June 30, 2014

Christ Will Not Return Until Satan Stands in the Holy Place Showing Himself That He is God, Which Means the Temple Will Be Rebuilt Prior to Christ's Return to Deliver Up His People to the Kingdom of Heaven (Updated 6/18/2015)

"At the proper moment in history, the Pope will visit the combined Jewish/Christian/Moslem sector of Jerusalem to announce that all religions should be combined into one. This action will then finally break the Middle East logjam." At this moment, the prophesied one world religious system under the false prophet will have been fulfilled!! - David Bay, Five Steps of the Plan to Produce Antichrist in the Last Stage of the New World Order, August 18, 1991
Now we beseech you, brethren,
By the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ
And by our gathering together in Him. 
That you be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled,
Neither, by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us,
As that day of Christ is at hand. 

Let no man deceive you by any means;
For that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first; 
And that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, 
Who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; 
So that he as God sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. 

Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?
And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.
For the mystery of iniquity does already work: 
Only he who now lets will let, until he be taken out of the way.

And then shall the wicked be revealed, 
Whom the Lord shall consume with the Spirit of His mouth, 
And shall destroy with the brightness of His coming, 

Even Him, whose coming is after the working of Satan,
With all power and signs and lying wonders. 
And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish;
Because they receive not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.

And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, 
That they should believe a lie: 
That they all might be damned who believe not the truth,
But had pleasure in unrighteousness.

(2 Thessalonians 2:1-12)
Prior to the sounding of the seven trumpets, there will be a great earthquake, the sun will turn black, the moon will turn blood red, the stars will fall to earth, the sky will fold up like a scroll, and every mountain and island will be moved out of their places. Then there will be "silence in heaven about the space of half an hour," followed by voices, thunderings, lightnings, and an earthquake. (Revelation chapter 6)

At the sounding of the first four trumpets, "hail and fire mingled with blood" will be cast upon the earth, causing 1/3 third of the trees to be burned up and all the green grass to be burned; "a great mountain burning with fire" will be cast into the sea," causing 1/3 of the sea to turn to blood, 1/3 of the sea creatures to die, and 1/3 of the ships to be destroyed; "a great star (Wormwood) burning as it were a lamp" will fall from heaven, causing 1/3 of the rivers and other fountains of water to be poisoned; and 1/3 of the sun and moon and stars will be darkened. (Revelation chapter 8). The cosmic events of the first four trumpets most likely will be attributed to a fake alien threat.

A common creed among the Green Agenda activists has long been "order out of chaos:" they believe that people from all nations will literally beg for their New World Order if it can promise safety at a time when people feel under personal imminent threat. Therefore, Satan, showing himself that he is God, will stand in the holy place, promising peace and security to a world in desperate need of grand solutions to profound problems. He will deceive many with his signs and wonders. The world will worship the beast, this one-world power. During this five-month period, "then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be; and except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened."

"Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound!" (the fifth, sixth and seventh trumpets).

When the fifth trumpet sounds, Satan will be released "a little season" to deceive the nations (Revelation chapter 9).

Although man has fallen away from Him, God nevertheless allows man to exercise dominion over the earthly creation and to bring to light all the hidden powers and talents of creation to their fullest degree. In the final manifestation of this anti-Christian kingdom, we have the "beasts" of the book of Revelation: these beasts represent the highest development of the sovereignty of man apart from God, and under the devil they develop all the powers of creation without God. This anti-Christian kingdom is the climax of the development of the man of sin: it is the kingdom of man, of the creature, without God, without the seven. And therefore his number is 666, the number of man indeed. (Revelation chapter 13)

Antichrist in his final consummation is pictured everywhere in the Word of God. In Daniel 4:25 we read of him: "And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and law; and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time." In Luke 21:12-19 we read again of this anti-Christian power: "They shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues, and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake. And it shall turn to you for a testimony. Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer: for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist. And ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolks, and friends; and some of you shall they cause to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake. But there shall not an hair of your head perish. In your patience possess ye your souls."

At this point in the end times, "one woe is past; and, behold, there come two woes more hereafter" (the sixth and seventh trumpets).

At the sounding of the sixth trumpet (the second woe), 1/3 part of men will be killed by the 200-million-man army on horses (Revelation chapter 9). "And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the Lord, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, 'It is my people:' and they shall say, 'The Lord is my God'" (Zechariah 13:8-9).

The activists behind the Global Green Agenda have established regulatory control in many societies through Agenda 21. They have written a constitution for their transformed global society with the Earth Charter. In 'Our Global Neighbourhood' they describe how their new global system will operate (the document states that the surrender of liberty is "a principle that will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the imperatives of global environmental cooperation" — global warming currently is being used as a conditioning tool with its fervent call for global unity to save a wounded planet).

However, before the final phase of the agenda for global governance based on a system of earth worship can be fulfilled, several obstacles must be removed. Firstly, a situation must arise where otherwise apathetic, or even hostile, members of society will beg for a new global system: they must feel so personally threatened (false flag attacks, psyops, fake alien threats, economic collapses, etc.) that they will eagerly give up their personal liberty for the promise of safety and security. Secondly, certain nations and religious groups are unlikely to accept a new global system that involves the loss of national sovereignty, the loss of individual liberty, and reverence for the earth as a divine being, so they must be taken out of the way (hence, the persecution of God's people and the killing of 1/3 part of men by the 200-million-man army of the the one-world government, the anti-Christian beast).

"When the two witnesses shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves. And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth. And after three days and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, 'Come up hither.' And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them. And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven" (Revelation 11:7-13). "And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh," for "then shall you see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory" (Luke 21:28).

"The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly" (the seventh trumpet and the return of Christ).

When the seventh trumpet is sounded (the third woe), Christ will return in the clouds of heaven with "a rainbow upon his head, his face as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire" and "every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him" (Revelation chapters 10, 11). Christ shall "reap the harvest of the earth," for "the time has come for God to judge the dead and give reward unto his servants (Revelation chapter 11, 14).

When the earth is reaped, Christ shall deliver up His people to the kingdom of heaven: "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them" (Revelation Chapter 14). This is the first resurrection, which is the resurrection of the just to eternal life. The rest of the dead will not be resurrected until the seven vials of God's wrath are poured out upon the earth on the last day, that great day of God Almighty. This resurrection of the unjust (the second resurrection) will be for eternal damnation (Revelation chapters 15, 16).

When the sixth vial of God's wrath is poured upon the earth, the River Euphrates will dry up to pave the way for the kings of the east [Gog and Magog] to rise up against Jerusalem. Gog and Magog will rise up to battle against the one-world power, ruled over by Satan: this will be the final battle, known as Armageddon. "For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty... And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon." (Revelation chapter 16)

After the seventh vial of God's wrath is poured into the air, there will come a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, 'It is done.' "And there will be voices and thunders and lightnings; and there will also be a great earthquake, such as was not since men were upon the earth, so mighty an earthquake, and so great. And the great city will be divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations will fall: and great Babylon will come in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His wrath. And every island will flee away, and the mountains will not be found. And there will fall upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men will blasphemy God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof will be exceeding great." (Revelation chapter 16)

And a voice from heaven will say: "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues, for her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities... Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death and mourning and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her." (Revelation chapters 17, 18, 19)

"And I [John, the Apostle] saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and He that sat upon Him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He doth judge and make war... And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed Him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean... And I [John] saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, 'Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great'." (Revelation chapter 19)

The deception of the devil must work out till the bitter end. Shortly before the end of this world, this final deception of the nations shall take place. The heathen nations [Gog and Magog] shall be civilized and they shall become conscious of their power, and they shall, for a time, join forces with the beast and the false prophet to form one great world empire, battling against a common enemy [an international coalition against terrorism formed in 2015]. Nevertheless, they shall remain pagan in every respect, and though they give their power to the beast for "one hour," for "a little season," this cannot possibly last. The heathen nations and the anti-Christian civilization will ultimately gather as separate forces for the last war, which will be a world war in the strictest sense of the word. Looking upon the nominally Christian world, which in fact will be anti-Christian, the heathen nations shall do as the nations of the old dispensation did with respect to Jerusalem; that is, they shall say: "Let us go up to Jerusalem; let Zion be defiled; let our eye look upon Zion!" This shall be their guilt: for their purpose shall be to fight against the camp of the saints and the beloved city, against God and His Christ and His Church. However, this also will be their deception since the nominally Christian world, in fact, will be anti-Christian, and they will be fighting against it rather than the camp of the saints. In the old dispensation, God used the nations in their hatred against the Holy City to chasten and destroy a Jerusalem that had actually become Sodom; and, again, the Lord will use the hostile spirit of the heathen nations to destroy the anti-Christian power. However, they will never touch the camp of the saints: for God's chosen people shall have been delivered up to the kingdom of heaven before the final battle.

It will be upon this final scene of confusion and iniquity that the Lord will appear in judgment with His army from heaven to destroy His enemies and to give His saints the victory forever. The beast, and the kings of the earth and their armies, will be gathered together to make war against Christ and His army. The beast and the false prophet, which deceived them that had received the mark of the beast and them that worshiped his image, both will be cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. "And the remnant will be slain with the sword of Christ, the sword which proceeds out of His mouth." (Revelation chapters 19, 20) 

"And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I [John] saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire." (Revelation 20)

"It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27). The first death is physical death, the death of the physical body, which we all shall experience. The resurrection of the dead refers to everyone, for we all shall die the physical death; however, only the righteous shall be raised to reign with Christ in their gloried bodies. Therefore, only the godly dead shall experience the resurrection to eternal life. The ungodly dead, "the rest of the dead," will be raised on the last day (the great day of God Almighty) for judgment and then sentenced to eternal damnation (only the ungodly dead shall experience the second death).

"The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the Lord: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers. And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord: and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of His jealousy: for He shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land." (Zephaniah 1:14-18)

On this last day (the great day of God Almighty), after the unjust are resurrected to eternal damnation, the earth shall be utterly consumed by fire, and God will make all things new (Revelation chapters 21, 22).

"And I [John] saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I [John] heard a great voice out of heaven saying, 'Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.' And He that sat upon the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new...' And He said unto me, 'It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son'... And I [John] saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it... And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life... And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and His servants shall serve Him; and they shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads. And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever."

Jesus says the Father only knows the day and hour when the Son will return in the clouds of heaven. Yet Jesus gives us the signs to look for when the end of the age is approaching, and He tells us that the generation to see these signs shall not pass till all these things be done. It is possible that the last generation (70 years being a generation - Psalms 90:10) began in 1948 when Israel once again became a nation.

Editor's Note:

I only read the King James Bible. Other versions, including the New King James Version, have changed thousands of words and ruined valuable verses. And this you must know: those who translated the NKJV did not believe that God perfectly preserved His Word! The Bible today basically has been rewritten by many of the major religious bodies (be wary of the devil's deceptive influence and infiltration of the Church, especially in altering God's Word).

"The major religions of today, especially Christianity, will have to be changed because they are not compatible with the changes to come. In order to do this, the Bible will be changed. It will be rewritten to fit the new religion. Gradually, key words will be replaced with new words having various shades of meaning. Then the meaning attached to the new word can be close to the old word - and as time goes on, other shades of meaning of that word can be emphasized, and then gradually that word replaced with another word. The idea is that everything in Scripture need not be rewritten, just key words replaced by other words. The variability in meaning attached to any word can be used as a tool to change the entire meaning of Scripture, and therefore make it acceptable to this new religion. Most people won't know the difference; and this was another one of the times where he said, 'The few who do notice the difference won't be enough to matter'." [The New Order of Barbarians: Changing the Bible Through Revisions of Key Words, Dr. Lawrence Dunegan, commenting on a March 20, 1969, gathering of pediatricians at a meeting of the Pittsburgh Pediatric Society where Dr. Richard Day, an insider to the NWO plans, gave a lecture]



For more details, see:
The Prophetic Super Moon of 2015 and the Final Eclipses of the Tetrad in 2018 - 2019
Five Steps of the Plan to Produce Antichrist in the Last Stage of the New World Order
Satan's Final Deception Before Christ Returns
The Return of Christ in the Clouds of Heaven
Will Christ Return in 2018?
Outline of the Book of Revelation
Order of Events Until the End of the World
One-World Power: the Anti-Christian Beast
The Green Movement Is the One World Religion
The Fourth and Final Kingdom Which is Yet to Come
The Final Battle (Armageddon) and the Final Judgment

Why Did Jesus Never Mention the Millennium Temple?

"God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwells not in temples made with hands, neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he gives to all, life, and breath, and all things, and has made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on the face of the earth. That they should seek the Lord, if happily they might feel after him, and find him, though he is not far from every one of us; for in him we live, and move, and have our being." - Acts 17:24-28 (KJV)
"But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building." - Hebrews 9:11
Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence." - John 18:36 (KJV)
By searchinsay

Introduction 

Many years ago, persuaded Dispensationalism was the correct interpretation of the 'end times’, I enthusiastically embraced and taught the theory. However, in my naiveté I did not take the time to study all its implications.

I began to re-examine this teaching in recent years and my findings left me astonished. In particular, the alarm bells rang when I discovered the most shocking disclosure concerning Ezekiel’s temple…Ezekiel 40-48. I am convinced if Christians viewed the bigger picture of what Dispensationalism represents, the result would be a mass exodus from its ranks.

To accept a teaching that insists on Ezekiel’s temple being erected in "the millennium," complete with the re-introduction of animal sacrifices, the Levitical priesthood, circumcision, and the separation once again of Jew and Gentile, is beyond the pale!

There are many books and articles readily available as to why Ezekiel’s temple should be understood either literally or figuratively.

I will simply explain my understanding of Ezekiel's vision, based on the principle taught in Psalm 127:1.

Ezekiel the Prophet 

Ezekiel was one of the most remarkable prophets of the Old Testament, he was a priest…Ezekiel 1:3, and ‘a watchman unto the house of Israel’…Ezekiel 3:17. He was captive in Babylon from 597 BC. The duration of the captivity was the 70 years between 606-536 BC. His contemporaries were Daniel and Jeremiah.

He delivered many of his visions and prophecies with symbolic and demonstrative actions, to accentuate his message. For example, he remained dumb for periods of time…Ezekiel 3:26; lay on his side for a year…Ezekiel 4:4; ate unclean and disgusting food…Ezekiel 4:14-15; shaved his head and beard…Ezekiel 5:1.

Ezekiel’s Temple Vision
  • Eze 43:9-11 KJV Now let them put away their whoredom, and the carcases of their kings, far from me, and I will dwell in the midst of them for ever. 10 Thou son of man, shew the house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities: and let them measure the pattern. 11 And if they be ashamed of all that they have done, shew them the form of the house, and the fashion thereof, and the goings out thereof, and the comings in thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and all the forms thereof, and all the laws thereof: and write it in their sight, that they may keep the whole form thereof, and all the ordinances thereof, and do them.
Ezekiel's vision was to shame the house of Israel by reminding them of the presence of the Lord they previously enjoyed but lost through their idolatry. Restoration was possible by returning to the Lord, the vision portrayed the blessings that awaited a repentant house of Israel.

There are striking similarities between Ezekiel’s temple vision and John’s Book of Revelation. In particular, John alluded to Ezekiel’s vision when he described the New Jerusalem and the new heaven and new earth with the river of the water of life. Ezekiel’s vision was in prophetic figurative language, was a type, and foreshadow of the Messiah’s New Covenant Age.

Moses Was Chosen and Commanded!
Exo 36:1 KJV Then wrought Bezaleel and Aholiab, and every wise hearted man, in whom the LORD put wisdom and understanding to know how to work all manner of work for the service of the sanctuary, according to all that the LORD had commanded.
Moses, chosen of God...Psalm 106:23, was given a detailed pattern and commandment to build the tabernacle. The Lord also imparted wisdom and understanding to the skilled workers assigned to the task…Exodus 25:9.

Solomon Was Chosen and Commanded!
  • 1Ch 28:6 KJV And he said unto me, Solomon thy son, he shall build my house and my courts: for I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his father.
Solomon built the temple because God chose and commanded him.
  • 1Ch 28:10-12 KJV Take heed now; for the LORD hath chosen thee to build an house for the sanctuary: be strong, and do it. 11 Then David gave to Solomon his son the pattern of the porch, and of the houses thereof, and of the treasuries thereof, and of the upper chambers thereof, and of the inner parlours thereof, and of the place of the mercy seat, 12 And the pattern of all that he had by the spirit, of the courts of the house of the LORD, and of all the chambers round about, of the treasuries of the house of God, and of the treasuries of the dedicated things:
Similar to Moses, the same criterion applied to David for the building of the temple and its treasures, in due course he gave his son Solomon the pattern he had received from the Lord.

The Holy Spirit's Involvement 

It is reasonable to assume that the Holy Spirit would have inspired and guided Zerubbabel in the building of Ezekiel’s Temple, had it been God's will. 

Zerubbabel Was Chosen and Commanded!
  • Hag 2:23 KJV In that day, saith the LORD of hosts, will I take thee, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel, saith the LORD, and will make thee as a signet: for I have chosen thee, saith the LORD of hosts.
God chose and commanded Zerrubabel to rebuild the temple.

Zerubbabel was to rebuild at the end of the Babylonian captivity.

So why did he not build the temple Ezekiel saw in his vision, after all, he had the opportunity and the vacant site. The Lord neither commanded nor equipped him to build it!

It was according to God’s plan and purpose that the second temple be of lesser stature when compared to Solomon’s, to bring Israel to a place of repentance and humility.
  • Zec 4:6 KJV Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.
The Holy Spirit was actively involved in the construction of each sanctuary.

Irrespective of his divine calling, Zerubbabel had many obstacles to overcome during the rebuilding. However, the Word of the Lord to him was, ’Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts’.
  • Zec 4:9-10 KJV The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also finish it; and thou shalt know that the LORD of hosts hath sent me unto you. 10 For who hath despised the day of small things? for they shall rejoice, and shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel with those seven; they are the eyes of the LORD, which run to and fro through the whole earth.
A Quote from Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible
Zechariah 4:10 ‘Who hath despised the day of small things? - The poverty, weakness, and unbefriended state of the Jews. It was said, “What do these feeble Jews?” “Will they build,” etc.? No. But God will build by them, and perfect his building too. And shall see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel - He is master builder under God, the grand architect. Those seven - are the eyes of the Lord - Either referring to his particular and especial providence; or to those ministering spirits, whom he has employed in behalf of the Jews, to dispense the blessings of that providence. See 2Ch_16:9 (note); Pro_15:3 (note); Zec_3:9 (note).’
Although it was smaller and less impressive, the Lord was pleased with the result.
  • Hag 2:3 KJV Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing?
A Quote from Josephus Antiquities of the Jews
‘Now the priests and Levites, and the elder part of the families, recollecting with themselves how much greater and more sumptuous the old temple had been, seeing that now made how much inferior it was, on account of their poverty, to that which had been built of old considered with themselves how much their happy state was sunk below what it had been of old, as well as their temple. Hereupon they were disconsolate, and not able to contain their grief, and proceeded so far as to lament and shed tears on those accounts; but the people in general were contented with their present condition; and because they were allowed to build them a temple, they desired no more, and neither regarded nor remembered, nor indeed at all tormented themselves with the comparison of that and the former temple, as if this were below their expectations; but the wailing of the old men and of the priests, on account of the deficiency of the temple, in their opinion, if compared with that which had been demolished, overcome the sounds of the trumpets and the rejoicing of the people.’
There were those who lamented over its inferiority because they remembered Solomon’s magnificent temple, which was their pride and joy. After all, what would the neighbours think!

Although the second temple lacked the furnishings of the original, during His ministry, the Lord Jesus Christ graced it with His presence.

Herod Was Not Chosen or Commanded!
  • Psa 127:1 KJV A Song of degrees for Solomon. Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.
  • Joh 2:20 KJV Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?
The Lord did not choose or command Herod; his labour was therefore in vain. This is a lesson for those who would tamper with the things of God.

Herod's motive was to win favour with the religious leaders and strengthen his control over Judaea.

However, the completion of his reconstructed temple was in AD 63, but it continued only for the duration of seven years.

Why Did Jesus Never Mention Ezekiel’s Temple?

During my research, I failed to find any direct quotes from the Book of Ezekiel in the Gospels.

Jesus came to the Jews preaching the Kingdom of God and taught constantly about the many aspects of the Kingdom, often quoting from numerous Old Testament books. If the building of a new temple was a major contributing factor in the overall plan and purpose of God, surely it is reasonable to expect Jesus to have quoted from Ezekiel.

Jesus and the Temple
  • Joh 4:21-23 KJV Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. 22 Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. 23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
Whether Jew, Samaritan or Gentile, an imminent transformation was about to take place that would have a profound effect on all the nations. The temple in Jerusalem would no longer be the focal point of worship.

Notice how imminent this change was: Jesus said ‘the hour cometh’, followed by ‘the hour cometh, and now is’. The fulfilment of His prediction took place during the lifetime of His generation, initially on the Day of Pentecost and absolutely at the inauguration of the New Covenant in AD 70.
  • Joh 2:21-22 KJV But he spake of the temple of his body. 22 When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.
A Quote from Jamieson, Fausset and Brown Commentary
John 2:21 ‘Temple of his body — in which was enshrined the glory of the eternal Word. (See on Joh_1:14). By its resurrection the true Temple of God upon earth was reared up, of which the one made of stone was but a shadow; so that the allusion is not quite exclusively to Himself, but takes in that Temple of which He is the foundation, and all believers are the “lively stones.” (1Pe_2:4, 1Pe_2:5).’
The New Covenant concept is a spiritual temple, which necessitates life and worship in the Holy Spirit.

Dispensationalism’s hypothesis of temple worship during a "millennium" clearly contradicts and undermines the teachings of Christ!
  • Mat 5:18 KJV For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Jesus fulfilled all the promises of the Law and the Prophets to Old Covenant Israel prior to it vanishing away…Hebrews 8:13. There is not ‘one jot or one tittle’ remaining to be fulfilled, including Ezekiel’s vision.

Conclusion

The Lord never chose or commanded anyone to construct Ezekiel’s temple!

It is not sound, doctrinally, to teach that because Ezekiel's temple never materialised it therefore belongs in "the millennium."

The same criterion applies, as it did to the tabernacle of Moses, the temple of Solomon, and the temple of Zerubbabel; 'Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain that build it'.

Yisrayl Hawkins and Malik Obama Discuss the Rebuilding of the Temple and Future Unity Between Religions at the 2014 Spring Conference on Peace

This article was originally distributed via PRWeb

The House of Yahweh reports the 2014 Spring Conference, hosted for The Peaceful Solution Character Education Incorporated, was a big stepping stone towards global peace as discussions about re-building the temple in Jerusalem is a step closer to becoming reality.

PRWEB
May 16, 2014

With over 800 people in attendance from 22 different countries, many of societys most troubling topics were brought up for discussion. No topic was greater than how The House of Yahweh has shown the ability to work with people of all faiths, as expressed by one of the events guest speakers, Mr. Malik Obama. He is not only the older brother of U.S. President Barak Obama, but also a practicing Muslim. 

In his speech, Malik Obama stated,
Let the world and everybody know that our mission is to promote peace. And our mission is to get people to come together and work as brothers and sisters.
He went on to say that the Peaceful Solution [Character Education Program] has been proven to transcend all racial, cultural, and religious barriers, teaching the concept that when moral principles and values are applied in all aspects of life, as authored by Yisrayl Hawkins, peace can be achieved worldwide. In closing, Mr. Obama also expressed gladness in becoming a part of the Peaceful Solution Character Education Program, and said he was looking forward to returning to The House of Yahweh very soon.

The Peaceful Solution Character Education Incorporated also holds delight with all of our Catholic and Christian friends who see the need for peace and are joining in support of the Temple movement, but even more so in supporting the Peaceful Solution Character Education Program. The Temple will stand beside the Muslim Mosque, for all the world to see, as a reminder of the first step towards true peace.

In unity, we can forever step forward together.

For more information on The House of Yahweh please visit their website at http://www.yahweh.com.

About Us

The House of Yahweh, fully recognized in 1983 as a non-profit organization in the United States of America, continues to this present day to fulfill its commissioned work of preaching and publishing the Message of Salvation.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/2014/05/prweb11855973.htm



With Blueprint in Hand, Yisrayl Hawkins says He has the Biblically Correct Plans for the Prophesied Rebuilding of the Third Temple in Jerusalem

The House of Yahweh offers free booklet, “A Peaceful Solution to Building the Next Temple in Jerusalem,” which they say lays the proper groundwork for rebuilding the third temple according to The Holy Scriptures.
The details given in this prophecy are so precise, and we have those details in a perfect blueprint ready to go. Our blueprint to rebuild this next temple is correct, down to the very smallest detail

PRWEB
December 27, 2013
While negotiations are still in the works for peace in the Middle East, Yisrayl Hawkins says he has the perfect peaceful solution to the conflict surrounding the Temple Mount. 

Hawkins has been actively promoting his booklet called “A Peaceful Solution to Building the Next Temple in Yerusalem.” Hawkins has had a huge part in planning and explaining, through prophecy, how and when to build the third temple. His plans have been positively received and well noted in Jerusalem and abroad. 

In a 1997 Boston Jewish Times news article, journalist Nadia Lourie cites several contributions made by Yisrayl Hawkins and members of The House of Yahweh. The House of Yahweh has made the full news article available on their blog; it can be read here.

The article points out many details concerning this prophecy, the work that Hawkins and his team have put into this project, and how they came to their conclusions. One notable contribution mentioned, was by Dr. Asher S. Kaufman, which establishes the locations of the first and second temples in the northwestern part of the Temple Mount Plateau. Hawkins and his team then took the measurements and successfully aligned them with Ezekiel’s prophecies. A model of the temple was constructed and blueprints drawn

She goes on to say, Ezekiel’s prophecies indicated there would be a “public structure” standing on the Temple Mount today, and the plans, indicated in the prophecy, do not call for its destruction. Hawkins and his team say this public structure must surely be the Dome of the Rock, which they have no intention to move. They say that leaving the Dome of the Rock in its place, next to the temple, would be the “Perfect Peaceful Solution” to the Arab-Jewish conflict there, according to The Boston Jewish Times article.

The group says rebuilding the third temple, with a dividing wall to separate the temple from the Dome of the Rock, will fall right into place with Ezekiel’s vision and prophecy. 
“We knew this time was coming, when the third temple would be built in our time period. I wrote about it in A Peaceful Solution to Building the Next Temple in Yerusalem,” Hawkins said. “The details given in this prophecy are so precise, and we have those details in a perfect blueprint ready to go. Our blueprint to rebuild this next temple is correct, down to the very smallest detail,” Hawkins continued. 
To read A Peaceful Solution to Building the Next Temple in Yerusalem, you can download the PDF here:
http:// http://www.yahweh.com/pdf/temple_brochure.pdf

Obama wants to build Third Temple on Temple Mount (Caught on Video)



Shoebat
April 15, 2014

See the AMAZING video in which President Obama’s brother (when we say ‘Obama’, we mean Malik) expresses solidarity with a man who wants to build the third Temple right next to the Dome of the Rock – Islam’s third holiest site – in Jerusalem. Making this situation worse for Malik, himself a professed Muslim, is that the man he’s partnering with in this pursuit, meets the standard of false prophet in Islam; this is an egregious blasphemy.

The man behind the effort to build the temple is Yisrayl Hawkins, a cult leader and self-proclaimed prophet who heads House of Yahweh in Abilene, Texas. To better understand the partnership between Malik and Hawkins, it was reported by Shoebat.com. Hawkins founded Peaceful Solution, an organization Malik lists as a ‘partner organization’ on his website.

According to the narrator in the video above, during a 2010 speech at the first annual Global Conference on Peace, Malik Obama can be heard saying the following about the third temple:
“It’s easy for me to get with the program because I’m a Muslim, a practicing Muslim, and all of the principles that are within the program are not in conflict with my beliefs. So, it’s easy for me to step right in and be part of the program.”
Proposed Third Temple next to Dome of the Rock.
Proposed Third Temple next to Dome of the Rock.

Aside from such advocacy being blasphemous to his own religion, one month earlier, Malik was in Sanaa, Yemen at an Orphans Development Fund (ODF) Conference. While there, Malik was photographed wearing a Hamas scarf that said in part:
“Jerusalem is ours… Palestine: From the River to the Sea.”
This certainly doesn’t square with his desire for a peaceful solution that includes helping what Islam considers to be a false prophet construct Jerusalem’s third Temple just a few steps from Islam’s third holiest site.

That certainly doesn’t sound like a recipe for a peaceful solution; it sounds like a recipe for disaster.

The Third Temple: Yisrayl Hawkins holds the ONLY 2 Design Patents for the measurements of the Third Temple spoken of in the Biblical Hebraic Texts and Codes of the Prophet Yechetzqyah

United States Design Patent #360951
Israeli Design Registration #23078

MR. HAWKINS IS ALSO THE ONLY ONE WE KNOW OF WHO HAS THE COMPLETED ARCHITECTURAL DESIGNS FOR THE THIRD TEMPLE.

NO OTHER DESIGN WILL BE USED TO BUILD THE THIRD TEMPLE. IT CAN ONLY BE THE EXACT MEASUREMENTS PRESENTED IN THE BOOK OF YECHETZQYAH (EZEKIEL).

IT MUST BE ACCORDING TO WHAT WAS WRITTEN FROM ANCIENT TIMES!

http://www.yisrayl-hawkins.com/thirdtemple.html

THIS PHOTO IS ABOUT TO BECOME A REALITY!
http://www.yisrayl-hawkins.com/thirdtemple.html

In his many years of study, Yisrayl Hawkins discovered that in the ancient texts of the Book of Yechetzqyah there was written the complete dimensions of a Temple - a Temple that has NEVER been built! These ancient writings show a peaceful solution for building the third Temple. It is important to realize that we, the people of this generation, can bring peace to Jerusalem and the world.

The words found in this ancient Hebraic text outline specific measurements for a Temple. These measurements have NEVER been used before in the manner in which Yechetzqyah gave them. The first Temple was built under Solomon; the second Temple was rebuilt under Zerubbabel, which was later refurbished by Herod. These measurements were NOT used by Ezra, Nehemiah, or Zerubbabel when they returned to rebuild the Temple after the Babylonian Captivity, nor were they used by Herod when he refurbished the Temple. These measurements were given to us, to be used to build the Temple NOW!

The building of the Temple is a peaceful solution to the problems now existing between the Jews and the Arabs. 

In the 1980s and 1990s, Mr. Hawkins traveled to Israel with three design engineers to study the design and dimensions of the Temple Mount along with the designs and measurements that the Prophet Yechetzqyah gave in his writings. He discovered that it was a PERFECT FIT!!  Even more amazing was the fact that Yechetzqyah also mentioned another "building" that was sitting atop the Temple Mount.

Yes, not only did he see a future Temple, but he also saw another building BESIDE the Temple. The building that he saw was none other than the Dome of the Rock Mosque, which is sitting on the Temple Mount at this time. This Mosque is to remain in its same location, with a dividing wall separating it from the rebuilt Temple - a peaceful solution. There is a viable plan whereby both faiths, Muslim and Jewish, can worship side by side in privacy. Notice, there is a PRIVACY wall to separate the Temple from the Mosque, written in the ancient hebraic text of Yechetzqyah:

Section 40:5  - "And behold, there was an adjoining separation: dividing structure, around a Temple..."

Neither Arabs or the Jews need to be harmed. We do not need to fight over the Temple Mount. We can and should build the Temple on the vacant land where the Temple stood before, and we should build a dividing wall to separate the Arab worshipers from the Jewish worshipers.

It's that simple!

The 1st and 2nd Temple  For one to conceive the possibility of a Temple sitting right beside the Dome of the Rock Mosque, one must  have a further understanding of the space in which we are actually dealing with. (See the photo below).

http://www.yisrayl-hawkins.com/thirdtemple.html
  • The Dome of the Rock dominates the vast  35-acre Temple Mount area. Nothing else sits there.
  • The Dome of the Rock was constructed SOUTH of the First and Second Temples NOT OVER them as was initially suggested.
  • The sight is holy to both Muslims AND Jews.
  • The dimensions given by Yechetzqyah specifically match the empty space beside the current  Dome of the Rock Mosque.
  • The FOUNDATION has already been laid.
The Ancient Hebraic Text of Yechetzqyah and Dr. Asher S. Kaufman

In the March/April 1983 issue of the Biblical Archeology Review pages 40-58, Dr. Asher Kaufman, in his article "Where the Ancient Temple of Jerusalem Stood; Extant  'Foundation Stone' for the Ark of the Covenant Is Identified", proved that the first and second Temples sat exactly in line with the Golden Gate: the east gate.

Following below, there is a diagram of the First and Second Temples superimposed on the Temple Mount Platform, found on page 57 of Kaufman's article, showing a straight line running from the Golden Gate on the east, directly to the "Dome of the Tablets", which now sits northwest of the Dome of the Rock. The Dome of the Tablets, as Dr. Kaufman has also proven, is the foundation stone upon which the Ark of the Covenant rested inside the Holy of Holies!

http://www.yisrayl-hawkins.com/thirdtemple.html

Yes, as Dr. Kaufman had proven in his article, the original Temple site is approximately 330 Feet (100 Meters) northwest of the Dome of the Rock. The Dome of the Rock was not built on the sight of the Temple. The Dome of the Rock was built SOUTH of it!

That being the case, it means that the foundation of the Temple has already been laid; it is still INTACT!

Yes, the elevations and the land contouring have already been prepared by previous generations. All that remains is minimal excavation of the existing courts to reach the foundation which has already been laid. The foundation is under the existing platform of the Temple Mount, waiting for the construction to begin. The Vestibule, Holy Place, and Most Holy Place are recorded. The altar is measured, the building on the west is measured, with the Priests' kitchens established, the Priests' rooms and singers' chambers are designated, etc. The entrances and exits of the people are written.

ALL THAT REMAINS IS TO BEGIN!

http://www.yisrayl-hawkins.com/thirdtemple.html

The 3rd Temple 

Following is the diagram of Yechetzqyah's ancient pattern superimposed on the Temple Mount platform. As you can see, the third Temple is a larger structure than the first and second Temples, due to the fact that Yechetzqyah's cubit was a larger cubit. As you can also see, Yechetzqyah's Temple measurements fit this area PERFECTLY.

http://www.yisrayl-hawkins.com/thirdtemple.html

Digressing here, and to corroborate the fact that the Dome of the Rock sits on the south of the Temple Mount, Dr. Kaufman points out in his article that the Mishnah (Middot 2:1) states that the greater part of the outer court (Har Ha-Bayit) in the original Temple was on the south.

All of these measurements have been checked over and over. We do have the exact measurements of Yechetzqyah's Temple: The Excavations, the Gates, the Courts, with the Vestibule, the Holy Place, and the Most Holy Place, all according to his inspired ancient writings, and according to its EXACT historic dimensions.

YISRAYL HAWKINS HAS THE MEASUREMENTS! THEY ARE THE ONLY ONES IN EXISTENCE! 

http://www.yisrayl-hawkins.com/thirdtemple.html

Let us begin this momentous task to rebuild the Temple. This generation can be the one to bring peace to this planet. WORLD LEADERS, you can be the historical figures who will bring back the Temple. This could very well be the BIGGEST peace project ever ventured in the history of mankind, simply because of the magnitude of the war which all nations now face. The Middle East is looking for peace, and so is the entire world. Yecetzqyah's ancient texts have been revealed. The Temple can be built in a peaceful manner. We can begin this simple step now to bring peace to Israel and to the world.

TO VIEW DIAGRAMS AND DESIGNS, MEASUREMENTS, DOCUMENTATION, ANCIENT TEXTS, etc, or FOLLOW US DAILY on FACEBOOK!

Yisrayl Hawkins' Temple Diagrams
Related:

A Third Temple, a Replica of Solomon's Temple, Was Built in Brazil and Inaugurated on July 31, 2014 for the One World Religion

June 9, 2014

"The elitists, statists, and the greens are not attacking the poor or themselves. And Obama is not going after 'the wealthy' to pay their fair share. The object of their hatred is all aimed at the middle class. They can, will, and have controlled the poor. In fact they’ve been doing that for 100 years, since Wilson and FDR. Statists believe they have conquered those in the lower economic tier through welfare programs, unemployment insurance benefits, social services, public education, housing subsidies, and whatever other give-away programs they have used as bribes. And I could not argue their success. The poor, with their hands out, are not in a position to fight back. Having accomplished their goals with the poor, they now are laser focused on the middle class. And it is this middle class who is giving them a fight. The middle class is still the group closest to the Constitution. The middle class is the group who has sacrificed the most lives in wars and defense of the nation. The middle class is the group who produced the goods that made the country self-sufficient. The middle class is the group of citizens who are outraged and appalled at the assault on the nation from within by the elites. So who does Obama perceive as his enemy? Who is the next victim class of the elite and statists? The middle class. How do you kill the middle class? You eliminate their income potential. You kill their jobs. You destroy manufacturing. You make their lives miserable with regulations. You make their energy so expensive they cannot function. You ridicule their cultural and moral codes. You promote things to undermine their family structure. You tax them to death. You take over their communications. You attempt to track all of their activities. You humiliate them in airports, schools, media, and through their health care. You call them names. You inhibit their mobility and use their tax dollars to limit auto traffic, telling them they must walk or bike. You limit their food. You limit all of their independent survival abilities and micro-manage every aspect of their lives. The middle class has become the enemy of the state (statists)." - Cheryl Pass, Obama’s (Middle) Class Warfare, September 30, 2011

"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it." Elitists and moral supremacists believe that they know so much more about justice, the market, and how we should live. In his book “Intellectuals and Society”, Thomas Sowell explains how the “anointed” believe that their advanced education and depth of knowledge in one field automatically makes them an authority on any field in which they wield an opinion. Sowell further explains that the most educated among us know only the smallest fraction of what is to be known. That these highly educated people may know so much more than any one of us does not mean that they know a fraction as much as do all of us.

Statism: The Opiate Of The Elites

By Theodore J. Forstmann , Senior Partner, Forstmann Little & Co.
January 1997

In this issue, one of America's leading investors and philanthropists argues eloquently that we have forgotten about the Golden Rule as it applies to business and politics. Worse yet, we have traded our biblical principles and individual responsibilities for the empty promises of secularism and statism.

Mr. Forstmann's remarks were delivered at Hillsdale January 1997 Shavano Institute for National Leadership seminar, "Educating for Virtue: The New Values Revolution," in Coronado, California.


Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. The power and significance of these eleven words reside in the fact that they represent a spiritual truth. This is not simply because Jesus said on the Mount, "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." Nor even because it is written in mosaic law: "Whatever is hurtful to you, do not do to any other person." The spiritual authority of the Golden Rule is grounded in an even more basic assumption: that there is a Creator and that we are all equal in His eyes.

Our democracy was founded on this basic assumption, which is why we pledge our allegiance to "one nation under God." From this flows the self-evident truths: "that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights." What follows is that the individual is the spiritual center of society, and therefore the Golden Rule is self-evident as well.

From the Golden Rule to Statist Rule

But in our day, many of our leaders believe that the state — not the individual — is now the spiritual center of society. According to this view, known as "statism," government assumes a moral importance that outweighs individual claims. Statists do not speak of government as a collection of bureaucrats, agencies, and limited constitutional powers but as the embodiment of the collective good — as community itself.

They believe that government should make decisions for individuals. Since individuals usually prefer to make their own decisions, coercion and compulsion become necessary correctives. This is why the statist has no use for the Golden Rule. The statist does not do unto others as he would have others do unto him. The others aren't to do at all; they are to be done to and done for.

If it is true, as philosopher Michael Novak once observed, that "each immoral action sows its own irrationality into the pattern of events," a government that breaks the moral laws encoded in the Golden Rule will have a profound effect on all those living under it. The genesis and genius of the Golden Rule is that it is a two-way street. Statism, on the other hand, is a one-way street. The Golden Rule teaches us that we are all brothers. Statism teaches us that we are the children, and government is the parent. In fact, statists are looking for far more than a maternal embrace in the arms of big government. They are looking for nothing less than a New Jerusalem, literally for redemption through the state.

Every human being has a need to believe and belong. Traditionally this impulse found expression through religion. But with the decline of clerical power in the 18th century, the search for salvation did not come to an end. Instead the intellectuals of the day began to look elsewhere for idols and answers, for kinship and community. As Paul Johnson observes in Intellectuals:

For the first time in human history...men arose to assert that they could diagnose the ills of society and cure them with their own unaided intellects: more, that they could devise formulae whereby not merely the structure of society but the fundamental habits of human beings could be transformed....[These] were not servants and interpreters of the gods but substitutes. Their hero was Prometheus, who stole the celestial fire and brought it to earth.

In 1789, the Promethean spark burst into the flames of the French Revolution. Historian Will Durant recounts that revolutionary leaders "proclaimed a new theology in which Nature would be God, and heaven would be an earthly utopia in which all men would be good." The Cathedral of Notre Dame was renamed the Temple of Reason, priests and nuns were ordered to marry, and cemeteries were required to post inscriptions telling the public that "death is an eternal sleep."

As the revolutionary zeal spilled over into the 19th century, the French battle standard was planted in the great capitals of Europe—in Vienna, Warsaw, Berlin, and Moscow. A German college professor, watching from his window as Napoleon's victorious Grand Armee passed by, exclaimed: "I saw the World Spirit riding upon a white horse!" This was Georg Hegel, who would attempt to marry God and government at the altar of philosophy: "The Universal is to be found in the State," he said, and "the State is the Divine Idea as it exists on earth....We must therefore worship the State as the Manifestation of the Divine on earth."

Half a century later, Marx picked up where Hegel left off, promising that socialism could become the "functional equivalent of religion." Religion, said Marx, was nothing more than "the sigh of a distressed creature... the spirit of spiritless conditions... the opiate of the masses."

In a sense, Marx was the John the Baptist of the statist faith in the 20th century. The fact that so many were baptized in this faith confirms British writer G. K. Chesterton's observation that "when men cease to believe in God, they will not believe in nothing, they will believe in anything." From this perspective, it becomes clear that statism is more than a mere ideology. It is statism that has become "the spirit of spiritless conditions" and the opiate, not of the maws, but of the elites.

The Forward March of Statism

This realization is essential to understanding the forward march of statism in the United States. As Robert Bork describes in Slouching Toward Gomorrah: "The search for a 'politics of meaning' is a feature of modern liberalism, and reflects the human yearning for the transcendental by persons for whom religion no longer fills that need." But he also observes that "politics as a transcendental value cannot be satisfied by the compromises of democratic processes."

So how have the statists overcome our democratic processes, constitutional restraints, and historical distrust of state power?
  1. First, they have adopted a conscious strategy to pay us to value security over freedom. 
  2. Second, they have manipulated our language. 
  3. Third, they have used our law and our courts in ingenious ways to overcome popular will.
Valuing Security over Freedom

The first part of this strategy puts a new twist on an old fable about a kingdom and a tainted well: One of the king's men bursts through the palace doors and rushes up to the throne. "Your highness," he says, "the city well is tainted, and all who have drunk from it have gone mad. Your subjects are marching on the castle to demand your head. You must flee at once!" The king pondered this message for several moments and then made a startling move. He fetched water from the well and drank it himself. Thereafter, the mad king ruled his mad kingdom in perfect harmony.

The story of statism in America is similar but reversed: The elites have drunk deeply from the well of political salvation, inducing visions of government -engineered utopia. The problem is that ordinary people do not understand, do not trust, and even fear such visions. The alleged solution is to give as many people as possible a taste of entitlement—to give everyone, as our president likes to say, "a stake in the system."

The most dramatic bid toward this goal was the Clinton administration's failed health care initiative. We all know that it sought policy advice from countries that had socialized medicine, but did you know it received political advice as well? Social Democrats in the German parliament advised that the surest path to becoming a permanent governing party was to socialize health care. Beyond placing another 10 percent of the GNP under government control, this would-for the first time-make a majority of Americans irrevocably dependent on the state.

What our statists had hoped to achieve was what the French economist Frederic Bastiat described when he said, "The state is that great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else." In statist terms, this is what is called "community," and anyone who questions this equation is accused of opposing "shared values" and "the common good."

Today, these accusations dominate the debate over Social Security reform, precluding any meaningful discussion of how to improve retirement security. Our current system was essentially introduced by the chancellor of Germany, Prince Otto von Bismarck, in 1889—twenty years before the first Model-T rolled off the tracks. It does not incorporate anything we have learned with regard to markets and investments over the past one hundred years. And yet any suggestion that the system might be improved through modernization, choice, and privatization is met by Luddite-like opposition.

In the recently released report by the government-appointed Social Security Advisory Council, Robert Ball (who started working for the government in 1939) argued against privatization on the following grounds: "Social Security is perhaps our strongest expression of community solidarity. Social Security is based on the premise that we're all in this together, with everyone sharing responsibility not only for contributing to their own and their family's security, but also to the security of everyone else, present and future." A recent New York Times editorial put the issue even more bluntly. Privatizing Social Security, it complained, would treat people "as individuals." Can you imagine?

Leave aside for a moment the vast empirical data demonstrating that privatization would improve retirement security, fuel economic growth, and make the system more fair. When opponents attack privatization because they fear it would weaken "community," what they really fear is that it would take government out of the picture. The point, it would seem, is not to expand the pie of benefits for each individual retiree; the point is to keep the public pie-cutters employed.

Manipulating Language

When I listen to the lofty sentiments used to defend government redistribution, I reluctantly have to conclude that nowadays only criminals are honorable enough to steal without rhetorical excuses. Which brings me to statism's second means of trying to outwit democracy: the manipulation of language.

We have entered an Orwellian era in which entitlement replaces responsibility, coercion is described as compassion, compulsory redistribution is called sharing, race quotas substitute for diversity, and suicide is prescribed as "death with dignity." Political discourse has become completely corrupted. The reason is that if you tell people directly that you want to raise their taxes, transfer their wealth, count them by skin color, or let doctors kill them, most will object. Statists know this and therefore are obliged to obfuscate.

In one of the most striking examples, abortion is now discussed in terms of "reproductive health." This sounds absolutely unobjectionable — who, after all, is opposed to health? The same thing goes for the term "pro-choice. " How can you be an American and be against choice? Both terms do an effective job of obscuring the real issue, which is life or death for an unborn child. Of course, this becomes a lot more difficult to do when the child in question is very near to being born. This is why advocates are so uncomfortable with the debate over partial-birth abortion. So brutal is this act that abortion advocates essentially refuse to discuss it. Vicki Saporta, executive director of the National Abortion Federation, says simply: "There is no such thing as a 'partial-birth abortion intact dilation and evacuation' is an accepted medical technique." I agree: there is no such thing as a partial-birth abortion. In order to use the language properly, we must acknowledge that when a child is killed just moments before it can breathe its first breath, it is not abortion. The procedure Ms. Saporta so blithely describes is in fact nothing less than infanticide.

In his Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II warned that by tolerating such practices, we have encouraged a "culture of death." This is a world in which relationships are guided not by the Golden Rule, but by the Latin term cui bono — who benefits? In such a world, life is truly cheap, whether it is the homeless person we ignore on the street, the dying child in Bosnia, the elderly patient who needs medical care, or the tiny life within the womb. This is the inescapable conclusion of the modern conceit.

The statists would have you believe that their utopian dreams are evidence of a profoundly imaginative vision. But truly, what could be less imaginative than to think that if you can't see it, touch it, or grasp it, then it doesn't exist? Of course, there is a material order, but if there is no underlying natural order, and if the only such order that exists is the order we ourselves create, then life necessarily becomes cheapened, and we interfere with decisions made by our Creator.

Overcoming Popular Will

In such a world, notions of right and wrong that have contributed to civilization's painstaking progress over thousands of years are completely stood on their head. Without absolutes, what is right and what is wrong depends upon your point-of-view. The U.S. Constitution, for example, becomes what is fashionably referred to as a "living document," to be reinterpreted as political expediency demands. This is the justification behind statism's third avenue of assault.

Does anyone believe that, when it comes to defining the fundamentals of our democracy, modern lawmakers are more capable than Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, or James Madison? Why not? If the Constitution does not represent enduring truths, why should we give such weight to the words of these dead white males? Thanks to today's legislative and judicial activism, we don't. We have largely abandoned the belief that the Constitution ought to be interpreted according to its original intent, and that is why the appointment of justices and judges has become one of the fiercest political struggles of our time.

This is convenient for those who want government to assume a role that neither the Constitution will sanction nor the electorate will approve. The real rise of state expansion through judicial fiat began with Franklin D. Roosevelt's attempt to pack the Supreme Court with six more members, a move that failed to change the Court's numbers, but forever changed its reading of the Constitution. If anyone doubts the intent, they should read the following excerpt from FDR's 1935 letter to the House Ways and Means Committee chairman: "I hope your committee will not permit doubts as to constitutionality, however reasonable, to block the suggested legislation."

As legal scholar Roger Pilon has pointed out, the fact that the framers intended limits to government power is made explicit by the Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people." But where the framers saw islands of government power in the sea of liberty, the New Dealers saw islands of liberty in a sea of government power. Over the past sixty years, the congressional and judicial tide has eroded those small islands of liberty to mere atolls.

We see the culmination of this trend in the ease with which today's courts override democracy whenever voters try to swim against the statist tide. As columnist George Will argues, "Having become unpersuasive, and hence uneasy in political arenas, liberalism dabbles in democracy but increasingly relies on litigation rather than legislation to achieve its ends." Witness California's Civil Rights Initiative. The language of CCRI was lifted almost word for word from the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act, which stated: "No person in the United States shall, on the grounds of race, color, or national origin, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subject to discrimination under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance." After citizens voted overwhelmingly to put an end to preferences, opponents forum-shopped for a sympathetic judge who blocked the new mandate, at least temporarily, on the Orwellian grounds that an end to preferential treatment violates constitutional guarantees of equality.

It was this type of whimsical interpretation of law that justice Antonin Scalia commented upon when he asked: "What secret knowledge, one must wonder, is breathed into lawyers when they become justices of this Court? Day by day, case by case, [the Court] is busy designing a Constitution for a country I do not recognize."

The True Source of Freedom

America is a country many of us are finding increasingly difficult to recognize. First Things editor Richard Neuhaus asks whether we have arrived at "the end of democracy," and whether "we have reached or are reaching the point where conscientious citizens can no longer give moral assent to the existing regime." I share his concern, but I do not share his pessimism.

Democracy is not at an end, but it is in the balance. If my voice is only a cry in the wilderness, so be it. But I am not going to curse the darkness; I am going to light a candle. If we are to change course, we must argue with courage and conviction that there is a natural order. God is. The life He gives must not be taken away. The rights he endows must not be infringed. And humans, however well intentioned, must not seek to usurp the role of the Creator.

When the 19th-century French observer Alexis de Tocqueville peered into the fog of America's future, he said of its citizens: "I do not fear that they will meet with tyrants in their rulers but rather with guardians." A government led by such men, he said, "does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till [they are] reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."

We must not confuse Tocqueville's government shepherd with the Good Shepherd. And we must remember that the true source of our security and our freedoms is not secular but spiritual. Until we recapture this truth, the relationship between the individual and the state will remain misshapen and we will continue to place the Golden Calf before the Golden Rule.

“The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money.” ― Alexis de Tocqueville
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