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CNN reported earlier this year that Mount Rainier in Washington state in the U.S. Northwest has many scientists more concerned than the Yellowstone's supervolcano. One volcanologist explained: "Mount Rainier keeps me up at night because it poses such a great threat to the surrounding communities. Tacoma and South Seattle are built on 100-foot-thick (30.5-meter) ancient mudflows from eruptions of Mount Rainier" (Why Mount Rainier is the US Volcano That Troubles Scientists Most," June 26, 2024).
More than lava and ash, "many scientists fear the prospect of a lahar -- a swiftly moving slurry of water and volcanic rock originating from ice or snow rapidly melted by an eruption that picks up debris as it flows through valleys and drainage channels . . . [One USGS research seismologist noted] 'And there are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people who live in areas that potentially could be impacted by a large lahar, and it could happen quite quickly" (ibid.).
The Bible does tell us that there will be terrible natural catastrophes at the end of this age, and it's good to be mindful of such dangers. Yet there is no place in this world truly safe from calamity. All of us must seek God for protection and help to make it through. And we look forward to the time of Jesus Christ's reign on earth, when the world will no longer face such threats.
Many in America and around the world were in a state of shock over what happened on July 13, when an attempt was made to kill former U.S. President Donald Trump as he spoke at an election campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in seeking to regain the presidency. A bullet grazed his ear, another rally attendee was killed, and two others were seriously wounded, while a Secret Service sniper killed the gunman positioned on a rooftop outside the rally.
It was remarkable to then see President Trump rise from amid his security detail, pump his fist and shout to rallygoers to keep fighting, hailed by many as an iconic moment in history. But the bullet had come very close to taking his life. A turn of his head to point out information on a screen at the critical moment kept the bullet from going through his head on live television. He acknowledged on his social media platform TruthSocial that it was "God alone who prevented the unthinkable from happening."
If Trump had been killed, it's possible civil unrest would have risen to a boiling point, with violent reprisals and uprisings. Thankfully that was averted, though we grieve for the victims and the conditions and confusion that drove this.
There are still many questions and grave concerns about what happened. How did the shooter know the roof would be unguarded so he could do this? Why was the roof unguarded then. There were so many security breakdowns. Many have worried about collusion and coverup. Congressional hearings revealed that the Secret Service, charged with protecting current and former presidents and presidential candidates, had not spoken to local law enforcement before the rally or even weeks after. This is very strange. As with some past assassination attempts, it's possible we may never get to the bottom of it in this life. No doubt dark spiritual forces were involved, as these influence various key events in the world.
As we contemplate what happened, all of us should be praying for our national leaders and interceding for our people (1 Timothy 2:1-4; see Daniel 9:3-19). Above all, we should be seeking the day when all such violence will be a thing of the past, praying to God, "Your kingdom come" (Matthew 6:10; see verse 33).
To understand the deep jeopardy America and other Western nations are in today, request or download our free study guide The United States and Britain in Bible Prophecy.
Communism is supposed to be about everyone sharing equality, but it never works that way. For instance, an article in India's Sunday Guardian by Paul Berkowitz and Bradley Thayer on April 21, 2024 noted:
"Global investigation into the wealth and corruption of the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] leadership will show that the CCP's leaders are billionaires with untold wealth in New York, Switzerland, Dubai, London, Paris, and countless other locations . . . No Communist should be wealthy; it is like being a married bachelor, and the CCP are expert at hiding their wealth."
In a televised interview on June 10, Thayer explained that China's communist leaders are the richest people on earth, having stolen the wealth of the Chinese people. That's the reality of communism -- violating God's laws against lying, theft and coveting to the harm of many. And we see parallels with many of our progressive leaders in the West -- some even touting their adoration for China's government.
It's worse when we realize that communism has been a system of murder. Communism and the wider umbrella of socialism have been the biggest murdering agents in world history -- with the CCP the biggest of all. Besides the policies of Mao Zedong being responsible for an estimated 65 million people dying through starvation, persecution, prison labor and mass executions, the infamous one-child policy, lasting through 2016, brought about the forced abortions of half a billion unborn children. Yet again, as agents -- for another who is not only, as Jesus Christ said, the father of lies, but also "a murderer from the beginning," Satan the devil (John 8:44).
Every year at this season, in the annual Day of Atonement, we are reminded of the day the devil's deceptions will end. Pray fervently for that day, and for all who are suffering under the oppressions of this evil age.
The war in Ukraine has stirred up the European debate about the need for a combined military. Poland's deputy prime minister and defense minister pointed out that Europe needs to form a rapid reaction force and appoint a defense commissioner ("The Ukraine War Revives Talk of a Common European Army," Warsaw Business Journal, May 18, 2024).
Further, "according to Eurobarometer research published in 2022, the vast majority of EU citizens (81 percent) support a common defense and security policy -- in every EU country, this support is at least 2/3 of citizens. About 93 percent of EU residents agree that countries should work together to defend the territory of the Community, and 85 percent believe that defense cooperation should be strengthened at the EU level" (ibid.).
Bible prophecy informs us that at a certain point, European leaders will come together to empower a single leader, who will become a tyrannical ruler in a final revival of the Roman Empire. To learn more about what's coming, and the events that have led up to it, request or download our free study guide The Final Superpower.
As explained in the article, "Kingdom of Lies: The Demonic Assault on Reality", socialists and other utopians who believe they can solve the world's problems effectively live in a fantasy world.
Communist founders Marx and Engels used a reasoning method laid out by German philosopher Hegel called dialectic -- arriving at a resolution between two arguments -- which they applied to overturning society. Their thinking is explained well by political scientist Victor Zitta in his 1964 book taking to task one of the main Marxist intellects of the Stalinist era (George Lukacs' Marxism, Alienation, Dialectics, Revolution, pp. 210-211).
Zitta gives three elements present in Marxist utopian dialectic reasoning (paraphrased, as the writing is academic):
1. Alienation -- nurturing a sense of disconnect from the current state of things with a radically negative attitude toward it. Hating the way things are -- rejecting reality as it exists. We can see this with Marxists, for sure. But it also fits every other kind of dissatisfaction and dissociation, as with sexual revolutionaries, especially those claiming to be trans or non-binary.
2. Self-righteousness in the certainty of one's own conclusions, refusing to question their own beliefs or ideas even despite evidence to the contrary.
3. Idealization of the imagined perfect future outcome to downplay or deny positives of the reality that exists and any problems in trying to overturn it. The utopians are committed to their course no matter the potential consequences to realize the idealized future.
And here we quote Zitta: "The self-righteous negation of the present for the sake of an equally self-righteously affirmed future, the basic matrix of the dialectic, is a consequence of the attempt to immanentize the Christian eschaton [to bring their own form of the future Kingdom today], a consequence of attempting to seek ultimate meaning in the temporal [the here and now]. But can ultimate meaning be found in the temporal?" (emphasis added). The answer is of course no. But the utopians persist.
Zitta also writes of using this reasoning as mediation -- interacting with facts at hand through seemingly logical arguments to smooth out the contradictions and other problems in their so-called solutions. It's basically a lot of verbiage or deflection to make excuses for or just deny the fact that their way does not work. This isn't logic. It's sophistry -- wise-sounding nonsense to win debates.
We see all this continuing in current progressive thinking and policies. But this thinking began with Satan the devil in his rebellion. It is God's purpose that we all learn the lessons of that errant course, and that we instead humbly and gratefully accept the reality and future God has established for us.
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