May 26
Oil Prices Reach the Crisis Point
It is no longer meaningful to say oil has hit a record high. Since 2002, we have seen a steady increase in the price of crude, with record prices almost becoming a daily occurrence.
What makes 2008 different is the extreme historical level we have now reached. If you adjust for inflation, the folks living in 1980 paid $3.18 for a gallon of gas. Currently, it costs us $3.90 for a gallon of gas.
There has never been a time when oil has increased in price at such a rapid rate. In the past year, it has more than doubled. Wednesday of last week, the price of oil went up so fast, I had to change the headline on RR News four times to reflect the new milestones set from 130 to 135.
There are many reasons the price of oil has soared so drastically. The core reason is supply and demand. Nations like India and China are putting a huge strain on the supply chain. In five years, demand will be at 87 million barrels per day and supply will be at 85 million per day. Many oil experts are predicting that oil will trade as high as $200 per barrel in the not-too-distant future.
If something is going to be done to prevent absolute disaster, quick action needs to be taken now. It takes a very long time to develop sources of new energy. In 2002, a large underwater pool of oil was discovered several hundred miles south of Louisiana . The oilfield is not projected to go on line until next year. To build a nuclear plant, it takes two and a half years just to get the permit validated. Right now, only one company is qualified to build the dome for nuclear reactors, and it is booked through 2020.
I was extremely displeased to see our President fly to Saudi Arabia and beg the Saudi King to sell us more oil. Bush's mission was huge failure. Not only did his so-called friend turn him down; he made the U.S. look like a third-world nation by pleading to some two-bit dictator. OPEC was formed to keep prices high, so why should they do us any favors?
Oil has a strong connection to prophecy because there is so much of it in the Middle East .
The one thing that concerns me the most about the increase in the price of oil is the financial wealth pouring into the Arab states: nearly $1 trillion a year at the current rate.
This oil wealth is not being used to make the world a better place. Fox News found that
OPEC had collectively given just $1.5 million to the United Nations’ World Food Program, or about 1 minute and 10 seconds worth of OPEC's 2007 oil revenues.
The growing power of Islamic wealth is a direct threat to the free world and Israel . The southern Persian Gulf states have been investing heavily in Western companies, while Iran has been spending vast amount of money on military hardware, nuclear technology, and the sponsorship of its favorite terrorist groups.
At some point in the near future, I expect Israel to launch an attack on Iran’s nuclear program. The price of crude could be profoundly impacted by the strike, and would make it essential for the world to find a lasting solution to the Arab/Israeli conflict.
John McCain Throws Evangelicals Under the Campaign Bus
From the very beginning of the Republican primary progress, I knew Sen. John McCain was not conformable with the Christian right. His actions of this past week indicate that evangelical Christians are a group he doesn’t care to be associated with.
On Wednesday, He rejected the endorsement of Rev. John Hagee after revelation of a recording in which the Texas televangelist said the rise of Adolf Hitler was part of God's plan to help the Jews reach the promised land. “Obviously, I find these remarks and others deeply offensive and indefensible, and I repudiate them,” the Arizona senator, 71, said in a statement released by his campaign. “I did not know of them before Reverend Hagee's endorsement, and I feel I must reject his endorsement as well.”
Later in the day, he gave Rod Parsley the boot for saying, "Islam is an anti-Christ religion that intends through violence to conquer the world." In a statement to the news media about Parsley's comments, McCain's campaign said the senator "obviously strongly rejects such statements." The campaign did not answer the question of whether it was aware of Parsley's widely publicized statements prior to seeking his endorsement in February.
McCain must have had some sort of supernatural revelation to account for such dramatic change of heart. At a campaign appearance in Cincinnati , McCain introduced Parsley as "one of the truly great leaders in America , a moral compass, a spiritual guide."
I have several disagreements with John Hagee, but I agree 100 percent with his comments about how the Holocaust was part of God’s plan to bring the Jews back to the promised land. I also agree with Rod Parsley’s assessment of Islam. It is an evil religion.
The same day the Arizona senator denounced Hagee and Parsley, he was a guest appearing on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. I guess Johnny Boy doesn’t have any stomach for evangelical pastors, but he has no problem associating with an openly admitted lesbian.
I have to wonder whether McCain would reject the endorsement of a Christian leader who said Jesus Christ was the only way to God. He seems to be taking an extra step beyond President George Bush to be the ultimate compromiser.
I see political disaster in the making here. When the November election comes, evangelicals are going to sit on their hands and cost McCain the election. The liberal groups he’s been kissing up to are certainly not going to vote for him.
-- Todd
The September Rumor
So much is brewing beneath the surface of the Mid-East cauldron’s magma that it’s difficult to get a ladle handle on what constitutes the most pressing issue of likely prophetic relevance. One thing sure: We don’t have to look too deeply to know that indicators foretold by Bible prophets boil and bubble within the volatile mixture.
Iran’s nuclear program is the hottest issue within the broth. Iran announced in April plans to install perhaps 6,000 advanced-design centrifuges in Natanz for the purpose of enriching uranium, according to the BBC.
"The capacity of these new machines is five times greater than the current machines," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasted in Tehran while speaking before television cameras.
Iran, which has consistently rejected offers by Russia to accept Russian enriched uranium for civilian purposes in return for an agreement to cease uranium enrichment in Iran, has become increasingly bellicose in threats against Israel. Tensions spill over into Iran’s neighboring Arab nations, with pressures ostensibly intended to disrupt feelers of peace extended as of late to Syria by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s government.
Ahmadinejad continues to use rhetoric that promises to erase Israel from the land. It is as if he is daring the Jewish state to knock the nuclear chip off his shoulder.
Iran openly threatens the Syrians with warnings similar to those they make to Israel and the United States. The Iranian leader warned Arab states that whoever dares join the U.S. in making peace with regards to Israel will be doomed along with Washington. A source noted that Ahmadinejad referred to the developments as "a Damascus violation of the mutual commitments between Syria and Iran."
It defies imagination to believe that even Olmert and the appeasement-minded factions within his government could actually believe Syria is serious about following through with any peace promises Syrian dictator Bashar Al Assad might make, should Israel give Assad the Golan Heights. While talks proceed to do just that, though tenuously, Israel’s military sources, according to Hal Lindsey, “…say that Iran is continuing to ship weapons and ammunition, via Hezbollah, to the Hamas-occupied Gaza Strip, including rockets, missiles and rocket launchers. According to the Mossad, these shipments have been stepped up in recent months, reaching a peak in March-April” ("The September War," www.worldnetdaily.com, May 23, 2008).
So, it seems, there is subterfuge afoot in the “peace effort.” The talks between Olmert’s representatives and the Syrian government, it is reasonable to surmise based upon years of experiencing Syrian and other Arab states saying one thing and doing another, is just more of the same: lies to divert attention to true goings on and stalling through feigned interest in establishing peace in the region, while weapons of every description are being stockpiled and distributed for use when the next assault against Israel is launched.
Old and New Testament prophets spoke and wrote of times near the second coming of Christ when the Middle East--indeed, the entire world--would be engaged in wars. Jesus himself spoke of that time: “And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet” (Matthew 24:6).
Prevention of war, primarily because of fear of petroleum flow disruption, is on the mind of diplomats of the world, with the “Quartet” (the United States, United Nations, European Union, and Russia) putting extreme efforts into simmering things down between Israel and her antagonists. Hal Lindsey wrote of just such a possible war this September:
“Syria's insistence on the return of the Golan Heights as a precondition for peace is a Trojan Horse – particularly considering the timing. It was only last September that Israel destroyed a Syrian nuclear reactor that was only weeks from being operational. Syria has built one of the most formidable arsenals of missiles and rockets in the region, all of them aimed at Israel. From the Golan Heights, Syria would control much of northern Israel, as it did prior to losing the Golan to Israel in the Six Days War…” ("The September War," www.worldnetdaily.com, May 23, 2008).
Lindsey makes ominous reference to the Iranian nuclear reactors, which Iran pledges to light up September of this year: “Everything is in place for war except the pretext to start things off. Starting up a nuclear reactor will do nicely” ("The September War," www.worldnetdaily.com, May 23, 2008).
Is this tremendous weapons build-up going to eventuate in war in the near-term? I don't know. However, what we do know for sure is that all of these volatile dynamics bubbling beneath the Mid-East’s peace-seeking façade is at this point in time a powerful rumor of war that is significant in considering where we are on God’s prophetic timeline.
--Terry
