SECTION 1: PURSUING CHRIST-CENTERED SOCIAL JUSTICE

The present social justice movement is preparing the poor of the earth to receive the Antichrist.

 His words shook me to the core of my being and left me perplexed as I did not expect Him to say what He said; neither did I even see the truth of what He spoke until I heard it from heaven. At first I was actually offended by that statement; something in my spirit rose up and said, “What? How could helping the poor set them up for Satan worship?” But I could not deny the fact that it was the voice of the Lord.

Afterwards I couldn’t stop thinking about Revelation chapter 13; the Holy Spirit was impressing it upon my heart.  When I read this chapter, I noticed for the first time that John specifically declared that all would take the mark of the beast, including the poor.

That was the beginning of my understanding that a false justice movement is emerging in the earth that will seek to serve the poor, but will end up seducing them with lies and leading them into eternal ruin. Multitudes of the poor of the earth will bend the knee before a demonized man, and worship the devil.  The very movement that claims to be motivated by compassion to serve and liberate the poor is, in fact, preparing them to be swept up into the harlot religion and receive the Antichrist, thus leading them into eternal damnation.

My own personal journey started years earlier when I began to explore various options and pursue different ideas, none of which have materialized.  One such idea was when Esther, my wife, and I moved to Kansas City in 1998: we had it in our hearts to live among the poor in community with a group of young adults.  As soon as we arrived in Kansas City we began looking for houses but the Holy Spirit made it very clear that He did not want us to pursue that dream.  When the door to live among the poor was closed and another idea was shut down, my heart was filled with frustration and I even began to wonder if what was in our heart was real.

Through a series of events, Jesus led Esther and I to become part of the International House Of Prayer in a full-time capacity. Early in our involvement the Lord began to show us that it was in the context of night and day prayer that our hearts would be safe in relation to His purpose for justice.  Though we knew that the Lord was showing us this we didn’t really understand what night and day prayer had to do with social justice or how they were even related. We thought that prayer was simply what you did to get revival.  We now understand that night and day prayer is the seed-bed for global justice.  The message and revelation of justice must be planted, watered and nurtured in the context of intercession. Luke 18:1-8 is the passage that connects the call to persistent night and day prayer with the release of God’s spiritual and social justice that accompanies His return to the earth.  So the prayer movement is, at its foundation, a justice movement.

However, there are two justice movements emerging in the earth.  One is a false movement that has been growing over the last hundred years, rooted in humanism and undermining the apostolic revelation of Jesus.  This false movement will be fully manifest in the one-world religion that the Bible calls the harlot of Babylon. It will be a counterfeit forerunner movement for the Antichrist; by wearing down people’s ability to discern right from wrong and by undermining the true gospel, the harlot Babylon will leave them susceptible to full-blown Satan worship under the leadership of the Antichrist.

It is important to realize that Satan worship does not spring up overnight.  It is the product of years of baby steps away from truth and into deception, one tiny compromise at a time, seeming very harmless at first. The global consciousness of the nations is becoming increasingly more awakened to humanitarian needs through the real lessons of justice that have been learned throughout history.  Humanity has made progress by fighting oppression of the poor, addressing racism, defeating totalitarian governments, resisting anti-Semitism, and confronting violent expressions of religious fundamentalism. The current social justice movement will continue to address these issues. 
However, while the list of injustices addressed by secular movements grows steadily more comprehensive, the core issue of justice from heaven’s vantage point is entirely neglected. The face of evil is wearing the mask of “good” in that the issues are being addressed but the apostolic requirement of faith in Christ is completely ignored.  The false justice movement will mature into a harlot religion with the outward appearance of good  in its actions, but its leaders and followers will have rage against Christ and His ways in their inner-man.

The good news is that while there is a false justice movement, the Holy Spirit is raising up the end-time justice prayer movement, the true forerunner movement preparing the nations for the second coming of Jesus to the earth. I believe the night and day prayer movement for justice prophesied in Luke 18:1-8 relates to justice and is prophesied and expounded on in the prophecies of Isaiah 60-66 which Jesus will establish after He returns to the earth and sets up His kingdom. 

We are living in a critical hour of history, in the beginnings of a transitional generation marked by the emergence of a global prayer movement.  More than 2500 years ago, the prophet Isaiah prophesied that in the generation in which the Lord would return, that the Holy Spirit would raise up prophetic intercessors who would give themselves to night and day prayer contending for the fullness of God’s justice to be manifest in the earth.   While there will be people of every age in this movement, it will primarily be a young adult movement.

There is a growing awareness of justice in our nation, especially among young adults and on the college and university campuses of America.  There is an increased concern for the physical well-being of humans, i.e. world hunger, refugee camps, human trafficking, children of war in Africa, oppression of women, abortion and other forms of human rights.  There are many in the entertainment world, in music, TV and the movie industry, who are leading the way by raising awareness of these issues.  The heightened awareness of the justice issues is itself a sign of the times. It is an indicator that the Lord is preparing the nations for the speedy justice that will accompany His return in response to a global night and day prayer movement.

Another sign pointing towards an emerging global prayer movement is the rapid increase of and insatiable desire for worship, intercession and intimate communion with the Trinity across the nations of the earth.  This global revolution of prayer is a movement birthed from above that will culminate in the return of Jesus to this earth.  He is coming to establish His throne of glory in Jerusalem as the global seat of government from which He will reign during the Millennium, the 1000-year reign of Christ on earth, and on into eternity.

The end-time justice prayer movement will produce a praying church that proclaims the coming of Jesus with a forerunner anointing, like John the Baptist did. The Church will walk in a mature bridal identity and in full unity with the Spirit, crying out for Jesus to come back and fully manifest the justice of God in every sphere and arena of life.   The subject of justice lies at the very core of the apostolic gospel proclaimed by the Son of God and the apostles of the early church.  There is a vision in the heart of the Father to establish justice in the earth; it is central to the first and second comings of Jesus Christ.

Jesus will use the great tribulation to expose the real nature of the counterfeit justice movement.  The primary issue before the Church today is the apostolic revelation of Jesus Christ; it is not about a new humanitarian method or program, but the preaching of the apostolic gospel with power, through prayer and proclamation.  In this hour we must give ourselves to the revelation of who Jesus is: in His personality, in His power, and in His purpose.  What is before the church as it relates to the subject of justice is the apostolic ministry of intercession, giving ourselves to night and day prayer;  the preaching of the gospel of the kingdom through the revelation of Christ;  contending for apostolic power where the message is proclaimed; and confirmation by signs and wonders that flow  out of apostolic lifestyles of holiness and righteousness.   The issue of apostolic power to the poor and oppressed is absolutely vital; they need a message in this hour that will raise them out of the ash heaps of their personal depravity as well as their individual and corporate oppression, according to the gospel of Jesus Christ as proclaimed by the apostles and prophets of old.  The justice movement as it exists right now has many seductive trappings; much of it is devoid of the preaching of the true gospel of Christ, resulting in social activism with a different gospel and a different Jesus from that which was declared to us by the apostles.   This void of truth, if not filled with the love of truth, is causing (and will continue to cause) many to be seduced by the message of a different Jesus and different gospel, fueled by doctrines of demons.               

For the last 15 years, since I was in college, I have been on a personal journey with the Lord related to the subject of justice and the poor.   Ironically, my awareness was stirred by a group of students, who had unorthodox ideas about the Word of God and its message to the world and the Church. In this context, my spirit was alerted to the subject of justice in the Word of God.  As I engaged my peers in dialogue, I found myself disagreeing with them.  They had many ideas about the knowledge of God, justice and morality based on lies rooted in humanism, devoid of the truth of Jesus Christ, but they were also quoting Bible verses. As I began to consider various verses, passages and chapters in context, the Lord arrested my heart: so began my journey related to justice and the poor.  

One reason why the present social justice movement will prepare the poor for the Antichrist is that the awareness of justice is fueled by human sentiment and an earthbound perspective, rather than being birthed from above, rooted in the mystery of God’s divine counsel.  Not only is the subject of justice fueled by much human sentiment, but it is also shaped mostly by political and economic ideals such as capitalism, socialism, communism, etc, and false theological ideals of liberal theology, social gospel, liberation theology etc.  Most troubling of all are the false ideas about Jesus, denying the deity of Christ, that are emerging in the earth in the context of the pursuit of justice.  The message of justice and social action must be fueled by the truth of the person and gospel of Christ.  

There is deep and holy concern in God’s heart about injustice; His heart is saddened and broken.  Justice and righteousness are fundamental to the government of God.  Isaiah 59:15 states that the Lord saw the injustices in the earth and His holy heart was displeased.  God beholds the decline in actions of righteousness, the lowering of moral and ethical behaviors, the lack of truth, equity and integrity and it breaks His heart.   God has profound feelings–deep, holy and righteous emotions–on the issue of justice. 

In Isaiah’s day there was a greater crisis than the injustices of his society: there was not one intercessor qualified to establish justice in the earth.  The prophet declares that God would eventually become the very intercessor that He was looking for – Jesus.  In the same way, there is a crisis of eternal consequences: an almost complete absence of the preaching and apostolic revelation of Jesus Christ.   There is emerging in the earth a false justice movement that is devoid of the apostolic revelation of Jesus Christ; this is creating a context for the emergence of false messengers.

There are movements, both within the religious and the entertainment worlds, that are suggesting we should lay aside our religious and theological differences and unite around the one mandate held in common by many religions, i.e. the common good of humanity, especially the poor.  These suggestions are no different than implying that Jesus would sit around a table with demons  suggesting heaven and hell lay aside their differences for the sake of peace on earth and good will to men.  This notion that all religions, including Christianity, come together for dialogue is suggesting that Christ is conciliatory towards the very powers of darkness He came to defeat and destroy.   The Holy Spirit is raising up messengers who will speak up for the apostolic and biblical proclamation of the Son of God, the Just One. Christ Jesus and His purposes are the real theme of prophetic preaching.  Though the praying forerunner church is to stand against the various issues of social injustice and participate in the establishment of justice in the earth (Mt. 5:13-16), the issue that will separate us from all other religions, groups and political ideologies is our stance for Jesus: who He is and what His purposes are.

Many injustices were committed by the ancient Roman Empire around the time of the early church, yet the apostles’ primary burden was the proclamation of the unsearchable riches of the Just One.   In this hour there is a great need for the apostolic preaching of the beauty and the splendor of the man Christ Jesus.   As in the days of Samuel, the word of the Lord is rare today, and there is little mention of the worth of Christ’s glory and His glorious purpose.  The good news is that we are approaching an hour in history when the Father is about to release His heart’s delight in an eschatological unveiling of the beauty of Jesus Christ.   The Father, through the operation of the Holy Spirit, longs to make Jesus known by convicting the world of sin, righteousness and judgment to come, that they may turn to the splendor of the man Christ Jesus.  So, whilst there is a growing awakening for justice in the church, and, taking into account that justice is central to God’s government, there is yet a more pressing issue that the Holy Spirit is putting before us in this hour: “Who do you say that I am?”   Grappling with this question will shift the church from being purely activist to becoming powerfully apostolic, and from being political to becoming prophetic.  The revelation and proclamation of Christ is foremost. 

In the days when Jesus came to the earth the first time, He came during one of the most insidious and decadent periods in human history – the reign of ancient Rome.  The most horrific injustices took place in the Roman Empire.   Rome terrorized its subjects by the public lynching (crucifixion) of its criminals and those who resisted its rule.  Rome’s treatment of its prisoners of war surpassed the horrors of Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq: the Roman government made their prisoners objects of entertainment, forcing them to perform as gladiators in their arenas.  Rome was filled with public temples of false gods that hosted all manner of immoral acts, while at the same time having governmental leaders who claimed to be gods.  This was the culture that Jesus entered when He came to earth.  At Jesus’ baptism, the thunderous, audible voice of the Lord was heard. When we consider the context in which Jesus came, and all the things God, in His perfect wisdom, could have declared, it is wonderful that His words were: “This is my son; in whom I am well pleased.” There is yet a more decadent and insidious hour of history that is upon us, “such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world till now, nor ever will”,  and the Father’s primary proclamation will again be, “Behold my Son in whom I am well pleased”.  Our hope in this hour is to return to our DNA of the apostolic gospel, the preaching of Christ, which is the true message of justice to the governments and the nations of the earth, and to the poor and the oppressed. 

One of the realities that must be confronted in the subject of justice is that there is not one person in the earth; there is not one governmental system whether it be democratic, socialist or communist; there is not one social system, there is not one political party whether democratic or republican or independent that is innocent before God.  There is not a culture, there is not a social status, there’s not a gender that is righteous.  The whole human race outside of Christ Jesus stands guilty before heaven.  A great error in the present social justice movement is the sanctifying or the deifying of any group where, by virtue of their position or status in society, they are assigned moral standing with God.  One of the greatest errors is that by virtue of social standing, political affiliation, or governmental expression, guilt or justification is assigned before God.  It is essential that we begin our theology of justice in the right place; that we start with the premise that God is holy and righteous, and that humanity is the total opposite.

The issue of justice starts with humanity’s need for right-standing with the Godhead in Christ Jesus, our need to be justified by faith through Christ by which we have peace with God and can stand in His presence and fellowship with Him. Without this there is no justice. It is those who are true to the faith who will walk out the justice that God desires and esteems (Hab 2:4).   The day that humanity broke fellowship with God, injustice entered into the world. 

The progression of injustice is important in that first, injustice has to do with our corporate guilt before God, as the whole human race.  The first mention of injustice in the court of heaven is that of humanity against God.  We tend to start with the injustices committed against us, and then go on and focus on the injustices of man against man.  Both these perspectives lead to the exaltation of self.  The beginning point of injustice must be the rebellion of every human being against God: “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”.  This is a very familiar Bible verse but rarely does the truth it contains register in our souls.  Jesus did not come to make good people better; rather, He came to rescue those who committed high treason against the court of heaven and to offer them mercy if they would turn to Him from the error of their ways.  Understanding this truth of humanity’s condition before God will help us ask the right questions. Most of today’s questions are profoundly disconnected from humanity’s injustice committed against God.  One question related to justice that is often asked is: How is it that a loving or just God can allow certain things to happen? Why would He allow the death of innocent people, or even kill them?  This is the completely wrong question. The question we need to ask is: How can a just and a loving God allow us to continue living? That is a question that is rooted in reality and clear perspective.  “If God is just and God loves, then why does He cause the rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous?” That is the real question. 

God’s primary controversy with humanity is our lack of response in bowing our mind, will and emotions to the leadership of His Son Christ Jesus.  Social injustice, though He is displeased with that, is not His primary controversy, knowing that as the cup gets cleansed internally, it will overflow into the external dimensions of life.  The burden of the Lord is stirred first for the internal condition of the human race and secondly for the manifestation of that internal condition; both need to be addressed.  When the Lord judged the world in the days of Noah, man was judged because of his wickedness and the fact that “every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually”.   If someone were to emerge and rid the earth of every injustice i.e. abortion, human trafficking, racism, systemic oppression, corruption in government, world hunger, etc, both the temporal and the eternal judgments of the book of Revelation would still happen because God has a controversy with the nations of the earth which is the lack of response to His beloved Son and His ways. 

One of the issues highlighted afresh in this hour is abortion. It is critical to understand that there is a blood that cries out better things than the blood of Abel and, therefore, there is a blood that cries out better things than the blood of the unborn.  It is the blood of Christ and it speaks both in judgment and in mercy. The United States of America—the inhabitants of this nation—must respond to the blood of Christ.  The writer of Hebrews makes it very clear and states that God will trample those who have treated the blood of His covenant as though it were a common thing, those who insulted the spirit of grace by not responding to Jesus.  So then, the progression in our thinking related to justice is important, starting with our injustice committed against God,  followed by the injustice that we have committed against others, then the injustice of others against others, and finally we consider the injustice committed against ourselves. 

 
SECTION 2: THE JUST ONE

The first prophetic word Paul received was from Ananias in Acts 22:14:

“Paul, the God of our fathers has chosen you that you should know His will, and see the just One, and hear the voice of His mouth,  for you will be His witness to all men of what you have seen and what you have heard.”

There is an apostolic mandate from heaven in this hour, calling us back to experience the spirit of revelation, so we can know, see and hear the Just One through the written word.  It is the Father’s great and divine pleasure to reveal His son in us.  Justice begins with responding to the call of God to again turn our gaze to the Son of God, that the nations of the earth might do the same, and usher in the Second Coming of Jesus.
 
In Isaiah 42:1-4, the Lord establishes a very clear outline of what is in His heart concerning the issue of justice.  As mentioned before, the central theme of the passage is the beauty of Jesus, the Servant of the Lord.  It is as if God were saying: I have a great and glorious plan for the ending of every form of social injustice and I want My people to partner with me in the process. I want to end abortion, immorality, human trafficking, governmental corruption and oppression, ethnic strife, poverty and war, but before we start I want to talk about my Son, my Servant.

Isaiah 42:1 is a call to the lovesick gaze of encountering the beauty and the personhood of Christ the Lamb.  The prophet Isaiah is calling the people of God to the apostolic determination to know nothing but Christ and Him crucified.  The cry to behold is both an invitation to gaze as well as the primary point in the proclamation of the message of justice.
 
Isaiah 42 gives insight into seven aspects of Jesus, related to the release of justice in the earth.

First, Jesus is fully God and fully man, and the Father appointed Jesus as King to execute God’s plan for justice in the earth; Christ is God’s chosen King to rule and reign over the kingdoms of this world.  Jesus will establish the fullness of God’s justice in the earth when He returns, taking over the governments of the earth and establishing God’s theocratic government in their place.

“I was watching in the night visions, And behold, One like the Son of Man, coming with the clouds of heaven!  He came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought Him near before Him.  Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him.  His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom the one which shall not be destroyed.”  Daniel 7:13-14

And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.”  Matthew 28:18

In beholding the Lord, we see first that the revelation of Jesus gives insight into Christ’s destiny as God’s appointed King.  There are several valid applications to the revelation of the hope of Jesus’ calling.   One of the main interpretations is the reality that God appointed this Man to be heir over all things. This speaks of Christ’s leadership that is manifested in part before His Second Coming,  but that will be revealed in full when He returns to the earth to establish His theocratic kingdom.  The Godhead already possesses all things (Ps. 24:1) but the inheritance here is God sharing His fullness with the Man Christ Jesus.  The divine appointment of Christ as heir of all things is in regard to His humanity.  “The name ‘heir’ is attributed to Christ as manifest in the flesh,” says Calvin, “for in being made man and putting on the same nature as us, He took on himself this heirship, in order to restore to us what we had lost in Adam.”   One thing that was lost during the rebellion of Adam was the mandate of dominion, the preservation of justice, as given in Genesis 1:26.  

Secondly, we discover the Father’s deep and holy affections for His Son.  In the beholding of the beauty of the Son of God,  we are called to discover, receive and proclaim the Father’s love for His Son.   It is essential that we develop a lovesick gaze that will keep us from being overly preoccupied by issues and help us rightly prioritize our message to the nations of the earth. Issues cannot be and must not be our primary message.  For instance the Lord could take the issue of life, related to abortion, and drive it as a wedge in the nation, but there is yet a greater wedge to be driven  – Jesus.  The proclamation of Jesus as King and Judge was driven as a wedge into the ancient world, often resulting in angry riots.  Jesus declares that the nations will hate the Church for His name’s sake.  Many groups and religions are taking a stance against various forms of social injustice, but what sets the church apart is our confession that Jesus is God and that He is God’s appointed King over all the earth.  The Lord is going to pour out the spirit of revelation concerning the beauty of Jesus in an unprecedented way. He is going to raise up messengers of justice who will proclaim the wealth and the glory of Christ with such an apostolic authority that it will shake the nations at the end of the age (Acts 17:5-6; Joel 2:1; Rev. 8-9).  The Father is saying to the nations: I have a Son; how will you respond to Him and His purposes?  The call to worship Jesus does not mean that we do not contend for social transformation and the changing of unrighteous laws.  Indeed, we are to take a stance in whatever way the political situation allows our voices to be heard. We give ourselves to prayer for the changing of laws and the transformation of our society, all in the context of developing an adoring gaze unto loving obedience for the Son of God and proclaiming who He is.

The third aspect we see in Jesus as we behold Him is the exceeding greatness of His power, in that the Father has anointed Jesus with all the resources of heaven to accomplish the task at hand. The Father has put His Spirit upon His Servant, meaning that God has given this man the supernatural ability to establish justice.  One of the accusations against God is whether or not He is powerful enough to do something about the injustice in the earth.  The Father declares that He has put the power of the Spirit upon Jesus.   Isaiah chapter eleven gives the breakdown of the sevenfold operation of the Holy Spirit on the Messiah that is given to Him to govern the earth forever.  He is not powerless or impotent in His ability to establish justice.  The reality of the Holy Spirit being put upon Jesus speaks not only of Jesus’ God-given ability but also of heaven’s divine authorization to carry out the decrees of the Father and rule the nations.

The fourth aspect that is seen in Jesus the Just One, is the fact that He has a plan to establish justice in the earth.  Isaiah states that, “He will bring forth justice to the gentiles and He will do it for truth”.   Jesus has an action plan for the establishment of justice in the earth and He will do it in accordance with the principles (truth) of heaven rather than the wisdom of man.  The Father has an eternal plan to establish justice, and as we behold the Son of God through study and meditation on the word of God, we begin to discover insight into His plan.  The prophet Jeremiah declares that at the end of the age the people of God will have mature understanding of the plans that are in God’s holy heart (Jer. 23:20).

Gaining insight into God’s plan to bring forth justice to the earth will bind our hearts to Jesus in a deep way, causing us to grow in love towards Him and stand with Him in prayer, proclamation and lifestyle when He begins to more openly and fully execute His end-time plan for justice.  The revelation of His plan produces confidence in the hearts of the people of God, giving them endurance to stay the course until that Day.  Many times those who have a burden for justice, or who themselves experience injustice, are tempted to grow impatient and hurry to find a solution that is less then excellent.  This is a very normal reaction in the human heart. However, the Lord has His plan; a plan that is accomplished according to His own pleasure in all wisdom and prudence.  There is not one detail that has not been considered, and there is not one dimension of the Father’s ability that is withheld from the process of establishing His vision for justice in the earth.  As we gain insight into this divine plan, our hearts get filled with faith unto patience  and humility as we see the brilliance of the Father’s leadership.   The unfolding of this plan is clearly laid out in the New Testament; it necessitated the Second Person of the Trinity becoming a man, paying the price for sin, rising from the dead, and then being seated back at the right hand of God the Father before this eternal plan would be declared to humanity (the redeemed). God gave the mystery to the apostles who recorded it in the written Word of God to be passed down through the generations.  The culmination of the action plan is seen in the book of Revelation where the main theme is the return of Jesus to the earth to establish His justice (Rev. 1:7).

In chapter 5 of Revelation we see Jesus commissioned by the Father to execute and bring forth justice in the earth.  Revelation 4 introduces the glory and majesty of the Father who holds a scroll in His right hand, a scroll containing the action plan for the release of justice on the earth, a scroll that is the title deed to the earth.  Jesus is the Elect One (Isa. 42:1), the only one qualified to take the title deed from the Father’s hand in order to carry out the Father’s plan.  In Revelation 5, Jesus, as the Father’s elect, takes the title deed out of the Father’s hand (Rev. 5:8), thereby accepting the responsibility to rid the earth of injustice.   The Elect One has the ability and authority (Rev. 5:6) to go forth, establish justice in the whole earth and give leadership over all the governments of the world. 

A fifth dynamic that we discover in beholding the Servant of the Lord is the method He will use to establish justice in the earth.  Isaiah prophecies that Jesus would not cry out nor raise His voice or quarrel in the streets.  Jesus would not march or use natural methods i.e. boycotting, engaging in political debate but, rather, would give Himself to crying out in the place of prayer and to the prophetic proclamation of the kingdom.  Jesus was a revolutionary but He did not rally His people to march and chant in the streets of Israel, neither did He raise up a physical army.  Beholding Jesus the Servant will give us insight into His method.  The end-time justice movement is a prayer movement where we are called to lift our voice and cry out in the place of prayer first,  to proclaim the gospel and its forerunner dimensions in the context of living lives filled with actions of justice.   In response to this global worship movement,  Jesus will come as a warrior and defeat the perpetrators of injustice.  Though Jesus did not raise up a physical army and neither will His servants before He returns, during His Second Coming, Jesus will come as a warrior king who will wage war with a divinely anointed and spiritual arsenal.  There is a real warfare dimension in the spiritual realm and later, in the natural, related to the execution of God’s vision for justice. The Servant of the Lord came to defeat Satan at the cross, to make a public spectacle of powers and principalities, and to render the realms of darkness powerless.  When Jesus returns, He will come and engage in a battle in the realm of the natural – Armageddon. Commonly, the subject of warfare is limited to a battle fought in the spirit. However, there is a battle to be fought at the end of natural history.  There is a revelation of the mystery of Christ, as the God-Man, the Warrior-King.  The God-Man, who is a warrior, fights against demonic entities, but He will fight a battle in the natural. Yet it will be consistent with the method for justice prescribed in Isaiah 42.  Jesus will wage the war for justice by the sword or the rod of His mouth,  warring through the spoken word in prayer, worship and prophetic decrees.

Jesus will establish justice by the Word and the Spirit.  The Father gave Jesus, in His humanity, the fullness of the Spirit and the Word by which He would establish justice in the earth.   Justice will go forth through the power of the Spirit in response to the Word of God; these are the two premiere weapons given to Jesus.  The Spirit of God moves when there is agreement with the word of God.  As we behold the Lord and see His prescribed way to establish justice, our hearts come into agreement with His, and we enter into partnership with Him.  There are three ways we enter into agreement with the Word: by praying the Word, proclaiming the Word and practicing the Word or obedience.  These three realities make up what the Scripture calls abiding.  The Scripture says that when we abide in the Word, we will be able to declare things and watch heaven respond.  Jesus is the ultimate embodiment of this truth and it is the manner in which He will wage war for justice.

“Now acquaint yourself with Him, and be at peace; thereby good will come to you.  Receive, please, instruction from His mouth, and lay up His words in your heart.  If you return to the Almighty, you will be built up; you will remove iniquity far from your tents. Then you will lay your gold in the dust, and the gold of Ophir among the stones of the brooks. Yes, the Almighty will be your gold And your precious silver; for then you will have your delight in the Almighty, and lift up your face to God.  You will make your prayer to Him, He will hear you, and you will pay your vows. You will also declare a thing, and it will be established for you; so light will shine on your ways.”  Job 22:21-28

There are several examples in Scripture, both in the Old and New Testaments, of how humans spoke the word and the Spirit moved on their behalf to confront everything that hindered the purposes of God. Some examples are: Elijah and the two witnesses stopping the rain,  the apostle Paul striking a man with blindness through a word,  Elijah striking 50 men with fire through the spoken word,  the two witnesses striking their enemies with fire,  Ananias and Sapphira dying at Peter’s spoken word,  sickness being removed through a word,  armies resisted,  and the two witnesses releasing plagues through a word.   At the battle of Armageddon Jesus will slay the nations with the word of His mouth.  He will speak the word and mountains will split, plagues and pestilences will be released; one-hundred pound hailstones, earthquakes, confusion, madness, blindness, bloodshed, flooding, fire, brimstone—these will all be released when Jesus speaks the word.   At the end of the age the Lord is raising up a church that will function as He does; an end-time prayer movement through which Jesus will establish justice in the earth.  It will be a movement given to raising their voice before the throne of God in the place of prayer, prophetic declaration and practical obedience according to the word of God.
 
The sixth component that we see in the Servant of the Lord is His tenderness and patience in bringing about justice in the earth.  Jesus has the fierce determination of a lion and the humility and tenderness of a servant.  The face of Christ as the Servant is the most stunning reality.  He will lead with the strength of meekness, the might of humility, the relentless power of His tenderness, and gentleness and meekness that is unwavering.  “He will not cry out, nor raise His voice, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street.  A bruised reed He will not break, and smoking flax He will not quench.  He will bring forth justice for truth” (Isa. 42:2-3).  In these verses, Isaiah is highlighting the patience of Christ.  It takes tremendous skill and wisdom not to break a bruised reed. Jesus will be gentle and merciful to those, whether oppressed or oppressor, who turn to Him in truth. Though fierce, He will be most tender, even in His more severe dealings with the earth at the end of the age to establish justice in the hearts of the nations of the earth.  Christ’s patience is also evident in that it has taken at least 2000 years before the fullness of the Day of the Lord is manifest.  Jesus will not quench smoking flax.  This speaks of the gentle wisdom of Christ and His ability to take the heart of a person who has turned to Him and whose heart is barely burning with the flames of love and justice, and to turn a responsive heart into a raging bonfire.  It takes gentleness and patience to turn a spark into a fire, and these two things are the first to go when we talk about the subject of justice, being quickly replaced by harshness and impatience.  It is as we cultivate the loving gaze, beholding Jesus and pursuing justice with a devotional spirit, that we will receive an impartation of unwavering tenderness. 

The seventh aspect that is unveiled as we behold the Elect One is the fierce determination of Jesus to accomplish the task that He started.  He will not rest until He has established the fullness of justice in the earth.  In verse four, Isaiah declares, “He will not fail nor be discouraged” .  In other words, His plan will succeed and not one of His plans will be thwarted. Though the heart of the Lord is displeased or broken over the injustice in the earth, Jesus is not and will not be deterred by the present situation and condition of the nations and their governments. The prophet declares to us the assurance of justice and Christ’s determination and zeal for justice.  We are living in an hour where we must give ourselves to beholding the Just One.  The revelation of Jesus the Just One will serve as a source of encouragement to those who desire to see the justice of God manifest in the earth.
 

SECTION 3: THE POLITICS OF JUSTICE

Jesus told the leaders of His time that both the inside and the outside of the cup need to be clean, starting with the inside.  It is important that holiness of heart is pursued alongside justice being walked out amongst the people of God.  We, as the church of Jesus, are to pursue holiness of heart, contending to become an apostolic witness of justice in the way that we treat the poor in our midst  and those of other ethnic groups and cultures,  in our view of women and their role in the community of believers, in the just manner in which disputes are settled in the Church,  and in every other aspect of our daily lives.  There are many ways that the church is to be an apostolic community of justice but it most be pursued in the context of being clean on the inside, of holiness unto the Lord.  Understanding will help shape our theology of justice in truth and it will give us God’s perspective of the poor.  The poor and the oppressed need first to be delivered from their personal, internal depravity and, secondly, from the corporate oppression that comes against them from the societal and governmental systems they live under. Both are important. 

The second camp, the one that pursues social activism at the expense of holiness of heart, most accurately describes the emerging justice movement in this nation and throughout the earth.  The false emerging justice movement is slowly but surely moving toward emphasizing external oppression at the expense of highlighting the need for transformation from our internal depravity.

Part of what created this dichotomy has been the preaching of holiness at the expense of the justice mandate of the apostolic church.  Social action, divorced from holiness of heart, the living out of the gospel and the preaching of Christ, distracts us from the injustices of our own souls.  When inward transformation is not primary in the pursuit of justice, it will lead us to become shortsighted,  unable to properly discern God’s eschatological divine plan for justice as revealed in Scripture, and forgetful of our need of Him and the mercy we have obtained for our own injustices.  When we become shortsighted we then begin staring at the injustices of others and their victims, which in turn leads to judgment and even cynicism towards justice.  It is important that we give ourselves to social action, but it needs to happen in the context of the gospel and the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Pursuing social action outside the context of the apostolic gospel is opening up the door to preaching a false version of Jesus, a Jesus who is nothing more than a sympathetic humanitarian with a gospel of social reformation.  The justice movement today is becoming increasingly filled with precisely that sort of sentiment. Jesus cares about humanitarian needs but there is substantially more to Him than relieving our external circumstances.
 
John chapter 6 is one of the most powerful chapters to illustrate this truth.  It is a familiar passage where the poor came to Him seeking to be fed for a second time after He had fed them supernaturally the day before. The next day the poor went out to look for Him and when they found Jesus they told Him that they had been looking for Him.  Jesus tells them the real reason that they were trying to find Him: the poor came looking for Him simply to have their physical needs met again.  Jesus does not mind meeting physical needs, whatever they might be, but He wants to establish justice in our souls first. It is with this vision of justice in mind that Jesus refused to feed the people a second time.  When He told them what He was requiring of them, many were offended and left, refusing to follow Him from that day forth.  In this hour we must proclaim the Jesus of John 6 because what Jesus did in Israel 2000 years ago, He will do again in the Great Tribulation. In Revelation 6:5 Jesus breaks open the third seal; He withholds the bread of the nations resulting in the greatest famine in history.  What will our message to the poor and the oppressed be in that hour?  Who do we present to them in that day and how do we prepare the poor before that day?

In this hour the Holy Spirit is raising up forerunners who are messengers of justice, peacemakers who will equip the church and the nations for the unique dynamics that will take place in the days before Jesus returns to bring justice.  Peacemakers are those who partner with God in His redemptive purpose.  In Joshua 5:12-13, when the Angel of the Lord appeared to Joshua, Joshua asked a very profound question, a question that has been asked by the people of God to this day.  Joshua asked, “Are You for us or for our adversaries?”—whose side are You on?    The Lord’s answer was as equally profound as it was astonishing: He simply said neither, as though to say, the real question, Joshua, is: whose side are you on?

The question to the prophets of our day is: Who are you representing? On whose behalf do you speak?  Do you speak on behalf of a particular political platform, ethnicity or natural citizenship?  Prophets are those who represent Christ Jesus and His vision for justice in the earth by primarily speaking on His behalf and His heart, whatever the issues might be. Not one person, system or governmental structure is righteous by virtue of the way it operates; we are justified by faith alone.   The Lord taught the prophet Habakkuk that lesson.

Habakkuk, gripped with a prophetic burden because the nation of Israel was filled with injustice, cried out, “O Lord, how long…”  This is the main intercessory cry for justice.   It is a cry that is birthed from the heart of God, and imparted to His intercessor prophets, as it was to Habakkuk, becoming their own burden. This cry is also in the heart of the broken and the destitute and the Lord is looking for messengers who will present them with the apostolic gospel, that they might have hope and endurance in the great crisis that is coming. Habakkuk cried out to the Lord about the violence in the land, lamenting the fact that there seemed to be no truth or salvation in sight. “Why do you show me iniquity and cause me to see trouble?” (Hab. 1:3). Sin was rampant all around, confusion and disorder were prevalent in society.  Habakkuk’s day was filled with plundering, violence, corruption and robbery in every sphere of society.  Social and domestic tranquility was removed by strife and contention. Habakkuk lamented, “…the law is powerless and justice never goes go forth…there is evil legislation in the land”.  Habakkuk found himself in the place of prayer, crying out to God about the prevailing conditions of his day, the powerlessness of the government and the state of the covenant people. Habakkuk prayed—and God answered; God gave Habakkuk a divine remedy, a most surprising answer. He told Habakkuk to “look among the nations and watch—be utterly astounded”  because the answer would surprise Habakkuk, exposing deep pockets of disagreement in His soul with God’s method for establishing justice in the earth. God told Habakkuk that the revelation of His plan would drive the prophet into unbelief because it would confront and challenge his paradigms, causing Habakkuk to recognize that he was more a nationalistic prophet, a prophet of Israel, than a prophet of God. The Lord was training Habakkuk to be a prophet who stands in the counsel of the Lord, who has heard the voice of God and who speaks on behalf of God to Jew and Gentile, and not on behalf of Israel.  In our day, the Lord is looking for prophets, messengers of justice, in the earth who will speak on His behalf, rather than on behalf of their nation, political party, ethnic community or social group.  Prophetic messengers ought to be mouthpieces of the Lord  and speak on His behalf in the fear of the Lord. 

The Lord directed Habakkuk to do three things: “look among the nations…watch—be…astounded”. In other words, the prophet is instructed to pay attention to current events as an anointed observer, and then watch in the place of prayer. A contemporary application of this would be to watch the news or read the newspaper with a devotional spirit.  The Lord is instructing the prophet to watch the news in the context of inquiring of the Lord and asking for prophetic insight, so that he might see prophetically beyond what the headlines were saying.  We must cultivate these same three things.  First, we are to look which means we pay attention to current events, nationally and internationally. Secondly, we watch which is to cultivate a devotional spirit and a lifestyle of inquiring of the Lord. Thirdly, we posture ourselves to be astonished by cultivating a Christ-centered, end-times perspective, and by getting connected to God’s end-time plan as He brings the leadership of the nations under the leadership of His Son for the purpose of justice in the earth. 

Growing in our understanding of God’s end-time plan is essential because it is in this way that we come to understand that God is serious about establishing justice on the earth forever, that His plan will not fail and that He wants His people to partner with Him in the process.  The study of the End Times is filled with many surprising and astonishing components as it relates to Jesus’ leadership to release justice in the earth.  As we study the End Times we gain insight into the heart of God, His plan and His ways, as He prepares to lead the nations into the fullness of God’s glory.  God’s premier vision is for the earth to be filled with the knowledge of His glory which is His justice. The centerpiece of God’s eternal purpose is when Jesus to returns to fully establish His Kingdom-rule over all the earth as He joins the heavenly and earthly realms together. Both these dimensions must unite to fully express God’s personality and purposes.  The joining of  heaven and earth is for the purpose of filling the earth with the knowledge of God — the glory of His existence, personality, and purpose. The whole earth will be filled with this reality, where justice is demonstrated by all of God’s created order living in harmony with God and with each other.  In fact, it says in Habakkuk 2:14 that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.”

The surprising element in the Lord’s answer to Habakkuk was that the Lord was going to raise up a people “more evil” than Israel–the Babylonians–as God’s chosen instrument of justice.  This was undoubtedly a major challenge to Habakkuk’s understanding. How was it that the Lord would use an unjust people, an evil nation, as a tool to bring about justice?  The nation of Israel was filled with violence, plundering, corruption, evil legislation, the shedding of blood, corruption and immorality.  Why raise up a people to bring justice if they were involved in the same evil practices as the people of God?  Why would the Lord raise up more violence to deal with violence?  The Babylonians are described as a “bitter and hasty” people.  They are power-hungry, loving to conquer territory and challenge the sovereignty of other nations.  The Babylonians were a fearful and dreadful people because of their military might and enslavement of people.  Habakkuk 1:7 says, “their judgment and their dignity proceed from themselves…” which means that they have a relativistic morality and are wise in their own eyes.

The Lord’s reply in Habakkuk chapter 1 does indeed astonish and trouble the prophet.  Habakkuk continues in the place of prayer, acknowledging the eternal majesty of God (Hab. 1:12) as well as acknowledging that Israel cannot be utterly destroyed though they are destined to come under the discipline of the Lord.  Habakkuk continues in verse 13 and expresses the conflict of his soul to God.  Why would God, who is pure, raise up someone who is impure? Why would He grant favor and permission to a people to carry out the evil that is in their hearts and minds? 
In verse 13, Habakkuk voices one of the greatest questions in our hearts about injustice: Why is God silent? Why does He seem indifferent as things become more evil around us?  The truth is that God is not silent concerning the issue of justice; it is just that we don’t like what He has to say about it.  Like Habakkuk, we can find ourselves confused by the ways of the Lord but the simple fact is that His way is straightforward.  The Lord is speaking plainly concerning the issue of justice but we don’t like what He has to say about it.  Habakkuk is in conflict yet he continues to give himself to prayer by inquiring of the Lord and acknowledging that He is eternal.  He recognizes God’s majesty and leadership, admitting that his own knowledge is lacking, whereas God is all-knowing. The difference is that our perspective is rooted in humanism, whereas His is rooted in eternal wisdom.  In this hour we must come before the Lord that we might gain divine perspective in the place of prayer to impact our intercession and message to the nations of the earth.
 
One of the things that began to surface in Habakkuk’s heart (1:13) was the notion that Israel was more righteous then the Babylonians, whereas it is actually those who live by faith are the ones who stand for justice.  Though Habakkuk was perplexed by the Lord’s response, he remained humble and teachable before the Lord; this is a model of how we are to respond to the Lord in our day.   Habakkuk recognizes that his perspective is out of line with God’s, and he declares his intention to remain in the place of prayer and wait for God’s divine adjustment to be revealed. The way that we resist the temptation to give in to human sentiment, political platforms, and humanistic ideas is by staying in the place of devotion and inquiry before the Lord, by searching out the whole counsel of God’s word.  In the place of prayer the Lord will unveil His plan to us, line upon line, that we may run with it as messengers of justice to the nations.   In Habakkuk 2:2 the Lord commands Habakkuk to write the vision down and make it plain.  He states that the vision is yet for an appointed time, meaning that it is an end-time vision.  The Lord’s ultimate answer to Habakkuk’s cry for justice in manifested in the Second Coming of Jesus to the earth for the purpose of establishing His throne of glory in Jerusalem and bringing justice to the earth. The Lord tells Habakkuk that there will be a strategic delay but that the fulfillment will surely come.  

The Lord told Habakkuk to “write the vision down and make it plain…that he may run who reads it.”  The apostle Paul was one who read and ran with the apostolic vision and wrote the book of Romans in which God states that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God bring.  This brings us to understand that there is not one righteous person in all the earth, the same understanding that shifted Habakkuk from being a prophet of Israel to becoming a prophet of God.  Nationalistic or “partisan” prophets operate under the assumption that their nation or group is more righteous than any other. The Lord, in this hour, is looking for messengers of justice who have seen and heard the Just One and know His will.  We must give ourselves to prayer that we might stand in the counsel of the Lord and have the prophetic word fueled by the mystery of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Elect One.    

The fullness of the vision is appointed for the generation in which the Lord returns.  The vision was inaugurated 2000 years ago in the cross, but the plan will culminate in the generation in which the Lord returns at His Second Coming, bringing heaven to earth so that the earth is filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord.   The gospel of the kingdom is good news to the poor.  The gospel declares that all of humanity is guilty of injustice before God, whether rich or poor, male or female, Jew or Gentile.  The good news is that we can regain our right-standing with God through faith in Christ.  Faith is a dynamic and internal agreement with God’s will and purpose. Those who have faith will be justified in the court of heaven and walk out the justice that God requires.  The societal transformation that Habakkuk longs for in the nation of Israel  will only be seen when the people become the people of faith.  Those who live in dynamic agreement with Jesus on the inside are the ones who will live out the kind of justice that will arise like a sweet aroma before the throne.   There is a social action that is only pleasing to the Lord inasmuch as it is done in dynamic agreement with who God is. 

The gospel also states this a betrothal relationship with God awaits us; that His Son is the Bridegroom who longs to establish the first commandment in first place in the heart of the redeemed.   The gospel of the kingdom reveals to us that Christ has a vision for justice in the earth, that He is going to rule the nations spiritually, economically, politically, socially and that there is a royal destiny that awaits those who are in Him to rule the nations by His side.   I cannot think of a more delightful message than to tell the poor and destitute of the earth that they can be delivered from their internal depravity and that if they walk in the ways of Christ, humbling themselves before the Lord, He will cause them to be seated with princes.  What glorious news that is to a young boy or girl rescued from the evil and wicked men who fund and lead sex trade brothels in Thailand, or for the former Jihad terrorist who turns to Christ; for the abortion doctor or person caught up in all manner of immorality who turns to God; to the corrupt tax collector or the greedy loan sharks of India. The gospel of Jesus can transform a former KKK member to lay down their lives for the gospel in a community they so vehemently opposed.  The gospel can so transform a greedy tax collector to the point that he would offer a four-hundred per cent return to anyone he had robbed; it can turn a government in a day as one nation under God in Christ.  Jesus offers to deliver whosoever would turn, on the inside from their personal depravity, that they would rule and reign with Him forever.

In Matthew 16, Jesus asked His disciples two very important questions: 1) Who do men say that I am? 2 )Who do you say that I am.  He is asking the Church the same questions today. The response to the first question in the Western world might be: some say You’re a conservative, others say that You’re a liberal; some say You are against abortion and homosexuality, while others say that You are against war, want to save the trees, end world hunger and establish ethnic unity. Jesus is now looking at His people and asking the most probing question of the hour: Who do you say that I am?  The Lord wants to end all forms of social injustice and restore the environment but there is an all-encompassing understanding of who He is that transcends mere issues.   Jesus is the Christ; He is God who came in the flesh, remaining in the garments of humanity forever, and is to be worshipped as God who alone possesses the salvation of the souls of men, the societies of nations and all of creation that He made for His own glory.  The Lord is calling His servants to give themselves to the receiving and the proclamation of who Jesus is.  The Holy Spirit is calling the church to a place of intimacy with God unto receiving the revelation of Christ, and experiencing the deep things of God. The revelation of Jesus gives us insight into God’s holy heart and personality, His purposes and power as it relates to His works in creation, the redemption of humanity and the created order, justice, the New Jerusalem, His eschatological plan etc.  The revelation of Jesus, not a political platform, is to fuel our vision and message of justice. It is necessary that we vote in righteousness to the best of our ability, but it is also important that our prophetic voice not be fueled by political platform, but rather by the apostolic and eschatological gospel of the King of kings and the Lord of lords.  The gospel is apostolic in that it is Christ-centered; it is eschatological because the gospel gives insight into God’s action plan for   establishing divine justice on the earth forever. We see throughout the Bible that Jesus will give His end-time Church clear prophetic insight into His counsel. 

’2009 first year of global governance’

In accepting his appointment as the first president of the European Union, Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy announced that “global governance” is only way to address the crises that beset the planet.

“The climate conference in Copenhagen is another step toward the global management of our planet,” he added.

CLICK HERE: http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=116823

November 23, 2009

Cloward-Piven Government

By James Simpson

It is time to cast aside all remaining doubt. President Obama is not trying to lead America forward to recovery, prosperity and strength. Quite the opposite, in fact.

In September of last year, American Thinker published my article, Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis. Part of a series, it connected then-presidential candidate Barack Obama to individuals and organizations practicing a malevolent strategy for destroying our economy and our system of government. Since then, the story of that strategy has found its way across the blogosphere, onto the airwaves of radio stations across the country, the Glenn Beck television show, Bill O’Reilly, and now Mark Levin.

The methodology is known as the Cloward-Piven Strategy, and we can all be grateful to David Horowitz and his Discover the Networks for originally exposing and explaining it to us. He describes it as:

 

The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The “Cloward-Piven Strategy” seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.

Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven were two lifelong members of Democratic Socialists of America who taught sociology at Columbia University (Piven later went on to City University of New York). In a May 1966 Nation magazine article titled “The Weight of the Poor,” they outlined their strategy, proposing to use grassroots radical organizations to push ever more strident demands for public services at all levels of government.

The result, they predicted, would be “a profound financial and political crisis” that would unleash “powerful forces … for major economic reform at the national level.”

They implemented the strategy by creating a succession of radical organizations, most notable among them the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), with the help of veteran organizer Wade Rathke. Their crowning achievement was the “Motor Voter” act, signed into law by Bill Clinton in 1993 with Cloward and Piven standing behind him.
As we now know, ACORN was one of the chief drivers of high-risk mortgage lending that eventually led to the financial crisis. But the Motor Voter law was another component of the strategy. It created vast vulnerabilities in our electoral system, which ACORN then exploited. 

ACORN’s vote registration scandals throughout the U.S. are predictable fallout.

The Motor Voter law has also been used to open another vulnerability in the system: the registration of vast numbers of illegal aliens, who then reliably vote Democrat. Herein lies the real reason Democrats are so anxious for open borders, security be damned.

It should be clear to anyone with a mind and two eyes that this president and this Congress do not have our interests at heart. They are implementing this strategy on an unprecedented scale by flooding America with a tidal wave of poisonous initiatives, orders, regulations, and laws. As Rahm Emmanuel said, “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.”

The real goal of “health care” legislation, the real goal of “cap-and-trade,” and the real goal of the “stimulus” is to rip the guts out of our private economy and transfer wide swaths of it over to the government to control. Do not be deluded by the propaganda. These initiatives are vehicles for change. They are not goals in and of themselves except in their ability to deliver power. They and will make matters much worse, for that is their design.

This time, in addition to overwhelming the government with demands for services, Obama and the Democrats are overwhelming political opposition to their plans with a flood of apocalyptic legislation. Their ultimate goal is to leave us so discouraged, demoralized, and exhausted that we throw our hands up in defeat. As Barney Frank said, “the middle class will be too distracted to fight.”

These people are our enemies. They don’t use guns, yet, but they are just as dangerous, determined, and duplicitous as the communists we faced in the Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, and bush wars across the globe, and the Nazis we faced in World War II.

It is time we fully internalized and digested this fact, with all its ugly ramifications. These people have violated countless laws and could be prosecuted, had we the political power. Not only are their policies unconstitutional, but deliberately so – the goal being to make the Constitution irrelevant. Their spending is off the charts and will drive us into hyperinflation, but it could be rescinded, had we the political power. These policies are toxic, but they could be stopped and reversed, had we the political power. Their ideologies are poisonous, but they could be exposed for what they are, with long jail sentences as an object lesson, had we the political power.

Every single citizen who cares about this country should be spending every minute of his or her spare time lobbying, organizing, writing, and planning. Fight every initiative they launch. It is all destructive. If we are to root out this evil, it is critical that in 2010 we elect  competent, principled leaders willing to defend our Constitution and our country. Otherwise, the malevolent cabal that occupies the government today will become too entrenched.

After that, all bets are off.

Businessman and Examiner.com columnist Jim Simpson is a former White House staff economist and budget analyst. You may read more of his articles on his blog, Truth and Consequences.

Posted: November 23, 2009 By Drew Zahn

WorldNetDaily Chuck Colson, among other religious leaders, announcing the Manhattan Declaration Over 150 Orthodox, Catholic and evangelical Christian leaders have signed the Manhattan Declaration, a pledge in defense of life, religious liberty and traditional marriage, a line in the sand of the culture war warning that Christians will resort to civil disobedience if necessary rather than retreat from these three moral principles.

“The Manhattan Declaration is a wake-up call – a call to conscience – for the church,” writes Chuck Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries and co-author of the declaration. “It is also crystal-clear message to civil authorities that we will not, under any circumstances, stand idly by as our religious freedom comes under assault.” According to ManhattanDeclaration.org, over 47,000 others in the last few days have added their signatures to the list of 152 Christian leaders who have committed to the pledge.

The website states that the declaration calls upon all fellow citizens to join in defending “fundamental truths about justice and the common good,” namely: The sanctity of human life The dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife The rights of conscience and religious liberty. “Inasmuch as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the wellbeing of society, they are inviolable and nonnegotiable,” the website states. “Because they are increasingly under assault from powerful forces in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them.”

The language of the Manhattan Declaration itself, however, is even more bold: “We are Christians who have joined together across historic lines of ecclesial differences to affirm our right – and, more importantly, to embrace our obligation – to speak and act in defense of these truths,” the declaration states. “We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence.”

At a D.C. press conference last week, Dr. Robert George of Princeton University, one of three leaders who drafted the declaration, affirmed that if laws require Christian doctors and hospitals to perform abortion or euthanasia, if the government demands churches bless homosexual ‘marriage’ or any other dictates attempt to force Christians to act against their moral convictions, there will be no compromise. Recalling the actions of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. years before, George said there may even be call for Christians to engage in civil disobedience: “We hope and pray that it does not come to this,” George said, “that the impositions on conscience will not require anybody to practice civil disobedience.

But if it comes to it, as it came to it for Dr. King on the great issue of racial justice, then we have to be prepared to make sacrifices.” (Story continues below)

Evangelical leader Chuck Colson, who with Dr. Robert George and Beeson Divinity School Professor Timothy George constituted the document’s drafting committee, explained on Fox News network’s “Huckabee” the significance of the declaration. Video of his interview with show host and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee can be seen below: “We’ve always said that we will never compromise what we believe,” Colson said, “but this is the first time that all of us have come together across confessional lines and said, ‘We’re prepared to pay the price. You cannot cross this line, otherwise we will pay the price – we will suffer if we must to avoid doing evil.’”

“‘Suffering,’ being what?” Huckabee asked. “‘Suffering’ being prison, loss of your tax exemption,” Colson answered. “We’re saying, ‘If we’re a doctor and we’re told to perform an abortion or to refer someone for an abortion, we will refuse. And if you want to put us in prison, put us in prison.’” Huckabee followed up by asking, “What about hate crimes?” “Hate-crimes legislation – we’re already seeing what this has done in Europe and done in Canada. Human-rights commissions are hauling pastors in,” Colson said.

“If someone walks in our church and says, ‘You preach a sermon on [homosexuality], we’re going to arrest you as a violation of the hate crimes,’ then they’ll have to arrest us.” Specifically, the text of the Manhattan Declaration declares: We will not comply with any edict that purports to compel our institutions to participate in abortions, embryo-destructive research, assisted suicide and euthanasia or any other antilife act Nor will we bend to any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriage or the equivalent [Nor] refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family. The authors and original signatories of the Manhattan Declaration are now inviting others who will agree to the pledge to sign the declaration as well.

As Colson told Huckabee, “If you continue to assault the family, continue to assault life, continue to assault our liberties, we will ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, but under no circumstance will we render to Caesar what is God’s. So we have taken a very firm line. We’ve drawn a line, and we want true Christians to stand up and defend what we believe now.”

link to article:  http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=116974

November 17, 2009 2:36 pm Eastern By Drew Zahn 

Hopenhagen “passport” Coca-Cola is spearheading a coalition of more than 100 companies pushing a United Nations climate treaty to bind the U.S. to cap-and-trade emissions regulation, commit the world’s wealthiest nations to a potential $10 trillion in foreign aid and, possibly, form a proposed international “super-grid” for regulating and distributing electric power worldwide. Together with the SAP and Siemens corporations, Coca-Cola launched a website called Hopenhagen, leading up to the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, which opens on Dec. 7. The website invites the citizens of the world to sign a petition demanding world leaders draft binding agreements on climate change and advertises, as of today, “16 days left to seal the deal.”

“That’s why we’re collaborating with governments, NGOs, other businesses and our consumers, to help tackle global challenges like climate change.” A closer look at the “deal” Hopenhagen is hoping to “seal,” however, reveals a call to unprecedented levels of international regulation and wealth redistribution and includes many of the measures Monckton decries as an effort to “impose a communist world government on the world.”

Coca-Cola spearheads
1-world climate tax

100 companies push ’16 days left
to seal deal’ on $10 trillion treaty

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