What Should You And America Do About Terrorists, Kidnappers And Intimidators ?

Common Sense Commentary: Unanswered intimidation begets increased intimidation. Bribery pay offs beget continued and increased bribery. Ransom demands paid encourage and beget even more kidnappings and will increase until you stop paying Ransom and major on catching and executing the kidnappers.

America learned these lessons the hard way, in years past, and finally ceased to tolerate intimidators, made bribery a serious crime punishable by imprisonment, ceased to pay ransom for the release of individuals or plane loads of people hijacked. Kidnapping is punishable by execution and deserves that, not a payoff. As a controversial pastor, with lots of Liberal, Communist and other angry enemies, I once had to announce in a sermon, on TV, that if one of my family were ever kidnapped, I would spend every dime I had, and could borrow, as a reward for the name and location of the kidnapper, but I would never pay one dime of ransom, and I meant it. I knew that if they were insane or wicked enough to kidnap my child or wife, they would not let them live to be a witness. even if I paid the Ransom.

"Resistance" against the devil's attacks is half of the ages old remedy against his continued and increasing attacks. The other half is faith and prayer to our God.
Resistance is an active action word as used in James 4:7 "... Resist the devil, and he will flee from you." James 4:7  The word "resist" in this verse is the Greek word "anthistermi" and means what it says ... RESIST ... stand against ... take action against. This kind of resistance may end in a bloody conflict, as inferred in Hebrews 12:4  "Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin." The "not yet" means it could get much worse before it gets better. And there is another action phrase ... "striving against sin".

It is obvious that the battle against sin and the devil requires first a spiritual quotient and also a physical (blood) quotient ... action ... resistance ... striving ... QUIT IT. Jesus emphasized the seriousness of sin and the urgency of you doing your part to resist and strive against it in Matthew 5:30   And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members  should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. Now that is taking action, resisting sin, striving against it.

Satan is out for your blood or your life or your soul, as he was with Job's family. He uses disease, suffering and unrepentant, wicked sinners to attack, wound, betray and kill God's people. He used some vicious pagans to killed Job's employees, a storm to kill his children, disease to wound Job's body with plague and turned his wife against him and against God. "Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die." Job.2:9.  Job was weak and discouraged but he never gave up. He trusted God, resisted the devil and strived to survive through it all and finally came out whole and healthy. He never gave up or surrendered to the evil attacking him.

You don't just "hope" Satan will leave you alone or just pray that God will make him. Every promise of God has a condition which we must meet. Every spiritual encounter has a part which we must actively take responsibility for. You don't just pray God will make you stop getting drunk, taking drugs, stealing, or beating your wife. You exercise your own responsibility and report the drug supplier to the police, go to rehab, stick it out til you are over the addiction, apologize to your wife and  love her, and thank God for helping you through it and pray, as Jesus taught us, ".... lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil...."

So what should America do about the situation described below.... in addition to prayer?

This from FOX News:

Iranian navy's aggression 

toward US worsens in wake 

of nuke deal, and secret 

payments

Defense official: Iran confrontations 

with US Navy up 50 percent this year

Dangerous confrontations between Iranian and American warships in the Persian Gulf are up more than 50 percent in 2016 compared with this time last year, according to a U.S. defense official – despite the highly touted nuclear accord, as well as a recent $1.7 billion U.S. payment to Tehran.

The latest incidents of provocative Iranian behavior flared in the Persian Gulf earlier this week, including one filmed by the U.S. Navy. The video showed four Iranian gunboats from its Revolutionary Guard Corps coming within 300 yards of USS Nitze, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. 

The incident was part of a troubling pattern, according to stats shared with Fox News.
________________________________________

Depraved new ISIS video shows child executioners gunning down Kurds


So where does it stop ? If we don't stop it there, we will have to stop it here. But by then it may be too late. RB

What Is The Scriptural Meaning Of Dreams?

Common Sense Commentary: Strange indeed, how easily inept and gullible people are swayed by other inept, gullible people and by religious deceivers and sociopaths as well.

Biblical evidence of the meaning of dreams seems to be somewhat like the gift of speaking unlearned languages or "tongues", which began at the Feast of Pentecost, with the giving of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2, and ceasing soon after."...whether there be tongues, they shall cease." 1 Cor.13:8. The entirety of Paul's 1 Corinthians epistle was a rebuke of the Corinthian Christians for their abuse, misuse and misinterpretation of the doctrines of Christ. The Apostle wrote extensively on their misuse of the Pentecost gift of speaking in unlearned languages (tongues) from 1 Cor.12:10 through 1 Cor.14:23. That gift of "unlearned tongues" is never mentioned again, in the Bible, after Paul's rebuke in 1 Cor. Jesus had earlier given His church the Great Commission command to preach/teach the gospel to the entire world, before He empowered them to do so in Acts 2. When he gave them the Holy Spirit, they still did not have the canonized (compiled, complete and authorized) New Testament  in Greek, Hebrew or any other language. They were "living" it at that time. They could neither witness, read nor quote Scripture in the foreign languages of the multitude of foreign Jews who had come to Jerusalem to observe the Old Testament Feast Of Pentecost. That is why God gave them the ability to witness and preach Jesus to those foreign Jews in their own language; who then carried the gospel message back to their countries of residence.

In the case of "dreams", they too appear to be transitory in their use by God to communicate His will or instruction to people. In the Old Testament dispensation, which extended from Genesis unto the crucifixion/resurrection of Jesus, dreams were used by God to influence or inform both believers and unbelievers and are mentioned over 100 times in the O.T. The last six, of those, in the O.T. dispensation, are recorded in Matthew when an angel spoke to Joseph three times through dreams. First, concerning the birth of Jesus and then about the threat on His life. Since that was 33 years before Jesus' crucifixion, it was still in the O.T. dispensation under the old covenant (Matt.1&2). The fifth mention of a God given dream, in the N.T., but still in the O.T. dispensation, was when gov. Pilate's non-Christian wife spoke to him, concerning Jesus, "When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him." Matt.27:19. 

Throughout the Old Testament dispensation, prophecy and information were, from time to time, given in dreams. So God did give certain dreams, but Satan also gave false dreams and some liars made up dreams. The seriousness of this sin is emphasized in the O.T. where we are told that false dreamers, who told false dreams or heresy, to influence people, were executed ...."If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder .... saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known ....Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart .... And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the LORD your God ...."  Deut.13:1-5. God sometimes allows such contradictory events by heretics to put believers to the test. In other words, "Are you going to believe God's revealed word and will or let yourself be misled by the devil's devious but convincing telling of a dream contradicting God's clear word?"

God's prophet, Jeremiah, revealed another kind of dream. Dreams which your own body or mind or upset stomach give you. "For thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Let not your prophets and your diviners, that be in the midst of you, deceive you, neither hearken to your dreams which ye cause to be dreamed ...." Jer.29:8-9.

Dreams, however, are mentioned just twice in the New Testament dispensation, beginning with the crucifixion/resurrection of Jesus through the book of The Revelation. One time as a fulfillment of the O.T. prophesy in Joel 3:28 and quoted in Acts 2:17 during the O.T. Feast Of Pentecost, as a prophecy of a "last days" phenomenon given to "old men" only."And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy (speak forth), and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams." Acts 2:17. Of course God can cause anyone to be blessed or horrified by a dream to accomplish His own holy purposes.

 The second, and last mention, in the N.T. dispensation is not of "dreams" but of "filthy dreamers" and is a condemnation of them. "Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities." Jude 1:8. I have personally witnessed this being done by a young, religious person, as if it were a gift from God, telling a dream predicting a horrible fate upon someone of more "dignity" than himself, by means of his dream. Also, claiming his dreams were a revelations from God.

This evil sin, of using dreams to predict the future or influence other ignorant people, through the telling or lying about dreams, is becoming more and more common among several sects and false religions. It is heresy. RB

End Of The World This Friday Dec.21 ???

Common Sense Commentary:  How strange it is that millions of people are ready to believe, or at least wonder if it is true, that the world will end Friday simply because the Mayan Long-Count Calendar had to end somewhere and the guy who made it out of a lump of clay, just ran out of space to go farther than this Friday, Dec. 21, 2012.

This sort of  irrational wave of fear, in the hearts of the uninformed, emotional masses, is simply an example of Satan's preparing people, by exposing them to enough lies about the end of the world, that they will not believe the truth about it.  It is like the boy who kept crying "wolf", when there was no wolf, and when a real wolf came, and he cried wolf again, no body believed him.  As Charles Haddon Spurgeon, a great evangelist of the past, said, "A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on."  Jesus, himself, alluded to this very thing when He said, "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He..... abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." Jn.8:44. You can count on a devil's lie to be told over and over about any and every truth of God in the Bible. So here we have an old, clay, Mayan calendar out of the jungles of Central America, ending when the lump of clay ran out of space, and it rattles the whole world.  Jesus have mercy.
The world will not end until  Jesus Christ returns in the air to Rapture His Believers into heaven  and the Anti-Christ reigns during the Biblical Tribulation Period. Jesus said that no one knows exactly when that will happen .... 

 Matthew 24:36 But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.

Matthew 24:42 Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.

Matthew 24:44 Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.

Matthew 24:50 The lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of....

  Matthew 25:13 Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.

So, will the world end this Friday, Dec.21, 2012?  Absolutely not!  Rayburn Blair