual development.

In Genesis 2:15 we learn that Adam was given the responsibility to dress and keep the Garden of Eden. He was called to be a farmer. Unlike most people today, Adam understood not only that the weather sustained his existence, but also that the weather was a function of God’s will and power!

The Bible makes this point plainly. Read Leviticus 26, and Deuteronomy 28, and 2 Chronicles 6:26, and Job 37:11-13, and Amos 4:7-9, and Nahum 1:3. The weather is a means by which the Creator communicates and interacts with mankind. In many cases, stable, consistent weather patterns were a sign that God was pleased. In other cases, such as these end times, chaotic, unpredictable, unseasonal weather patterns are a sign of God’s anger with mankind.

Few chapters in the Bible explain this as well as Leviticus 26. In the first 13 verses of the chapter, God outlines the blessings that will come should mankind obey His laws. Read for yourself what the very first blessing is: “Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield her fruit” (verse 4). Then, in verses 14 through 46, God outlines the curses for disobedience. Notice verse 20: “And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.” Look around. Isn’t it getting harder and harder, despite our advanced technologies, for our land to yield its increase—oftentimes because freakish weather is wreaking havoc?

This fundamental principle permeates the Bible: Weather is a measure of God’s happiness with mankind!

Here’s another wonderful promise from God: “If I shut up heaven that there be no rain, or if I command the locusts to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among my people; If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land” (2 Chronicles 7:13-14). What an inspiring promise from our Creator: He will heal our lands, if we humbly submit ourselves to Him, repent of our disobedience and eagerly embrace His law and government.

Perhaps you’ve never had much of an interest in the weather. And it certainly is easy to agree with the weatherman as he welcomes the unseasonably warm weather in the dead of winter. But as stories about abnormal and extreme weather patterns increasingly dominate international news—you’ve got to admit there’s been a deluge of reports lately about devastating droughts, floods, hurricanes, fires and so on—perhaps it’s time to consider getting back in touch with the land, and science and the Bible.

As a start, consider reading our free booklet Why ‘Natural’ Disasters? Also, if you haven’t watched it already, check out editor in chief Gerald Flurry’s latest Key of David television program titled “Why Natural Disasters.”

After so many years of failed budgets, you would think that lawmakers would have figured it out by now. But no, it seems like lawmakers perennially have their heads in the clouds, hoping the economy will magically repair itself and solve their budget problems.

State controller John Chiang says the state will need to come up with an additional $3.3 billion by early March if it wants to avoid sending out ious, or delaying tax refunds again. The rest of the deficit can be covered using creative accounting and other emergency measures, he indicated.

Lawmakers not only underestimated spending, but overestimated tax collections, according to Chiang. They spent $2.6 billion more than planned, and collected $2.6 billion less than hoped.

It is the tax shortfall that is particularly worrisome for California. More than two years after the recession officially ended, tax revenues should be soaring as the recovery takes hold—at least that is what has happened after previous recessions ended. Not so this time. Not only haven’t the jobs returned, tax revenues are under-performing to expectations as well. It just confirms what many people intuitively realize as they struggle to make their mortgage payments and keep up with the increase in the cost of living. This recovery is the worst on record.

Tax collections are usually one of the better indicators of how the economy is really doing—and in California’s case, it is still coming up short.

On a national level, California’s condition is troublesome too, because California typically leads the nation in economic recoveries.

Remember the saying? As California goes, so goes the nation. 2012 may not be a very good year for the nation either.

Except, apparently, when applied nationally.

America’s preposterously elephantine national debt is in the news again, for good reason. Last month, it reached an embarrassing milestone: It is now bigger than the entire economy.

Total federal debt now surpasses $15 trillion, and that doesn’t count the more than $50 trillion the government owes in unfunded retirement promises. The debt exceeds America’s gdp. And last Thursday, the Senate agreed to allow President Obama to raise the debt ceiling $1.2 trillion higher—the sixth such increase since the president took office three years ago.

Just do the math: The federal government collected $2.2 trillion last year—a huge heap of money that is nowhere near the $3.7 trillion it spent.

Imagine a household that makes $4,000 a month sitting down to make a budget, and patting itself on the back for planning to spend $6,500. We’re not talking about impulse buying. We’re talking about planning to go $2,500 deeper into debt every month—$30,000 a year.

Comparing income to spending, that reckless family would actually be doing somewhat better than America.

Every year, the federal government takes an average of about $7,000 in taxes per American—and then spends nearly $12,000 per American. That is how it goes a heart-stopping $4 billion deeper into debt every single day.

What would it take to actually pay the bills? This video offers one suggestion. To finance one year of federal spending, just take the combined global profits of every one of the Fortune 500 companies; take all the tv ad money spent on all 45 Super Bowls; take the combined salaries of all players in the nfl, mlb, nba and nhl along with all winnings from the pga tour and nascar; take every penny of household income in excess of $250,000; take all the money from every billionaire and near-billionaire; take every dime that was spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; take everything pumped into foreign aid; and then make every American man, woman and child chip in another 40 bucks. Voila!

The bad news is, that would only pay one year’s bills, and the financial wherewithal of the nation would be gutted.

I’m guessing you have enough common sense to recognize that to “budget” yourself to go $1.5 trillion deeper into debt each year simply isn’t sustainable. It is lunacy.

But here is something you may not know—something extraordinary.

Most Americans believe the Bible. A recent Gallup poll found that 65 percent of Americans believe it “answers all or most of the basic questions of life.” So there’s a good chance you are one of them.

Did you know that the Bible specifically foretold America’s national debt? In fact, it prophesied that that debt would be a curse on this country!

If you have never read the 28th chapter of Deuteronomy, you should. It is a pivotal chapter of prophecy. You don’t even have to believe that America is a descendant of the Israelite tribe of Manasseh (which we can prove to you) to appreciate the wisdom in this passage. It is simply a list of the blessings that God promises to the nation that obeys Him, and curses that He will send on the nation that disobeys Him.

Read verse 12 to see one of the blessings for obedience: “The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thy land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow.”

That makes sense, doesn’t it? It’s a blessing to be able to lend and not have to borrow. As much a blessing as favorable weather and fruitful labor.

It so happens that for much of its history, America has been a net lender. It has been a nation of savers and producers, dominating world trade and manufacturing. It has loaned other nations far more money than it borrowed.

Now, though, look at verse 44. This is within the portion of the chapter describing the curses for disobedience. It says of foreigners (“the stranger”): “He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail.”

This is brutal reality for America today. In the last few decades, debt spending and borrowing have increased dramatically, and the U.S. has become a net debtor, borrowing billions of dollars per year from the rest of the world. Nearly one third of the money the government overspends, it borrows from foreign countries. Today America is the most indebted nation on Earth.

Pundits can kid themselves with fancy formulas and say this is no big deal; some even argue America should borrow more, as Robert Morley pointed out last month.

But borrowing is a curse, and America is already starting to suffer for it. You don’t even have to believe the Bible to see it. Just open your eyes.

Take a good look at all the money being sucked out of America’s coffers by interest payments on that debt. In fiscal year 2011, the government paid $454 billion in interest. This past December alone, maintenance on the debt cost $98.6 billion.

Look at how such enormous payouts hurt the nation. Last year, America’s top military officer, Adm. Michael Mullen, called America’s national debt “the biggest threat to our national security.” Why? He was just looking at the defense budget. U.S. military policy is being dictated less and less by strategic imperatives and more and more by budget constraints.

Think about where all that money for interest payments is going. Trillions of dollars are flying out of the U.S. into other countries. Though borrowing may prosper America for a moment, it prospers the nation’s lenders in the long run—at America’s expense, more and more over time.

And think about how that foreign debt can influence policy—even change the balance of global power. America’s largest creditor is China. How much of Beijing’s growing confidence and militarism within Asia, how much of its willingness to defy the U.S. in the international arena, owes to the fact that America owes it well over a trillion dollars? The fact is, large foreign debt hangs over the value of a currency like a sword of Damocles. America lives under the growing threat of dollar or treasury dumping, something that could wipe out its economy in a flash.

Quite a curse, all that debt. Really, that’s just common sense.

Fundamentally, though, this isn’t a case of bad economics. This is a curse—a curse imposed by God for the nation’s disobedience to Him.

It’s not very fashionable to believe in curses in our modern world. But if you believe the Bible, it’s not at all difficult to see the contrast in Deuteronomy 28 between verses 12 and 44, and to recognize which of those prophecies—issued by the Almighty God—applies to America today. It’s already hurting the nation, but the situation is precarious, and it’s about to get far worse.

Of those foreign lending nations, the prophecy says, “he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail.” That’s where America is heading, and fast.

Are venture capitalist/private equity firms really devouring America? This might be a good time to ask that question, since one of the men who might be president was an innovator in this industry that has become increasingly influential in American-style capitalism.

According to Mitt Romney, venture capitalism is what makes America’s economy so dynamic. “The reality is in the private sector that there are some businesses that are growing and thriving, and we were fortunate enough to be able to be a part of that in a small way,” he said. But “there are some businesses that have to be cut back in order to survive ….”

“And every time that we invested in a business, it was to try and encourage that business to have ongoing life.”

It is all about the economic gospel of “creative destruction.” Sometimes jobs have to be destroyed, so that others can not only survive, but thrive.

Sounds relatively reasonable. As evidence, Romney points to his successes in revitalizing struggling companies such as Sports Authority and Domino’s Pizza. He says he has created 100,000 jobs by making companies such as these stronger so that they could grow again.

Yet, even if you believe Mitt Romney’s job creation numbers, his description of venture capitalism is not how many private equity firms—including Bain Capital—actually work.

Consider the case of KB Toys. Remember KB Toys? In 2000 (one year after Mitt Romney retired as a director, but remained a major shareholder), Bain Capital bought KB Toys for $305 million. To do this, it borrowed $297 million from big banks and other investors. It used only $18 million of its own money.

Immediately following the purchase, Bain Capital made the toy company borrow $297 million so that Bain could pay back the initial money borrowed from investors. Now KB Toys, not Bain Capital, owed investors the $297 million.

At this point, Bain Capital was free and clear. It was the owner of a profitable, if now indebted, company.

But Bain wasn’t satisfied. Nor was it interested in cutting fat from the company, or increasing long-term corporate profitability. The evidence shows it wanted a fast buck. Those who got hurt in the process were, apparently, collateral damage.

Even after the additional $297 million in extra debt, KB Toys was still valuable enough that Bain Capital could direct it to borrow tens of millions more over the ensuing months.

But here is where Bain Capital illustrates the dirty side of corporate America.

While Bain Capital was directing KB Toys to borrow more and more money, what was Bain Capital doing with it? Developing a bigger online presence? Building factories? Expanding product lines? Adding distribution capability? Creating a better company? Innovating new products? No.

Bain Capital was sucking KB Toys dry.

Over the next 16 months, Bain Capital paid itself a whopping $85 million in dividends from the now super-indebted toy retailer.

It was too much for KB to endure. In the face of growing competition from Toys R’ Us and other retailers and with basically a giant parasite as majority stakeholder, KB Toys filed for bankruptcy in 2004—at the direction of Bain Capital. Over 500 stores were shuttered. Thousands of employees lost their jobs, their retirements and their livelihoods. And all those investors that lent money to KB were left holding an empty toy box.

But what about Bain Capital? With tens of millions in dividends—plus consulting fees paid to itself from KB’s borrowed money—it still made around a 400 percent return on investment! All legal. And all ugly.

There was no “creation” in the destruction of KB Toys. It was never about “cutting back in order to survive,” or always and “every time” investing with the intent to encourage “ongoing life.”

And KB Toys was not alone.

Some call it vulture capitalism. But that is an insult to vultures. Vultures generally eat the dead and dying. Bain Capital seems to have very deliberately killed KB Toys—by sucking the life out of it. Parasite capitalism may be a better description. But even most parasites don’t kill their hosts so quickly.

If KB Toys was just one sad case, it would be regrettable but survivable for America. But the leveraged buyout boom of the pre-2008 Wall Street meltdown was massive. There are thousands of formerly healthy U.S. corporations now struggling under dangerous debt loads that, like KB, may be destined to kill them.

And with all that extra debt, when interest rates start to rise from their historic lows America’s parasite-bloated companies will become actual vulture food.

Are private equity and venture capital firms good for America? Just like anything else, how they are used is what counts the most. Many venture capitalists do actually seek to make money by making companies more efficient, by both investing and growing—and also cutting dead wood. But sadly, in too many cases, Wall Street is a place where tools like these are used for greedy destruction, not productive creation.

Can a private equity president save America?

America truly needs a Creative Destruction moment. But can any human save an economy so infested with wrong practices, greedy human nature and fraudulent foundations? If we are brutally honest with ourselves, we need to admit that it’s not an overhaul or a new set of regulations that we need. It’s a complete wipeout of the entire system so that a new, equitable, productive, honest foundation can be built. And if we are honest with ourselves, in the long run, and despite the short-term pain, wouldn’t that kind of creative destruction be a good thing to look forward to?

Jennifer was thinking the same thing about Fred. She just knew that she had found the only man on Earth for her.

In the midst of all the frenzied activities that accompany a wedding day, she found herself pondering very fond memories. She recalled how Fred would hold her hand and take long walks with her down country roads. She remembered how pleasantly surprised she was when he cheerfully agreed to take her to the theater to see a play. Her fondest memories were of their long talks while sitting in their favorite coffee shop on weekend mornings.

How many marriages begin the way Fred and Jennifer’s did? Millions!

Sadly, however, many of those same marriages end in divorce. For every two marriages that occurred in the U.S. during the 1990s, there was one divorce. These are sad and devastating odds! This problem is by no means isolated to the United States. Indeed, the past 4 to 5 decades have seen divorce rates increase in every industrialized country in the world.

How can so many blissful and joyous courtships and wedding days end in such misery? Even many marriages that haven’t ended in divorce are currently mired in the depression of misery and separation. Why does it happen? The answer lies in understanding cause and effect. What we put into our marriages directly relates to how successful they are.

Just like Fred and Jennifer, most people are overjoyed on their wedding day. They believe they have found the man or woman that they will live with and love for the rest of their lives. When those same marriages that started out so joyfully limp along near the doldrums of agony—and oftentimes even end in divorce—there is a reason!

Let’s look at some of the major, hidden keys that must start being put into a marriage in order to find true success. There are vital elements that husbands and wives must give and vital roles that each must fulfill in order for any marriage to be a real success. If you apply these keys, not only will you be well on your way to keeping the vows you made on your wedding day, but you and your mate will be filled with joy along the way!

Love

First, there must be genuine love! At first glance, this may not seem like a hidden key. It seems that everyone today talks about love. But most people do not know what real love is. All too often, what people describe as love is nothing more than lust or some other selfish idea.

The love that must be present in any successful marriage is not lust or any other self-centered motivation. It is a genuine, outgoing concern for your mate! Too many people today talk about relationships and marriage from a “get” mentality. What is he doing for me? What am I getting out of this relationship? If you think this way about your marriage relationship, it is destined for failure.

God’s way is the way of give. Marriage is ordained of God and must operate accordingly. It is a huge blow to the success of a marriage if both spouses—or even just one—are trying to “get” or “take” for their own benefit.

Many say that marriage is a “give-take relationship”—but that’s NOT true! Marriage is a give-give relationship. Both the husband and the wife must be thinking of the other mate continually. What can I do to brighten his or her day—to lighten his or her burden? What am I giving to my spouse?

In marriage, there needs to be an effort at 100 percent giving! If both the husband and wife think about giving to their spouse 100 percent of the time, both will be receiving 100 percent of the time. Receiving is a lot different from taking! One way leads to a vicious cycle that will end miserably, while the other way will create a beautiful circle of love, warmth, friendship and closeness. And, both the husband and the wife will be having their needs met in the relationship without either one of them taking anything.

Jesus Christ is in a marriage relationship with the Church (Ephesians 5:32). Follow His example of love, service and sacrifice for His mate. He gave everything in order to serve His mate! He was certainly not looking at what He could take from the relationship. That would not be love. Instead, He gave His own life for His mate (verse 25). He nourishes and cherishes His mate (verse 29). If you are nourishing and cherishing your mate, you will be treating him or her with respect, dignity, appreciation and honor. You will see your mate as very special and treat him or her accordingly. Too many treat their mates with disrespect—as being unimportant and unloved. Many of us need to think long and hard about what motivates our daily actions and thoughts when it comes to our own marriage relationship.

God’s Word gives us a very clear definition of godly love in 1 Corinthians 13. Let’s focus on a portion of this description of true love. As we do, think of your marriage and how you treat your mate.

Verse 4 in the Moffatt translation states, “Love is very patient, very kind. Love knows no jealousy; love makes no parade, gives itself no airs.” How are you doing so far?

Verse 5 continues, “Is never rude, never selfish, never irritated, never resentful.” How are you doing now? Is this kind of love in your marriage?

“Love is never glad when others go wrong, love is gladdened by goodness, always slow to expose, always eager to believe the best, always hopeful, always patient. Love never disappears” (verses 6-8).

Is this type of thinking prevalent in your marriage? Are you patient with one another? Do you vaunt and esteem each other rather than yourselves? Do you give each other the benefit of the doubt rather than thinking evil of each other and assuming the worst? How about being kind to one another? That means that you speak to each other nicely and with consideration. Pleasant words, pleasant tones of voice and pleasant facial expressions should be used when talking to one another. With this kind of love, your marriage will indeed bear all things and endure all things—and it will never fail!

This passage in 1 Corinthians gives us an excellent description of the kind of love we need. Understand, however, that this love is a fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22) and cannot simply be conjured up. “[T]he love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy [Spirit] which is given unto us” (Romans 5:5). Even a true Christian must cry out to God every day in prayer for more of this godly quality in order to truly love his or her mate as God intends! If you would like more information on how to receive the incomparable gift of God’s Holy Spirit, you are welcome to request our free booklet Repentance Toward God.

One Flesh

Next, realize that you and your mate are a team—one unit. God is the one who instituted marriage, and He knows best the foundation and laws concerning it. He told us that we are to become “one flesh” when we enter into the marriage union (Genesis 2:24). The Apostle Paul, in the New Testament, reiterates this fact (Ephesians 5:31).

A husband and wife are two individuals who must become “one flesh”—a cohesive unit, or team, working together in harmony. Physically, of course, a man and a woman can become one flesh through sex (1 Corinthians 6:16), but you must also strive to become one flesh emotionally and spiritually. You must be one. You must be united. You must be sharing the same hopes, dreams, aspirations and goals. Many marriages operate on the basis of “two individuals” rather than this principle of “one flesh.”

Numerous individuals ridicule their mate in front of others. Why can’t you cook like her? You don’t make enough money! Look at how fat my husband has gotten! It’s amazing what mates say to and about each other. But how many stop to think what that says about themselves? If your mate is so bad, what does that say about you? After all, you did agree to the marriage, right?

In marriage, a husband and wife rise together and they fall together. They are a team and must work together as a team. How many think of marriage in these terms? Yet God ordained that it be this way from the very beginning of mankind’s existence on Earth.

God’s instruction in the Garden of Eden included a command that the man and woman “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it …” (Genesis 1:28). This command involves marriage and family. It involves the establishment of a home. It involves caring for and rearing children. It demands that both sexes grow together and work together within God’s proven and clearly defined laws in order to be successful in fulfilling this instruction.

As with any team, there must be organization, cooperation and real effort put into it or there will be no success. Imagine a football team that did not discuss a game plan or strategy during the week preceding the game. What if it decided not to practice during the week? What if the players rarely spoke to each other and tried to avoid each other as much as possible? What if they thought, “Well, the running back might lose, but I’ll still win!”? How absurd! Everyone on the team knows that they will either succeed together or fail together, and they work diligently every day to ensure success! More husbands and wives need to think this way about their marriage.

Government

Also, what football team can succeed without someone calling the plays? This leads us to another hidden key that is absolutely required for marital success.

In American football, there are 11 men on a team working together. What if they did not discuss which play would be run? What if they all—individually—decided for themselves which play they would run without any cooperation with the other players—without anyone to make a final decision and actually call a play for everyone? Why, that would be quite a disaster! It is not too difficult to predict—with all certainty—that a team like that will end up as the loser every time.

Most people can easily see that without someone in charge to make final decisions, there is chaos and confusion. This applies to far more than football. Can you imagine a business being operated without a ceo? How about an army without a general? Why is it people can understand this principle being necessary in business or warfare, yet when it comes to running a family they are quite hostile to the idea of one person being in charge and making the final decisions? Unless you apply this vital key within your marriage, you are doomed to certain failure.

Of course, the first two hidden keys mentioned in this article factor in greatly to this key as well. The fact that someone is the head of the family and makes those final decisions should not mean that person is a tyrant or a bully. This structure and organization is all implemented to be within the boundaries of real love and within the spirit of teamwork and cooperation.

The husband is to lead his wife and family. He is to lead because God has ordained it to be that way (Ephesians 5:22-33). And it works! We have abundant proof in today’s society that human ways simply don’t work. Again, God knows His own creation. He knew millennia ago that there must be love, cooperation, teamwork and government for any marriage to succeed.

This does not mean that the wife is a second-class citizen. The wife was created to be a fitting help, or aid, to her husband (Genesis 2:18). How can she be a help to him if she is treated like a mute or never given any responsibility? Every husband should recognize what a great value a virtuous wife is to him and the family. She is worth far more than any material wealth he could ever acquire (Proverbs 31:10). Every husband should study the 31st chapter of Proverbs and realize what a blessing a virtuous wife is. Every wife should study the 31st chapter of Proverbs and realize what kind of character she needs to acquire in order to really be a fitting help for a husband. She should really desire to be this kind of helpmeet.

A husband, while he is to make the final decisions for the household, should consult his wife for her opinions. She really is his most valuable intellectual asset and can give him tremendously helpful advice. She is his “help meet” (Genesis 2:20). Seek your wife’s input. Discuss all aspects of the decision that must be made. If both the husband and the wife are seeking to obey God and striving to do what is best for each other and the family, most of the time they will agree as to what decision must be made. When an agreement can’t be reached for one reason or another, the husband must prayerfully (taking into account the input his wife has given) make a decision that he feels will best benefit his family. In such cases, it is then the wife’s responsibility to back her husband’s decision and try her best to make that decision a success.

Again, think of the football analogy. In this case, let’s think of the husband as the quarterback and the wife as the running back. The quarterback may be leaning toward calling a certain play. The running back may have some input and think another play would be best for reasons that he has seen from his unique perspective. The quarterback would be incredibly stupid to not consider the input of the running back. They can discuss it and maybe the quarterback will say, Yes, you’re right—that’s a good point. We’ll run the play you’ve suggested. Or he might say, Well, that’s a good point. However, because of these other reasons I think the best play to run would be the one I originally mentioned. Do you husbands discuss matters with your wife like this? And do you really listen and consider her input?

Now, what if the running back would get angry and say, Well, I’m not running that play. He can run that play if he wants, but I’m still going to run the one I want!? Is there any doubt what a disaster that kind of reaction would produce? Yet, how many wives react just that way when their husband makes a decision?

Regardless of the play that is run, we all should see the necessity of having someone to make the final decision as to which play is called. We should also see the absolute necessity of everyone on the team getting behind that decision and trying their best to make it a success. This is an example of a sports team, but it illustrates a godly principle.

Apply this godly form of government in your home! It is a hidden key that will cause great peace, happiness and success!

Take Action to Grow Together

It’s quite easy to sit down and read an article or a book about what to do for your marriage. It’s a completely different matter to actually TAKE ACTION. That takes work, determination, discipline! It takes communicating with your spouse. Do you love your mate enough to take action in order to change the direction you are headed? It will require real action for you and your mate to grow together rather than allowing yourselves to just passively drift apart as so many couples do.

Like Fred and Jennifer, mentioned at the beginning of this article, most marriages begin so happily. Fred and Jennifer were so happy because they had grown very close to each other. They were spending time doing things together and they were happy to do whatever the other one wanted or needed to do at the time. They were communicating and sharing themselves with each other. Even though many relationships start out this way, all too often spouses begin to grow apart over time.

Work, children, other people, pressures and stress from everyday life can begin to take up all of your time and attention. If you don’t take conscious action to grow together, you and your spouse will definitely grow apart!

A happy, productive marriage requires communication in large quantities. Communicate in a quality manner about quality subjects—giving each other your undivided attention. Talk about everything—including the more difficult subjects that you may not quickly agree on. Resolve these areas in your relationship or you are headed for real trouble. Two cannot walk together unless they are in agreement (Amos 3:3).

When there is anger or division, do not rest until you have rooted that completely out of your marriage (Ephesians 4:26). There is a popular song that says, “I just want to be mad for a while.” Don’t ever fall into that kind of reasoning! Quickly discuss the problem or you will have taken a big step toward growing apart.

If you want to continually grow together throughout your marriage, learn to enjoy the same hobbies or recreational activities. Go hiking together. Go walking together. Play tennis together. Go to the theater together. This is not to say that you must do everything together. But, let the point be made that if you and your mate are continually headed in different directions throughout the day, you are headed for disaster! If you and your mate stop doing things together, don’t be surprised if one morning you wake up to discover that you are not friends anymore. After all, don’t we all like to spend time with our friends?

What are your spouse’s needs or desires? You can grow closer together by learning and meeting each other’s needs. Relationships are built on mutual needs being fulfilled. In marriage, we must learn what our mate’s needs are and work hard to fulfill them.

Continually ask yourself what you can do to improve your marriage. What can I do to help, build and uplift my relationship with my spouse? What can I do to make this marriage grow and move forward? This has to be a conscious pattern of thinking in any marriage if a couple is to grow closer together.

These hidden keys are based upon God’s infallible Word and are vital to the success of any marriage. It takes sustained, committed effort from both husband and wife; however, even one mate making a concerted, sustained, persevering effort to apply these principles can have a decidedly positive impact on a marriage (read, for example, 1 Peter 3:1-2). Take the initiative to improve the relationship. If you apply these keys, you will be well on your way to avoiding the traps and pitfalls that many marriages fall into!

If you’d like to strengthen your marriage even more by studying beyond the subject of how marriage, please request our free booklet Why Marriage! Soon Obsolete?

Eric Holder, the attorney general, was recently interviewed about the Operation Fast and Furious debacle, which has become one of the worst government scandals in many years.

His response to criticism of that scandal was to hurl a racist bomb, worse than the scandal itself!

Let me give you a little background on Operation Fast and Furious, then I will discuss his dangerous reaction to the critics.

Here is what Joel Hilliker wrote on theTrumpet.com, Nov. 2, 2011: “Last year, Mexican law enforcement, neck-deep in a war with drug cartels, noticed a strange trend and started documenting it. The data confirmed their suspicions: An alarming number of guns turning up at violent crime scenes were being traced to gun dealers in Arizona. They talked to the agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (atf) who were assigned to Mexico, who checked into it.

“Soon the scandalous truth came out. It was so shocking that the atf agents couldn’t believe it. When it proved out, they were profoundly embarrassed about their country. They were deeply apologetic to their Mexican counterparts. They scrambled to distance themselves from what had happened. ‘I hope they [the Mexican police] understand that this was kept secret from most of the atf, including me and my colleagues in Mexico,’ said Darren Gil, the atf attaché to Mexico. …

“Between September 2009 and December 2010, U.S. authorities dumbly watched—sometimes on a live video feed in Washington—as ‘straw buyers’ patronized Phoenix-area gun stores. It’s a felony to buy weapons for someone else, but the atf knew that’s exactly what these people—a total of 20 of them—were doing. These individuals purchased an arsenal of over 2,000 assault weapons, sniper rifles, semi-automatic pistols and other deadly firearms. And frustrated atf agents were ordered to just let the weapons go as they then crossed the border into Mexico.

“Supposedly, the plan was that this flow of gun traffic would lead authorities to drug cartel honchos.” However, little or no effort was made to track the movement of the guns.

Since the operation began, one American border guard and hundreds of Mexicans have been killed with those guns!

Mexican leaders knew nothing about this massively violent crime against their country!

Now Congress is investigating this international scandal. The Republican critics have been aggressive in their questioning of Eric Holder, as they should be. They have been met with a vast cover-up, which is also a high crime.

However, it gets a lot worse!

The Holder Interview

Here is what the New York Times wrote Dec. 17, 2011, concerning an interview with the attorney general: “Mr. Holder contended that many of his … critics—not only elected Republicans but also a broader universe of conservative commentators and bloggers—were … playing ‘Washington gotcha’ games, portraying them as frequently ‘conflating things, conveniently leaving some stuff out, construing things to make it seem not quite what it was’ to paint him and other department figures in the worst possible light.

“Of that group of critics, Mr. Holder said he believed that a few—the ‘more extreme segment’—were motivated by animus against Mr. Obama and that he served as a stand-in for him. ‘This is a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him,’ he said, ‘both due to the nature of our relationship and, you know, the fact that we’re both African-American’” (emphasis added).

He is viciously accusing some elected Republicans as being racists for investigating and criticizing this scandal of far-reaching magnitude. These Republicans are supposedly motivated to do this because Eric Holder and President Obama are African-Americans.

If Eric Holder has this warped racist view of some American political leaders, what does he think of many white Americans? The big issue is, what motivates the attorney general to make this racist charge?

Mr. Obama has expressed no disagreement with what the attorney general has said and done regarding Operation Fast and Furious. Mr. Obama is responsible and should be held accountable for what his attorney general does.

The president’s silence is deafening! And extremely dangerous! He must agree with what his attorney general said.

Does his silence also indicate that he and Eric Holder were both involved in the Operation Fast and Furious scandal? If not, why such a deadly racist reaction from his attorney general?

Consequences

Racist charges against Republicans are doing frightening damage to our race relations. Unless stopped, it must lead to a racial explosion, perhaps worse than the damage of a nuclear bomb!

Of course, there is some racism in both blacks and whites, and we don’t take sides. But this is an extremely serious issue, and it’s coming from the highest officials in government!

That makes it 10,000 times worse!

The president says nothing as his attorney general builds race hatred between whites and African-Americans.

Most of the media remain silent as well, especially about Mr. Holder’s racist remark to the New York Times. Apparently, it is because they agree or fear being labeled racist. So the president and attorney general feel confident they can get away with this outrage.

Republican racism has become the battle cry of the radical left—led by the president and his attorney general! Mostly that charge is untrue. But many people are going to believe it is true and act accordingly. As the economy gets worse and people’s emotions become more heated, violent race riots are going to burst on the scene in our large cities.

Do we think such hateful racist statements have no consequences? Like little children, the radical left makes these hateful statements and doesn’t even think of the consequences—which are going to be horrendous. Bible prophecy says so, but even common sense alone should tell us that!

This is not President Obama bringing us together as he pledged to do in his presidential campaign. He is leading the way into violent divisions. And I do mean violent!

If you seriously criticize the attorney general or the president, radicals often label you racist. That means they could hang the racist charge on my group—on your group—and apparently the media would be virtually silent.

Hateful racist statements inevitably lead to violent racist acts!

I repeat, Mr. Holder’s response to critics of Operation Fast and Furious is far worse than the scandal itself! Far worse!

The Bible says that God is love. The supreme example of that love was Christ dying for all of us (John 3:16). Our politics are often filled with hatred. So we can’t call this approach Christian or biblical.

If we followed Christ’s example, we would be willing to die for our fellow man, not do violence to him!

Let’s not forget that Eric Holder is the chief law officer of America.

He would not condemn or prosecute Black Panthers for intimidating voters in the presidential election. It was clearly a constitutional crime.

Again the president remained silent about Eric Holder’s decision to not prosecute racist crimes committed by black Americans.

Our attorney general condemns some Republican critics of his Fast and Furious scandal who are just doing their job, but he won’t condemn the Black Panthers’ crime against our constitution—the law of the land!

How do Eric Holder’s words and deeds influence blacks who lean toward the Black Panthers? Or whites who lean toward the Ku Klux Klan? The race hatred is building fast.

I believe that the radical left will do almost anything to cling to power in this coming election. Will we see some violent racial turmoil begin at that time?

I believe it is very likely!

All we need is another Rodney King incident to set off race riots in our cities.

The Whole Head Is Sick

The Philadelphia Church of God doesn’t take sides. We teach God’s truth—His prophecies.

The Prophet Isaiah tells us about the terrible times just before Christ returns in the “last days” (Isaiah 2:2). His book was written specifically for this end time (Isaiah 30:1-9). “Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward. Why should ye be stricken any more? ye will revolt more and more: the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint” (Isaiah 1:4-5). This is talking mainly about the United States, Britain and the Jews in the Middle East.

“The whole head is sick.” God is saying the power structure (primarily white) that leads these nations of Israel is sick! And the “whole heart faint.” Neither the leaders nor their followers have the will or the strength to get to the roots of race riots or terrorist attacks and solve them once and for all (see Daniel 12:9; 9:13; and Leviticus 26:19). Their “heart” is so weak and unhealthy that the governmental system is about to “faint,” or collapse!

“From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment. Your country is desolate, your cities are burned with fire: your land, strangers devour it in your presence, and it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers” (Isaiah 1:6-7). “Your cities are burned”! And who does it? “Strangers [Gentiles] devour it in your presence”!

This is a terrifying passage! Because of the sin these nations of Israel—mainly America and Britain—are laden with, and because of the weakness of our leaders, we will experience desolation and burning—all at the hands of “strangers.” In other words, race riots and terrorism are going to get much worse. (If you don’t understand who the nations of Israel are, request our book The United States and Britain in Prophecy. All of our literature is free.)

More and more, racial tensions are boiling to the surface in the U.S. and Britain. In February of 2011, 50 Minnesota youths entered a store, assaulted a clerk, and looted the stock. In April, a mob of 20 entered a Washington, d.c., store, grabbed about $20,000 worth of merchandise and fled. In May, a group of New York teenagers carried out a vicious attack on a restaurant. Many reports have emerged of Chicago hoodlums assaulting people unprovoked, and the videos that surface show the attacks to be, almost without exception, black on white. In June, a group of white Mississippi youths brutally beat and killed a black man. During a Fourth of July celebration in Milwaukee, 60 young black Americans beat and robbed a small group that had been watching fireworks. Hours earlier, the same mob had robbed a convenience store, maybe two. In late July, 20 to 30 young Philadelphians beat and robbed bystanders. In August, hundreds of black youths swarmed into a Wisconsin parking lot, assaulting white fairgoers, smashing car windows, and beating passersby and police officers. The same month, across the Atlantic, Tottenham police officers shot and killed an apparently armed black man, prompting young people of all ethnicities to “demand justice” throughout London by smashing windows, torching businesses and homes, fighting police, stealing merchandise, assaulting citizens and even murdering people.

You watch: These events are going to become more and more common and destructive. Bible prophecy says so!

Remember the Los Angeles riots in May 1992? They were some of the deadliest in U.S. history: Close to 60 people died in the violence. The property damage was estimated at $1 billion. This is just one example of the destructive potential of race riots and burning. Much of that cost was goods stolen by the looters. Some 40,000 jobs were lost because of the rioting. The Los Angeles police and National Guard did virtually nothing—rewarding the rioters with stolen goods and an opportunity to commit violence—even murder! Such a lack of forceful intervention greatly encourages other angry minorities to riot elsewhere! This is the truth that almost no one wants to admit or face.

Ezekiel’s Prophecy

“A third part of thee shall die with the pestilence, and with famine shall they be consumed in the midst of thee: and a third part shall fall by the sword round about thee; and I will scatter a third part into all the winds, and I will draw out a sword after them” (Ezekiel 5:12). Remember, ancient Israel never received Ezekiel’s message. These prophecies in Ezekiel are for the end time. (Our booklet on Ezekiel fully explains these statements; request a free copy.)

Notice that pestilence is mentioned first. At one time, we thought the pestilence would be disease resulting from the famine. In this case, the pestilence is actually the leading cause of the famine! The word pestilence just means destruction or death (see the Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon). One definition of the root word is “to lay snares, to plot against, to destroy.” So this pestilence could be a plague of violence or burning—not necessarily a physical disease at all! It can be defined as a plague of violence or rioting—such as the Los Angeles riots in 1992 or the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks! Why would the first third be burned with fire (verse 2), if it refers to a disease epidemic?

The pestilence, or plague of violence, will cause many health problems that lead to famine. Sewage disposal will be disrupted. Gas lines will be broken. Jobs will be lost. Society will unravel and the collective panic will bring a stock market disaster! It will get so bad that violence and famine will take millions of lives!

The Los Angeles rioting was just a type of what is going to happen to major cities in the whole nation! It is a stark prophecy of our future! Terrorist attacks, rioting and burning are the main thrust of the pestilence mentioned in Ezekiel 5. And this rioting will spread to other Israelite nations! God will get our attention one way or another. The worse the violence and burning become, the worse the famine will get. The worse the famine becomes, the more intensive the violence will get. It becomes a vicious cycle.

The seeds of this future calamity have already been sown. The government has lost control. There is a breakdown of law and order. When the riots in Los Angeles were at their peak, government authorities asked black sports stars and other leading blacks to plead with their people to stop the rioting. There was virtually no show of governmental force. In the future, when this violence spreads, will this be our main hope for peace? How pathetic! We are getting dangerously close to social anarchy and chaos!

It was the Rodney King court case, in which white policemen were acquitted of using excessive force in arresting a black man, that triggered the L.A. violence. Since then, there have been several more highly publicized cases of police acting against minorities, particularly in large cities like Los Angeles and New York. Serious rioting in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Bradford, England, in 2001 were also sparked by racial incidents. The public outcry against a strong government response has been intense and sustained. Now, as a result, the police fear to act, even more than they have feared to in the past. Many policemen only feel secure if they do almost nothing. Other authorities also fear to act, thinking riots may be ignited in other cities. Our government is paralyzed by fear. The “whole heart” is “faint”! We no longer have control of our cities. U.S. citizens already have 200 million guns. As a result of future race riots, more guns will be sold. The people see that our government won’t protect them—and they don’t trust God to protect them either!

Many think the Rodney King affair was the only reason for the 1992 rioting. That is not so. The reaction to such a jury decision made 30 or 40 years earlier in the U.S. would still have been controlled by the police and National Guard.

Trying to negotiate peace without using some force only encourages a certain criminal element in our society to riot more. Many blacks want peace, but often they have little control of the situation themselves. After the King verdict, a caravan of blacks in L.A. were going from one area to another throwing firebombs and doing much of the burning. The verdict became their excuse for defying the law. Many black people had their own property destroyed by such criminals.

Getting to know the true God is a dominant theme in the book of Ezekiel. The people of this world have many different ideas of who and what God is. But their words and actions prove they don’t know God. They must suffer and suffer until they stop rejecting God’s message. In a few short years, Ezekiel prophesied, the whole world shall come to know God! That is where everything is leading. This world is about to know God for the first time ever. (Note such verses as Ezekiel 6:7, 10; 12:15, 20; 16:62; 34:27; 37:13-14.)

Before that happens to this world, God says His end-time very elect will send out a warning message. They will declare the book of Ezekiel in its entirety, and help lead the world to get to know the true, living God. There is nothing more thrilling than truly knowing God!

Racism is about to disappear from this planet forever!

The Anschluss was the term used to describe Nazi Germany’s annexing of Austria in 1938, the year before the world erupted into the worst war in mankind’s history. It’s rather ominous to see the term employed again in connection with a current German drive for hegemony in Europe.

Even before the “fiscal pact” to be enforced under the new eurozone treaty has been agreed, Germany is seeking to impose onerous conditions on Greece.

The virtual enslavement of Greece’s economy to Berlin/Brussels is the final initiative to colonize the Balkan Peninsula and bring it under the control of the Holy Roman elites of the EU. Greece’s capitulation to Berlin/Brussels will set the precedent for the same dictatorial regime to be enforced on the rest of the EU.

The term Balkanization is an interesting one. By definition it refers to the process of dividing a large politico/geographic region into smaller groups of states or nations. It originally applied around the turn of the 19th century to the carving up of the formerly Ottoman-ruled Balkan Peninsula into a number of small, opposing nation-states.

The process was repeated in the1990s when Germany and the Vatican’s recognition of Slovenia and Croatia as sovereign states separate from Yugoslavia stimulated the entire breakup of greater Yugoslavia ending in its virtual colonization by the German-led EU.

A valid comparison can today be made between the breakup and colonization of Yugoslavia and a similar tactic German elites are now using to virtually Balkanize the whole EU.

The instrument they are using is the forthcoming eurozone treaty that will endorse a fiscal union of top-tier states—destined to number exactly 10—and result in a second tier of nation-states enjoying lesser recognition than the 10.

On present indications, the second tier will comprise some states that willingly accede to the authority of the governing power of the 10, and others that are so economically weakened and culturally resistant to the dominating power that they will become virtually enslaved within the union. Greece risks falling into the latter category.

One observer who is quite familiar with the effects of this process is Serbian journalist Momcilo Pantelic. In a recent piece, Pantelic observed that “we have seen a flare-up between financially responsible and spendthrift countries and between the more developed and less developed members of the EU. All of this has a lot in common with the process that led to the breakup of Yugoslavia” (Politika, January 15).

He also notes the similarity between the undemocratic nature of the EU and old Yugoslavia under Marshall Tito: “The democratic deficit suggests yet another parallel: In the one-party system in Yugoslavia, leaders were not elected by universal suffrage, just like the highly placed civil servants that manage today’s EU—in spite of the fact that all of the members of the Union have multi-party systems” (emphasis added).

A third comparison Pantelic notes between the EU and Yugoslavia is that “both systems have encountered difficulties for the same reasons. Recourse to the principle of unanimity and consensus has prompted a crisis in the decision-making process which has affected the efficiency of the EU, in the same way that it undermined Yugoslavia. Neither entity has succeeded in finding the right compromise between the center and the periphery, nationalism and internationalism, internal and common policy, and between indebtedness and growth.”

With similar forces at play, the disintegration of the European Union as a complete entity is inevitable—but only after it has fully served its original purpose. That purpose was highlighted by the once “strongman of Europe,” Franz Josef Strauss, in his vision for Germany published in his book The Grand Design. In that book he noted that Germany’s unprecedented rapid return to national strength following World War ii owed much to what he described as “the great service of Dr. Adenauer”: that man winning back “two thirds of the fruits of victory” and by bringing West Germany “back to a level of international importance in a fascinatingly short time.”

The point is, Konrad Adenauer could never have done that if not for one thing: He deliberately filled positions of authority under his administration with ex-Nazis who had held on to their vision of imperial Germany dominating Europe.

That grand old observer of Germany, Harry Beckhough, saw this firsthand and records his account in his book Thinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Beckhough was in a prime position as a sounding board for Adenauer during the very time that Germany’s first postwar chancellor was engaged in this practice. This strategy of Adenauer’s guaranteed that the imperialist vision of certain German elites, codified in the Red House Report, gained traction very early in Germany’s revival after the war. It gave legs to the strategy of Franz Josef Strauss, who maintained that “it was going to be much easier for Germany to make a comeback as a member of … a European federation, than as a German Reich.” This, Strauss maintained, was “the only approach that made a comeback possible.”

Now that comeback has been well and truly accomplished, German elites are moving to the next phase of the vision of their forefathers who went largely underground to keep their dream of achieving a thousand-year Reich alive. With Germany’s comeback to global power and influence now achieved, their next step is to establish the Fourth Reich. Hence their using for the EU the same model adopted to colonize the Balkans: Create a crisis, then pose the solution—divide, conquer and dominate the resultant colonies!

The main difference between the 1990s Balkanization of Yugoslavia and the process now underway in Europe is that the former was achieved by Helmut Kohl’s deliberate provocation of hot war in the Balkan Peninsula. The latter, occurring under Angela Merkel’s mandate, is being achieved by treaty.

“Germany is not just sexy, cool Berlin. It is a vast, rigidly conservative place, and it is reaching for power.

“Europe must say no” (Star, January 27).

The reality is that only the few, like Britain, will say no. The results will not be pretty for the naysayers.

In the end, Europe will not be very dissimilar to the Balkans: It will be divided into a strata of regions, all subservient in the end to Germany both politically and economically. The unifying factor that will bind this stratified EU together will be that which has been the only means to achieve cultural unity over its history in the past. Europe is destined for a moment in time to revert to its prior religious allegiance to Rome.

Though this predestined demography of Europe will be short lived, the results will be more devastating than any previous time when the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation dominated the European continent.

Yet there is a grand hope that lies beyond that cruelly devastating seventh and final rise of the old Holy Roman Empire. It is a hope that is beyond human comprehension, and it is as sure as tomorrow’s rising sun. Believe it or not, it is the one hope for humankind’s survival, predicated upon the return of the very Savior of mankind, the living Jesus Christ!

Yet, modern Christian messages on the subject of end-time prophecy and the chronology of events leading to the return of Christ are both conflicting and confusing. It is a fact that Christians are deeply divided about how the end will come. It is no secret that Christian views on this subject span a wide range—from the laughing scoffers to militant street-corner preachers.

Many mainline Christian church leaders sit in silent embarrassment over the renewed bugaboo about end-time prophecy. It is awkward enough for them to watch evangelicals and fundamentalists engage in prophecy wars. But some church leaders find it even more humiliating to see evangelicals at odds with evangelicals and fundamentalists pointing fingers at other fundamentalists. Some church leaders and thinkers are trying to come to agreement and publish one unified message. Yet, success has eluded them. Why? The answer is a matter of history.

Before we get into the history, let’s briefly look at what is happening now.

Prophetic Controversy

Here are several major questions concerning the end under hot debate in many Christian circles. Believe it or not, one big question is: Will Christ return? Others are: Will Christ and the saints rule on the Earth for 1,000 years (known as the Millennium)? When will this millennial rule take place—prior to, or after, Christ’s return? Is there a rapture of the saints?

There are other questions—many others! Go to a Bible bookstore and take a look at Christian publications on end-time prophecy and you’ll see what we mean. Each new publication attempts to uncover the mystery behind some prophetic symbol. For example, look at all the books on the subject of the mark of the beast; you will find a wide range of conjectures as to what this is: Social Security numbers, microchip brain implants, number tattoos required by the irs. Look at all the literature trying to answer the question, just who or what is the beast discussed in Revelation 13? Answers include the United Nations, the United States, the World Council of Churches, Russia and Iraq.

Of course, all books about end-time prophetic events claim their particular message is true.

Unfortunately, what is most true is that end-time prophecy literature has become big business, and many are cashing in! The Left Behind series, a fictional account of end-time events, is one good example. Some Christian leaders feel that there may be a lot of drama in the books, but there is little Bible. Nevertheless, it is a national bestseller. And the New York Times reported that nonfiction books about prophecy increased 71 percent in the eight weeks after the 9/11 attacks compared with the previous eight weeks (Nov. 23, 2001).

Bible Bungle

Yet, despite this surge of popular interest in apocalyptic events, mainstream Christian churches continue to de-emphasize prophecy and the return of Jesus Christ. There are two main reasons.

The first reason is the impact of science—specifically the theory of evolution—on mainstream churches. Many calling themselves Christians have been educated at top secular universities that have replaced a belief in the Bible as the directly inspired Word of God with a belief in the infallibility of the scientific method, which worships human reasoning.

Scholars, even Bible scholars, have come to view the Bible as a great piece of literature with historical value and inspiration but chock full of discrepancies and contradictions, written by men caught up in the history of their times. Craig C. Hill, author of In God’s Time: The Bible and the Future, writes, “Only later, after some years of study, could I admit that the doctrine of inerrancy [the infallibility of the Bible] does a poor job of accounting for the Bible that it so ardently defends. In passage after passage, I saw that otherwise intractable problems would disappear if only I would admit that real human authors in particular historical settings with specific theological concerns had authored them. … If the Bible disappoints us, it is more because of our inappropriate expectations than because of its limitations.”

Simply put, intellectuals, heavily influenced by the rationalist and modernist movements, have relegated Jesus Christ to a historic figure who believed and taught the futuristic hopes of Israel’s ancient prophets writing during the catastrophic Assyrian and Babylonian captivities. Most Bible scholars view ancient Israel’s prophecies, as outlined in the Old Testament, as failed prophecies. Specifically targeted are the prophecies (and promises) concerning God’s covenant with David about a descendant ever ruling on his throne. Scholars view these Old Testament prophecies as a historical record of those generations’ hopes for a restored Israel, which they believe has never happened and will not happen.

Yet, the New Testament reveals that Jesus Christ referred to and quoted these prophets often. So how do Bible scholars resolve the challenge of prophecy?

Twenty-first century intellectuals reason that man has gained (evolved in) greater understanding and knowledge since post-exilic times and the first century (the period between the Jews’ return from Babylonian captivity and the birth of Christ). Many teach that Jesus Christ was a man held victim by the history of His times. Hill wrote, “Jesus lived and thought within the setting and limitations of his time.” If you read Mr. Hill’s book, you will see that essentially he is saying Christ supposedly could not see the error in the prophecies He knew and taught. Therefore the prophecies taught by a first-century man hold no meaning for today.

Mr. Hill quotes Christ’s prophecy in Mark 13: “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory” (verses 24-26), and responds, “It is not incumbent upon modern Christians to believe that stars will fall or that the Son of Man will ride on the clouds.” In a sense, he is ridiculing a literal interpretation of Christ’s use of prophecy, as if it does not hold up under modern scholarly scrutiny. Such thinking easily can create license to dismiss fundamental biblical truth.

Yet, Mr. Hill says, the ethics Jesus Christ taught are timeless and should be followed and pursued. Attempting to reconcile evolution and Christian ethics, many modern Christians believe that the ideals of Christ can be realized through increased knowledge and the advancement of science. In other words, with increased knowledge, all mankind’s social problems will just melt away. But any thinking person knows that just the reverse has been true. With our increased knowledge have come increased problems.

Ironically, predictions of a coming cataclysmic end of the world are now the subject of many scientific books. Human survival is the number-one concern in our still new 21st century. In one of the most recent books, Our Final Hour, Sir Martin Rees, Royal Society professor at Cambridge, writes, “My primary aim is … to focus on 21st-century hazards, currently less familiar, that could threaten humanity and the global environment still more.

“Some of these new threats are already upon us; others are still conjectural. Populations could be wiped out by lethal ‘engineered’ airborne viruses; human character may be changed by new techniques far more targeted and effective than the nostrums and drugs familiar today; we may even one day be threatened by rogue nanomachines that replicate catastrophically, or by superintelligent computers.”

So we see that some who are scientifically educated are recognizing the potential reality and fulfillment of biblical prophecy. For over 2,500 years Bible prophecy has shown that the question of human survival would be the number-one concern of the end times. Why is it that science must now trumpet what religious leaders should?

Prediction Affliction

Directly coupled with the influence of science, the second reason traditional churches have rejected prophecy is the frequent failure of prediction, which should be labeled false prediction.

Truly, this has been an embarrassing affliction within many religious movements. In fact, failed prediction, along with other false religious teachings, helped fuel both the rationalist and modernist movements.

Failed prediction has troubled Christianity since its inception, causing many to sit on the sidelines and scoff. Roman Catholics believed that Christ would return at the turn of the century in a.d. 1000. It didn’t happen. The date was shifted to 1033. Again, there was no Second Coming. The dates for Christ’s return have continued to shift. One of the most famous predictions came when William Miller declared that the Second Coming would occur on Oct. 22, 1844. When Christ did not return, some began to adopt new theories such as the secret Advent—but most put end-time prophecy far into the background.

It is no different today. Dates are set for Christ’s return repeatedly—but nothing happens. People become discouraged and dismayed. Reflecting the views of many church-goers, Hank Hanegraaff, president of the conservative, California-based Christian Research Institute, has stated, “People who are obsessed with end times have never learned from history. … [T]hey’ve been 100 percent wrong, 100 percent of the time” (Associated Press, Oct. 3, 2001).

A fair question is, who is wrong—the predictors, or Bible prophecy?

Should we ignore prophecy because of all the failed predictions? Absolutely not!

Jesus Christ instructed His disciples to look for signs of the end times, but not to set dates. He stated, “So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. … But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only” (Matthew 24:33, 36).

These positive affirmations from Jesus Christ should fill us with great hope. Even though God the Father is the only one who knows the date and time of Christ’s return, we are not left without clues to the approximate timing of the end. Thus we can reject statements such as this by Mr. Hill: “We do not know what the future holds. We do not know if God’s reign will commence in one week or in one billion years” (op. cit.).

God expects His people to look for and proclaim the signposts that He has given. Christ also said, “Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is” (Mark 13:33). What could be clearer? God expects us to watch world events and then take heed and pray as the day approaches.

Christ—A Prophet

One thing must be made perfectly clear. Jesus Christ viewed Himself as a prophet (Matthew 13:57). Many of the Jews also viewed Him as a prophet (Matthew 21:46). His gospel message was specifically about the future Kingdom of God (Mark 1:15). Christ was put to death for proclaiming that He was the King of that future kingdom (John 18:36-37). In Matthew 24 He gives explicit details concerning His Second Coming.

Those apostles who carried on with His ministry also conducted a prophetic ministry. The writings of Peter, Paul and John are heavily prophetic. Like Christ, all three preached about the coming Kingdom of God. In addition, Peter’s second letter states that the Church has “a more sure word of prophecy” (2 Peter 1:19). Paul’s second letter to the Church at Thessalonica specifically deals with end-time events in the Church leading up to the return of Christ (2 Thessalonians 2). Most people with even a superficial understanding of the Bible know that the Apostle John recorded the book of Revelation—the prophecy of all prophecies.

Revelation is often referred to as the “apocalypse” of John. Some view this as a mysterious book that cannot be understood. In truth, the book is the revelation of Jesus Christ given by God the Father for the Church in order to unveil the sequence of end-time events (Revelation 1:1). Our English word apocalypse is taken from the Greek word apokalupsis, which means an uncovering or revealing of something unknown.

The point is, true Christian teaching must have a focus on prophecy, especially end-time events. No one needs to be confused or in doubt about the chronology of end-time events—it is clearly spelled out for those willing to listen.

Yet, Craig C. Hill writes, “We should not assume that there is one, uniform biblical eschatology [theology concerned with the last things or end-time events]. Disagreement is not presupposed but neither is unanimity” (op. cit.).

Jesus Christ would heartily disagree. Knowing the Scriptures to have one unified message and also to be free of error and discrepancy, He stated, “The scripture cannot be broken” (John 10:35). Christ also stated, “For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled” (Matthew 5:18). According to Jesus Christ, the Bible is still very much an up-to-date book and has the only solutions for the life-threatening woes of our time.

So what is the basic problem with all these theories?

The Apostle Peter gives us the answer. He warned, “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy [Spirit]” (2 Peter 1:20-21). Let’s be honest. When we see so many opposing messages concerning the Second Coming, what we are seeing is a plague of private interpretation.

All of the effort expended on such views over the years has been misplaced. The Bible always explains itself. Mysterious prophetic symbols are explained in the Bible. Chronological events are clearly charted for those willing to avoid applying their own private interpretation to prophetic verses.

False Prophets

Now, let’s look at the historical cause of all the confusion over end-time events. There is only one way to explain all of our modern confusion about end-time prophecy and the return of Christ.

Jesus Christ warned His disciples, “Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many” (Matthew 24:4-5). Christ is clear here. From the time of His departure until His return, the world (and the Church) would be plagued with men claiming to speak for Christ and yet spreading insidious deceit. Notice that Christ also said many people would be deceived. Not just a few, but many.

Jesus warned that, immediately before His return, the number of false prophets would rise significantly. He set His disciples on alert: “For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before” (Matthew 24:24-25). The chaos within Christianity today can be directly attributed to the rise and influence of false prophets and false Christs. But it all began in the first century.

The apostles knew that false prophets and teachers would infiltrate and do harm to God’s Church. Peter stated, “But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction” (2 Peter 2:1). Paul specifically warned the ministers of the predominantly Gentile churches under his authority that not only would false teachers infiltrate the Church, but some of them would become false teachers. At a ministers conference in Ephesus, Paul sadly said, “For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them” (Acts 20:29-30). Early Church history shows that this is exactly what happened.

Before the end of the first century, the Church was not only scattered because of persecution but also ripped apart because of doctrinal division and dissension. Things became so bad that, by the time John wrote his epistles, the true people of God were being cast out of the Church by false preachers. John wrote from the island prison Patmos, “I wrote unto the church: but Diotrephes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not. Wherefore, if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words: and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbiddeth them that would, and casteth them out of the church” (3 John 9-10). Many who had fellowshiped with the apostles, evangelists and ministers were turned away from the truth and taught false doctrines and fables (2 Timothy 4:2-4).

Unfortunately, at the same time, people were turned away from the simple-to-understand truths about the end of the age and Christ’s Second Coming. The once-unified message of Christianity was fractured into multiple disagreeing voices.

Today we see the final outcome of such division. Religious deceit is reaching its apex right before our eyes.

But you need not be deceived.

You Can Know

There is hope. You can know the full truth about the fulfillment of end-time prophetic events.

Jesus Christ explained how. “At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes” (Matthew 11:25). God will reveal the truth on any Bible subject, including prophecy, to those who are willing to obey Him and follow Him like a little child would follow his parents. God also reveals to those humble people who are willing to be taught like a little child. Christ was definite that God would not reveal His truth to the vain and scholarly.

You can know that the Bible interprets its own symbols. We don’t have to be in doubt about the identity of the “beast,” or the nature of the “mark of the beast.” You can know that fulfilled prophecy is the proof of the authority of the Bible. You can know the prophetic identity of modern nations such as the United States, Britain and Germany. You can know how God has faithfully kept His promise to King David. You can know for certain that there is a descendent of David ruling on a throne of Israel as you read this article. You can know for certain that Christ and the resurrected saints will rule on this Earth for 1,000 years. You can know the proper chronology leading up to that history-making period.

Here’s how: Request our free book The United States and Britain in Prophecy by Herbert W. Armstrong. This informative book gives you the master key that will unlock your understanding of end-time prophecy. This book will make the Bible come alive for you. It will increase your faith that the Bible is the infallible and authoritative Word of God. Also, continue to read the Trumpet, which gives you the prophetic significance of the world news happening around you. Remember, there is no cost or obligation. Your subscription has been paid for you.

Sidebar: Puzzling Millennium

Differing interpretations of Bible prophecy can be wildly contradictory, leaving many to simply throw up their hands in frustration. To take one example, failed predictions have spawned multiple theories about Christ’s Second Coming.

Considerable controversy revolves around Revelation 20:4, the verse that discusses the thousand-year rule of Christ and the saints on the Earth. Here are the predominant theories.

One group, the amillennialists, believes that biblical references to the Millennium are strictly figurative and that there will be no earthly Millennium. Some believe that the millennial rule of Christ occurs in the hearts of believers. Others believe that the description of the Millennium in Revelation refers to Christ’s reign in heaven. This has been a dominant belief in mainstream Protestant churches for centuries. It is interesting to note that the Roman Catholic Church “condemned as superstition the belief in a literal, future thousand-year reign on the earth,” at the Council of Ephesus in a.d. 431 (Stanley J. Grenz, The Millennial Maze).

Another group, the premillennialists, believes that Christ’s Second Coming occurs just prior to the Millennium. Premillennialists emphasize a literal interpretation of the book of Revelation. This group believes that worldwide destruction and the return of Jesus Christ are required to save humanity and bring about a new era of peace on Earth. Most premillennialists accept the theory of a rapture of the saints.

Opposed to the premillennialists are the postmillennialists, who interpret the Bible less literally. They regard the Millennium as a thousand-year reign of Christian ideals that will end with the return of Christ. In this view, the Millennium will not start suddenly because of cataclysmic events in human history, but will come about gradually through the efforts of human beings. This group believes that through social reform and by upholding Christian ideals, the Kingdom of God will be built on Earth and then Christ will return. Christ will then defeat Satan in a final battle, as referred to in Revelation. Some postmillennialists believe the Millennium has already started.

So which view is correct? All claim to be true. You need to prove these truths for yourself from your own Bible! That is where the real, positive, sensible answers can be found. The Wonderful World Tomorrow—What It Will Be Like, by Herbert W. Armstrong, challenges you to look into the theories and distinguish truth from error. Request your free copy of this book to aid you in this fascinating study.

Experts report that schoolchildren are increasingly showing signs of addiction traditionally exhibited by drug abusers: Symptoms such as obsessive and compulsive urges to constantly be online, fixations with virtual worlds, and withdrawal from real-life relationships with family and friends. Those who are addicted often get defensive about their usage, yet have trouble limiting how much time they spend on the activity. They often get distracted and have difficulty completing tasks. They “lose” track of time.

Does that sound like any children you know? Do they get angry when you tell them to put away the iPhone and eat their dinner?

“Far too many children, and particularly boys, become quite addicted to computer use,” says Barnaby Lenon, chairman of the Independent Schools Council. It is damaging their long-term development—especially their conversational ability and literacy.

Lenon warns that parents need to tightly control children’s access to computers and televisions, and that computer usage should be strictly limited to only one hour a day for children aged up to 12 and a maximum of two hours for older pupils.

Parents should refuse to buy their children smartphones until they are at least 15, he says. The dangers are just too great.

The warning follows an August 2011 study that found that children ages 8 to 17 are more likely to have a mobile phone or computer in the home than a book. The researchers said that the most likely forms of reading for children were text messages, followed by e-mails and social networking.

The most common form of reading is now text messaging?!

Just go to any school that allows students to bring phones. They are everywhere. In the United Kingdom, almost 9 in 10 students carry a mobile phone (compared to fewer than three quarters who say they have their own books in the home), according to the National Literacy Trust.

And in case you are still living in the last decade, phones today go way beyond dial and talk. They are a very real, very visual doorway from Joe’s website to your child’s mind. You know Joe? Conspiracy theorist, homegrown terrorist, bomb-making, Columbine-celebrating, pornography-distributing, cop-killing, gangsta wannabe, self-mutilating, Satan-worshiping, general all-around-fun-guy Joe? Yes, that Joe! The one you unwittingly introduced your 9-year-old daughter to when you bought her the latest smartphone to take to school so she could call you if she ever got herself into trouble.

And unlike the desktop at home, which you can keep an eye on, the Internet-exploring smartphone, iPad, or laptop in your child’s backpack can be a 24-hour open door into your child or teenager’s impressionable mind.

The average age at which children watch their first pornography is now just 11, according to Australian researchers Maree Crabbe and David Corlett. “Porn is our most prominent sex educator,” they said. It is the milieu in which “young people are understanding and experience sex” nowadays.

According to the study, pornography is becoming a normal part of life for many young people. “Growing up watching porn—that’s sort of where you get your grasp of what’s normal and what’s not,” said one teenage boy. “A lot of what I know about sex is because of porn,” said another.

And when do you think these youths are watching porn? At home on the centrally located desk computer? Or on the phone they carry in their pocket, or their friend’s iPad after school?

Porn is just as addictive as cocaine or heroin. Just one exposure may follow them for the rest of their lives, affecting their relationships, marriages, character development, mental health and so much more.

Do you understand the risks involved?

Parents: We are living in a different world than even a couple of years ago. Technology is with us 24/7. It is a virtually inescapable and in many cases necessary part of our lives.

But know this: You must control it—or it will control you and your family.

Modern technology, including Internet connectivity, is an awesome tool, but it isn’t one that you should turn loose on your children without adequate training and protection. You wouldn’t throw your car keys at your 15-year-old without teaching him to drive. Giving him a smartphone or similar technology is like throwing him the keys to joy ride on the potentially much more dangerous Internet superhighway. He will get in an accident. It could be deadly. And you will be responsible.

As parents, it is our job to control what is in our homes and what our children are doing. We need to teach our children how to handle the technology we give them. We have to make sure that its use is supplementing, not hindering, child development. And we need to put safeguards in place until they are ready to head out on their own.

If your children already have an addiction problem, take action immediately, before it gets worse. Throw out the video games. Replace the smartphone with a basic calling-only version. Monitor computer usage. If necessary, detechnologize your family. Don’t wait for a “crash” to happen.

Your children may not like you for it now. They may kick and scream and even say they hate you. Detoxification is never easy. But they will love you for it later!

We took a seat in the waiting area. Apparently a lot of other people were several steps ahead of me. The iPhones and iPads were everywhere.

Okay, I admit. I don’t get out as much as I should. But I was shocked by how many people have smartphones. I mean, not just the teenagers, and the 20- and 30-somethings, but 40-somethings on up and elementary school kids on down.

Honestly, I thought that waiting room was a miniature Bizzaro World. Aren’t restaurants places where people come to eat and talk to each other? To let someone else do the cooking so they can relax and communicate with each other over a good meal? We sat on a bench across from a family of four. Nicely dressed. Looked successful. Two elementary school children. And not a single word spoken. Just silent tapping and touching of screens. Not one of them appeared to be happy.

Another family of four trudged past and dropped down into some chairs to the left. Out came the iPhones. Down went the eyes. Closed went the mouths. Silence. Then a family of three. They chose to remain standing while they used theirs.

It was then that it hit me. It wasn’t all these people who were weird. It was me. We were the odd ones out. I could sense the techies’ surprise when they glimpsed my family and I on the periphery of their screens. Poor disconnected kids. So deprived. Those parents should be ashamed. That boy must be 4 years old already. Why doesn’t he have an iPad yet?

I counted up the techno junkies. Besides us, there were 18 others, 15 of whom were using various electronic devices. But wait. Who’s that down in the corner? Someone is reading a newspaper. Woo-hoo! Where did she find that? I felt like running over to congratulate her. But less than a minute later out popped the phone so supposedly she can text or tweet or update her page or just thumb through her various screens.

Incidentally, dinner was great. Yet, once again we noticed just how attached people are to their smartphones. This time, it was a table of college-age girls next to us. I thought the point of a night out with friends was to spend time with your friends. Judging from the prolific phone usage, these girls obviously had many other things going on at the same time.

The world is changed. With handheld devices, you never have to be alone. Last year, American teens sent on average more than 3,000 text messages each per month. You can be connected to your friends and family, or any number of strangers, via Internet 24 hours a day, no matter where you are.

Yet why is it then that so many people feel alone?

According to Antony Kidman, author of the book Staying Sane in the Fast Lane, technology obsession is radically changing relationships—and severely affecting mental health. iPhones, iPads and other electronic devices are directly responsible for both a rise of anxiety and depression, and a rapid breakdown in family relations, he says.

Technology is pushing family members apart into their own individual “techno-cocoons,” says Kidman. Technology is leading families into living very separate lives.

People are linked through bits and bytes, but are lonesomely starved of meaningful, deep, undivided communication.

Consider your own situation. How easy is it to come home after work and instead of giving your spouse some attention, or playing with the children, you instead check the news? Do you feel lost/hungry/scared/insecure when you don’t have a fully charged smartphone on your person? Maybe it does only take you 30 seconds to respond to a text message, but do you really have to keep checking your phone every five minutes? And when you stop a conversation to answer every ping of an incoming message, even if it only takes 10 seconds, you’ve already lost the moment.

How about giving your family as much time as you give your phone? The accumulation of those 30 seconds isn’t just measured in hours or even whole months, but in pages—and chapters—out of your family’s lives.

During the 30 seconds you spent checking your stock quotes or sports scores, you missed your budding sports star of a 3-year-old excitedly sprint into the restaurant because the whole family was going out to dinner together for his favorite food. Had you not told your daughter to “just wait another minute” for the third time in as many minutes (while you finished updating your profile on Facebook), you might have noticed that she really wanted to talk to you about something important. Maybe that 30 seconds—while you waited for your food—held the potential to change her life forever.

Are the lost moments worth it?

My wife mentioned that when she takes our son to gymnastics, most of the other moms barely even watch their children. The only time they seem to look up from their devices is if their child has to go to the bathroom or the teacher brings their child out for misbehavior. After half a year of classes, most parents still don’t know the names of the other children in their child’s class. Parents: Don’t you want to be involved with your children? Aren’t you interested in how they’re progressing; what they are struggling with, where they excel?

At the end of the day, is it the hours you spent reading old text messages, checking your day planner for the 10th time, or surfing the Web that are really fulfilling? No one is going to care deeply about how many Twitter followers or Facebook “friends” you once had—not even you. What really matters is your family and your actual relationships.

Smart devices might be some of the greatest inventions of all time. They allow instant access to information. If used correctly, they can help with scheduling, time management and many other things. They can even connect you to people who you would never be able to communicate with in person because of distance.

But sadly, these little smart devices that can make our lives so much easier and so much more stimulated can also become the most perfect little destroyers of real, human, flesh-and-blood, vibrant and alive, heartfelt and sincere communication.

It is reported that J. Paul Getty, supposedly one of the richest men to ever live, once said that he would happily give all his wealth in exchange for a happy marriage. How many other people have come to the end of their lives and felt that they too would happily give it all up if they could just go back and praise the first feeble steps their daughter took (but they missed because they were too busy to notice)? Or if they could just go back and see the look on their son’s face when he hit his first home run (but they missed because of the glare on their screen)? Or if they could take more time to notice from the beginning that their teenager was being verbally bullied day in and day out through her Internet phone (and could have changed their whole high school experience)?

Don’t be one of those people who wake up at the end of their life and realize they have missed the best and most important parts of it. Take the time now to reconnect in a real, personal, in-your-face way with your family before it is too late. It is the smartest move you will ever make.

“We were shocked by the number of young people we spoke to who had no hopes or dreams for their future,” wrote the chairman of the Riots Communities and Victims Panel, Darra Singh, in the report’s Foreword. There is a “collective pessimism about the future,” he wrote.

Singh wrote that “there was no single cause of the riots and there is no single solution,” and warned that the riots could “quite possibly” happen again.

“The fact that many people abused society’s moral and legal codes when the opportunity arose paints a disturbing picture,” states the report.

“Most disturbing to us was a widespread feeling that some rioters had no hope and nothing to lose,” it says.

The next phase of the panel’s research will focus on six areas, the first of which is hopelessness. “The absence of hopes and dreams amongst many we spoke to is a danger for society,” the report says. “We need young people who are able to improve their education, get a job that fulfills their ambitions and allows them to achieve their potential. We were concerned at the level of despondency and anxiety amongst the young in particular.”

Other areas of investigation included building resilience in young people to combat this hopelessness, and how the government can combat rioting by raising the standard of parenting.

The book of Proverbs states, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” This is merely a stronger way of saying, “The absence of hopes and dreams … is a danger for society.”

The second part of that proverb is: “but he that keeps the law, happy is he.” Where there is vision and hope, there is law and happiness. Lack of vision causes lawlessness, and lawlessness causes destruction.

The inquiry found that hope of a job, hope of an education, hope of a better future for their child, was enough to keep someone from rioting. But too many had no hope, no goals and no ambition. With no hope, a person sees no reason to keep the law. Until Britain is given that vision, the riots will get worse.

A major source of vision and law is the family. Broken families leave youth with no hope and no standards.

As things look more hopeless, the rioting will only get worse. The solution is beyond Britain’s government. It is more than fixing youth unemployment. Families must be rebuilt. Children must be given real hope for the future. And they must be taught to respect the law from an early age.

For more information on Britain’s crumbling society, and the great hope there is for Britain, see our article “Why London Went Up in Flames.”