Pandora´s box - A personal reflection on current events

Written and posted by Jean-Louis. 

This morning a friend of mine posted this on  FB:
“He opened Pandora's Box through his bumbling "negotiations" and guess who is going to suffer the consequences...”
 

Kerry Acknowledges Iran ‘May’ Use Weapons Obtained Through Agreement to Kill Americans, Israelis

Secretary of State John Kerry conceded on Tuesday...

m.cnsnews.com

Here is my reply to her comment:

"Last week I woke up one morning with this thought in my mind:" Do not open a door that you cannot close".

Interesting, your image of Pandora´s box!

It could certainly apply to any of us on the spiritual level, but when it happens with  enough people in the nation, this is the result when at every level of society, men and women have tempered with the eternal laws of a just God and  reaped what they have sown for more than half a century".

Some grievous offenses:

·         In 1963, the Supreme Court ordered official prayer and Bible reading out of public school.

·         In 1969 In New York City, a door was opened during the riot at the StoneWall Inn, a homosexual bar, now the White House is lit with the rainbow flag.

·         In 1973, the Roe versus Wade door was opened, now we are eating the fruit of that tree, with the horrific display of the disgusting, repulsive display of the doctor discussing nonchalantly abortion procedures and filthy lucre during lunch without any sign of understanding of the gravity of the crimes committed against  God and the babies. 

·         Later, the removal  of the 10 Commandments door was opened - some people might say it was shut - now a statue of Satan is erected in a public place.

At the same time, doors are opening in heaven from which the judgment of God has been and is coming. In Revelation 9:2 a door to the pit is opened and demonic creatures come out. Only the Lord Jesus can open doors that no one can shut and shut doors that no one can open.  I will entrust him with your authority, And he will become a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah. Then I will set the key of the house of David on his shoulder, When he opens no one will shut, When he shuts no one will open. Isaiah 22:21b-22.

"And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: He who is holy, who is true, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, and who shuts and no one opens, says this”. Revelation 3:7

In the Old Testament, the LORD told us not to make alliances which are not his.

"Woe to the obstinate children," declares the LORD, "to those who carry out plans that are not mine, forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit, heaping sin upon sin" Isaiah 30:1

But is it not what the US and its allied European partners just did with the nuclear 'Treaty" they signed with Iran?

Connecting the Dots
In reference to the homosexual riots at the STONE WALL INN I find it interesting that Solomon had this to say about it in Ecclesiates 10:8: 
"He who digs a pit may fall into it, and a serpent may bite him who breaks through a wall". What a coincidence!
The LORD throughout history has given us limits for our protection and well being. In spite of these warnings and God´s patience and mercy, in less than a century almost all the boundaries stones have been removed.

Talking about “STONE WALLS”

Commentary  Ecclesiastes 10:8 from Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

 
He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it,.... This and the three following clauses are proverbial expressions, teaching men to be wise and cautious, lest by their conduct they bring mischief upon themselves; as it often is, the one that digs a pit for another, falls into it himself, as the wise man's father before him had observed, Psalm 7:15; as kings that lay snares for their people, and subjects that plot against their sovereign; or courtiers that form schemes for the rain of those that are in their way; or any man that devises mischief against another, frequently so it is, that the same befalls them; as Haman, who prepared a gallows for Mordecai, was hanged on it himself;

and whoso breaketh an hedge a serpent shall bite him; which often lies hid in fences, in old walls, and rotten hedges (s), Amos 5:19; so he that breaks down the hedges and fences of kingdoms and commonwealths, and breaks through the fundamental laws of a civil constitution, and especially that transgresses the laws of God, moral or civil, may expect to smart for it.

Jarchi interprets this hedge of the sayings of their wise men, which those that transgress shall suffer death by the hand of heaven: but it would be much better to apply it to the doctrines contained in the word of God, which are a hedge and fence to the church of God, and whoever transgress them will suffer for it; see 2 John 1:8; The Targum, by the "serpent", understands an ungodly king, who bites like a serpent, into whose hands such transgressors shall be delivered: and some have thought of the old serpent the devil, as Alshech, who deceived Adam and Eve.
(s) Nicander apud Bochart. Hierozoic. par. 1. l. 1. c. 4. Colossians 26.

Several thousands years of experience are not enough to remove the evil and the foolishness from the heart of man.

What´s to be done?

In the meantime, while waiting for the Lord to come and take us home with Him,  we can warn people from the soon coming tribulation judgments that are going to engulf the earth  and proclaim that the only solution to our problem is the salvation of the Lord Jesus, the door to the kingdom and the One who has the key and opens the door to let us in.

When time was right, Noah entered the ark and the Lord God shut the door. 

Something to ponder.

Heaven’s Timing and the Nuclear Deal with Iran

Reblogged from breakingisraelnews.com

By Rivkah Lambert Adler July 20, 2015 , 9:30 am

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“Behold a people is coming from the north, and a great nation and great kings shall be aroused from the ends of the earth.” (Jeremiah 50:41)

image: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/iran-judgement.jpg

(Photo: Breaking Israel News)

The Iran Nuclear Deal was signed on July 14, 2015 by the P5+1 – a group comprised of representatives of the governments of the US, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany – and the Islamic Republic of Iran. This date falls during a particularly significant time in the Jewish calendar known as The Three Weeks.
The Three Weeks are a mourning period that the Jewish people observe each year for the destruction of the Holy Temples in Jerusalem. The period starts on the 17th of the Hebrew month of Tammuz and ends on the 9th of the Hebrew month of Av and always falls in the summer. The 9th day of Av, which this year is July 26, is called Tisha B’Av and is the saddest day in the Jewish calendar. It was the day that both Holy Temples were set on fire.

In comparing the deal with Iran to the Munich Agreement between British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Hitler in 1938, world-renowned lecturer Rabbi Lazer Brody wrote: “Now, 77 years later, during the notorious ‘Three Weeks’ between the 17th of Tammuz and Tisha B’Av, the USA has reaffirmed its commitment to hedonism by appeasing Iran and signing a nuclear agreement that is not worth the skin of a garlic clove.”

In an email dated July 16, 2015 and sent to his “Letter from Jerusalem” subscribers, Rabbi Avraham Greenbaum, Founder and Director of AZAMRA, an international organization that promotes Torah teachings to all nations, echoes Rabbi Brody’s thoughts about the timing.
“The carefully choreographed timing of the announcement after so many delays could not have been more significant from the Jewish point of view, given that it fell on July 14 / 27 Tammuz, bang in the middle of the ‘Three Weeks’ period from the Fast of 17 Tammuz (4 July) until the Fast of Tisha B’Av (26 July), when we soul-searchingly contemplate our collective past, our present and our future destiny,” he wrote.

Although the White House is attempting to push the agreement through the United Nations before Congress has had a chance to review the measure, there is another striking connection between the Iran nuclear deal and the Jewish calendar.
Regardless of what happens at the UN, the US Congress has 60 days to review and vote to either ratify or nix the nuclear deal. On the Jewish calendar, 60 days from the day the Iran nuclear deal was signed falls on Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. Thus, the final decision will likely be announced in the period between the Jewish holidays of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur known as the Ten Days of Repentance. These are days of judgement for the Jewish people.

image: http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/ayatollah-khamenei-hassan-rouhani-iran-twitter.jpg

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Kahemnei and President Hassan Rouhani following the nuclear announcement. (Photo: Twitter)

Speaking to the confluence of this decision and the Jewish calendar, End of Times author Rabbi Pinchas Winston told Breaking Israel News, “The [Talmud says] that all punishment comes to the world because of the Jewish people. Sometimes it means the Jewish people are not up to snuff, but other times it means that we did not care enough to use our spiritual gifts, such as Torah learning and prayer, to save a situation. When important decisions ‘hang in the air’ for a time, it is Heaven’s way of giving the Jewish people a chance to use those gifts to get history back on track. The fact that the Iran deal was made during the Three Weeks and will be decided on by Rosh Hashanah should make it clear where our responsibility lies. We don’t want this ‘punishment’ to occur and we certainly don’t want to be responsible for it.”
When questioned further, Rabbi Winston affirmed, “Now we have a chance to interfere with it [the nuclear deal] by praying and doing mitzvos [God’s commandments].”

Rabbi Nachman Kahana, an orthodox rabbinic scholar, offers comfort to believers who sense a connection between the Iranian nuclear deal and the End of Days. He cites the Yalkut Shimoni, a 16th century rabbinic commentary on the Bible, which describes the current situation prophetically.
“The Yalkut states that Paras (Persia-Iran) will be the dread of humanity. The world’s leaders will be frustrated in their futile efforts to save what they can. The people of Yisrael will also be petrified by the impending danger,” he wrote. “And HaShem [God] will say to us, ‘Why are you afraid? All of this I have done in order to bring you the awaited redemption. And this redemption will not be like the redemption from Egypt, which was followed by suffering. This redemption will be absolute, followed with peace.’”

Read more at http://www.breakingisraelnews.com/45436/fate-iran-deal-decided-jewish-world-days-judgement/#xsxKbMDqdiqe2HUy.99

New York protesters slam ‘incredibly dangerous’ Iran deal

10,000 demonstrators urge Congress – and NY Senator Chuck Schumer – to vote against nuclear agreement

By Cathryn J. Prince July 23, 2015, 4:27 am 107

Supporters react to a speech by Republican presidential candidate former New York Gov. George Pataki at the 'Stop Iran' protest Wednesday, July 22, 2015, near Times Square in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

More on this story

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• IDF soldiers shoot, kill Palestinian during arrest raid
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• Netanyahu says ‘better’ Iran deal can still fix ‘historic mistake’
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• Obama, Erdogan seek ‘deeper cooperation’ against IS
• After hard-liners push back, Rouhani rebukes nuke deal critics
• ‘Side deals’ cast shadow over Congress Iran review
• Republicans challenge Obama on Iran accord

NEW YORK – The last time Dr. Arnold Berlin held a sign at a protest he was a student at Tulane University and it was 1967, the height of the Vietnam War. And while many US foreign policy decisions have since irked the physician, it took the recent nuclear deal with Iran to convince him to take to Times Square Wednesday night as part of the “Stop Iran Now” rally.

“I am very much against this deal. It’s incredibly dangerous. I had to come,” said Berlin, who came from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, so he and a friend might hold his nearly 8-foot-long banner high above the crush of people.

An estimated 10,000 people converged on Times Square, from 42nd Street all the way to 40th Street. People came in buses and caravans from Charlotte, North Carolina, from Chicago, Columbus and Philadelphia. In addition to Times Square, there were also similar demonstrations in Ft. Lauderdale, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Toronto, Canada.

Police repeatedly instructed people to keep sidewalks clear to no avail; the sidewalks were impassable.

Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, a financial expert who has also held senior positions in government, organized the rally to alert Americans to the dangers of the nuclear agreement recently reached between Iran and the so-called P5+1 group of world powers, he said.

“We came to the conclusion that we must educate the public, in the most strident language, that this is a farce, this is a threat – not just to Israel but for America and for the world. A failure to ‘Stop Iran Now’ could necessitate a military response later,” Wiesenfeld told The Times of Israel.

Supporters line Seventh Avenue during the ‘Stop Iran’ protest Wednesday, July 22, 2015, near Times Square in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

The result of years of negotiations, the deal aims to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions in return for sanctions relief. But opponents of the deal say it leaves Iran’s nuclear infrastructure intact, including centrifuges and research facilities, and does not offer sufficient guarantees of transparency to ensure Tehran does not cheat on the agreement.

Wiesenfeld hopes the bipartisan rally will convince members of the US Congress to reject the deal. He called on New York Senator Charles Schumer, a Democrat, to lead the way. Many of the signs held aloft at the rally addressed Schumer, alongside chants of “Where is Chuck?” from the crowd.

Schumer has said he has not yet decided how he will vote. His spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The public will not be fooled again; Americans will not stand for another North Korea. If this deal is not stopped, New York voters will know who to blame,” Wiesenfeld said.

In a telephone interview before the rally, former New York governor and 2016 GOP presidential candidate George Pataki said US President Barack Obama violated his oath of office when he took the deal to the United Nations Security Council last week before giving Congress a chance to review the document. Under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, Congress has 60 days to review the deal, and can seek scuttle it with legislation that would prevent the White House’s planned rescinding of some of the sanctions placed on Iran.

Republican presidential candidate, former New York Gov. George Pataki greets supporters at the ‘Stop Iran’ protest Wednesday, July 22, 2015, near Times Square in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

“That showed tremendous disrespect for the US Congress and it was an active betrayal of Israel, our strongest ally in the Middle East,” Pataki said of the UN vote.

The deal threatens American security, Pataki said.

“In no way does this deal change Iran’s attitude to America. During the negotiations it was calling for ‘Death to America,’” he noted. “There are dozens of legitimate reasons to reject this deal. It allows for hundreds of billions in [sanctions] relief, the lifting of sanctions on conventional arms, all while Iran keeps supporting terror around the world.”

Weisenfeld is the head of the Jewish Rapid Response Coalition, JRRC, which he founded in 2014 to protest the Metropolitan Opera staging of the controversial opera “The Death of Klinghoffer.”

“Clearly Iran is a much greater threat to the world than an opera,” Wiesenfeld said.

Dozens of organizations were represented at the rally, including Christians United for Israel (CUFI), Israeli American Council, New York State Federation of Republican Women, Simon Wiesenthal Center, StandWithUs and the Zionist Organization of America.

Speakers included Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, “The Israel Campaign” founder and an outreach coordinator for CUFI Kasim Hafeez, former Manhattan district attorney Robert Morgenthau, journalist Caroline Glick and former CIA director James Woolsey.

“I was personally in favor of a negotiated agreement if it’s an airtight deal, if Obama kept his promise. But the deal is not airtight,” Dershowitz told The Times of Israel. “The opposition to the deal that many have expressed made it difficult for Kerry to back down any more. The rally is important because it’s always helpful to add pressure.”

Beth Chesir came to the rally on her way home to New Jersey.

“I don’t want to face the mirror someday and say I didn’t do everything possible to stop this deal,” Chesir said. “I’m fearful that it can’t be stopped now that Obama threatens to veto any resolution Congress passes, plus the fact that the Europeans support it. But if this can help, then that’s good.”

According to a recent Monmouth University poll, 55 percent of Americans said “not at all” when asked if they trusted Iran to honor the agreement’s terms.

Organizers estimated about 10,000 people attended the event.

The Hal Lindsey Report | Hal Lindsey

The Hal Lindsey Report | Hal Lindsey

Paul’s Encouraging Letters to the Thessalonians

Reblogged from prophecywatchers.com

by: Gary Stearman on July 21, 2015

During the last five or six decades, the restraining forces of Western civilization are quickly slipping away. Societal, moral and financial moderation is yielding to self-indulgent lust — just as the Bible said it would. In the words of Paul:
“This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come” (II Tim. 3:1).

Here, as we have observed over the years, Paul suggests that a kind of social insanity would characterize the world of the latter days. As we observe the relentless downward spiral of global society, we recall that biblical prophecy clearly states this. It says that the latter days would be marked by a collapse of faith, morality and ethics. The question we’re now asking ourselves is simple: Have we gone beyond the point of no return, or can there be spiritual revival?


No one can really answer this question. God’s plans are His own. But our clear perception in the light of biblical prophecy is that we’ve entered the latter days. Israel is back in the Holy Land, embroiled in an international conflict that precisely matches a number of Scriptural prophecies. Everywhere, dark occultist and demonic schemes are growing in prominence. Having abandoned God as Creator, men have begun evil genetic experimentation on plants, animals and humans is now a reality. Morality is overwhelmed by shameless behavior. Many Christian writers have illuminated these developments for years.
The Apostle Paul wrote that this would happen. He noted a future “falling away” that would mark the coming of the Antichrist. The question is, have we reached that point?

As we examine the meaning of Paul’s expression, we would first note that it seems to be describing a latter-day spiritual collapse. A few months after sending his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul sent them a second one. It was an update and clarification of that first epistle, which had carefully laid out the doctrine pertaining to the rapture of the Church. And it dealt with a specific misunderstanding that had been spawned by deceptive false teachers in that interim period.

Certain “teachers” had entered congregations and had begun to point to the ongoing Roman persecution of Jews and Christians, coupled with a developing revolutionary undercurrent, as being prophetically significant. They taught that the Day of the Lord had already arrived. They were apparently persuading believers that the Tribulation had by that time already begun, and that they were currently going through it.
Paul vigorously refuted this mistaken idea, while supporting his original statement that the rapture would come before the Day of the Lord. We believe that this “Day” will consist of seven horrific years of catastrophe … God’s judgment.

Like Paul and his early followers, we too live in an increasingly tumultuous world. The constant downpour of new and dramatic anti-Christian developments is a daily reality. The state of Israel has set the stage for a procession of prophetic fulfillments. Bible-believing Christians of our era have honed their anticipation to a fine edge. For decades, we have been searching the Scriptures under the conviction that through them, the Lord will speak words of confidence, comfort and hope in a world that is spinning out of control.

But in a repeat of the way it happened in Paul’s day, there is now an increasing undercurrent of negative teaching, in which some Bible expositors are suggesting that the Day of the Lord will come while Christians are still on the Earth. In fact, many of them are presenting what they interpret as “evidence” of this fact. In other words, the same problem of interpretation that plagued early Christians is alive and well to this day.

Those of us who believe in a pretribulation rapture also live in the moment-by-moment expectation that our “blessed hope” will be realized during our lifetimes. We speak, of course, of our Lord’s promise to come and personally escort us home, as we experience rapture and resurrection. The timing of this event will be a total surprise! This is the doctrine of Christ’s imminent return, taught with great clarity by the Apostle Paul. He believed it, and taught the congregations of his own day to live in the light of this blessed expectation … awaiting the Lord’s arrival … which they all believed could come at any moment:
“16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (I Thess. 4:16,17).

This was followed by Paul’s unequivocal statement that Christians won’t experience God’s coming judgment of planet Earth: “9 For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ” (I Thess. 5:9).
God’s wrath is His judgment of planet Earth, an event specifically addressed toward the unsaved, not the saved – the body of Christ.

“A Falling Away”

Amazingly, these and other assurances written in First Thessalonians weren’t enough for the believers in Thessalonica. Some of them were still being persuaded that the wrath of God had already begun.
In the process of writing a clarification in his second letter, Paul gave them (and us) a remarkable clue as to the sequence of events that would come before the Tribulation. Its opening statement is absolutely clear:
“1 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, 2 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. 3 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” (II Thess. 2:1-3).

For Christians, this prophecy is at the top of their list. It tells us that prior to the Tribulation, something called “a falling away” must come. In the light of many other prophetic developments, this event seems to be in the process of happening at the present time. But we must ask: Is this really the case, and how will we know when it has reached completion? In other words, how much worse must things get before Paul’s prophecy is fulfilled?

Before answering this question, it is appropriate to note that over the last two thousand years, humanity has witnessed many calamitous episodes that might meet the terms of a “falling away.” In Paul’s own day, the decadence of the Roman Empire, along with the strained political ties between the Herodians and Jewish leaders could easily have been defined as an “apostasy,” or “falling away.”

The terms of Paul’s clarification are crystal clear. Here, he acknowledges that some of his contemporaries believed that the Day of the Lord (here called “the day of Christ”) had already arrived. Because of false prophecy, mistaken preaching or forged letters, they had become convinced that God’s wrath had already fallen upon the world.

And why wouldn’t they? At the time this letter was written (in the first century, around AD 51), the reign of Roman Emperor Claudius was nearing its end, marked by debauchery, political deceit and finally, the assassination that brought Nero to power. Claudius had persecuted the Jews, who had previously felt safe in the empire. Both Jews and Christians were shocked and repulsed by increasing debauchery in the imperial household. Roman society was devoted to the reprobate practice of worshiping gods and goddesses.

Furthermore, Claudius had appointed Herod Agrippa II as king of Chalcis. This dark king was married to his own sister, Bernice. This strange couple had become the focus of gossip throughout the empire. To make matters worse, Agrippa controlled politics and finances at the Temple in Jerusalem. And its priests had long since been corrupted by their unholy political alliance with both Roman and Herodian governance. Jerusalem, itself, had fallen into utter corruption.

Looking at these and other events, it would have been easy to conclude that the vaunted stability of the Roman government and law was rapidly disappearing. It was being replaced by unscrupulous madmen, creating the general conception that danger lurked on every hand. (Nero would soon be in power). The Jewish priesthood was irreversibly corrupt, suggesting that God’s judgment could be near.

Yet, with all this social upheaval and religious apostasy, Paul still assured the early Church that the event that he called “a falling away” had yet to happen. This term is a translation of the Greek apostasia, generally regarded as signifying apostasy from the faith.
We know with historical certainty that this mysterious “falling away” didn’t happen throughout the first century. This period marked the beginning and building of the Church, not its demise … and certainly not its rapture.
And even throughout the reigns of Nero, Vespasian, Titus and Domition, (AD 54-96) with their infamous and deadly persecutions of the early Church, this critical “falling away” didn’t occur.

Instead, there followed a continuing shift of power away from Jewish control of the Holy Land. Finally, in AD 135, the emperor Hadrian presided over the total defeat of Jewish resistance. He renamed the Temple Mount “Aelia Capitolina.” Israel, he called “Syria Palestina.” The diaspora had begun.
During all these events, the “falling away” hadn’t occurred. How do we know this? Because Paul wrote that when it came, it would introduce a chain of events. First, the “man of sin” would be revealed to perform the act of standing up in the Holy of Holies of the Jewish Temple, claiming to be God:
“Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God” (II Thess. 2:4).

It seems almost unnecessary to point out that none of these things has happened yet. The “man of sin” has not presented himself as God, or even “a god.” He hasn’t enthroned himself in the Temple of God. Nor did he do this in the first century, before the Temple was destroyed in AD 70. Around AD 132, Hadrian placed a pagan statue of Jupiter in his Temple … a rebuilt version of the Holy of Holies. And he also placed a statue of himself on horseback standing before this obscene idol. But after a short time, it crumbled into dust. Historically, this is as close as we can come to finding an example of Paul’s prophecy. From that time to this, no man has ever enthroned himself in a temple, let alone a Jewish Temple, proclaiming himself as God.

And this has been the situation throughout the Church Age. As E. Schuyler English put it in his book, Re-Thinking the Rapture, “How would the Thessalonians, or Christians in any century since, be qualified to recognize the apostasy when it should come, assuming, simply for the sake of this inquiry, that the Church should be on Earth when it does come.” [p. 70]
 
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John Haller´s Prophecy Update 2015 07 12