Propaganda

Martin Collins, acknowledging that hardships are a normal part of life, perhaps leading us to despair that God has abandoned us, focuses our attention on a segment of the Apostle Paul's life (recorded in Acts 23-26) when he could have had these depressing thoughts, but did not. Paradoxically, when God seems to be silent, He is feverishly at work micro-managing what otherwise appears as insignificant details. When forty Zealots took an oath conspiring with the Sanhedrin to take the life of Paul, it looked as though he was as good as dead. But God intervened on Paul's behalf to fulfill His purpose. Because of this intervention, an army of armed guards transported Paul out of physical danger, thereby unwittingly facilitating an opportunity for Paul to preach the Gospel to three Roman leaders while he was a prisoner. Characteristically, God uses small things to accomplish His purpose, as He does by calling the base and foolish of the world to confound the wise. Despite the fallacious charges made against Paul by his many enemies, God enabled him to refute the charges with the truth. Just as all the stratagems arrayed against Paul eventually crumbled, the stratagems conspiring against God's called-out ones will also come to nothing. We need to remember that, during those times we fail to see God's hand, He is hard at work intervening on our behalf.

Richard Ritenbaugh, challenging the 'progressive' agitators' demand that plastic straws be banned, examines the charge that plastic straws massively destroy wildlife and fill our oceans with trash. Objective analysis of land- and ocean-based repositories of debris consistently show the presence of plastic straws to be statistically insignificant. The great Pacific garbage patch, twice the size of the state of Texas and nine feet deep, is actually composed of discarded fishing nets, floats, traps, crates, junk from the Japanese Tsunami, and industrial waste by the East. Plastic straws contributed virtually nothing to this garbage pile. Yet legislators in California, Canada, and Great Britain seek to criminalize plastic straws (with the California Legislature assigning jail time for dispensing them in restaurants), while encouraging the use of adult "sippy cups" which, ironically, exacerbates the real pollution problem. The environmentalist warriors do not really want to "save the planet" so much as they want to promote group-think. This latest example of governmental overreach should be the final straw of this nonsensical narrative involving political correctness.

Martin Collins, exposing the insidious and unrelenting vaccine propaganda emanating from the pharmaceutical industry, which seems to care more about profits than public health, reviews the overwhelming evidence that autism rates are highest in populations where mandatory vaccination is enforced. Flu vaccines have high concentrations of many harmful ingredients. Dr. Anthony Mawson, in a 2017 study, found that vaccinated individuals were decidedly more susceptible to rhinitis, eczema, attention disorders, a decrease in learning ability, and pneumonia. The Salzburg study blamed vaccines for the increase of asthma, dermatitis, diphtheria, whooping cough, autism, and attention deficit hyperactive disorder. In 2016, 22,000 nurses nationwide refused vaccination as a result of the government's mandatory vaccine requirements. None of this evidence stopped the State of California from enacting legislation which makes vaccination compulsory over an extremely wide spectrum of contexts, thereby taking the position that children belong to the state rather than to God.

John Ritenbaugh, asking us if we recognize truths, especially in the current milieu when a high percentage of mainstream media has become infected with a sinister, politically driven fake news narrative, points out that God's Word is the only verifiable source of legitimate truth. The cynicism of Pontius Pilate concerning the nature of truth stemmed from obsequious appeals on the part of self-serving Roman and Jewish citizens for a 'favorable' specific legal decision. Pilate realized that people can easily twist truth from half-truths to bald-faced lies. Public media today, driven as it is by prejudicial opinions shaped by Satan, is no different. Consequently, because of its contamination with political bias and hatred toward anything marginally godly, we are unable to trust the mainstream media. Sheryl Atkinson, whose exposé of the 'progressive' media describes how biased journalists destroyed the reputation of Robert Bork and nearly succeeded in destroying the reputation of Clarence Thomas, cautions that most media continue to manipulate a hate-filled narrative, attempting to shape public opinion and the outcome of elections. The fake news of the mainstream media follows in the tradition of Queen Jezebel, who used false testimony to destroy Naboth and steal his property.

David Maas, citing scriptures indicating that we become what we think about all day long, and that ruminating on carnal thoughts brings death, revisits the topic of meditation, a powerful antidote in combatting negative thinking, a behavior which we are all prone to. When we look at the Hebrew etymology of the Hebrew word, Hagah (which means to moan, growl, utter, or speak softly),one outstanding mnemonic comes into play, namely the letter Gimel, signifying a camel. Famously, camels are ruminants, which means they "chew the cud," an action which resembles pondering over a deep thought. God defines those ruminants which chew their cud and have split hoofs as "clean." Their four-compartment stomachs enable them to purge out all the impurities from their food. Their ruminating action provides a powerful analogy for meditating or digesting thoughts. The word ruminate suggests a metaphor illustrating how one can thoroughly purify the thoughts in our nervous system, enabling us to ingest, assimilate and digest the bread of life, and the manna from heaven, namely the word of God, which His called-out ones have been given a lifetime to digest.

Richard Ritenbaugh, reviewing Charles Hughes Smith's findings that the entire status quo is a fraud, reiterates that the financial system, the political system, national defense, the healthcare system, higher education, mainstream corporate media, and culture are all hopelessly corrupt. Science fiction writer, Theodore Sturgeon, claims that 90% of everything is pure garbage, prompting economist Gary North to proclaim that we have a responsibility to salvage the 10% that has not yet deteriorated. The vast majority of the current $20 trillion-dollar national debt stems from fraud. Because histories are usually written from the viewpoint of the victors (that is, the cultural survivors), we can never be sure about the extent of fraud and prevarication in historical narratives from previous civilizations. Nothing has changed over time, as is reflected in the contents of the missing 28 pages of the 911 Commission report, suggesting nefarious Saudi involvement in the World Trade Center attack. In this cesspool of prevarication, we have received a life preserver from Jesus Christ, receiving sanctification in His Truth, protecting us from curses. Accepting and living in God's truth has the inexorable effect of separating us from the world. As we continue to feast on the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, we worship God in spirit and truth, a worship which centers around a spiritual relationship with God rather than a physical place. God is not tethered to any geographical place as was believed by the woman at the well and Naaman the military leader; God is omnipresent and omniscient. Eternal life is to know the Father and the Son. God wants a living relationship, like He enjoyed with Abraham, who was the friend of God. We should continually live and think on the same wavelength as God does, maintaining a close relationship with Him as we continue in the sanctification process. The book of John throughout characterizes Jesus as Truth, our standard and model of true living, the vine to which we must cling, faithfu

Richard T. Ritenbaugh:  The goings-on in this world constantly remind me why a certain quotation from the late novelist Michael Crichton, author of The Andromeda Strain, Timeline, The Great Train Robbery, State of Fear, and many other bestselling books, resonates so much. ...

John Ritenbaugh, reflecting on Psalm 50:21-22, states that the new paradigm or outcome-based religion has reconfigured God into something that He is not, something far inferior to God's nature, leading to degenerate behavior on the part of the worshiper, promoting the shameless "feel good" indulgence of the flesh, exalting carnality and human nature while shamelessly rejecting God's truth. Outcome based religion promotes death because it rejects God's correction. Its thinking is that God is altogether like us. Outcome based religion exalts numerical growth and feeling good over the truth of God, promoting the use of modern psychology and general systems theories over biblical doctrine. This religion, like historical Gnosticism, uses familiar religious terminology, but with totally different meanings or points of reference. The foundational sin of the purpose driven church is idolatry, rejecting any doctrine which threatens their growth or unity. This practice seems right to them, but we must remember that Satan's modus operandi is based on deception. Much of the thrust of their approach is to appeal to feelings. Satan‚s pattern of destruction consists of infiltration from within and distraction from without.

Richard Ritenbaugh continues the theme of the difficulty we have in this age to distinguish truth from error. Satan's biggest targets for disinformation are God's called-out ones. As the apostles turned the world upside down by the Gospel, Satan's implanted tares immediately began to spread disinformation—so much so that the 'Christian' church of the second century bore little resemblance to the church Christ founded. Who, then, are His true disciples? They may be identified by: 1) being led by God's Spirit dwelling within, causing them to yield to God's will; 2) behaving in love toward friend and foe; 3) abiding perpetually in God's Word (not merely agreeing with, but actually living the teaching, coming to know the truth by practical experience; and 4) bearing much spiritual fruit.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh:  The news story of the day focuses on the funeral (in Cairo, Egypt, his city of birth) and burial (in Ramallah, West Bank, "Palestine") of Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman Yasser Arafat, 75, who died of an unmentioned disease on Thursday in a Paris hospital. ...

John Ritenbaugh, focusing upon an official poll administered by the Vatican, reveals that throughout the so-called Christian world, militant atheism may be decreasing, but religious indifference (or prudent agnosticism) is also increasing at even a more dramatic rate. People in both Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions feel smugly at liberty to reject major biblical doctrines, manufacturing their own private religions in their wake. If we refuse to follow Jesus' example (the Way- the system of doctrines once delivered to the saints), we will automatically lose the precious faith required for salvation. We need to (in Jude's admonition) ardently fight to hang on to the Way entrusted to us by God ' a way hated and vilified by the world. Christians have been increasingly stereotyped, marginalized, vilified, criminalized and persecuted by the political left, academia, and the left-dominated media. God will use persecution and tribulation to both purify and punish.

John Ritenbaugh, taking both a backward and a forward look at the meaning of the Feast of Tabernacles, poses the question, "What is so bad about Babylon?" The Babylonian system (code name for the world's political, religious, economic, and cultural systems) poses a menacing danger to God's people, but God wants us to work out His plan within the Babylonian system- obligating us to struggle against its ever-pervasive sensual pulls, a system that had its dim beginnings with the dictatorial, violent, and enslaving rule of Nimrod—the first celebrity rebel of note—a hunter, enslaver, and destroyer of men. The significance of the tower of Babel reflects Satan's overweening pride and hubris (a triumph of human reasoning) to displace God. What man does through his clever inventiveness and creativity will not outlast God's eternal works. If men do not become aligned with God's thoughts, their grandiose plans will not succeed. Coming out of Babylon will undoubtedly require suffering, pain, and self denial, but the sacrifice will pay immense spiritual dividends.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh:  The "big news" of the past week or so has been the revelation that a major plank in President Bush's reasons for invading Iraq to liberate its citizens from its dictator, Saddam Hussein, was based on a forgery. ...

Richard T. Ritenbaugh:  One of the most conspicuous features of the now-two-week-old war in Iraq is the flood of information that has poured from Baghdad, Washington, London, Qatar, New York City, and various points in between. ...

Richard T. Ritenbaugh:  Last night, I viewed a disturbing video called War of Images. ...

John Ritenbaugh focuses upon Abraham's example of going to war. Even though God does not glorify war, there are spiritual parallels we can learn from it, including discipline and self-sacrifice. Abraham was willing to lay down his life to rescue his nephew Lot. His sacrifice shows us what kind of effort and sacrifice is needed to wage spiritual war, getting the Gospel out despite the militant resistance of Satan and his demons. They are masters of keeping us off balance, keeping the pressure on us, dogging our heels, trying to make us miss the mark, and preventing us from rescuing others held captive. Anyone involved in the work of God is in a spiritual war, often experiencing enervation and temptation to compromise. God provides faith and energy in those occasions to overcome and endure.

John Ritenbaugh, expounding upon the sixth commandment, focuses upon the curious aberration of 'holy wars,' killing in the name of religion, or the motivation for waging 'just' wars. God has never given mankind the prerogative to determine whether war is just or not. Because God has supreme sovereignty and authority over all government, we are subject to (the sanctions and penalties of) all governmental authority, but are obligated to obey the highest authority- namely God Almighty. God promised the children of Israel that if they would obey Him, He would fight their battles for them- driving their enemies out. Ancient Israel's choice to go to war was not sanctioned by God. Likewise, God has promised to protect us upon the condition of our unconditional obedience to our covenant with Him. We have the responsibility to trust God unconditionally.