faith – Page 217 – Len Bilén's blog, a blog about faith, politics and the environment.

Obama’s Mother’s Day proclamation: Gender identity?

Can a father be a mother?

Yes, Obama says he can

if he thinks he is some other,

dressed no longer as a man.

In his 2016 Mother’s Day proclamation, President Obama included a new class of mothers in his announcement: transgenders.

“On Mother’s Day, we celebrate those who are first to welcome us into the world. Performing the most important work there is, mothers – biological, foster, or adoptive – are our first role models and earliest motivators. They balance enormous responsibilities and shape who we become as adults, their lessons guiding us through life. Regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status, mothers have always moved our nation forward and remained steadfast in their pursuit of a better and brighter future for their children.”

In 2015 Obama mentioned for the first time “married or single, LGBT or straight, biological, adoptive, or foster.”

Until that time Mothers day used to refer to motherhood, cruel as it may seem to all women mourning their inability to bear children of their own and having been unable to adopt children, seeing them being aborted instead.

Obama has watched too much Monty Python

On Fasting: Fasting for a time or fasting for a purpose?

In his role as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, General George Washington acknowledged a day of “fasting, humiliation and prayer” proclaimed by the Continental Congress to be held on Thursday, May 6, 1779. This has since been shortened to The National Day of Prayer and is an annual day of observance held on the first Thursday of May, designated by the United States Congress, when people are asked “to turn to God in prayer and meditation“. Each year since its inception, the president has signed a proclamation, encouraging all Americans to pray on this day.

Gone is the humiliation aspect. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds nowadays, to Abraham Lincoln in 1863 it meant: Whereas it is fit and becoming in all people at all times to acknowledge and revere the supreme government of God, to bow in humble submission to His chastisements, to confess and deplore their sins and transgressions in the full conviction that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and to pray with all fervency and contrition for the pardon of their past offenses…

On May 15, 1776, Gen. George Washington ordered:

“The Continental Congress having ordered Friday the 17th instant to be observed as a Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer, humbly to supplicate the mercy of Almighty God, that it would please Him to pardon all our manifold sins and transgressions, and to prosper the arms of the United Colonies, and finally establish the peace and freedom of America upon a solid and lasting foundation; the General commands all officers and soldiers to pay strict obedience to the orders of the Continental Congress; that, by their unfeigned and pious observance of their religious duties, they may incline the Lord and Giver of victory to prosper our arms.”

Times have changed: The 2015 National day of prayer can be simplified to Obama asking for God’s continued guidance, mercy, and protection as we seek a more just world.

Today, the aspect of humiliation is gone. Well, not altogether.

During a speech to Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, Hillary Clinton lamented that white Americans have a long way to go in realizing all the ways they’ve been given unfair advantages over the nation’s minority populations.

“White Americans must do a much better job of listening when African-Americans talk about the seen and unseen barriers you face every day,” she said. “We need to recognize our privilege and practice humility rather than assume our experiences are everyone else’s experiences.”

So, I guess humility is not totally dead, it seems to be one of her strong points.

But I wanted to discuss fasting.

Do we fast, and if so, why do we fast?

Let us see what scripture says about the subject. In Zechariah 7:4-5 the prophet wrote: “ Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying, “Say to all the people of the land, and to the priests: ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months during those seventy years, did you really fast for Me—for Me?

This was a fast for a time. The Muslim world holds a hard fast every Muslim year during the month of Ramadan, their 9th month, and since Islam is a lunar based religion with 12 lunar months making one year, Ramadan occurs 11 days earlier every year. This fast is to commemorate the revelation of the giving of the five mandatory contact prayers to be prayed by everybody at very specific times. As an example, the noon prayer must be started 2 min after the sun is in its zenith. To start it any earlier might offend Allah. This is not really a true fast, it is corporate mind control.

So, what is a true fast? In Isaiah 58:3-6 the prophet writes:

‘Why have we fasted,’ they say, ‘and You have not seen?
Why have we afflicted our souls, and You take no notice?’

“In fact, in the day of your fast you find pleasure,
And exploit all your laborers.
Indeed you fast for strife and debate,
And to strike with the fist of wickedness.
You will not fast as you do this day,
To make your voice heard on high.
Is it a fast that I have chosen,
A day for a man to afflict his soul?
Is it to bow down his head like a bulrush,
And to spread out sackcloth and ashes?
Would you call this a fast,
And an acceptable day to the Lord?

“Is this not the fast that I have chosen:
To loose the bonds of wickedness,
To undo the heavy burdens,
To let the oppressed go free,
And that you break every yoke?
⁷Is it not to share your bread with the hungry,
And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out;
When you see the naked, that you cover him,
And not hide yourself from your own flesh?

Jesus adds a new dimension to fasting. I Matthew 6:16-18 Jesus says:

“Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.

Jesus says, when you fast, not if. We are urged to fast, individually, not as part of a group fasting in solidarity, but to seek God’s face, in other words, fast for a purpose.

As we fast, let us fast and pray for a purpose as is stated in 2 Chronicles 7:14

If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

APRIL is the cruellest month, but why?

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers. T.S. Eliot.

Other poets have waxed eloquent about April, the return of life to nature, flowers, budding trees, return of the songbirds, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, so it really should be a universal cause for celebration.

Maybe it is, although this year we are having an early spring with the forsythias blooming, our apricot tree in full bloom, the cherry blossoms are more beautiful than ever, we are expecting an Arctic cold snap with temperatures back to hard frost, killing the tender new growth.

That could be it, but the real reason is much more sinister.

April 19th is the first day of a 13 day period of time known as “the Blood Sacrifice to the Beast” that culminates on the high occult holy day of Beltane on May 1st. In some parts of the world, Beltane is much better known as “May Day”, and it has been described as the “Illuminati’s second most sacred holiday”.

April 19th is also known as “the Feast of Moloch”. If you are not familiar with “Moloch” or “Molech”, it is an ancient Canaanite god that is repeatedly denounced in the Old Testament. Child sacrifice was a key feature of the worship of Moloch, and a giant statue of this pagan deity is set up at the Bohemian Grove in northern California every year.

On April 19 reproductions of the arch that stood in front of the Temple of Baal are going to be erected in Times Square in New York City and in Trafalgar Square in London. This is also the exact day when a very important occult festival related to the worship of Baal begins.

It seems that this occult festival of Baal is attracting a large number of disasters, but more importantly events and actions that seem to fit the pattern of Baal.

April 16, 1947, a ship loaded with ammonium nitrate docked at the Port of Texas City and erupted in flames, causing a massive explosion that killed approximately 576 people).
April 16, 2007 – Virginia Tech Massacre – 32 killed; 17 injured.called
April 16, 2013 – Boston Marathon Explosions – 3 killed; 107 injured.
April 18, 1906 – The San Francisco Earthquake. The ensuing fire raged uncontrollably for three days resulting in the destruction of over 10,000 acres of property and 4,000 lives lost.
April 18, 2013 – Fertilizer plant explosion, Texas – 5-15 killed (Notice that this event occurred almost exactly 20 years after the Waco Massacre, which is in the same area.
April 19, 1993 – Waco Massacre: An FBI assault lead to the burning down of the compound of a sect named Branch Davidians, killing 76 men, women and children.
April 19, 1995 – Oklahoma City bombing – 168 people killed.
April 20, 1999 – Columbine High School Massacre – 13 people murdered, 21 injured.
April 22, 1970 – 100 year anniversary of the birth of Lenin, also the first Earth day
April 23rd – Established by Israel’s Knesset as Holocaust Day in remembrance of the estimated six million Jews killed by Nazis.
April 24, 1915 – In Asia Minor during World War I, the first modern-era genocide began with the deportation of Armenian leaders from Constantinople and subsequent massacre by Young Turks. In May, deportations of all Armenians and mass murder by Turks began, resulting in the complete elimination of the Armenians from the Ottoman Empire and all of the historic Armenian homelands. Estimates vary from 800,000 to over 2,000,000 Armenians murdered.
April 25, 1967 – The first law legalizing abortion was signed by Colorado Governor John Love, allowing abortions in cases in which a panel of three doctors unanimously agreed.
April 26, 1937 – During the Spanish Civil War, the ancient town of Guernica was attacked by German warplanes. After destroying the town in a three hour bombing raid, the planes machine-gunned fleeing civilians.
April 26, 1986 – At the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Ukraine, an explosion caused a meltdown of the nuclear fuel and spread a radioactive cloud into the atmosphere, eventually covering most of Europe. A 300-square-mile area around the plant was evacuated. Thirty one persons were reported to have died while an additional thousand cases of cancer from radiation were expected. The plant was then encased in a solid concrete tomb to prevent the release of further radiation.
April 29, 1992 – The Los Angeles Riots that followed the announcement that a jury in Simi Valley, California, had failed to convict four Los Angeles police officers accused in the videotaped beating of an African American man.
May 1st – May Day, a holiday and spring festival since ancient times, also observed in socialist countries as a workers’ holiday or Labor Day.

Allegiance to an international flag? Indoctrination at its worst.

Kindergarten students from PS 75 in New York City recently undertook a class project that had them working together to create an international flag which included the American flag alongside the flags of 22 other nations. Beneath the new flag the class had written – “We Pledge Allegiance to an International Flag”. The project had at least one parent concerned about how his child was being indoctrinated by their local public school.

This is total insanity, indoctrination into one world governance mentality at its worst. The total pledge should sound something like this:

“We Pledge Allegiance to an International Flag

and to the chaos for which it stands;

One world, broken, with bondage and injustice for all.”

But instead the inscription is: “We pledge allegiance to an International Flag!” Our dual language classroom strives to be a place that everyone feels welcome!

But of course, if you disagree “you vill be remediated”

Hillary Clinton, a witch and Nancy Reagan and astrology. A Limerick.

Following the November, 1994, midterm elections, in which the Democrats were thoroughly defeated by the Republicans, even losing control of both houses of Congress, Bill and Hillary turned to a group of New Age channelers and spiritualists for advice. This shocking development further proves our contention that Bill and Hillary are practicing witches, for this kind of action is precisely what witches would do. The very fact that Bill and Hillary turned to these type of people at a most trying time in their lives further proves our point that Bill and Hillary are practicing witches. Witches regularly practice this type of spiritual activity, all of which God severely and consistently condemns. Let us continue with our feature story, as Jean Houston and Mary Catherine Bateson get together several times over the next year, to conduct seances with Eleanor Roosevelt. You will remember the stories in the first year of the Clinton Administration, when Hillary confessed that she regularly communicated with Eleanor; stories at the time even labeled these communications as seances. Not only did Hillary admit she talked to Eleanor, she said Eleanor talked back ! This admission clearly identifies these sessions as seances, since an imaginary, creative mind exercise where a person only imagines they can talk with an historic figure, and can only imagine what response that figure might make based upon what is known about them, never, ever involves that historic figure talking back. (cuttingedge.org)

Nancy Reagan died March 6, 2016 at age 94 after a long and influential life. Before she is buried some have the temerity to point to her fascination with astrology rather than take time to honor her life’s accomplishments.

The Limerick:

Ms Clinton, now speaking of which

was really a practicing witch.

Mrs Roosevelts old spirit

brought forth, one demerit.

Speak evil of Nancy, that’s rich.

Hillary-Witch-Gif

The Pope and off the wall remarks. A Limerick.

“A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian.” Pope Francis.

The Vatican City’s old wall.

A sign they’re not Christians at all?

For the Pope said as much

about Trump, walls and such.

Humpty Dumpty did fall, I recall.

The moral of this story: Be careful not to make off the wall remarks.

Thought for the day. Is it for Christ or in Christ?

“Two little lines I heard one day,
Traveling along life’s busy way;
Bringing conviction to my heart,
And from my mind would not depart;
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.” C.T.Studd.

Only what’s done for Christ will last. This verse has often been used to motivate Christians to get on with it and join in the work for the Lord. And so it is, we get excited and work what we believe is for the Lord.

Isn’t that putting the cart before the horse? We can see in Ephesians 2:8-10 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

The old hymn-writer John Newton understood this. The old hymns have a reverence for God and how we can praise and worship Him with the proper perspective.

So it was one crisp fall evening on the night of a full moon. Our church had a family hayride through the countryside, and we sang the old hymns, one after another. The next night, when it was time to put the children to bed, as it was time to sing the good night song for my five year old daughter she said: “Daddy, daddy, sing Crazy waisy.” There was no way I could figure out what she meant, but she said “We said it yesterday at the hayride” I was clueless so she helped me: “You know the one about lost and found”. This rang a bell so we both sang:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me,
I once was lost but now am found,
Was blind, but now, I see.

This is what separates true Christianity from all other religions. It is not man seeking God. It is God seeking man.

Thought for the day. Jesus Christ and gravity waves.

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:15-17, NIV)

In 1905 Albert Einstein proposed that the speed of light in vacuum is the same, regardless of the speed relative to the observer. That being the case, if the relative speed of light does not change, then something else must change. After much thinking and a few false starts he determined the dimension that changes is time, and published the theory of specific relativity. He then spent 10 years trying to include acceleration in his equations and published his theory of general relativity in 1915. In it, he determined that massive objects cause a distortion in space-time, which is felt as gravity.

The equation for general relativity is elegant in its simplicity:

R_m_n – ½ g_m_nR = 8pG T_m_n.

It is not as simple as it seems, the suffix _m_n describes curved space-time and the equations grow until the whole blackboard is filled, and then, that was just the beginning.

On Feb 11 it was published that Einstein’s prediction of gravity waves were confirmed. A billion dollar set of gravity detectors verified gravity waves from a pair of rapidly rotating black holes. This was a giant step forward of science, we now can understand mathematically what holds the universe together.

At the other end of the space-time spectrum is the question: What holds the nucleus of an

atom together? Using the curvature of space-time as a model the scientists derived mathematically 11 total dimensions that can explain the glue that holds everything together. They stopped there, for the 12th dimension would be an alternate time, and since we are bound in space-time there is no way to verify the existence of alternate time.

All of these mathematical formulas describing the universe and how it is stable assume that the laws of Physics are unchangeable through time and space. This is the universal question: If the laws of Physics cannot change, how come we exist? There must have been a creation. Current scientific thinking is the Big Bang, creating the whole universe out of a singularity, and maybe an anti-universe as well filled entirely with anti-matter. But even this indicates there was a beginning, during which time the laws of Physics were established.

This begs the question: Are we really only a product of time plus chance plus nothing? The probability of this being the case is much less than finding the needle in a haystack, more like finding the right elementary particle in the universe. Yet, that is what is taught in school.

It is far more reasonable to assume the existence of a God, a God that created it all including the mathematical formulas which rules the universe.

The Bible explains Creation in the first three verses of Genesis: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

To believe the Biblical account requires a step of faith; it is free from all scientific explanations, concentrating on the spiritual truths. In the first three verses it introduces all three members of the Godhead, the Father, the Word and the Spirit. (In other passages of scripture Jesus Christ is described as the Word: And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.) Reading the Bible from a spiritual perspective made a believer out of me, and this explains the meaning of Colossians 1:15-17.

Now the little song for kids makes perfect sense:

He’s got the whole world in His hands,
He’s got the whole world in His hands,
He’s got the whole world in His hands,
He’s got the whole world in His hands.

He’s got my brothers and my sisters in His hands,
He’s got my brothers and my sisters in His hands,
He’s got my brothers and my sisters in His hands,
He’s got the whole world in His hands.

He’s got the sun and the rain in His hands,
He’s got the moon and the stars in His hands,
He’s got the wind and the clouds in His hands,
He’s got the whole world in His hands.

He’s got the rivers and the mountains in His hands,
He’s got the oceans and the seas in His hands,
He’s got you and he’s got me in His hands,
He’s got the whole world in His hands.

He’s got everybody here in His hands,
He’s got everybody there in His hands,
He’s got everybody everywhere in His hands,
He’s got the whole world in His hands.

Thought for the day. Real love on Valentine’s day.

Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:13)

Once at bible study as we studied John 15, a great chapter on love, this verse came up and the leader asked if we really were willing to die for someone we loved. Trying to be spiritual I volunteered I probably could die for my wife. She immediately answered “Oh no, you don’t get away that easy; you have to live for me.” She has a way to put things in perspective. I had forgotten all about that episode until one day I heard Ravi Zacharias speak on the air, and he said: All love is costly. Suddenly I realized, this is true for all real love.

When we got married we gave our vows, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health until death do us part. There is no excuse. We have to live for each other. This is God’s plan for our lives.

Looking around at recent trends this seems to be more and more a minority view.

My grandson goes to preschool. As Valentine’s day approached his teachers came up with rules what to do on this very special day to celebrate its core message: Love. So the little ones were encouraged to make Valentine’s cards, but as they did, they had to write identical messages to every other person in the class, something like: Be my Valentine (printed) , make a heart and add the names. To do any less would hurt some student’s feelings, causing envy and strife. Group harmony must be enforced.

This is how far we have come in our understanding of love. We are only important as a part of a collective, no longer equal opportunity, but equal outcome. This seems to be designed to stamp out initiative and the entrepreneurial spirit from preschool on. They get indoctrinated in collective thinking, so by the time they finish high school they are convinced individual responsibility is no longer in, it has been replaced by collective thinking. That is in my opinion why so many of the millennials are ready to campaign for Bernie Sanders, even to the point of giving it all in the campaign.

What I still cannot understand is why so many New Hampshireans agonized over whether they should vote for Trump or Sanders. All I know is that love has nothing to do with it.

Thought for the day. Finding God’s love in unexpected places.

“This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John 15:12)

“But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.” (Luke 6:32)

After becoming a follower of Jesus Christ many years ago but as a mature man I thought I already knew what love really was, having a real wife, two wonderful children with a third on the way, a good job and no known enemies. Yet I knew, and everybody kept telling of God’s love, especially around Valentine, saying that God’s love is different.

Having joined the choir in church it became my passion to sing as often as possible, even to waking up in the morning with a song in my heart. This was nothing new, but the words and the melodies changed. So I volunteered to sing solos, but they were hesitant to add me to the roster, and instead suggested that I sang once a month at the downtown rescue mission. I had made the promise to God that what He wanted me to do I would do if possible, so I went. One thing led to another, and I became responsible for the music, and also to select a preacher for the service.

I complained to God: Why do you insist that this is the only opportunity I have to minister, I don’t even like those down and out people? It was like I heard God answer: I never asked you to like them, I asked you to love them. So once humbled I persisted, and I did it faithfully for 15 years, until moving from the area. My pastor liked to coach a number of “preacher boys” and I got the privilege to present them one at a time as the featured preacher. The crowed really appreciated that since the boys only spoke for less than 10 minutes. We spent the rest of the time singing, and since I always had a good accompanist I took requests, trying anything they suggested. The audience was more than half black, some were good singers, and they sometimes laughed at me for my lack of rhythm. They thought me a lot about singing in the joy of the Lord, and they did it differently than I was used to. One time they asked to sing “Just a closer walk with thee” and I started in what I thought was a normal tempo, but was overruled by four young black men starting to sway and slap their legs in a very slow beat. Suddenly the song took on a whole new dimension, and I found the joy of the Lord in the song. Looking at the men, happily and triumphantly smiling that their way of singing won the day, I felt a love for the men I never thought possible.

I never learned to like the men, seeing them destroy their lives with drugs and alcohol, estranged from family, and with no ambition to change their position in life. Some were repenting of their ways, but were usually back in even worse shape after a few months. During the 15 years I found they went under at a younger and younger age. What usually took 10 years to make an alcoholic could be accomplished in 3 with drugs.

Yet, with God all things are possible, and rescue mission fulfils an urgent need, standing in the gap. The social agencies act too slowly and with a bureaucracy that sometimes makes matters worse. It is also far more cost effective than to involve the social agencies.