Not Much Freedom of Speech Here Folks

by Al Benson Jr.

It seems that the article I posted yesterday as a warning to the Church was politically incorrect enough to tick someone off. Actually I thought it was rather mild compared to all that I could have said, but it was too much for someone.

When I went to get into my blog spot this morning I got a message that said “A script might be busy” and it went on from there, but the result was that I could not click into my blog to check my statistics for yesterday no matter what I did. I checked my debugging thing which was like reading Greek to me, but at the bottom of the Greek was a message that said “This site has been black boxed” and it went on to say that trying to click into the site on the regular icons was useless. It was indeed. I tried for several minutes with a bit of mild frustration and got nowhere.

I finally did find a way in or I wouldn’t be typing this out but it sure isn’t everything I could have hoped for and I am wondering how many of you all will get this. This isn’t the first time my blog has been “paid attention” to in one manner or another but this is a new wrinkle. I guess someone figured if the other methods they employed didn’t work they’d give this one a shot.

I find it interesting that those who howl the loudest about “free speech” are the ones that want to shut it down for everyone else but those on the left. Their version of “free speech” is much like the Communists’ version of “peace”–absence of resistance to everything they say and do. I don’t know if this latest “problem” is something like that or not but let’s just say it wouldn’t surprise me.

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Is There A Warning For The Church Here?

by Al Benson Jr.

The realization that lots of folks will not be overly thrilled with what I say here has not escaped me, but I feel it needs to be said anyway.

In looking at the history of Israel in the Old Covenant we can see many problems that most people today would rather not address and some even want to sweep under the rug. There are various reasons for that, one of which is that a true rendering of Israel’s real history just might affect the sales of “End Times” prophecy books because many would now start to begin to realize that there is really no crying need for such material.

A good friend of mine who is a pastor recently preached a sermon, the title of which was, Israel’s Only Hope.  And Israel’s only hope isn’t the “rapture” or the rebuilding of the Temple or the reinstitution of the Old Covenant sacrifices or any of the stuff most of us were taught as kids or young Christians. We have to learn to put this stuff aside. My friend aptly noted that Israel’s only hope before 70 AD was the acceptance of Jesus the Christ as their Messiah–something Israel’s religious leaders steadfastly refused to do for the most part. He observed that, by the time of Jesus’ virgin birth, Israel had a long history of unbelief, hardheartedness, and outright rebellion (which has carried over into the present age). Now, with Jesus’ appearing, Israel was being given one last chance to repent, turn around, and do what God had beforehand ordained for them to do–be a light to the world, to be faithful servants of God, and most of all, to accept Jesus for who He was and is. Israel’s response, through her religious leaders, was to plot His death. In reply to Pilate’s attempt to turn Him loose the Jews cried “Crucify him, His blood be on us, and on our children.”(Matthew 27:25).  I doubt that most of them knew what they we’re asking for.

As recorded in Luke 4, Jesus in Capernaum was confronted by a demonic in the synagogue. We’ve all probably read this story over the years and never thought to question why was this man in the synagogue to begin with? Demon-possessed people were not supposed to be in the synagogue to begin with and yet they were. What does that say for the spiritual condition of the synagogue? And, though Jesus healed many people there, it is interesting to note that only the demon acknowledged who He really was (Luke 4:41).

The sermon referenced here noted: “In chapter 5 Jesus heals a leper–demonstrating not only His power but His willingness to restore those who have become unclean and cut off from God’s presence. Then He heals a paralytic–which shows not only His power to heal and to cleanse but also His authority to forgive sins. Jesus is the fulfillment of all that the Temple signified.” Therefore, in Christ, there is no more need for the Temple–and many in our day need to let this sink in.

The sermon concludes with this thought: “Israel’s unbelief has brought sickness and uncleanness. The only hope for Israel is Jesus who is both willing and able to cleanse and heal and restore them. If they reject Him they will perish.” And that holds as true today as it did before His crucifixion and resurrection. But mostly Israel ain’t having any of that and their spirit of rebellion exists today as it did then. How many radical, leftist groups in our day are peopled with those that have embraced the religion of Judaism, whether they can even trace their ancestors back to Abraham or not! In fact, since His death and resurrection their spirit of rebellion has intensified. Having rejected their Messiah it seems they have no place else to go to but radical revolution and this has become the god for many–a god that will ultimately fail.

Just this past weekend I read an article on http://www.israelnationalnews.com by a David Rosenberg, the title of which was American Jews strongest backers of gay marriage, abortion.  The article stated: “Jews are the most libertine religious group in America according to a new Gallup poll, and are more likely even than people with no religion to find same-sex relations and abortion to be morally acceptable…According to the survey,  American Jews were more likely than any other religious group–including those with no religion–to find abortion and gay relations morally acceptable. With few exceptions, Jews reflected strongly libertine views that deviated from those of Catholics, Protestants, and Mormons. A whopping 76% of American Jews said they felt abortion was ‘morally acceptable,’ compared to just 38% of Catholics, 33% of Protestants, and 18% of Mormons.” Again, with sodomite and lesbian relations, 85% of Jews had no problems,  and that even beat those who claimed no religious affiliations of any kind. They registered 83%. There was more to the survey but I can’t cover it all here. Anyway, you get the idea.

So I have to ask–is there a lesson here for the Church also? All that has been recorded in the Scriptures pertaining to Israel’s  unbelief has been written so we could learn from it and not repeat the same grievous errors that Israel committed. So how is the Church doing today with some of this? When it comes to sodomy, lesbianism, and abortion in our day the Church seems to be sending out a mixed message. Some get it right and others are way off in Left field, and then there are those in the broad middle that don’t seem to want to “offend” anyone and so they seem to take no position, not realizing that in so doing they are silently siding with the perverts and abortionists.

The warnings to Israel in Jesus’ day are something the Church needs to be aware of in our day, lest in trying to be even more merciful than God, we bring judgment upon ourselves.

Why I Can’t Vote For Ted Cruz–Conclusion

by Al Benson Jr.

Just a  little further background. In his comments on March 10th Pastor Chuck Baldwin noted several things about the Bush Dynasty. He said: “The Bush connection to the fascist state of Germany goes back to Prescott Bush (G. W. Bush’s grandfather) and Herbert Walker (father-in-law of Prescott)…The (London) Guardian has obtained confirmation  from newly discovered files in the U.S. National Archieves that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.” There’s more, but I’d invite folks to do a little research on their own.

I mention this in light of Pastor Baldwin’s  commentary, which I quoted in the previous article where he noted: ” “…presidential candidate Ted Cruz has taken up where G. W. Bush left off. He is pushing the ‘war for Israel’ button HARD. And don’t forget that both Ted and his wife, Heidi, are ardent disciples of G. W. Bush…”

From there Pastor Baldwin went on to explain why Cruz and his wife are pushing the ‘War for Israel’ button so hard. He stated: “By tapping into the commonly taught (albeit misguided) religious doctrine that the modern state of Israel is the same as Biblical Israel, neocons discovered a brand new resource for promoting war:  fighting to protect and/or expand the Zionist state of Israel. Christian Zionists such as John Hagee, Pat Robertson, et al., have rallied millions of evangelical Christians into a perpetual war fever–all under the rubric of protecting Israel (which again, they falsely believe is Bible Israel).

I ran into a personal example of this a few years ago with a man whose acquaintance I made at a Southern Heritage conference. The subject of the Israeli attack on the U.S.S. Liberty back in 1967 came up, and he said that has been an accident. Knowing differently, I corrected his assumption and told him, quite frankly that it had been deliberate. Big mistake on my part!  At that point he started castigating me for not totally supporting the Zionists, and he told me that, as Christians, we had an obligation to support the state of Israel no matter what they did or how underhanded it might be, or where they might have come from because even those not born in the Middle East (Khazars) were still the “chosen people” no matter what simply because they were Jews! In his thinking the Christian Church was only “plan B” and the main duty of Christians was to support the state of Israel without qualification! It seems that the Christian Church only existed, in his thinking as some sort of spiritual appendage for the support of national Israel. For him that was its main significance.

At that point I ceased trying have a rational conversation with this man. And I have run into this ultra-dogmatic mindset on several occasions. I was once informed that a minister I knew who refused to accept the Scofield Bible’s garbled definition of the “end times” was an apostate. Having known this minister personally, i can attest to the fact that he was NOT an apostate just because he refused to accept Scofield’s Israel first agenda. And to be honest, I can’t accept it either. Forty seven years ago, before I knew better, I did. But if you look for the truth, with the passage of time the Lord gives wisdom, and I, by God’s grace, walked away from Scofield and his agenda. As I stated in the first article, I realize some good folks will get ticked off at me, and for that I am sorry, but that’s how it is. I cannot, in good conscience, recommend that any Christian be a Zionist! You are a Christian or a Zionist–one or the other. I do not believe you can be both at the same time. “No man can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24).

Part of the reason, apart from this, that I can’t support Cruz  is his and his wife’s political connections. Ted is not the “outsider” most folks have been programmed to think he is.

Author Roger Stone noted in an patriotsunited.com article that: “There is no better example of this than Calgary Ted’s actions surrounding the big Wall Street banks and their secret funding of his political ascension.  Cruz has been gorging at the table of the ultimate insider of all insiders–Goldman Sachs and Citibank…At the same time Ted’s bulging 2016 campaign accounts and supporting Super-PACs are stuffed with big oil and gas money. He knows how to play the game…his wife, Heidi, has been employed by Goldman-Sachs since 2005…Heidi is a proud member of the lefty Council on Foreign Relations, advocates of one world government and the New World Order.” seems that Goldman, at one point, put out a cool million to fund Ted’s senate campaign.

What all this amounts to is that, despite all his Christian credentials, Ted Cruz is an ultimate Establishment Insider who will, like so many other RINO’s put Israel’s interests before those of his own country for badly misplaced theological reasons. All these good Christian folks that feel that politics and theology have no relationship need to grasp the central truth that there is a great deal of theology in politics–and often it is faulty theology.

For those willing to do a little reading to understand some of the Scripture pertaining to the end times I will recommend two short books here. You can probably read both in about two days. The first is Why the End is Not Near by Pastor Duane Garner, available from Athanasius Press, 205 Roselawn Ave., Monroe, Louisiana 71201. Last time I checked the price was $6.00. The other one is The Church Is Israel now by Charles D. Provan, published by Ross House Books, P O Box 67 Vallecito, California 95251. The copy I have is marked $5.00 but you might want to contact them and check. It might be more now as I’ve had mine for awhile.

 

 

Why I Can’t Vote For Ted Cruz–part one

by Al Benson Jr.

I expect this column will make lots of sincere folks mad at me and I debated whether or not I should write it and finally felt that I had to. I hope some of the good folks whose first reaction may be anger will step back and think about what I’ve said with some sober reflection.

Over the past months I’ve watched the presidential candidates from both parties scream, shout, posture, and generally do whatever they seem to think it will take to get elected. I’ve watched some of the “conservative” websites on the Internet and have concluded that many of them are little more than political shills for certain candidates. The political process in this country is a charade, geared to fool the gullible public into thinking they really have a say in what their government does and the direction it goes in. It’s what the Bible refers to as a “cunningly devised fable.”

Maybe a year and a half or so ago I did an article for this blog that still gets more views than anything I have done since–one on why “Hillary the unindicted”  will end up being the next president.  Unless someone in the top echelons of the Establishment gets ticked at Hillary for some reason and she ends up getting indicted, I’m not ready to change my mind of that. I’d dearly love to be wrong. The prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency does not thrill me. But let’s wait and see.

Recently a sincere Christian gentleman stopped to talk with me and was curious about where I stood on the Republican candidates involved in this year’s presidential dog and pony show.  I told him that I had been watching Trump and leaned somewhat toward him for the simple reason that almost everyone of consequence, both left and right, seemed to hate his guts. Trump makes them all mad. He has this disconcerting habit of saying things that need to be said and that strikes a chord with the American people who have begun to realize that the politicians and the government have been shafting them for generations now.  Though some outfits are now in the process of trying to tell us how much the public disapproves of Trump, and you can skew your polls however you want, but that’s not what I’ve seen so far.

At any rate, this man wondered if I had considered Ted Cruz as a votable possibility and he told me someone, I can’t recall now, in his family, had heard Cruz was a committed Christian, that his father was an evangelist. I don’t for a minute doubt his sincerity.

But I’ve watched presidential races since the late 1960s and all the aspirants for the office of president have claimed Christian credentials–mainly because they want the votes of Christians who don’t have the first clue about how the political process in this country works, and who, quite frankly, are not interested in learning. All most of them want is a “feel good” candidate who claims he is a Christian and waves his Bible around so they can feel like they voted for a Christian. Even the current occupant of the White (Red) House claimed at one point that he was a “committed Christian” and I wonder, in view of his performance in office, how many still buy that bit of bovine fertilizer. Way too many, I’m afraid. There is a world of difference in spouting about your Christian faith on the campaign trail and then governing like one if you get elected and I haven’t seen a president in all the years I can remember back to Roosevelt, that remotely tried to act like a Christian once he got in office. Oh, they will use the gullible Christians to get themselves elected so they can then govern exactly like the One World Government pagans that most of them really are. Of course, in this context, most of us also realize that the president doesn’t really “govern” much of anything. What he really does is to work to forward the ungodly agendas of those who wanted him in office for just that reason–to move their agendas forward regardless of the will of the American people.

One Christian pastor that I do follow quite regularly is Chuck Baldwin from Montana. I’ve watched him over the years and he does seem to have a lot more on the ball than most Christian preachers when it comes to the political arena. Most Christian pastors have been brainwashed into ignoring politics like the plague. They know nothing and want to know nothing. And that’s part of the reason we have so many scumbags in government–willful Christian ignorance.

Anyway, Pastor Baldwin had some interesting and revelatory commentary about Ted Cruz in a March 10th column on NewsWithViews.com  Pastor Baldwin observed that: “In current politics, presidential candidate Ted Cruz has taken up where G. W. Bush left off. He is pushing the ‘war for Israel’ button HARD.  And don’t forget that both Ted and his wife, Heidi, are ardent disciples of G. W. Bush–and Heidi was also a long-standing member of the quintessential neocon organization the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Ted’s preacher father is an outspoken leader in ‘Greater Israel’ prophecy circles.  He (Ted’s dad) goes to churches all over America preaching the idea that God has called Ted to ‘save Israel’ and usher in the Second Coming of Christ.”

So here we have a presidential candidate whose wife has been a CFR member, among other things, and whose father thinks he should be president so he can “save Israel” and by so doing usher in the Second Coming. I submit that it’s not up to any human being to help speed up the Second Coming.  That event is in the Lord’s hands and He will decide when, not any of us.

To be continued.