June 23, 2014
Dear Members and Coworkers,
The Wise of this World is the title of the sermon we’re offering this month, by Garner Ted Armstrong. Amazing, isn’t it, how some of the most familiar Bible quotes leap to mind as we watch the most famous, powerful leaders on earth put us on a path to tribulation? Powerful and arrogant officials, who obviously believe they are smarter than God, passionately promote some of the things listed in the passage from which the title is taken, things that kindle the anger of Almighty God!
Here’s a blatant example. John Kerry is, as you know, the United States Secretary of State. He’s getting a lot of media coverage right now for his visit to Bagdad to meet with Maliki, the besieged president of Iraq, in the middle of the disaster that has seen the well organised and well-financed terrorist group calling itself ISIS take and hold nearly half of Iraq. They’ve used brutal, murderous tactics including mass shootings of prisoners and be-headings as they’ve taken control of over a dozen towns and cities, not to mention the border crossings into both Syria and Jordan. But back to Kerry. Just last week he gave a speech to an activist group in which he proclaimed his goal is to have a lesbian or transgender “diplomat” representing the United States in a foreign embassy somewhere.
The so-called “Pride” event was held at the Dept. of State, and Kerry bragged of the openly homosexual diplomats already representing the U.S. as ambassadors. Have you read Romans the first chapter? It is the one that contains the statement about those professing themselves wise but becoming fools. The very same passage also includes one of the many strong condemnations of the very thing Kerry has made a goal to promote. Is it unintentional, or did Kerry purposely endeavor to qualify for two biblical condemnations at once?
If you’ve dredged below the surface of the mass media in an attempt to find out what’s actually going on domestically or internationally, you have undoubtedly come across some of the many instances where the current administration has refused to allow standing laws to be enforced, or simply rewritten or reinterpreted laws to fit a transformational agenda.
America’s founders realized that real freedom comes from God, and that it was their responsibility to declare and constitute laws that institutionalized God’s Laws into our national charter. But God’s Laws are no longer a factor with current leadership. The crew navigating the ship of state toward disaster has no use for any such consideration. In their self-proclaimed wisdom, they’ve decided (and the media backs them up) that those determined to cling to God’s declarations are stupid, “on the wrong side of history,” and potentially dangerous.
It has become impossible to rationalize some of the disastrous mistakes of the US Administration that are destroying freedom and prosperity in the United States and that have the effect of making the world exponentially more dangerous. Since the mass media are so totally invested in the advance of political correctness, and determined to protect and defend its most powerful promoters, they simply hide the worst of the bad news from the public.
Scandals that would have ended in resignations or prosecutions at any other time in American history have been unanimously hidden, underplayed and ignored by the very institutions our population has always relied upon to report fairly. Consequently, the casually informed in their tens of millions remain uninformed or misinformed on a vast array of subjects that are defining the nation’s and indeed the world’s future. On-the-street interviews, and public opinion polls reveal that a great many have never heard of some of the most egregious failures of the US Administration (under Obama) or their harmful consequences over the past six years.
While a vast segment of territory containing over a dozen cities and towns spanning nearly half of Iraq and some of Syria falls under the brutal rule of the terrorist faction ISIS, who are determined to establish an Islamic caliphate with designs on the West, our leaders preach “climate change” and promote a homosexual agenda.
No kidding, while some of the worst developments of all time are under way in the Middle East, and while trainloads of destitute humanity from Central America flood our southern border, the President is fear-mongering in speeches about “global warming,” and the Secretary of State is talking about “winning the fight” to have queer people and so called “transgender” people represent the United States as foreign ambassadors. And they hold themselves up as the smartest, most sophisticated people on earth.
Besides the priming of the Middle East to spark a worldwide catastrophe, and the steady demolition of the United States, other prophetically important events are taking shape in Europe. The EU and the euro just got a major vote of no confidence in France and in Britain, and to a lesser degree in nations all over Europe including Germany. Even the pro-EU British publication The Economist sees grave danger ahead for the European Union. If Britain were to pull out, it would be a significant blow to the institution. But if France should call it quits, The Economist says that it will collapse.
Meanwhile, as Italy prepares to assume the presidency of the EU for a six-month term, the Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi says he is determined to work toward a “United States of Europe.” He’s quoted as saying, “A stronger more cohesive Europe is the only solution to solve the problems of our time.” The idea is to model the governance of Europe after the United States. Whether that would be the United States we knew and loved, or the transformed version of the present day is anyone’s guess. Why would Europe decide to mimic a nation that is in as much trouble as the United States is right now? Whether it means trying to salvage the euro and all the current member nations of the EU, or perhaps a new and smaller cohesive power is also up for conjecture.
But the world is changing dramatically while most people go about their daily lives oblivious to the mounting dangers. Our leaders are, by their actions and pronouncements, denying the existence and the authority of Almighty God. They’ve done away with the proof of creation by their arrogant insistence that life on earth, in all its complexity, is the result of happenstance and evolution. They’ve labeled natural resources and natural elements pollutants, and decreed themselves authority to ban or regulate them to a degree ruinous to the blessings God gave us.
Some say that “they,” the transformers, are instruments in God’s hands to punish us for our individual and national sins. But God is not the author of evil. He’s certainly not the author of lies, and we’ve experienced no shortage of those. We may not understand everything until Jesus’ return. But we should be able to see that those who profess themselves to be wise become fools. We think you’ll enjoy your copy of The Wise of this World on either CD or DVD In the meantime, don’t forget to watch and pray always that we’ll be accounted worthy to escape “all these things” – because all these things are coming. Those who profess themselves to be wise are seeing to it.
Sincerely,
Mark Armstrong
PS. You can also watch “The Wise of this World” on GTAEA-Australia here:
