Thoughts from Just Before the Fall – Steven Menking

With August coming to a close and the fall season shortly at hand, I have a few observations to make:

1. It is becoming clear to more and more people that the primary narratives in essentially every area of our lives are nothing but lies and propaganda.

Cognitive dissonance levels are so far off the charts right now that a new descriptive term may be necessary that goes beyond total denial. The severity of the narrative contortions going on currently points directly to a troubling yet all too real prospect: spiritual blindness.

Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.
Matthew 15:14

In the Bible there are many instances where madness and blindness have come upon the leaders of a land. Nebuchadnezzar was stricken with what we would now refer to in newspeak as ‘mental health issues’ when he was driven from the throne and lived in the wild like an animal in Daniel 4.

Returning to the present, we have Hillary Clinton calling out InfoWars and the “Alt-Right” and decrying everyone questioning any aspect of her campaign, health, record, or history as a conspiracy theorist while BleachBit brags about ‘wiping’ her email servers. We also see that there are real consequences to asking questions and making statements against obvious corruption and cover-ups. Just ask Dr. Drew or Seth Rich. Hopefully InfoWars is too high profile to interrupt through covert means without overplaying a hand that ultimately engenders grassroots support for the “Alt-Right”, but that conclusion unfortunately rests on the assumption that we’re dealing with sane people. We are not.

It’s tricky to claim incessantly that everyone else is lying about everything in the face of clear and direct evidence. You can attempt to bury evidence and refuse to deal with realities like the influence of George Soros on global politics, but people just aren’t buying the lies anymore. The information is available for free in the public domain, and you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. Any day now I’m expecting a poll to come out showing that people don’t trust polls. I suppose that makes me a lunatic for questioning the objectivity of our institutions. Surely they are fully unbiased, follow proper methodologies, and get everything right.

I’m not “Alt-Right”. I’m a Christian who knows how statistics can be manipulated in unscrupulous hands and understands the law of noncontradiction, the law of the excluded middle, and the false choice fallacy.

Why isn’t an understanding of basic logic a universal requirement in our educational system?

Let’s save that for another time. Brexit showed us that people are awake now. The information war is being won in small battles. The truth will win because all lies ultimately fall apart. There is nothing hidden that won’t come to light. Hopefully we will see things for what they are before it’s too late.

2. After the quietest month in financial markets in a lifetime, things are about to heat up again and the central bank saviors are either totally clueless or entirely complicit.

Realized volatility is the lowest in a lifetime. It shouldn’t be a surprise to readers that stock indexes are currently out of touch with reality, but we’ve gone past the point where anything could be described as reasonable. Interestingly enough, this situation of hyper insanity that ignores all risk potential is a necessary step before reality can set back in. Investors have lost their memory of a properly functioning system because they haven’t seen a real market in decades. The younger batch have never seen one.

So what does the Federal Reserve think?

Well, out at Jackson Hole, Janet Yellen said a whole lot of nothing and then multiple Fed goons came out with contradicting statements. It’s all just diversionary tactics. We know that Stanley Fischer is the real power at the Fed and that Janet Yellen is a prop. We know that the Exchange Stabilization Fund controls price action in all financial arenas with off book money. We know that the Fed is not an independent institution.

With that in mind, let’s see what the Fed thinks about interest rates in the future. Make sure you’re sitting down. Here’s the key graph:

These people really know what they’re doing: look at all that precision and confidence! If this doesn’t make you chuckle then you may want to go elsewhere for your economic commentary. Even more amusing is the Fed’s Facebook disaster. Check out the comments people are leaving on their Facebook page. Take a look soon because it might not be up for long. The result of this experiment gone wrong really does give me hope for humanity.

The jig is up. When the next pressure is applied to the economy in the form of a recession the Fed may need to print $4 trillion to mitigate it. It says something that even Bloomberg is reporting on this and questioning the Fed. But don’t worry everyone: Paul Krugman says everything will be fine and he won a Nobel Prize in Economics! Now we’re just waiting on the The Final Swan to land and the global reset to occur.

We’re going into an interesting season.

3. Most importantly, get right with God.

Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him.
1 John 3:15

The climate of hate, disunity, strife, anger, resentment, bitterness, and unforgiveness that we are experiencing is truly poisonous. We can’t remove these things from our hearts in our own strength. Only God can deliver us from these prisons. Jesus Christ came to set the captives free and he is able to deliver you from these things that eat us up from the inside out. Surrender to the Lord in all things and He is faithful to begin and complete a work of purification in your life. It may not be instantaneous. It’s usually a long, delicate process. Yet continue to pray for your faith to be strengthened. He is able.

The New Testament teaches that a state of hatred in your heart and soul is equivalent to murder and that a state of lust in your heart and soul is equivalent to adultery. Those are hard lessons to learn if we are in either one of those prisons. Give it to God. Only He is able to deliver. We have all fallen short of the glory of God. We must forgive in order to be forgiven.

So who is our brother?

This epistle was written to the church, and we know all followers of Jesus are brothers and sisters in Christ adopted into the family of God. A brother isn’t necessarily a blood relative, a fellow countryman, or a member of the same ethnic group. We need to stand for truth, but we must do it in love – even if we are rejected – to show the world the love that God has shown us. We don’t have the ability to do that naturally. We must be supernaturally empowered by God to represent Him properly. Take everything to the Lord in prayer. Give everything over to Him. Let Jesus set you free.

If you’re still with me, perhaps you’ll entertain a thought I’ve had recently that I just can’t shake… We should pray for Hillary Clinton. Let me elaborate before I get taken to task. What an incredible testimony it would be if she were to be miraculously saved by Jesus and then stood up for righteousness and came out with the truth about the inner workings of political corruption in our nation that she has voluminous understanding of as a consummate insider for an entire lifetime. We know a tree by its fruits, so we know she needs Jesus. We also know that all things are possible for God. If this were to happen an untold number of the enemy’s plans would be ruined.

Remember who Saul was before he became Paul.

Perhaps another Road to Damascus moment is in the cards made wondrously poetic in light of the literal destruction of that historical city as a result of US foreign policy during her tenure at the State Department.

Look to Jesus. He is an ever present help in time of need. Have faith and be encouraged. Even if things get stormy know that God is still with each and every one of His children.

This article was originally posted August 26, 2016 on The Amateur Society website here.

Systemic Reset – What Comes After?

This is a guest post from my friend Steven Menking who posts on The Amateur Society website. You will be hearing much more from Steven as well as other friends in guest posts on this site in the future. For more great articles check out The Amateur Society website here.

Steven Menking: Systemic Reset – What Comes After?

Global monetary systems typically undergo systemic resets around twice per century on average. If you are looking for an excellent, succinct resource for an overview of recent monetary history, please check out the following video before reading on:

140 Years of Monetary History in 10 Minutes – Mike Maloney

If you have come to the realization that the current monetary system is on life support and is overdue for a dramatic shift that will impact everyone and everything on the planet, then you may be wondering about what is coming next? Prognosticators are predicting everything from utopia to apocalypse and everything in between, and it can be confusing and frightening to examine many of the potential scenarios moving forward.

I don’t know exactly when the systemic reset will happen, what will come after, and how long the transition period will be. Unless you’ve received that information directly from God there’s no way to know. Even those eagerly awaiting and even making the decisions that will lead to such a transition do not have the absolute power and control necessary to execute their objectives with total certainty and with perfectly precise timing. Rather than venture fully into the realm of abject speculation, I will instead present several guiding principles that we can use to frame our conversations and analysis on this topic.

Continue reading

BOOK REVIEW – God Against the gods: Storytelling, Imagination and Apologetics in the Bible, by Brian Godawa

Godagainstgods

“The Christian should be the person who is alive, whose imagination absolutely boils, which moves, which produces something a bit different from God’s world because God made us to be creative.” Francis Schaeffer

Understanding the world we live in and how to live an impactful life was the crux of Francis Schaeffer’s life and work. He encouraged his generation of Christians to take their writing, art, and storytelling seriously for the glory of God as well as for the testimony of Christ. This legacy continues to inspire artists of every genre and I am pleased to say that Brian Godawa has taken up the task of exceptional storytelling, using imagination and apologetics to tell the “grandest story ever told.”

In “God Against the gods: Storytelling, Imagination, and Apologetics in the Bible,” Godawa takes aim at several lofty goals, and hits the bull’s-eye of each one. Of primary importance in this writer’s view is that Godawa states that the Bible takes a far different view of historicity than modern people do.

Godawa’s claim is that the Bible uses mythopoeic and figurative language intentionally, but that this usage in no way undermines the truthfulness or the theological accuracy of what is stated. This is an important point for modern readers who have a somewhat different understanding of what constitutes historical accuracy and even truth.

It is an impressive assertion that God never intended to satisfy the rigorous and often ridiculous demands of critics throughout the ages who would point to this passage or that statement as an example of why the Bible cannot be trusted. Instead Godawa argues that God’s inspiration of the biblical texts remains intact, having been providentially guided for His purposes, by intentionally utilizing imagery, symbolism, metaphor, and poetic figurative language much the way Jesus Christ did during His public ministry. In this way Godawa is arguing against the modernist obsession with rational abstraction and empirical observation as the only gate keepers of truth.

To make his case Godawa presents seven chapters based on articles and essays he has written that explore various topics such as:

  • God’s intentional unmasking of the spiritual reality behind pagan gods.
  • How Israel’s use of mythopoeic elements shared with other Near Eastern peoples can be used apologetically today.
  • The biblical depiction of our universe is a theological expression of the grandeur of God and not a detailed physical or scientific expression.
  • Paul’s sermon on Mars Hill is really a powerful Christian theistic worldview apologetic.

Readers will find a thorough and thought-provoking examination of such things as the true meaning behind “the host of heaven” and God’s “divine council”; of the penchant of Hollywood filmmakers to use Near Eastern mythopoeia to make blockbuster movies (hat-tip to the 2012 Marvel adaptation, The Avengers); of the necessity of understanding the Bible through a supernatural Near Eastern worldview which by the way, is very different from our own; how biblical cosmology/cosmography is not aimed toward scientific concordism, and it is a mistake to insist on that outcome; and the relationship between metaphor and prophecy especially in the eschatological genre.

In God Against the gods, Brian Godawa has provided a wonderful primer for the Christian apologist, author, and Bible student who is interested in engaging our modern world with powerful information and answers to questions commonly asked by those searching for understanding and truth.

Brian Godawa’s website – www.godawa.com

*A copy of this book was provided to me in PDF format free of charge. I received no remuneration for this review.

 

Standing For Truth – Eagle Forum of California

Here is conference information for those of you who live in the southern California area. Mark the date – Saturday, May 7th from 9:00am to 1:00pm at Calvary Chapel East Anaheim. More info call 562-305-5003.

Free live streaming of this conference anywhere in the world at http://livestream.com/ccealive

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