May 15
November Doesn't Look Good for Republicans
The midterm elections are a few months away and it doesn't look good for the Republican Party. Just about every
poll on the subject of November elections can only put smiles on the faces of Democratic leaders.
According to a Wall Street Journal poll, President Bush's approval rating stands at 29 percent — a record low. His
disapproval rating is 65 percent, just a point away from President Nixon's days before his resignation. About one-quarter of
U.S. adults say things in the country are going in the right direction, while 69 percent say things have pretty seriously
gotten off on the wrong track.
Bush has the luxury of ignoring poll findings about his own performance. Because he can't run for a third term, he does not
have the pressure of a re-election campaign.
Because it's a long way from the 2008 presidential race, the voters will have to direct all their frustration toward Congress.
If you think Bush has bad poll numbers, Congress is in even worse shape. An Associated Press-Ipsos poll shows Congress has a 25 percent approval rating. The poll found that 51 percent of Americans say they want Democrats rather than Republicans to
control Congress. Only 34 percent favor Republican control.
Several political analysts believe it is possible that the Democrats could retake control of either the Senate or the House of Representatives. Historically, the party that controls both the White House and Congress tends to suffer losses during a
president's second term.
Democrats need to gain 15 seats to win back the House and six seats to retake control of the Senate. All 435 House seats are
up for grabs, but only about 45 races are seen as genuinely competitive. Of these seats, 35 are regarded as unsafe GOP seats
and 10 are regarded as unsafe Democratic seats.
The Republicans have been hurt the most by political scandal, concern over illegal immigration, the war in Iraq, and the high
price of oil. The greatest damage has come from the growing frustration among the Republican faithful.
Peggy Noonan was special assistant to President Ronald Reagan. In 1988 she was chief speechwriter for Vice President George
Bush as he ran for the presidency. Here is what she recently had to say about the leadership members of her own party:
"The Republicans talk about cutting spending, but they increase it--a lot. They stand for making government smaller, but they
keep making it bigger. They say they're concerned about our borders, but they're not securing them. And they seem to think
we're slobs for worrying. Republicans used to be sober and tough about foreign policy, but now they're sort of romantic and
full of emotionalism. They talk about cutting taxes, and they have, but the cuts are provisional, temporary. Beyond that,
there's something creepy about increasing spending so much and not paying the price right away but instead rolling it over
and on to our kids, and their kids."
I myself have been very disappointed by the Republicans' handling of our nation's financial affairs. They seem to believe
that cutting taxes is the shortcut to prosperity. In May 2001, they passed the Tax Relief Reconciliation Act, a tax cut
worth $1.35 trillion over 10 years. Despite the fact the federal deficit has mushroomed since the act was passed, Republicans
have been wanting to create another $1.6 trillion in tax cuts.
One of the best examples of the Republican financial irresponsibility came when majority leader Bill Frist proposed giving
everyone a $100 rebate to offset soaring gasoline prices. The rebate would buy a couple of tanks of gas, and do nothing to
solve the problem. The only result would be another $10 billion added to the federal deficit. Frist was forced to withdraw
the proposal in the face of widespread criticism.
Whenever I mention politics on the site, I always get email from people who seem to think my goal is to portray the
Republicans as the "party of God" and the Democrats as the "party of Satan." This is not true.
First, you cannot separate politics and religion. The Bible tells us to watch and pray for our leaders. They are the ones
who establish the laws that guide the morality of our nation.
As I outlined in my article, "Would Jesus Vote Republican?" I don't think God favors one party over the other. Ultimately, both the Democrats and Republicans will fulfill Satan's will. If I have any preference for the Republicans, it is because this party seems to be the one least controlled by demonic spirits.
As an end-time reporter, my job is to measure how quickly we are moving towards the tribulation hour. When the Democrats are
in the driver's seat, the pace always seems to pick up. You can lose with a political organization that favors abortion, gay
rights, globalism, and godless secularism.
I think we are so close to the end, the party of Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton would not have to do much to push us over the edge. The Democrats may help set the prophetic stage by simply causing political gridlock. If they took over in either the House or the Senate, they've already promised to use their Democratic committee chairmanship to initiate congressional inquiries on a range of issues, including the use of intelligence prior to the Iraq war and the high cost of oil.
Endtime Doctrines and Seducing Spirits
God’s warning through Paul the apostle is clear about the matter. The endtime generation will experience a great increase in false doctrines that seduce the people of that era.
“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron; Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth” (1 Tim. 4:1-3).
My previous commentary dealt somewhat with these things, brief mention being made of the book and movie, The Da Vinci Code. Of course, the blasphemous blockbuster novel and an anticipated blockbuster movie by the same name are purported to be no more than fiction. The fiction, however, provides venues for the devil to get across to the totally gullible generations alive today the not-so-subtle proposal that Jesus was a charlatan. And people today definitely have “itching ears” wanting to be scratched by the deceivers and lust for fables rather than for God’s truth (read 2 Thes. 4:1-3).
Satan isn’t confining his assault to one frontal attack, but to two, as mentioned in last week’s column. The first attack is presented as fiction, with the underlying luciferian question: “Yea, hath God said?” The second is also fiction, but presented as fact: an alternative history of things involving Jesus Christ. The second of the two-pronged assault brings to mind the old Indian saying, “you speak with forked tongue,” does it not? That is the satanic attack we will look into a bit further.
“The Gospel of Judas,” of course, is the attack on the veracity of the Bible and upon the Lord Jesus Christ that I want us to look at in this limited space. The seducing spirits have used this false gospel to have a field day inflicting hellish havoc upon non-Christians and Christians alike. Tragically, the weakness and apathy within Christian seminaries, pulpits, and pews makes the Christians mentioned susceptible to the lies wrapped up in “The Gospel of Judas.”
Rather than going into the historical archeological find surrounding this artifact, let’s look at its spiritual roots. The false belief comes from the Gnostic religious form that sprang up shortly after Christ’s ascension. Gnosticism is the belief that salvation comes through gnosis, the Greek word meaning “knowledge.” Gnosticism puts forth that one must be an insider of the secrets of the universe in order to be saved.
The Jesus of the Bible is very different from the Jesus of the Gnostics. In the Gnostic view, Jesus did not come in the flesh to die on the cross in order to make atonement for the sins of the world. He, according to this false gospel, came to reveal the secrets concerning higher knowledge about the existence of the unknown God. Gnosticism puts forth that each and every person has a divine spark of this God in them.
Herein lies the power of seducing spirits –the minions of Satan, who once whispered to Eve, “…ye shall be as god…” The fallen human being finds this to be quite soothing to “itching ears.” This means people can each–as their own god-- “do what is right in their own eyes.” Lucifer told Adam and Eve that they would be like God, or know as much as God knows. This is to the fallen human being what Dr. Henry Kissinger said great political power is to those who wield it: “the ultimate aphrodisiac.” Gnosticism is a philosophical religion emphasizing redemption through knowledge.
As my good friend Dr. Larry Spargimino said: “In 'The Gospel of Judas,' Jesus sounds more like a New Age guru than a Galilean fisherman.” The Gnostic version of Jesus says the same thing Lucifer told Adam and Eve –that the power of knowledge is salvation, because it establishes the human being as worthy of salvation and godhood.
Judas, in this blasphemous gospel, is identified as the thirteenth spirit, who was appointed by God to be the agent of releasing Jesus from His physical body, in which He was trapped since the incarnation.
Dr. Spargimino says about this Hell-sent gospel: “Gnosticism has some very aberrant beliefs about God. In Gnostic thought there is a dualism. There is a good God and a bad God. And they are in a continual struggle against each other. In some forms of Gnosticism, the bad God is equated with the God of the Old Testament. One of the allegedly evil things that He did was to create the world” (Dr. Larry Spargimino, Southwest Radio Church Ministries, Thursday, May 11, 2006).
This equating God’s creating the world to evil is based upon the Gnostic proposition that the world and all material things are evil, i.e., God is blamed for the sinfulness of man. From whom should we suspect such upside-down thinking comes?
Again, as well outlined in the Scripture given above (1 Tim. 4:1-3), this is a departure from the faith, and is giving heed to seducing spirits!
“The Gospel of Judas” glorifies Judas, not Jesus. One professor of religion–who is in no way a proponent of fundamentalist-evangelical thought—pointed to the devil in the details of “The Gospel of Judas": "The idea of this gospel is that Jesus, like all of us, is a trapped spirit, who is trapped in a material body. Salvation comes when we escape the materiality of our existence. And, Judas is the one who makes it possible for Jesus to escape, by allowing for his body to be killed" (Bart Ehrman, religion professor, University of North Carolina, quoted by Larry Spargimino, Southwest Radio Church, May 11, 2006).
Again, I ask the question: >From whom should we suspect such upside-down thinking to come? We are living at a time when people will not endure sound doctrine, but give heed to all sorts of feel-good, do-good doctrines that do not have the true Gospel at their core--another sure signal of where this generation stands upon God’s prophetic timeline.
--Terry
