tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-89219076574001777142024-03-12T18:31:19.603-07:00A Voice Crying in the WildernessKen Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11036788567030231441noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8921907657400177714.post-82545038468015067232012-06-02T11:47:00.000-07:002012-06-02T11:47:26.007-07:00<strong><span style="font-size: large;">The Institution of Education</span></strong><br />
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In support of my previous post, here is the cover of one of the teacher's education courses I took just a few years ago. Look at the picture very carefully.<br />
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This is a perfect depiction of how the world in general and our society operates. Everything, including our education system is designed to uplift the elite and the state and to attain to that. People are used, abused, manipulated, oppressed, and even sacrificed or killed to obtain the goals of the elite and the state. There is selfish competition on every level. People are nothing but resources to be used or discarded at will. Human beings have no intrinsic value other than to serve as slave types to the state. This is man's way of doing things under the influence of Satan. And we are or have all been under it's influence. You might call this a pictoral representation of the Kingdom of Satan.<br />
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Now picture the opposite. An inverted pyramid with Christ on the bottom on the cross holding it all up. Each level as you go up gets larger and larger with love, cooperation, service, helping, etc. until at the top you have the lion laying down with the lamb, all mankind working together and sacrificing for one another in love, peace and harmony. That my friends would be the Kingdom of Heaven.<br />
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My question is; why are not the christians and the church already building that kingdom instead of acting like the picture below?<br />
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I can't wait until King Jesus comes back and fully establishes the Kingdom of Heaven!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidiDvTKHRu-1TL-f1f6BnRERUjzz_F8PTZQuLsjxBtOA2UivY3K_17x9iGMFL7UO_ffnHUSV37BFhaZZc50scLRPi-1X3ro3wSIYcxzkwcDjzZgV93VQ4kMqu2gmFHSTuzDVIrowkbCCi_/s1600/Institution+of+Education.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" rba="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEidiDvTKHRu-1TL-f1f6BnRERUjzz_F8PTZQuLsjxBtOA2UivY3K_17x9iGMFL7UO_ffnHUSV37BFhaZZc50scLRPi-1X3ro3wSIYcxzkwcDjzZgV93VQ4kMqu2gmFHSTuzDVIrowkbCCi_/s640/Institution+of+Education.jpg" width="523" /></a></div>Ken Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11036788567030231441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8921907657400177714.post-55811684788266363852012-06-02T09:38:00.001-07:002012-06-02T09:38:17.526-07:00<strong><span style="font-size: large;">Satan's desire to deceive and control through the education system.</span></strong><br />
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If you want to know some truth and you want to know what Satan and his elite have done to us please read the following speach by John Taylor Gatto. This is a brilliant man when it comes to teaching and our education system. Do some research on this man and read some of his very well documented writings and books. I have personally read many of his works and verified his documentation. The powers that be don''t even try to hide their purposes any more because they have gained so much control.<br />
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Rememember, God's word tells us to not be deceived. With that please read the following and allow God to open your eyes.<br />
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<span><span style="font-size: large;">John Taylor Gatto</span></span><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Speech to the</span><br /><state w:st="on"><place w:st="on"><span style="font-size: 18pt;">Vermont</span></place></state><span style="font-size: 18pt;"> Homeschooling Conference</span></h1>
<i>(Note: John Gatto is the former New York State<b> Teacher of the Year</b> who renounced the government school system in his landmark book <b>DUMBING US DOWN</b>. He is constantly in demand as a public speaker.</i> <br />
<i>As a bit of background, the industrial titans of the 1890's began to think that not only could the production line be engineered, but people's lives could be engineered as well, in order to work like homogeneous robots with the machines. Rockefeller and Carnegie gave huge sums to prominent academics to see if this could be realized through the educational system. They found that to a considerable extent it could, and it is still being done today as evidenced in the<a href="http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/marc_tucker/marc_tucker_letter.html"> Congressional Record</a> during the <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Clinton</place></city> administration. This is the story that John Gatto has to tell.-DB)</i> <br />
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What I intend to talk to you about this afternoon is what I understand you are aware of -- the positive goals and values that you seek as homeschoolers. But I want to talk about the specifics of what you're fleeing, because what you're fleeing is alive and well in the green state of <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Vermont</place></state>. Perhaps <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Vermont</place></state> is one of a half-a-dozen states that the U.S. Department of Education uses as testing grounds. I believe they picked <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Vermont</place></state> because they understand that you people are so reasonable that you're always willing to negotiate. Anyway, I have some information to bring to you on a different outlook on what the intention of schools is. The title of this talk is: <br />
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A SHORT ANGRY HISTORY OF<br />AMERICAN FORCED SCHOOLING</h2>
Between 1967 and 1974 teacher training in the <country-region w:st="on">US</country-region> was covertly revamped through the coordinated efforts of a small number of private foundations, certain universities, global corporations and several other interests working through the U.S. Department of Education and through key state education departments, one of which is the state of <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Vermont</place></state>. <br />
Three critical documents in this transformation are Benjamin Bloom's multi-volume TAXONOMY OF EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES. That was the first. The second was a many-state project begun in 1967 called DESIGNING EDUCATION FOR THE FUTURE, and it was set forth in an enormous manual of nearly 1000 pages and finally the BEHAVIORAL TEACHER EDUCATIONAL PROJECT which came in a manual of over 1000 pages. These were inserted into every state education department in the country and moneys were inserted there to pay faculty salaries a certain range of bribes for the school districts that would pioneer the use of these things. <br />
Let me start with the <b>DESIGNING EDUCATION FOR THE FUTURE</b> papers. They were the collusion with the federal education department and the presumably independent state agencies. They redefined education after the 19th century Germanic fashion as (quoting now from the document) "as a means to achieve important economic and social goals for the national character" -- and I would hasten to add that none of those goals included the maximum development of your son or daughter. State agencies would henceforth "act as Federal enforcers insuring compliance of local schools with Federal directives". The document proclaimed that ( I'm quoting again), "each state education department must be an agent of change", proclaimed further "change must be institutionalized". I doubt if an account of this appeared in any newspaper in the state of <state w:st="on">Vermont</state> or for that matter any newspaper in the country (<country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">U.S.</place></country-region>). Education departments were (I am quoting a third time) "to lose their identity as well as their authority in order to form a partnership with the Federal Government". <br />
The <b>BEHAVIORAL TEACHER EDUCATIONAL PROJECT</b> outlines specific teaching reforms to be forced on the country, unwillingly of course, after 1967. It also sets out, in clear language, the outlook and intent of its invisible creators. Nothing less than quoting again "the impersonal manipulation through schooling of a future America in which few will be able to maintain control over their own opinions", an America in which (quoting again) "each individual receives at birth, a multipurpose identification number which enables employers and other controllers to keep track of their [underlings]", (underlings is my interpretation, everything else came out of the document), "and to expose them to the directors subliminal influence of the state education department and the federal department acting through those whenever necessary". <br />
Readers learned in 1967, of course you and I were not among those readers, that chemical experimentation on minors would be normal procedure in the post 1967 world. That is a pointed foreshadowing of the massive Ritalin interventions which would accompany the student body of the future. Teachers were expected to function as government change agents and their trainers, ( this the first time reading this document that I realized that the expression "teacher trainer", like animal trainer, is an odd locution) the teacher trainers, were notified that behavioral science would henceforth replace academic curriculum in schools. The project identified the future as one (again I'm quoting) "in which a small league would control all important matters, one in which participatory democracy would largely disappear". Children would be made to see that their classmates, and indeed the average man or woman were so inadequate, were so irresponsible that they had to be controlled and regulated. The tremendous rise in school violence and general chaos in the late 1960's, a period when teachers and schools across the land were stripped of their ability to discipline children, might be seen as a convenient public justification for sharp constrictions of traditional liberty. Each outburst resonated through the press like a billboard for emergency measures. <br />
According to the <b>BEHAVIORAL TEACHER EDUCATIONAL PROJECT</b>, post modern schooling would focus, (I quote directly from the document), "on pleasure cultivation and interpersonal relationships and other attitudes and skills compatible with a non-work world". It makes sense of course, doesn't it? That irresponsible semi-illiterate people could not be trusted with much responsibility so in the new change agentry schooling, which is called for by this national teacher training document, the teacher is a therapist, translating the prescriptions of the social psychologists into practical action research in the classroom. <br />
The third critical gospel signaling a great transformation at hand, to those in the know, was Bloom's <b>TAXONOMY OF EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES</b>, which has, since its publication, spawned a number of descendant forms, like "mastery learning", "outcome based education" and "school to work" business-government-economic projects. Dr. Bloom's compilation was a tool, (I'm quoting from Dr. Bloom), "a tool to classify the ways individuals are to act, think or feel as the result of participating in some unit of instruction". I would be dubious if any parent in the <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">U.S.</place></country-region> would send their children to schools under these auspices if they were thinking people. In this fashion, children would learn proper attitudes and have their improper attitudes (brought from home) remediated. In all stages of the school manipulations testing would be essential to locate the child's mind on an official continuum. <br />
But why is all of this being done? One large piece of the answer can be found in the current edition of FOREIGN AFFAIRS MAGAZINE, which will be in all your libraries. It is surely one of the most influential periodicals in the <country-region w:st="on">U.S.</country-region>, perhaps in the world, which extols the American economy with its massive lead over Europe and Asia, and an article written by the owner of U.S. News and World report in the <state w:st="on"><place w:st="on">New York</place></state> daily news by Mort Zukerman. Zukerman attributes our superiority which he claims can not be lost in the 21st century, so huge is it, to certain characteristics of the American worker and the American workplace. If you read between the lines of this article it's quite easy to see that the advantage that Zukerman boasts of can only come from our training of the young. What does the advantage consist of then? According to Zukerman in the first position, the American is a pushover, dominated by management, with little to say about what happens. By contrast says Zukerman, <place w:st="on">Europe</place> suffers from a strong crafts tradition which demands a worker voice in decision making. <place w:st="on">Asia</place> is even worse off: their tradition, religion, and government interferes with what business could do. The Islamic world is so far behind, so crippled by religion that Zukerman doesn't even bother to mention it. <br />
His analysis makes further telling points about the American worker and the American consumer. Like nowhere else, he says "workers in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> live in a constant state of panic, a panic against being left out, they know that companies owe them nothing, there is no power to appeal to for management's decisions. Fear is our secret supercharger, it gives management the flexibility other nations will never have". Zukerman says that even after 6 years of economic expansion, American workers including management workers fret they might not survive. He is boasting of course - this is not a critical article, this is a laudatory article. In 1996 almost half the employees of large firms feared being laid off. This is double the number fearful of being laid off in 1991 when things were not nearly as good as they are now. This keeps wages under control. <br />
And finally, our endless consumption completes the golden circle. Consumption driven, says Zukerman, by an astonishing American addiction to novelty which provides American businesses with the only domestic market in the world. Elsewhere in hard times, business dries up -- here we continue to shop till we drop, mortgaging our futures to keep the flow of goods and services coming. Remember this is not in any way a critical article. There can be no doubt that the fantastic wealth of American big business is a direct result of school training. Schools training a social lump to be needy, frightened, envious, bored, talentless and incomplete. The successful mass-production economy demands such an audience. It isn't anybody's fault. Just as the Amish small business, small farm economy requires intelligence, competence, thoughtfulness and compassion, ours needs a well managed mass -- level, anxious, spiritless families, godless and conforming; people who believe that the difference between Coke and Pepsi is matter worth arguing about. The American economy depends on schooling us that status is purchased and others run our lives. We learn there that sources of joy and accomplishment are external, that the contentment comes with the possessions, seldom from within. School cuts our ability to concentrate to a few minutes duration, creating a life-long craving for relief from boredom through outside stimulation. In conjunction with television and computer games, which employ the identical teaching methodology, these lessons are permanently inscribed. We become fearful, stupid, voiceless and addicted to novelty. <br />
<b><span style="color: blue;">The secret of American schooling is that it doesn't teach the way children learn </span></b>-- nor is it supposed to. Schools were conceived to serve the economy and the social order rather than kids and families -- that is why it is compulsory. As a consequence, the school can not help anybody grow up, because <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">its prime directive is to retard maturity.</b> It does that by teaching that everything is difficult, that other people run our lives, that our neighbors are untrustworthy even dangerous. School is the first impression children get of society. Because first impressions are often the decisive ones, school imprints kids with fear, suspicion of one another, and certain addictions for life. It ambushes natural intuition, faith, and love of adventure, wiping these out in favor of a gospel of rational procedure and rational management. <br />
About a month ago, the New York Times sent a reporter to three daycare centers in <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Houston</city>, <state w:st="on">Texas</state></place>, one for white kids, one for black kids, and one for Hispanic kids. To everyone's surprise, he found that all three were identical, they were wonderful places, they were very well appointed, they were clean, bright, they were colorful. All looked fine. But according to the reporter, each gave only token personal attention to individual kids, because mathematically no more than that was possible. Communication was by cheerful admonitions like "Don't do that Wilma" or to-whom-it-may-concern statements like "it's line-up time!". Workers saw their goals more as managing children than interacting with them. Managing children is what professional childcare is about in <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region>. Schools are part of the professional child care empire and education has nothing whatsoever to do with it. <br />
Behind the melodrama of lurid school headlines, hammer attacks on pregnant school teachers, paramilitary assaults on elementary schools by students whose cheeks have never felt a razor, pass the red herring -- the falling or rising of S.A.T. scores. What seems clear to me after 30 years inside the business, is that school is a place where children learn to dislike each other. What causes that? The self hatred, ineptitude, and generalized antagonism are certainly the justification for a managed society that deviates from the founding documents of this nation, which conferred sovereignty on ordinary people, not on experts. <br />
The U.C.L.A. study done recently of a 1000 public schools found that the teachers" averaged 7 minutes daily in personal exchanges with students. Divided among 30 kids, that is a total of 14 seconds each. The constant scrambling for attention and status in the close confines of the classroom., where those are only officially conferred by an adult who lacks both the time or the information (to be fair), teaches us to dislike and distrust each other. This continuous auction of favors, has something to do with our anger, and our inability to be honest or responsible, even as grown-ups. Yet, ironically, irresponsibility serves the management ideal much better than decent behavior ever could. It demands close management, it explains all those lawyers, all those courts, all those policemen and all those schools. Now either we are structurally undependable, necessitating constant policing, or somehow we have been robbed of our ability to become responsible. <br />
Consider the strange possibility that we have been deliberately taught to be irresponsible and to dislike each other for some good purpose. I am not being sarcastic or even cynical. I spent 19 years as a student, and 30 more as a school teacher and in all that time I was seldom asked to be responsible, unless you mistake obedience and responsibility for the same thing, which they certainly are not. Whether student or teacher, I gave reflective obedience to strangers for 49 years. If that isn't a recipe for irresponsibility then nothing is. In school your payoff comes from giving up your personal responsibility, just doing what you're told by strangers even if that violates the core principles of your household. There isn't any way to grow up in school, school won't let you. As I watched it happen, it takes three years to break a kid, 3 years confined to an environment of emotional neediness, songs, smiles, bright colors, cooperative games, these work much better than angry words and punishment. Constant supplication for attention creates a chemistry whose products are the characteristics of modern school children -- whining, treachery, dishonesty, malice, cruelty and similar traits. Ceaseless competition for attention in the dramatic fishbowl of the classroom, I have never seen this dynamic examined in the public press -- not in 50 years of reading the public press. Ceaseless competition for attention in the dramatic fishbowl of the classroom, reliably delivers cowardly children, toadies, school stoolies, little people sunk into chronic boredom, little people with no apparent purpose, just like caged rats, pressing a bar for sustenance, who develop eccentric mannerisms on a periodic reinforcement schedule. Those of you who took rat psychology in college will know what I'm referring to -- just like the experience of rat psychology, the bizarre behavior kids display is a function of the reinforcement schedule in the confinement of schooling to a large degree. I'm certain of that. Children like this need extensive management. <br />
Suppose that producing incomplete beings is the purpose of modern schooling. Further suppose, there is a rational defense for doing it, Suppose a century ago, far sighted men and women, although they were largely men, saw that to realize the potential in machinery and fossil fuel, that the bulk of the population would have to be dumbed down and made dependent -- not to hurt people -- but because only in this fashion could a population of producers, which surely characterizes the American scene then, be turned into the consumers required by a commercially intense economy. That the labor force could be made sufficiently adaptable to endure modern machinery which must rapidly evolve for ever and ever. This specific engineering problem confronted this key group of business people and philosophers at the beginning of the 20th century. How could a proud liberty-loving nation of independent families and villages be turned from its historic tradition of self-reliance and independence? Grown ups were unlikely to be tractable. The history, the highly personalized practice of local schooling, offered another possibility. Social thinkers have speculated for millennia, that a political state which successfully seizes control of the young could perform economic miracles. That idea is at least 2300 years old. And while the only instrument adequate for such a project, forced schooling, had never been more than a freak in the western world, it had been successful in one place, the military-theocracy of Prussia and the Germanies. Horace Mann's pilgrimage to <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Prussia</place></country-region> in the 1840's became a harbinger of our future set in motion. The 20th century ends with mass schooling threatening to capture early childhood too -- in a round of forced kindergarten exercises. And even after a century of victorious laws of schooling, inspired by Horace Mann's love of <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Prussia</place></country-region>, there is no agreement on what an educated American should look like. School is still a police activity at the end of the 20th century -- as it was at the beginning. And education for Americans remains a slippery concept. <br />
At the beginning of the 20th century, the power to determine what education meant was vested in the managers of the new forced school institution. It was exactly as if in winter an Eskimo gave over meat to a polar bear for safekeeping. "Here you big bear, watch this seal meat until I get back". In the first decades of the new school century the group of famous academics symbolically led by Edward Thorndike (he is the Thorndike of the Thorndike/Barnard dictionary), and John Dewey of Columbia's Teacher's College and their industrialist allies, decided to bend government schooling to business and the political state just exactly as it been bent in Prussia. A higher mission would exist too. Schools would serve as "instruments of managed evolution, establishing conditions for selective breeding before the masses take things into their own hands" (now I quoted that from a published essay by Edward Thorndike at Columbia Teacher's college in 1911). Standardized testing would separate those fit to breed and those fit to work and those unfit. Back before WW1, educational psychology, which was the creation of Edward Thorndike, had established that certain kinds of mental training in history, in philosophy, in rhetoric, for instance, made students resistant to manipulation because it developed independent intellect, it reduced their plasticity. That knowledge coupled with the new German directive to serve corporation and government, provided a sufficient motive to dumb instruction down. <br />
Between 1906 and 1920, a handful of world famous industrialists and financiers, together with their private foundations, hand picked University administrators and house politicians, and spent more attention and more money toward forced schooling than the national government did. Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller alone spent more money than the government did between 1900 and 1920. <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: red;">(Also, consider the fact that certain elite industrialists and bankers got the Federal Reserve banking system into place in the time period between 1910 and 1913. This gave the so called “elite” private individuals the absolute power to control and manipulate all aspects of our society and government.) </span></b>In this fashion, the system of modern schooling was constructed outside the public eye and outside the public's representatives. Now I want you to listen to a direct quote, I have not altered a word of this, it's certainly traceable through your local librarians. From the very first report issued by <b><span style="color: blue;">John D. Rockefeller's General Education Board </span></b>-- this is their first mission statement<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">:<span style="color: blue; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span><span style="color: blue;">"In our dreams, people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present education conventions of intellectual and character education fade from their minds and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into men of learning or philosophers, or men of science. We have not to raise up from them authors, educators, poets or men of letters, great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, </span>(<span style="color: red;">he's really covering the whole gamut of employment isn't he?)</span><span style="color: blue;"> statesmen, politicians, creatures of whom we have ample supply </span><span style="color: red;">(whoever the pronoun we is meant to stand for there).</span><span style="color: blue;"> The task is simple. We will organize children and teach them in an perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way".</span> </b><br />
Now you might say that is quoting out of context and I would speculate what the context of such a statement could possibly be, but in any case, if you want to get the whole thing, that's OCCASIONAL LETTER NO.1. OF THE GENERAL EDUCATION BOARD, which I told you was spending more money than the Federal Government on education of the first two decades of this century. <br />
The real purpose of modern schooling was announced by the legendary sociologist Edward Roth in his manifesto of 1906 called SOCIAL CONTROL. Your librarian will easily be able to get a copy of this book. In it Roth wrote, (I am quoting) <span style="color: blue;">"plans are underway to replace family, community and church with propaganda, mass-media and education (of course he meant schooling)...people are only little plastic lumps of dough".</span> Another insider, H. H. Cadard, chairman for the Psychology Department at <place w:st="on">Princeton</place>, called government schooling approvingly -- "the perfect organization of the hive with the anthill". Cadard wrote further, "standardized testing would cause the lower classes to confront their biological inferiority, sort of like wearing a dunce cap. In time that would discourage reproduction of the ants on the anthill". <br />
The first curriculum was dumbed down, then national testing was inserted, next morality was weakened and finally between 1970 and 1974, teacher training in the <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">U.S.</place></country-region> was comprehensively and covertly revamped. In 1971, the U.S. Office of Education, now committed to gaining access to your private lives and thoughts, granted contracts for seven volumes of change agent studies to the Rand Corporation. Change agent training was launched with Federal funding under the EDUCATION PROFESSIONS DEVELOPMENT ACT. Soon afterward, a book appeared called THE CHANGE AGENT'S GUIDE TO INNOVATION IN EDUCATION. Grants were awarded to colleges for the training of change agents while further <place w:st="on">Rand</place> documents like FACTORS AFFECTING CHANGE AGENTS PROJECTS continued to pour forth for implementation of teacher training courses. Machievelli had been modernized. <br />
Using schools as the principal forge, the building blocks for a self-perpetuating ruling dynasty, organized on scientific principles, moved into place during the first 5 decades of the 20th century. Obstacles like religion, tradition, family, the natural rights guaranteed by our founding documents were steadily beaten back. Schools slowly became, after WW1, a huge reconstruction project conducted with the enthusiasm of an evangelical religion. The traditional God was banished entirely before 1950 to be replaced by psychological missionaries in a social-work priesthood. Public school was transmuted into a social laboratory without public knowledge or public consent. Think of what happened as a second American Revolution, striking down those perverse founding documents which granted sovereignty to ordinary people. <br />
<span style="color: blue;">School was a lie from the beginning and continues to be a lie. </span>You hear a great deal of nonsense these days about the need of a high tech economy for a well educated people, but the truth staring you in the face is that it requires no such thing. As our economy is rationalized into automaticity, and globalization, it becomes more and more an interlocking set of subsystems coordinated centrally by mathematical formulae which simply can not accommodate different ways of thinking and knowing. Our profitable system demands radically incomplete customers and workers to make it go. Educated people are its enemies, so is any nonpragmatic morality. <br />
To get better schools that actually served us instead of suffocating us, we would need to successfully challenge certain scholastic and corporate assumptions. We would need to abandon, entirely, the idea that any such reality as mass-man actually exists. We would have to believe what fingerprints and intuition tell us -- that no two people are alike, that nobody can be accurately described by numbers, that trying to do this sets up a future chain of griefs. We would have to accept that there is no such thing as a science of pedagogy, nor is one possible -- that each individual has a private destiny. We would need to transfer faith to such principles and behave as if it were true. We would have to come to our senses and admit that knowledge is not a substitute for wisdom. We would have to believe each American has the right to live as he or she deems wise providing only they do no harm to others. And if the way individuals chose to live means disaster for global corporations, as the Amish way of life embraced by too many would surely mean disaster, the fateful choice would still have to be honored because it is protected by the only contract that defines us -- our founding documents and natural law. The brilliant dialectical balance struck by our founders was a way to keep power weak and off-balance. The official power and popular power both. Government would check popular tyranny over minority rights. This constant confrontation, this un-winnable war between two permanently flawed collectivizing principles, coercive government and bullying public opinion, produces liberty for those who want it. In the stalemate liberty escapes. <br />
Lately what has happened is this: in an effort to avoid the damnable arguments of the people and to become more efficient, management has wrecked the political balance. It has made us all prisoners of management systems. School is it's vital ally. <span style="color: blue;">What we have built, mass forced schooling, cannot be reformed, it must be bashed.</span> It was created by people, people can take it apart. <br />
Thank you very much. (Applause)... <br />
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Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.Ken Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11036788567030231441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8921907657400177714.post-67396339082643273382012-05-25T08:16:00.001-07:002012-05-25T08:16:46.047-07:00THE GOLDEN RULE an EXCUSE for SIN ???!!!I was just browsing some religous blogs and ran across this one posted by an Episcopal Minister.<br />
This is his quote on his blog.<br />
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Rand Paul, my senator from Kentucky, recently gave a critique of President Obama’s religious views. In reference to Obama’s support of same-sex marriage, he said, "It did kind of bother me though that he used the justification for it in a biblical reference. He said the biblical golden rule caused him to be for gay marriage. And I'm like, what version of the Bible is he reading?"</div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">President Obama told ABC's Robin Roberts that he treats others as he would want to be treated because he's a Christian, and he said that contributed to his support for marriage equality. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Paul said, "I don't know what version he's getting that from."</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Obama got it from the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 7, verse 12. The Gospel’s writer is quoting Jesus. The King James Version (KJV) reads, “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The New International Version reads, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The New Revised Standard Version reads, “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.”</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">I checked several versions and they all conformed to Obama’s use of the verse. Whatever version of the Bible the President used, the message was the same.</span></div>
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I have a problem with this, especially coming from a supposed minister of God.</div>
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First off, I totally agree with the "Golden Rule" and that it is the same in all versions of the Bible, however, this minister is implying that the homosexual life style is acceptable to Jesus.</div>
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Let me explain something that so many are ignoring or overlooking, christians and non-christians alike. Jesus loved EVERYONE but at NO time did He ever condone SIN. Sin is missing the mark or falling short of God's intentions, designs, or desires. While Jesus loved everyone, He always said "Go and SIN NO MORE". ALL sexual perversions, whether adultery, fornication, bestiality, homosexuality, etc. fall short of God's desire and design of a man and a woman together in marriage to one another. Anything else is spoken of in God's Word, the Bible, as SIN. These are just as much SIN as Theft, Murder, Lying, Child molestation, etc. and we certainly don't want to tolerate those things in society.</div>
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We as Christians are to be like Christ and love everyone, but at the same time, we must say to those who are living in obvious sin to "Go and sin NO MORE". We are not to express hatred toward individuals but only toward the sin. However, we as Christians need to examine our own lives and even church doctrines before we point out another's sin because if we point out obvious sin in others and hide, accept, or ignore sin in our own lives or church fellowships, we are being hipocritical and Jesus had some harsh words for hipocrital religious people. Do we ignore or accept "little white lies"; do we accept or ignore cheating on tax returns; do we accept and encourage the charging of usury (interest) in the economic dealings of our nation? Yes, the Bible says charging interest is wrong. Many take a verse in the New Testament out of context to encourage that because they ignore God's law in the Old Testament. </div>
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What I'm saying is that we as Christians, God's people, need to repent (re-think), get our own back yards cleaned up, pull the beams out of our own eyes and then God CAN and WILL heal our land. We can then encourage others out of love to GO AND SIN NO MORE.</div>
</div>Ken Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11036788567030231441noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8921907657400177714.post-46012650265456284252012-02-22T13:19:00.000-08:002012-02-22T13:19:47.342-08:00GOD’S LAW AND MYSTERY BABYLONI know the following discussion may be a little deep for some and there may be those who completely disagree with it. This is actually only a brief summary. I could literally spend weeks or months on this. I do not ask anyone to blindly take my word on any of this, but approach it with genuine heartfelt prayer, asking God to reveal to you the truth and give you understanding. Get into God's word and study and also look at the historical facts. If anyone has any questions, feel free to contact me and we will try with God's help to answer them.<br />
With that said, consider the following.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Despite what the majority of denominational churches teach,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">God’s Law has NOT been done away with.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">It is true that we are not saved by keeping the law. We are</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">saved by grace because Christ kept the law perfectly and paid</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">the penalty that the law required for sin for us as our Passover</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">lamb. However, this does not give us permission to ignore God’s</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Law. It is through the study of and allowing the Holy Spirit to write</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">the Law on our hearts that we become more like Christ and </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">let His mind be in us. In other words, we began to think like and</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">understand God. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">As a result of the false teaching that the Law has been done away</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">with, the majority of Christians do not understand God’s Law and they</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">accept (tolerate) un-lawful behavior from individuals, churches,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">institutions, State Governments and especially the Federal Government.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">First, let’s consider a few thoughts about the Law. God’s Law consists of</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Commandments, Statutes, and Judgments. Under God’s</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Law (which can also be summed up in God’s Law of Love) there are 10 Commandments,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">and then there are about 759 </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Statutes that explain the various Commandments. There</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">are also the judgments (punishments or chastisements) for not obeying the</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Law. The same is true under man’s law, however there are a lot</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">more commandments and millions of statutes under man’s law. Let’s</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">say that the commandment is “thou shall not speed”. What</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">does that mean? There are statutes to explain the commandment;</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">example, thou shall not do more than 20 mph in a</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">school zone, or thou shall not go more than 30 mph in a residential</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">area, or thou shall not do more than 65 mph on a</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">highway. There are also judgments under man’s law. If you</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">get caught speeding; you get a ticket and you face cash register</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">justice.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Did you know that there is a difference </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">between <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">lawful</b> (God’s law) and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">legal</b> (man’s law)?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">One </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">example is that gold and silver are Lawful money; Federal</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Reserve Notes are legal tender; another is that murder is</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">unLawful, baby murder is legal, i.e. abortion.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Sin is the transgression of the Law</span></b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"> (1 John 3:4) or</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">lawlessness</span></b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">. You break the Law under God’s Law and you</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">are a sinner, you break the law under man’s law and you are</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">a criminal.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">True Christianity is not a religion. True Christianity is a moral and</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">ethical way of life with God’s Law as our standard, our guide being written on our hearts by the Holy Spirit after we have confessed our sin and accepted Christ's sacrifice for our sin. This is how we are led by the Spirit. The Holy Spirit will NEVER lead us to do anything contrary to God’s Law. It doesn’t matter what</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">the preacher says is right or wrong or thus sayeth our Denomination; its what God says is right or wrong that matters.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Additionally, we are admonished to live our lives by the spirit of the Law (the Spirit is Love and gives Life) but not the letter of the Law (it killeth); that’s where grace comes in.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Now, to continue, we are captives of Mystery Babylon and don’t even know it. God, in His mercy, has blinded us so that we would willingly accept our captivity </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">without realizing that we are captives. Today we are literally watching the collapse of <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Babylon</place></city> world-wide before our eyes. The good news however is that delivery from this Babylonian captivity is near. MYSTERY, (<u>better translated</u> <u>secret or hidden</u>) BABYLON THE GREAT, is a world wide system that is primarily Economic (<u>the entire economy is</u> <u>based on debt, credit, and usury</u>) (the <u>Beast from the Earth</u>). The gold and silver have been done away with as money or medium of exchange and replaced by unbacked paper notes. However it is also Political (<u>a totally corrupt system</u>), including Judicial (<u>an unjust system</u>), and Religious (<u>false and half true doctrines</u> <u>taught in the churches and a church ruler setting himself up to have more influence and power than Christ</u>) (the <u>Beast from the Sea</u>). Remember, Jesus said that we worship God in vain and make His commandments of none effect if we teach man’s <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>traditions and doctrines instead of the true word of God. The system also includes Social (<u>a way of life that has become secular, with no standards or absolutes</u>).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT;">What brought us to this point?</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Just as God punished the Israelites of old for violating</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">His Law and put them into various captivities at different</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">occasions, God has put us into captivity by Mystery</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><place w:st="on"><city w:st="on"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Babylon</span></city></place><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"> for violating His Law. An iron yoke indicates</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">deportation and captivity in a foreign land (country), a</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">wooden yoke indicates captivity in one’s own land. In the</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">late 1800’s and early 1900’s our churches started teaching</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">the false doctrine that we do not need to keep the Law because</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">we are under grace. This led to the believers doing what was right</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">in their own eyes in stead of following the principals of God’s Law</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">to direct their lives. When God put <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Israel</place></country-region> of old in Assyrian</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">captivity in 745 B.C., He put them in bondage for 7 Times.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Now we need to know what a times is. There are 365 days</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">in a solar year and 354 days in a lunar year. The average or</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">mean between the two is 360 days. There are 360 days in a</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">biblical year; there are 360 degrees in a circle, so one time</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">around the cycle is 360. 7 x 360 equals 2,520. Add 2,520</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">years to 745 B.C. (there is no year “0”), it comes to 1776,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">the birth of our nation, 13 tribes of <place w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on">Israel</country-region></place> (including the tribe</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">of Levi), 13 colonies, etc. <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> didn’t happen by</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">chance, it was instituted by God. Read our founding documents</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">and those of the Puritans and Pilgrims. They knew</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">who they were. <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> in the Celtic language means</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">“heavenly kingdom,” (just not perfected).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">The capital of <country-region w:st="on">Israel</country-region> of old was <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Samaria</place></city>, which fell in</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">721 B.C.. Add 2,520 years and it comes to 1800 when <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region>’s</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">capital was moved from <city w:st="on">Philadelphia</city> to <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Washington</city> <state w:st="on">D.C.</state></place></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">The <place w:st="on"><placetype w:st="on">kingdom</placetype> of <placename w:st="on">Babylon</placename></place> of old became an empire in 607</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">B.C., add 2,520 years and it comes to 1914, the establishment</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">of the Federal Reserve System, the Central Bank of</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><city w:st="on"><place w:st="on"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Babylon</span></place></city><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">. The Federal Reserve Act created a neo-</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Babylonian Empire in the modern world and put us into</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">financial bondage to the banksters who control political</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">leaders through the power of money. The Federal Reserve</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">is the mechanism God used to put us in bondage to <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Babylon</city></place></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">again, God’s timing proves it. To make the point that we are</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">in bondage, think about some things.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">a) Babylonian captors don’t care about our “God given rights” secured by the Constitution, given to us “slaves” by our Creator. They are only interested in controlling us through “state granted privileges”, policies and procedures, </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">licenses and permits, rules and regulations, taxes, etc. Think about the laws</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">that were passed in ancient <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Babylon</city></place> to prevent God’s people from praying (Daniel)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">and that penalized God’s people when they refused to bow down to unrighteous government laws (Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego). The </span><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">same thing is going on today.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">b) The power brokers of <place w:st="on"><city w:st="on">Babylon</city></place> have gained their power</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">through debt. <country-region w:st="on"><place w:st="on">America</place></country-region> is now on the verge of bankruptcy</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">and in so much debt that our grandchildren will never be</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">able to repay it. Remember the Biblical principals of “neither</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">a lender nor borrower be” or that “the borrower is servant</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">of the lender” (Proverbs 22:7).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">c) We as a nation are now part of a Global (world-wide</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><place w:st="on"><city w:st="on"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Babylon</span></city></place><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"> ) Economy and have lost millions of jobs overseas</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">through outsourcing while our citizens are unemployed.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">d) We are in Economic Slavery through confiscatory</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">income taxes, administered through a progressive (communist)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">income tax system and a variety of other sales and use</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">taxes, as well as license, permit and registration fees, etc.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">e) We no longer have the right to ownership of property,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">only the privilege of possessing it as long as you pay tribute</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">to “Caesar”. Just try not paying your property taxes and</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">see how long the government lets you live in their house.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">f) We have lost our freedom and are now ruled by a moderately</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">tyrannical government; almost every aspect of our</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">lives is controlled in one way or another.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT;">When the Government needs money it</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT;">borrows the money from the Federal</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT;">Reserve. The Federal Reserve then creates</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT;">what is called money from thin air, pays the</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT;">Treasury Department to print it, loans it to</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT;">the Government at interest (usury). The</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT;">Federal Reserve is then paid back with interest</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT;">(usury) when the I.R.S. collects taxes.</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT;">The I.R.S. is nothing more than the collection</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT;">agency for the Federal Reserve. Have you</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT;">ever noticed that when you write a check to</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT;">the I.R.S. the back of the check is endorsed</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT;">by the Federal Reserve and not the I.R.S. or</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPS-BoldMT;">Treasury Department? Nice scam huh?!</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">The 8th Commandment states that “Thou Shall Not</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Steal”. The Statutes that explain this Commandment</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">include statutes against usury. Usury (charging interest on</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">a loan) is against God’s Law (Deut. 23:19 ). Stealing, whether by a gun</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">or a government or unrighteous interest charged by a bank, is against God’s Law. Our entire economic system is contrary to God’s Law. There are no equal weights and measures, and it is “an abomination unto the Lord thy God” (Deut. 25:13-16).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">As a result it’s a house of cards in the process of collapsing before our</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">eyes. Unless the Lord builds the house and the house is built upon the rock, it will</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">not stand.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">One last thought. We, as Americans, have been worshiping</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">the “Golden Calf” without realizing it; chasing the</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">“American Dream”, the pursuit of success, keeping up with</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">the Joneses, buying into the Prosperity Gospel taught in so</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">many churches and ministries, etc. But what about Jesus’</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">words “. . . but rather seek ye the <place w:st="on"><placetype w:st="on">Kingdom</placetype> of <placename w:st="on">God</placename></place> ; and all</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">these things shall be added unto you. . . ” (Luke 12:15-34)?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">How do we get out of this mess?</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">“. . . And when these things begin to come to pass, then</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28). Mystery <city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Babylon</place></city> the Great, is</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">not going away until we (Christians) repent of our lawless</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">ways. We should start learning about and applying God’s</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Law in our daily lives. Victory is assured because repentance</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">is assured. It was assured in 2001 when God blinded</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">every one into praying “God Bless <place w:st="on"><country-region w:st="on">America</country-region></place> ” after 9/11. He</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">will “. . . bless you, in turning away every one of you from</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">his iniquities” (lawlessness) (Acts 3:26 ). “If my people,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">which are called by name (Christians) shall humble themselves,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">wicked (lawless) ways; then will I hear from heaven, and</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">will forgive their sin, and will heal their land” (II</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Chronicles 7:14).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">“But if from thence thou shalt seek the LORD thy God, thou shalt</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">thee, even in the latter days</span></b><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">, if thou turn to the LORD thy God, and</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">shalt be obedient unto his voice;” (Deuteronomy 4:29-30).</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">When, <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">not if</b>, Mystery Babylon falls it will be replaced by the Kingdom</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">of God here on earth. Jesus Christ our King is returning.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">We don’t go to “heaven” and just kick back on a cloud,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">the “ <place w:st="on"><placetype w:st="on">Kingdom</placetype> of <placename w:st="on">Heaven</placename></place> ” is coming here. “Blessed are the meek:</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">for they shall inherit the earth” (Matt.5:5). Seek out the “Gospel of</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">the Kingdom”. It’s more than the simple “milk of the</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">word” and the “Gospel of Salvation”. <strong>That’s just the beginning</strong>.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">It’s real meat. It’s about our King (Jesus the Christ),</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">His Law (God’s Law), Kingdom Administration (the</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Overcomers who will sit with Him on His throne), a Land area (<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">New</b>, not old,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><place w:st="on"><city w:st="on"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Jerusalem</span></b></city></place><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;"> ), and the Citizens (Believers in Christ). Nonbelievers</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">will be outside the Kingdom, out from under the</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">Glory of God.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">The Gospel of the Kingdom is also about the restitution</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT; font-size: 11.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: TimesNewRomanPSMT;">and restoration of all things.</span></div>Ken Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11036788567030231441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8921907657400177714.post-54921608042344182302012-02-22T13:01:00.000-08:002012-02-22T13:01:05.415-08:00ReturnWell, it has been just a little over a year since I last posted on this blog. It was one of the most trying years I have ever experienced going through the sickness and hospital stays and the continual ministering to my wife after she was finally able to return home. It has been very trying, but God has truly blessed and taught me through it all.<br />
I hope that I will again be able to return and begin to post to this blog again on a fairly regular basis.<br />
Thanks to all for you prayers, support, and encouragement this past year.Ken Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11036788567030231441noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8921907657400177714.post-16421049612595635202011-02-16T07:12:00.000-08:002011-02-16T12:20:52.217-08:00Boy Sees Jesus in near-death experience<h2>Boy Sees Jesus in near-death experience</h2><br />
Read this story. It is so uplifting and inspiring. It will encourage you during these turbulent and trying times.<br />
If you are a child of God, you really do have a lot to look forward to. May God truly bless and encourage you every day.<br />
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Here's an 11-year-old boy who will not grow up to be an atheist. Not after seeing Jesus for himself. God is raising up a new generation of children for the time ahead. Click on this link to read the story.<br />
<a href="http://www.kdvr.com/news/kdvr-after-neardeath-experience-boy-writes-book-heaven-is-real-20110210,0,2566980.story">http://www.kdvr.com/news/kdvr-after-neardeath-experience-boy-writes-book-heaven-is-real-20110210,0,2566980.story</a>Ken Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11036788567030231441noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8921907657400177714.post-23159951072210193282011-02-15T09:13:00.000-08:002011-02-15T13:13:18.076-08:00What Face Are You Wearing?<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">I would like to apologize for being late with this post.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There has just been a lot going on and I believe Satan just doesn’t want this blog done, but greater is He that is within me than he that is in the world!</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Today I’m writing about something that we are all guilty of and as Christians, we should not be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I hope it will give us all pause to think and examine ourselves.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">Not long ago as I was driving home from town during a snow storm, I noticed someone standing at a stop sign wiping the snow off of it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As I got nearer to the individual, I recognized who it was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now for everyone living around where I live, all you have to do is mention the name Willard, and everyone immediately recognizes whom this individual is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Willard has some issues that everyone knows about, in that everyday he dresses up as a different person. One day he might dress up as a woman.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another day he might dress up as an Indian or a soldier, or batman, or a cowboy and on and on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every day he is a different character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He presents a different face or character everyday, so to speak. The problem is, even we as Christians try to put on different faces to try and get ourselves or others to perceive us in certain ways. We may not put on a different face or costume every day like Willard does, but we can be just as guilty and just as Willard was wiping snow from the stop sign so it could be easily read, God is telling us to STOP putting on these false faces.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;">The face is the primary instrument by which others recognize us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I was in college taking a course in psychology, we studied the case of “the three faces of Eve”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was about a woman who had multiple personality disorder.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She had three distinct personalities, but in the end, only one of her personalities won out. You might say her true face finally shown through.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;">If you are a true Christian, you should realize that you have two faces or characters. We have the old character of the FLESH which identifies with the opinions, attitudes, ideals and characteristics of the way the world or mankind in general acts and thinks and we have the new character of Christ which identifies with God and Jesus and the way they act and think. The bible in Romans 12:2 says “<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what <i><span style="color: grey;">is</span></i> that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Philippians 2:5 says “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">You see everyday we are bombarded by the ideas and attitudes of the world around us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The world’s education system, the politicians, media and TV tells us we need to have this, wear that, buy this, act like that, think like this and everyone will see you as such and such. So we do these things because we want to perceive ourselves and we want others to perceive us as successful, cool, macho, sexy and on and on. We go out and put on these FACES or COSTUMES.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes people want to be perceived as RELIGIOUS so they go to church and try to act like and do things that they think will make them look this way, but the true face or character shines through the rest of the time. I’m afraid it’s sometimes too easy to identify someone who is a carnal, immature or worldly Christian or not even a Christian at all simply by looking at the face or costume they are wearing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Believe me, everything some church denominations teach and say are alright are NOT alright according to God’s holy word, the Bible.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Georgia;">My question to you is this: Are you conforming to this world, or are you allowing the mind of Christ to grow in you?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are you trying to identify with the way the rest of the world is, or are you identifying with Christ?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Are you a true Christian?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If so, start letting the mind, character, and face of Christ become dominate in you by humbling and submitting yourself to God so that when others see you, they see the true FACE of Christ and not the Face of the world or just some false costume you’ve put on!</span></div>Ken Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11036788567030231441noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8921907657400177714.post-8781671984964339092011-01-04T08:51:00.000-08:002011-01-04T11:11:16.184-08:00What this blog is aboutHello. My name is Ken Edwards. I'm am first and foremost a Christian, a Child of the King!!! I truly enjoy teaching God's word and have been doing so for 20 years now.<br />
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In this blog I will talk about many things. The primary purpose is to challenge you to think!!! To think about your walk with the Lord, your attitudes, your lifestyle and other things that may happen to come to me in hopes that you will examine your walk and beliefs in the hope that you will become a better Christian and develope a much closer walk with Jesus. The problem is, we all want to stay in our comfort zone. We don't want to think. We are afraid to admit to ourselves or others that we might be wrong or what we've heard might be wrong. If you aren't afraid. If you want to get closer to God. If you want to grow in your knowledge of God. If you want to know Truth, I challenge you read these blogs and then THINK, PRAY, and STUDY!<br />
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I do not consider myself a prophet, but many times in Biblical history, there were those men of God who challenged the mainstream thoughts and teachings of the Religious leaders of those days to try and get the people to truly open themselves up to God, repent and walk with Him instead of blindly following the doctrines and commandments of men which today would be Denominationalism.<br />
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These prophets were almost always persecuted, ostracized and sometimes killed by those religious leaders who wanted to keep their power and control over the people instead of encouraging them to seek TRUTH and follow God and Him alone. Elijah and John the Baptist were two of the prophets who sought to turn the people to God's Truth as was also Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. Hence the name of this blog, A Voice Crying in the Wilderness. And it is a Wilderness out there. Hundreds of Denominations and beliefs. Whom are we to believe?<br />
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I would like to ask you to never take my word on anything, but I challenge you to pray, seek God's face, study and research for yourself to learn the Truth before just blindly accepting anything or rejecting anything just because it may different from generally accepted things that you have heard.<br />
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May the God of Creation, through the sacrifice of His son, Jesus Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit bless you and help to lead both you and I into ALL TRUTH as we share this blog together.Ken Edwardshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11036788567030231441noreply@blogger.com1