Testing the Prophets

by Gary DeMar Ever since human beings first walked the earth, they have attempted—whether by extension of logic or through the use of magic—to divine what the unknown future holds in store for them. For a variety of reasons—to comfort themselves, to prepare themselves—human beings have been eager to know what tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, the next month, the next year, the years to come, will do to them and in what ways the future will affect their lives and their fate.[1] The Bible establishes the standard for discerning the claims of a prophet. It’s quite simple. He or she must be 100% accurate (Deut. 18:20–22). No mistakes. No adjustments. No ex post facto explanations as to why a prophecy did not come to pass as specified. In fact, the Bible bases its authority on its own claim of unquestioned prophetic integrity. With nearly two thousand predictions[2] on everything from the birth of a promised redeemer to the destruction of particular nations, it only takes one failed prediction to call the others into question. God has set the highest standard possible. You will never hear modern-day “prophets” make the claim that all their prophecies came to pass as written. They and their reading public are satisfied with a better than average percentage of accuracy.             In biblical terms, it is not enough for a self-proclaimed “prophet” like the late Jeane Dixon (1918–1997) to boast that her “record of accuracy is unequaled.”[3] As compared to what? As compared to other self-proclaimed “prophets” who have a lower percentage of accuracy. Today’s popular prophets are like baseball players who only like to talk about how many career-hits they got. They don’t want to be reminded about how many times they struck out. For example, Babe Ruth is best remembered for hitting a record 60 home runs in 1927 and 714 in his career records that have since been eclipsed. But few Ruth fans want to remember that he struck out 1330 times. Compare Ruth’s strike-out numbers to those of Joe DiMaggio who only struck out 369 times in his thirteen-year career. It takes an impartial statistician to keep it all in perspective. While the modern Major League record for the highest season batting average of .426 by Rogers Hornsby in 1924 is impressive by any baseball standard, it is less than remarkable by any biblical standard concerning fulfilled prophecy.             Carl Sagan, a skeptic of all supernatural claims, demanded the same level of accuracy for prophecy as he did for science. He believes that accuracy is a sign of legitimacy for both science and religion. Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy. Think of how many people rely on these prophecies, however vague, however unfulfilled, to support or prop up their beliefs. Yet has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science? There isn’t a religion on the planet that doesn’t long for a comparable ability—precise, and repeatedly demonstrated before committed skeptics—to foretell future events. No other human institution comes close.[4] As history attests and Sagan admits, science has not been 100% reliable. “The history of science,” Sagan concedes, “is full of cases where previously accepted theories and hypotheses have been overthrown to be replaced by new ideas which more adequately explain the data.”[5] To cite just three of hundreds of examples, Louis Pasteur’s fellow scientists opposed him on the germ-theory origin of disease. In the 1860s, spontaneous generation was still being debated in the prestigious French Academy of Sciences. Science books more than ten years old are considered to be obsolete. Sagan’s claim that the reason science works so well is that it has a “built-in error-correcting machinery”[6] doesn’t fly. False prophets are constantly correcting themselves after the fact as well. Bible prophecy has a far better record than the history of science. In fact, there is no comparison.             The Bible is not like a horoscope that claims to chart life’s opportunities and pitfalls. The Bible’s prophecies, like its miracles, are designed to point us to our God and Savior, Jesus Christ (Luke 24:25, 27, 44; John 21:24–25). Biblical prophecy is not a religious curiosity; it’s an integral part of God’s character which stands as a faithful witness to the outworking of His redemptive plan in time and history.             Carl Sagan asks, “Yet has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science?” Most certainly. Here is a great way to “test the spirits,” as the Bible tells us to do. The Old Testament includes numerous prophecies concerning the first coming of Christ. No single person, no matter how clever, could have manipulated the circumstances around his life to fit the prophetic specifics of so many prophecies. There are too many prophecies over which he would have no control. Consider just eight Messianic prophecies (any eight could be used): 1. Place of birth: Bethlehem (Micah 5:2; Matt. 2:5–6; Luke 2:4) 2. Time of birth: based on the seventy weeks of years given to Daniel (Dan. 9:25; Luke 2:25–32) 3. Manner of birth: born of a virgin (Is. 7:14; Luke 1:34) 4. Price of betrayal: thirty pieces of silver (Zech. 11:12; Matt. 26:15; 27:9–10) 5. Manner of death: crucifixion (Ps. 22:16, 18; Matt. 27:35; Luke 23:34; John 19:24; 20:25) 6. Condition of the body: no broken bones (Ps. 34:20; John 19:31–33) but a pierced side (Zech. 12:10; John 19:34, 37) 7. Loyalty of his disciples: deserted by His followers (Zech. 13:7; Matt. 26:31) 8. Burial place: buried in a rich man’s tomb (Is. 53:9; Matt. 27:57–30) The only reason Mary and Joseph were in the insignificant city of Bethlehem in Judea was due to a Roman decree to tabulate a census for tax purposes (Luke 2:1). How could Jesus have been sure that He would be crucified instead of stoned to death, since stoning was the Jewish form of punishment? (John 8:59; Acts 7:58). There was no way that Jesus could have known that the Roman soldiers would not break His legs. Of course, as a dead man, Jesus had no say in where He would be buried. He could not be sure that the Romans would give up His body to His family for burial. These and many more prophecies were fulfilled in the life of Christ. “It has been calculated that twenty-nine Messianic prophecies were fulfilled in the final twenty-four hours of [Jesus’] life alone.”[7] Gary DeMar is the President of American Vision.

The Democrats’ Lies about the Economy

April 21, 2008
By Herman Cain

John McCain revealed some of his ideas about taxation to help sustain the economic expansion of the last six years if he is elected president.

Namely, he would make the current tax rates permanent, reduce the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, abolish the alternative minimum tax and raise the tax exemption for dependent children from $3,500 to $7,000 per child. Of course he would have to get a stubborn Democratic-controlled Congress to support these ideas.

On the spending side, he would suspend any increases in federal discretionary spending and veto all bills with “earmarks” for special pork barrel projects.

Sen. McCain also proposed a dramatic simplification of our current tax system, although he did not reveal specific details.

Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign was quick to declare McCain’s proposals an extension of the “failed” Bush economic policies, and to be fiscally irresponsible.

Sen. Hillary Clinton’s campaign quickly criticized McCain’s proposals as a George W. Bush redo of corporate windfalls and tax cuts for the wealthy.

The Democrats will not change their talking points no matter how wrong they are. And their supporters and followers have drunk so much of the Democratic Kool-Aid that they would not dare to challenge their leaders on the validity of their accusations.

Well, I did not drink the Kool-Aid, so here is the truth.

An article in U.S. News & World Report dated Friday, April 18, 2008 reported that the current six-year economic expansion dates from November 2001 through the present time, despite some recent slowing. This was the same year George W. Bush took office as president, so how could these be failed economic policies?

The American Council for Capital Formation published a study in January 2008 entitled “Tax Reductions Contributed Significantly to Post-2001 U.S. Economic Expansion.”

The study went on to say, “Economic growth really began to accelerate in 2003 as the tax cuts ramped up. This was despite the negative shocks of the 9/11 terrorist attack, global terrorism, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hurricane Katrina and energy prices”

So, how is this fiscally irresponsible and failed economic policy? It is not.

Of course you can find some reports that downplay the economic expansion of the last six years, but they have to dig really deep to construct some irrelevant factual basis for their view. As usual, the New York Times provided that conspicuously negative and irrelevant view in David Leonhardt’s April 9 piece titled “For Many, a Boom That Wasn’t.”

Leonhardt had to compare the median family income in 2000 of $61,000 to the median family income in 2007 of $60,500 to try to support his point. What he did not tell the readers was that most of the families at the median income in 2000 had moved up to a higher level of income by the time 2007 rolled around.

The most egregious part of this consistent Democratic deception is that they never offer a better idea or plan. They just want to raise taxes and get elected by their Kool-Aid drinkers and anyone gullible enough to swallow their persistent lies about the economy.

Blind loyalty to the leaders of the Democratic Party is a person’s right, but when the leaders lead with deception and lies, the followers are just blind to the truth.

And that’s just the truth.

If Blacks Would Just Read These Books!!!!!!!

Book Reviews

 

  Stupid Black MenAngela McGlowan’s new book BAMBOOZLED, demolishes once and for all the lies Liberals use to manipulate and exploit women, blacks and Latinos. Based on numerous interviews with some of America’s top leaders and political insiders, political strategist Angela McGlowan offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at how the Democrat Party cynically uses minorities.  Click here to order your copy of BAMBOOZLED.

In his book Stupid Black Men: How to Play the Race Card–and Lose, Larry Elder provides a clear and compelling analysis, showing that the worst enemies of black Americans are self-appointed “black leaders” and their white liberal allies who use race-baiting as a sinister tool to further their socialist agenda.

Elder boldly turns the spotlight on those who shout about racism and unfairness, while promoting a victimhood mentality that harms poor black people, the very group the race-baiters claim they want to help.  Urban blacks are mired in poverty, Elder points out in his book, because they are discouraged from accepting responsibility for their own self-destructive personal conduct and, instead, blame “the man”.  Blacks are led to believe that they can’t realize the American dream and won’t survive without affirmative action.  Liberals have stifled black progress, convincing blacks that their vote only counts if it’s a liberal vote along racial lines.  Elder’s book is highly recommended for all who want to have a window into the warped world of liberalism.

More information about Larry Elder can be found on his webste at:  http://www.larryelder.com/

    BAMBOOZLED by Angela McGlowan

 

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  Unveiling the whole Truth: What the media failed to tell American voters  By Rev. Wayne Perryman www.wayneperryman.com   

  They Think You’re Stupid

Why Democrats lost your vote and what Republicans can do to keep it.  Forward by Zell Miller

Herman Cain has a unique personality and multi-dimensional background in business, politics and life. He is an accomplished speaker and writer on the subjects of leadership, motivation, national and economic policy, politics, and achieving one’s USAmerican Dream. He’s done it. Order his book at: http://www.hermancain.com/books.asp?id=THE4000

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A Short History of Reconstruction  
by Eric Foner

Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, is one of this country’s most prominent historians. He received his doctoral degree at Columbia under the supervision of Richard Hofstadter. He is only the second person to serve as president of the three major professional organizations: the Organization of American Historians, American Historical Association, and Society of American Historians.
 
Dr. Foner’s book, A Short History of Reconstruction (New York: Harper Row Publishers, 1990), has received critical praise.
 
“This is history written on a grand scale, a masterful treatment of one of the most complex periods of American history.”
    -David Herbert Donald, The New Republic
 
“Eric Foner has put together this terrible story with greater cogency and power, I believe, than has been brought to the subject heretofore.  He avoids ideological skids, freeloading hindsight and mirages of certitude….Foner’s book brings to distinguished fruition one great cycle of Reconstruction historiography.”
    – C. Vann Woodward, New York Review of Books
 
“Foner’s book traces in rich detail the bitter course of the history of the South’s failure to adjust to the revolution that brought the Civil War.  Only by tracing that history and understanding can the region disenthrall itself even today.”
    – William Kovach, Atlanta Constitution

I have never read Foner’s longer treatment of this tragic period in American history, “Reconstruction, America’s Unfinished Revolution,” but this abridgement gives an exellent overview of the subject. Foner debunks the theory that the “Radical Republicans” were the bad guys and the Andrew Johnson was a moderate acting in the spirit of Lincoln. In fact, there was very little progress in restoring rights to freedmen during the first year or two after the Civil War under Johnson’s “moderate” approach. In fact, Johnson, while a firm supporter of the Union during the war was, in his views towards blacks, a racist as demonstrated by statemnets Johnson made and which this book documents. It was only after the “Radicals” forced federal intervention that blacks made significant progress. Unfortunately, Democrats began to make headway in the South, often by the use of intimidation and violence, and what remained of the Republican party began to change it’s agenda. Certainly, the Republicans in the North became indifferent, culminating in President Rutherford B. Hayes’ abandonment of Reconstruction after his narrow victory over Samuel Tilden in the 1876 election. This book is illumi\nating and well written. Although an abridgement, it reads smoothly rather than as a patchwork. I recommend this book to all who are interested in this underemphasized period of American history

Levine—–Peekskill, NY

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Unfounded Loyalty
By Rev. Wayne Perryman

An In-depth Look into the Blind Love Affair between Blacks and Democrats

“Perryman offers an important corrective to the assumption that the Democratic Party has been historically the friend of Civil Rights and the Party of black voters.  For most of the history of the two parties – the opposite has been true as this book forcefully makes clear.”

- Professor James McPherson
Professor History, Princeton University

“This book, more than any other, is an eye opener to those who have compromised their cultural Christian values for party loyalty.”

 -  Professor Owen Smith
Professor Political Science &
Afro-American Studies
California State University at Fullerton

“Perryman’s book points out some very important facts that are little known and little talked about by members of the Democratic Party.  More importantly, this book helps to raise awareness in the black community- that we need to analyze issues intelligently rather than blindly following what is perceived to be tradition.”

 - Dr. Benjamin S. Carson, Sr., M.D.
Director of Pediatric Neurosurgery
Professor of Neurological Surgery, Oncology, Plastic Surgery and Pediatric
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine

TRUTHS LONG IGNORED…

…FINALLY EXPLORED

Why are most American blacks Democrats?

An excellent question, given that:

 

 

• History reveals the Republican Party has a far more impressive track record in Civil Rights legislation than the Democratic Party.
• The Black Church, the most powerful institution in the African American community, has at times found itself forced to compromise its Christian values to support the Democrats’ agenda.
• Inner-city blacks, who have given their vote to the Democrats for the past forty years, are left wondering what that party has done to remedy the still-prevalent problems within their community.
• The NAACP was founded and financed by three white persons who opposed the Democrats’ racist practices and the lynching of blacks.
• Some of our key traditional black colleges are named after white Republicans who funded and supported them while the Democrats were trying to destroy them.
• The Democratic Party has never offered an apology for their racist legislative practices or for their terrorist and lethal tactics – both initiated by members of their party and their Klan supporters.

Purchase a copy of Unfounded Loyalty at:  www.WaynePerryman.com

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Back To Basics For The Republican Party

“See www.republicanbasics.com for more information about Back to Basics for the Republican Party.”

The year 2006 will be the 150th anniversary of the first state party convention of Republican Party, a party created to end slavery.

 From the first page of Back to Basics for the Republican Party:

 

Here’s why. As you know, Democrats control most of the media, but they also write most of the history books, thereby controlling what even Republican activists think they know about our Party’s glorious heritage. How many Americans know why the Republican Party began or what its original purpose was? Not many! How many Americans know, for example, that the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act were reforms that the Republican Party struggled for in vain during the Reconstruction era a hundred years earlier? Fewer still. The 13th amendment banning slavery, the 14th amendment extending the Bill of Rights to the states, and the 15th amendment according voting rights to blacks all three enacted by the Republican Party in the face of fierce Democrat opposition.  How many Americans know that?

^{Now whose fault is it that so much past glory of the Republican Party goes unnoticed today? Who should we blame? Ourselves, of course. How can we hope to convince voters to place their confidence in us when we lack confidence in our own heritage?PO BOX 33985
Washington, DC 20033}

Contact Mr. Zak:

A Short History of Reconstruction

 

This bold, well-documented new book by Wayne Perryman puts the spotlight on the media, demonstrating that those who cover the news are no friends of black people.  Among the salient points in Perryman books that run counter to what is reported in the news are some startling facts:

 

• Democrats were among the first to declare that Saddam Hussein had WMD’s.
• Bringing our troops home from Iraq now, as the Democrats demand, would result in an unmitigated disaster for America.
•  The so-called separation of church and state doctrine is not a Constitutional mandate.
• Liberals played the race card to launch the abortion movement in America.
• The conditions that resulted in the hurricane Katrina disaster started long before President Bush took office.
• President Bush is a true friend of blacks and the poor.
  

 

 

 

 

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 Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried Past  By Bruce Bartlett  http://www.wrongonrace.com/

 

 

 

 

In his new book, Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried Past, Bruce Bartlett lays bare the sinister racist machinations of Democratic Party leaders expanding a period of 100 years, all aimed at keeping blacks first in actual slavery and later in virtual slavery.

Bartlett points out in his book that “the Republican Party has been unfairly tagged as the party of racism in American today – a view commonly expressed by liberals and black leaders to the point where it has become the conventional wisdom.”  Meanwhile, as exposed by Bartlett, “the Democratic Party’s long and deep history of racism has been largely expunged from the national consciousness.”  In great historical detail, Bartlett demonstrates a stark and hideous reality: “The Democratic Party was the party of slavery and Jim Crow…”

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