Prophecy Update Newsletter
IN TODAY'S NEWSLETTER...
Getting Close - By Daymond Duck -
https://www.raptureready.com/2020/08/30/getting-close-by-daymond-duck/ Blessings and thank you to everyone for your prayers, condolences and kind words during my wife's illness and death. To date, more than 120 Gideon Bibles have been donated in Rachel's memory, several people gave gifts to the Church mission fund, etc. God will use these blessings to harvest souls before the Rapture. One of the toughest things about Rachel's 17 days in the hospital was that none of her family could visit her. It was as though we had forsaken her and left her to die alone. Many people have experienced this with loved ones in the hospital and nursing home. But it occurred to me that the Father had to forsake Jesus on the cross because He could not look upon our sin (Matt. 27:46), and that made the death of Jesus more horrible for Him. I am grieving deeply over my wife's death, but I truly believe that her soul and spirit are in heaven, that God raised Jesus from the dead, that God will raise deceased Christians from the dead at the Rapture (I Thess. 4:13-18), and that the Rapture is close and I will see Rachel again very soon. Below are some things that recently made the news. One, the ashes of a sacrificed red heifer are needed to make purifying water to cleanse those that rebuild the Temple. On Aug. 19, 2020, two red heifers were inspected in Israel: one was disqualified, the other had a few hairs that are not red enough, but it was declared viable (still a potential candidate). In early 2020, two more red heifers were born that are considered potential candidates, but it will be several months before they are old enough. Two, concerning forced vaccinations and tattoos for the Coronavirus - on Aug. 18, 2020, Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said, "I don't think you'll ever see a mandating of vaccines, particularly for the general public." It is impossible to know if Dr. Fauci is right, but this fits the Bible teaching that the Mark of the Beast will be during the last half of the Tribulation period, not before the Tribulation Period. The Rapture will remove the Church before the Mark of the Beast is required. This is one reason why some believe the Rapture is close (the World Health Organization, Pope Francis, Bill Gates, several state and local officials, and many business leaders are already calling for mandatory vaccinations). Three, concerning a peace treaty, Israel and the UAE recently signed an agreement for the UAE to recognize the existence of Israel and to normalize ties between the two nations. Since the announcement, Lebanon, Sudan, Oman and Bahrain have said they are interested in a similar agreement. On Aug. 17, 2020, Jared Kushner said, "We're very close to a lot of breakthroughs from the region." Turkey, Iran, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PA and others are condemning this, but two things are shaping up: 1) Hostility by people that will fight the Battle of Gog and Magog, and 2) Movement by others toward a peace treaty. There will be war, and there will be a worthless peace treaty. Not all agree, but it is my opinion that the Battle of Gog and Magog will occur before the Tribulation Period and trigger a cry for a peace treaty, world government and world religion (global ethic). The peace treaty will be worthless, and the world government will be satanic. The peace treaty will divide the Promised Land and trigger the wrath of God. Just know that several Arab countries want to make peace with Israel while Trump is still in office. They are afraid of Iran, and they know that the Obama/Biden administration gave Iran billions of dollars and opened the door for Iran to get nuclear weapons. They don't particularly like Israel, but they dislike Iran more than they dislike Israel, and they want Israel on their side in case Biden wins. Four, economic collapse and famine are signs of the end of the age (Matt. 24:7; Rev. 6:5-6). On Aug. 20, 2020, the head of the world bank said Covid-19 may have driven 70-100 million people into extreme poverty, and the number could go higher if the crisis worsens or drags on (the UN estimate is 132 million, and for whatever it is worth, extreme poverty produces famine and malnutrition, and that leads to pestilence and death). Be aware that some writers are saying a second round of Covid-19 will produce greater food shortages than the one we are going through now. Five, natural disasters will increase in frequency and intensity as the return of Jesus nears. California is reeling from earthquakes, extreme temperatures, thousands of lightning strikes, and some of the largest wildfires in California history. Iowa has 14 million acres of major crop damage by severe storms. The Gulf Coast has been hit by a tropical storm and a hurricane. China has had several weeks of record flooding, and on and on it goes. Six, Dr. Franklin Graham is asking multitudes to join him on Sept. 26, 2020 for a "Prayer March 2020" in Washington, D.C., to pray for the U.S. He believes the U.S. is in trouble and citizens need to ask God for His help. A Biden win will bring in the world government and world religion. That is a two-edged sword: 1) The Rapture of the Church (our hope), and 2) satanic global chaos worse than anything that has ever happened on earth [including the great Flood, the Holocaust, WW I, WW II, etc.] (Matt. 24:22). Seven, some (not all) Bible prophecy teachers believe the Rapture will take place on the Jewish Feast Day called Rosh Hashanna (The Feast of Trumpets; this year it will be on Sept. 18-19). Some Christians have told me that they are praying that it will happen this year. On Aug. 23, 2020, it was reported that a prominent Jewish Rabbi, who has not said anything about the Messiah in 40 years of ministry, said the Messiah could very well be revealed this Rosh Hashanna. The article doesn't say; I doubt that the Rabbi believes in the Messiah (Jesus) that Christians believe in; I suspect that he is thinking about what Christians call the Second Coming, not the Rapture; and no one knows the day or the hour of our Lord's return. Just know that many Christians are not alone in thinking that the return of Messiah could (emphasis on could) be close. Finally, if it does happen next month, I pray that you have truly accepted Jesus as your Lord and Saviour. Prophecy Plus Ministries, Inc. Daymond Duck duck_daymond@yahoo.com The Israel-Sunni Arab bloc: The new sheriff - Caroline Glick - https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-israel-sunni-arab-bloc-the-new-sheriff/ Immediately after taking office, Trump embraced the Israeli-Sunni bloc and worked to expand and formalize it under American leadership. Between his meetings in Jerusalem last Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recorded a short address for the Republican National Convention in which he discussed many of the Trump administration's foreign policy accomplishments. By the time his remarks were broadcast in the United States on Tuesday night, Pompeo had already landed in Khartoum, Sudan, the second stop on his week-long shuttle diplomacy mission aimed at expanding the circle of normalization between Israel and the Arab states of the region. Aside from the fact that it was nice to hear Pompeo's warm remarks about Jerusalem, his address was significant for the way he chose to end it. Pompeo closed his remarks by recalling Andrew Brunson, the American evangelical pastor who was held hostage in Turkey from 2016 to 2018. Brunson, whose only crime was being in the wrong place at the wrong time, was arrested during the course of the mass arrests that followed the failed coup d'etat against the regime of Turkey's Islamist dictator Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in July 2016. In 2017, Erdoğan demanded that Israel repatriate a Turkish terrorist it had arrested in exchange for Brunson. After President Donald Trump asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to help out, Israel released the terrorist and sent her back to her state sponsor of terrorism, Turkey. But instead of keeping his end of the bargain and releasing Brunson, Erdoğan upped the ante. Erdoğan demanded that Trump extradite Turkish expatriate cleric Fethullah Gülen from his home in Pennsylvania. Erdoğan alleges that Gülen and his followers were responsible for the failed coup. The Trump administration was not impressed by Erdoğan's offer. Rather than extradite Gülen, President Trump slapped tariffs on Turkish aluminum and steel exports to the United States and demanded Brunson's release. A few months later, Erdoğan released Brunson and the tariffs were later withdrawn. Gülen remains in Pennsylvania. The fact that Pompeo chose to recall Brunson's suffering in Turkey, rather than, say, the suffering of American hostages whose release Trump secured from Iran or North Korea, points to a willingness on the part of the administration to finger Turkey-a NATO ally-as a hostile state. In recent days, the administration has turned up the pace of its condemnations of Turkey almost as fast as Turkey has accelerated its hostile acts against the United States and its allies. For example, also on Tuesday, State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus harshly criticized Turkey for hosting a delegation of senior Hamas terrorists, including Hamas deputy political leader Saleh Arouri, who is wanted by the United States. Turkey, which recalled its ambassador from Washington to protest the opening of the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, led the protests against the United Arab Emirates for agreeing to normalize its relations with Israel two weeks ago. The UAE, for its part, sent six F-16s to Greece this week to participate in military exercises. After Turkey unlawfully began gas and oil exploration in Greece's territorial waters in the eastern Mediterranean earlier this month, both Greece and Turkey conducted naval exercises last week. The administration's willingness to acknowledge-indeed highlight-Turkey's hostility despite its formal alliance in NATO is a function of the changed nature of America's alliance system in the region. The shift predates the Trump administration. A decade ago, the Sunni Arab regimes in Egypt and the Persian Gulf had a brush with annihilation that transformed their perception of the region and the world. With the rise of Islamist forces in the Arab Spring threatening to overthrow them on the one hand, and the Obama administration shifting U.S. support away from them and towards the Muslim Brotherhood and Iran on the other, the Egyptian military, the Saudi regime and the UAE leadership collectively arrived at the earth-shattering conclusion that Israel is not their enemy. Like them, the Jewish state was spurned by Obama. And like them, Israel recognizes Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood as its mortal foes. As Obama's betrayals multiplied, and his support for Iran and its nuclear program expanded, Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia began to view Israel as their most stable and powerful ally and only competent defender against Iran and the Muslim Brotherhood. Facing the Arab Sunni regimes and Israel, and strongly supported by the Obama administration were Turkey, Qatar and Iran, which together formed a Sunni-Shi'ite Islamist bloc. With their proxies and vassals in control of Lebanon, Gaza, Syria and Iraq, members of this bloc were open to alliances with the Democrats, the Russians, the Chinese, the European Union and Marxist regimes in Latin America. The first time the two blocs were seen in the light of day was in 2014, during Hamas's war with Israel known as "Operation Protective Edge." At the time, Turkey, Qatar and the Obama administration supported Hamas's ceasefire terms. The Republicans, the UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia supported Israel. Their unprecedented willingness to publicly stand with Israel stunned the Obama administration and enabled Israel to withstand administration pressure to succumb to Hamas's demands. Immediately after taking office, Trump embraced the Israeli-Sunni bloc and worked to expand and formalize it under American leadership. Now, following the announcement that with U.S. mediation Israel and the UAE have agreed to normalize and formalize their relations, the dimensions of the undertaking, and its impact on the strategic realities of the region and of the international system as a whole, are coming into view. To understand the depth of the achievement it is important to recall what this realignment is replacing. For 40 years, the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union divided the world into two blocs. Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, that division began to erode as states formerly in the Soviet orbit beat a path to Washington's door. It seemed then that the United States was destined to stand tall and alone as the leader not just of the free world, but of the whole world. While at the outset of the 1990s the United States indeed enjoyed the position of sole superpower, by the end of the decade, states and sub-state actors that had long been anti-American began to reemerge after years of shock and disarray. Anti-American leftist movements reinvented themselves as anti-globalists. The demonstrations and riots they organized throughout the Western world renewed and strengthened the traditional anti-Americanism of Western Europe and contributed to the radicalization of the Left in Europe and the United States. Then there were the Islamists. In 1996, al-Qaeda declared war against the United States and Iran bombed Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. In 1998 al-Qaeda bombed the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. With its new membership in the World Trade Organization, China began its steady rise as the global power of the future. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia rose from its embers. Under the leadership of a KGB officer named Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin rebuilt its position as a world power defined by its opposition to America. The rapidity of America's decline in global stature in the 1990s was best perceived in the very different responses presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush received in their efforts to build international coalitions against Saddam Hussein. In 1991, H.W. Bush easily formed an international coalition against Iraq under the aegis of the United Nations. Twelve years, later, his son hit a brick wall both at the United Nations and in Europe. After overthrowing Saddam and his Ba'athist regime, the younger Bush stunned America's Sunni Arab allies when he made transforming them into liberal democracies the central goal of his foreign policy. Bush's democratization efforts empowered the Muslim Brotherhood. His overthrow of Saddam empowered Iran. Whereas Bush acted out of utopian ignorance, Obama's Middle Eastern policies were borne out of his anti-Western world view. Obama's policies exacerbated the damage Bush had wrought to America's position in the Middle East and to regional stability. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to reach out to the Egyptian military, to the Saudis and to the Emiratis in the midst of the Arab Spring and the Obama administration's betrayal was the first sustained, rational, strategic initiative anyone had tried in nearly a decade of turmoil. The operational alliance they formed blunted the momentum of the Muslim Brotherhood and the rise of Iran. In the American context, Netanyahu's move offered Republicans a framework for developing a rational and constructive alternative strategic framework not only to Obama's radical realignment, but to the wider conceptual vacuum in U.S. post-Cold War strategic planning. In Pompeo's shuttle diplomacy we see the enormity of the administration's achievement. After the Cold War, Israeli leftists and anti-Israel foreign policy analysts in America claimed that with the superpower contest settled, Israel was no longer a strategic asset to America. The Israeli left argued that to retain its relevance to America, Israel had to sue for peace with Yasser Arafat on his terms. Arguably the saddest man in Jerusalem this week was British Foreign Minister Dominic Raab. Blind to the seismic shifts that have occurred, Raab arrived uninvited in Israel's capital (which Britain still refuses to recognize) to mediate peace between Israel and the Palestinians. After Britain exited the European Union following the Brexit vote, the Trump administration expected Britain would renew its special alliance with the United States and ditch Brussels' anti-American and anti-Israel unified foreign policy. But Prime Minister Boris Johnson didn't get the memo. Much to Washington's disappointment, the Johnson government has continued to act as a loyal member (or vassal) of the European Union. The Johnson government opposes the administration's maximum pressure strategy for dealing with Iran, and even abstained from supporting the United States at the Security Council earlier this month. The British Foreign Office, like the European Union and the United Nations, reacted coldly to the news that Israel and the UAE are normalizing relations, insisting that the Palestinians must not be ignored, that the chimerical "two-state solution" must be upheld at all costs. Raab met with Pompeo in Jerusalem. While the details of their meeting were not reported, Netanyahu made clear Israel's displeasure at Britain's pro-Iran policies and expressed no interest in Britain's offer to pressure Israel to make unreciprocated concessions to the Palestinians. The Israeli-Sunni Arab bloc is a stabilizing force in the region because it is an organic alliance. It was not the product of superpower rivalry. It was born of common interests that are likely to remain in place for the foreseeable future. The existence of this bloc has enabled Washington to rebuild its credibility as a superpower and an ally in the Middle East and advance its Iran policies with or without U.N. Security Council support. If Trump is re-elected in November, this stabilizing bloc whose members stand against both Sunni and Shi'ite jihadists will expand and the circle of formal ties between Israel and the Gulf states will grow. If Trump loses, just as the bloc protected its members against the hostile Obama administration, so it is likely to survive and shield its members from the vagaries of a Biden administration. The Attempt to Overthrow America - by Guy Millière - https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/16430/overthrow-america The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020 might appear, looking back, as a pretext for mayhem. His reported killing by a white police officer was immediately followed by a wave of riots during which neighborhoods in several major cities were devastated. Stores were looted, buildings were burned and people were murdered as mayors and other local public officials chose to let the rioters run wild, whip up racial conflict and protect the criminals rather than the citizens being brutalized. The riots quickly appeared to have nothing to do with Floyd's death and everything to do with groups seeking to overthrow America. In the past, members of the radical organization Antifa had committed acts of violence, but never before had been able to sow terror throughout major cities. This time, they could and they did. In addition, the Marxist movement Black Lives Matter (BLM), which seemed to have disappeared since the election of President Donald J. Trump -- who, incidentally, did more for the black and Hispanic minority communities in three years than anyone had done for decades -- suddenly reappeared, well-funded and well-organized, at the heart of the riots. BLM received further support from the mayors of several major cities and gained even more popularity while attacking first the statues of former slave-owners, such as George Washington, and then those of the escaped slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass. In Washington, DC and New York City, "Black Lives Matter" was painted on avenues in huge yellow letters - in New York by the mayor himself. This may have been the first time in US history that a Marxist movement received corporate support: Amazon, Microsoft, Nabisco, Gatorade, Deckers and other large American firms donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, now a major beneficiary of US corporate largesse. Many colleges and universities also joined in backing the movement. The trustees of Princeton University decided to remove Woodrow Wilson's name from the university's school of public policy. They said that they had examined the "long and damaging history of racism in America" and that Wilson's "racist thinking and policies make him an inappropriate namesake for a school or college". Calls to "#CancelYale" surged across social media, alleging that Yale's namesake, Elihu Yale, was a slave-owner and slave-trader, and that the university must change its name, as well. Yale University President, Peter Salovey, however, said that would not be done, explaining that Yale was "relatively unexceptional in his own time." Also for the first time, mayors of many cities and other local officials have deliberately protected criminals over law-abiding citizens and allowed the destruction to take place. Seattle's Mayor Jenny Durkan abandoned an entire area of the city, dubbed CHAZ (and later CHOP) to rioters and suggested that the police-free zone would create a "summer of love", then did nothing while rapes, vandalism and murders took place. Portland's Mayor Ted Wheeler has allowed for nearly three months an entire district fall prey to rioters. The city councils of New York and Los Angeles, America's two largest cities, voted to cut the budgets of their police forces drastically. The Minneapolis City Council went even further and voted to disband the city's police force altogether. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, in a seeming surrender to the mob, began referring to the pandemonium in Portland as the "immense power of peaceful protests" and compared federal law enforcement officers trying to defend a federal building against marauding arsonists to Nazi-era "stormtroopers." Former President Barack Obama, speaking at the funeral of a civil rights leader, Congressman John Lewis, compared President Trump to the segregationist governor of Alabama in the 1960s, George Wallace -- who happened to be a Democrat. He spoke of "police officers kneeling on the necks of Black Americans," distorting the facts. In Minneapolis, a single policeman had knelt on the neck of a single black American, once. The police officer is in jail, awaiting trial, and his abuse has been severely and universally condemned. The idea that the American police are "racist" has been used to justify riots and destruction. Some police officers may well be racist, but accusing all American police officers of racism does not align with the facts. Statistics show that the vast majority of black people killed by police officers are armed and dangerous. Moreover, the police officers involved are sometimes black. Statistics also show that, on average, 94% of the black people killed each year in the US are killed by other black people. But many people who talk about racism do not seem even slightly concerned about those black lives that have been taken. During the riots -- in which people were killed by rioters or by looters who used the riots as cover -- the main victims were black people, sometimes children. Already in 2017, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich had worried about the sporadic riots that were breaking out, for instance, when conservative speakers were invited to speak. The United States, he said , "is in the throes of a one-sided cultural civil war.... Surrender or fight - our country is at stake." The situation, in fact, had become "worrying" even before the results of the 2016 presidential election were known. As we now can read in the report by Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz, the senior levels of government during the Obama Administration were colluding to prevent President Trump from winning the election, and then, after it, to frame him in an attempted coup d'état. On the day after the election, people took to the streets with signs saying, "Not my President": President Trump's legitimacy was immediately questioned. On the day of his inauguration, in the downtown area of Washington DC, violent riots and acts of vandalism took place. During the weeks that followed, President Trump was accused, with no evidence, of "collusion with Russia". The false charges lasted for more than two years and may well have hampered the management of the country. Former CIA Director John Brennan claimed that President Trump had "worked with Russians" and was "treasonous". When the accusations turned out to be unfounded, the president's accusers, in the hope of impeaching him, turned to a telephone conversation between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. President Trump was described as having "endangered the security of the country". An impeachment procedure, conducted in violation of all of the rules, followed. When law professor Jonathan Turley pointed out that the procedure was violating the rules, he received death threats. Retired Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz said that "For Congress to impeach President Trump for abuse of Congress would be an abuse of power by Congress". Left-wing members of the House of Representatives went ahead impeaching the president anyway. They failed. In the effort to overturn the lawful 2016 election -- and to coerce witnesses to "flip" and testify falsely against President Trump -- the lives of others were ruined as well. Evidence now clearly shows that General Michael Flynn, an outstanding four-star general and war hero, was the victim of an entrapment plot that forced him to resign, ruined him financially, and came close to destroying his life. He is now in the throes of an attempt to entrap him again by a politicized judge, Emmett Sullivan, and a politicized judiciary. Although the prosecutor, the Department of Justice, dropped the case after it was disclosed that vast amounts of exculpatory evidence had been withheld -- Judge Sullivan decided, illegally and in the finest tradition of the former Soviet Union, that he would be both the judge and the prosecutor, and continue to try the case that he was supposed to be impartially judging. The trial is still ongoing. Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi were among other innocent citizens who also had their lives upended. Attorney General William Barr recently said: "I thought things were partisan and tough 30 years ago - nothing compared to today. Things have fundamentally changed... [the left] represents a revolutionary Rousseauian party that believes in tearing down the system... They're interested in complete political victory. They're not interested in compromise. They're not interested in dialectic, exchange of views... It's a substitute religion. They view their political opponents... as evil because we stand in the way of their progressive utopia that they're trying to reach..." As Barr said recently when testifying at House of Representatives committee: "Since when is it okay to burn down a federal court?" Thirty years ago, many things were indeed different. Destructive forces, however, were at work. A few authors attempted to sound an alarm, without success. In a book published in 1992, The Devaluing of America: The Fight for Our Culture and Our Children, former Secretary of Education William J. Bennett quoted prominent Democrat historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.: "The bonds of national cohesion in the republic are sufficiently fragile already. Public education should aim to strengthen those bonds not to weaken them... The alternative to integration is disintegration". The same year, policy analyst Martin Anderson published Impostors in the Temple: American Intellectuals Are Destroying Our Universities and Cheating Our Students of Their Future. "They pretend to teach", he wrote, "they pretend to do original, important work. They do neither. They are impostors in the temple. And from these impostors most of the educational ills of America flow." The same year again, the esteemed economist and social commentator, Thomas Sowell, who happens to be black, wrote in his book, Inside American Education: "Whether blatant or subtle, brainwashing has become a major, time-consuming activity in American education at all levels". There is arguably more at work than brainwashing. There is also the long march of the radicals through American institutions described by Roger Kimball in his book The Long March: How the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s Changed America. Now, as those students have graduated, they are now part of the government and large corporations, subverting Western culture from within. American author David Horowitz, described what has been happening since November 8, 2016 as "sabotage", and wrote recently: "On the Rotunda of the Jefferson Memorial in Washington is inscribed these words: 'I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.' This statement by Thomas Jefferson is the heart of the democracy in whose founding he played so central a role. It is why the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights is the First Amendment and not the Second, or Fourth, or Fifth. "Today our nation is facing the most serious threat to establish such a tyranny in our entire history." Return Of The Dust Bowl? The "Megadrought" In The Southwest Is Really Starting To Escalate - by Michael Snyder - http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/return-of-the-dust-bowl-the-megadrought-in-the-southwest-is-really-starting-to-escalate Much of the southwestern portion of the United States has been gripped by a drought that never seems to end, and there is a tremendous amount of concern that patterns that we witnessed back during the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s may be starting to repeat. In a previous article, I discussed the extreme heat that we have been seeing in the region lately. Phoenix has never had more days in a year when the high temperature has hit at least 115 degrees, and other southwestern cities have been smashing records as well. At the same time, precipitation levels have been very low, and the combination of these two factors is starting to cause some major problems. A couple of weeks ago, NASA posted an article on their official website about the horrible drought conditions that we are now witnessing... As the United States moves into the last weeks of climatological summer, one-third of the country is experiencing at least a moderate level of drought. Much of the West is approaching severe drought, and New England has been unusually dry and hot. An estimated 53 million people are living in drought-affected areas. Since NASA posted that article, things have gotten even worse. If you go to the U.S. Drought Monitor website, you will instantly see why so many experts are deeply concerned. The latest map shows that nearly the entire southwestern quadrant of the country is now gripped by either "severe" or "extreme" drought. Needless to say, this is not good news at all for farmers and ranchers in the region. Colorado is one of the states that is being hit the hardest. At this point, more than 93 percent of the entire state is experiencing very serious drought conditions... According to United States Drought Monitor, drought conditions have gotten significantly worse in Colorado in recent days and weeks. Last week, approximately 72 percent of Colorado was experiencing "severe" drought conditions or worse. This has now jumped to just over 93 percent. Because things have been so dry, it is really easy for the wind to pick up dust and start blowing it around, and this summer we have been seeing some really impressive dust storms. For example, earlier this month two giant dust storms actually "converged" in the Phoenix area... Two dust storms converged over the greater Phoenix area on Sunday, hours after the city broke another record as a heat wave grips the West. Thankfully, at this point we still have a long way to go before we return to the nightmarish conditions of the 1930s. The "Black Sunday" dust storm that so many history books talk about was actually 1,000 miles long, and it traveled at speeds of up to 100 miles an hour... A month later, one of the most severe storms of the era, nicknamed "Black Sunday," enveloped the Great Plains. It was 1,000 miles long, contained 300,000 tons of dust, and traveled up to 100 miles per hour. This weather didn't just affect the land: Farm animals choked on dust and suffocated. At least 7,000 people died from "dust pneumonia" as a result of breathing in the fine particulates, and countless more were driven from their homes and livelihoods by the endless, swirling dirt. Let us hope that we don't see anything like that any time soon, but scientists are using the term "megadrought" to describe what the southwestern portion of the country is currently going through... The western United States and parts of northern Mexico have been suffering through drought conditions on and off since the year 2000 - and unfortunately it may not let up any time soon. A new study has examined extreme droughts in the region dating back 1,200 years, and found that the current conditions have the makings of a "megadrought" that could last decades. In fact, the lead author of that study is actually telling us that the current drought is "on the same trajectory as the worst prehistoric droughts"... "We now have enough observations of current drought and tree-ring records of past drought to say that we're on the same trajectory as the worst prehistoric droughts," said study lead author A. Park Williams, a bioclimatologist at Columbia University, in a statement. This is "a drought bigger than what modern society has seen." Ultimately, the experts don't know how long this new "megadrought" will last. It could theoretically end next year, or it could persist for the foreseeable future. But if it continues to intensify, it is going to become increasingly difficult for farmers and ranchers to make a living in the affected areas. In addition, supplies of fresh water are going to become increasingly stressed. The once mighty Colorado River is now so overused that it doesn't even run all the way to the ocean anymore, and experts are deeply concerned about the future of the river. In the end, this "megadrought" may force dramatic changes in cities all over the region. Sadly, things have already gotten so bad that you can see the impact of the drought "everywhere"... "You see impacts everywhere, in snowpacks, reservoir levels, agriculture, groundwater and tree mortality," said co-author Benjamin Cook, of Columbia University's Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory. "Droughts are these amazingly disruptive events. Water sits at the foundation of everything." Those that have been following my work for many years know that I have been watching developments in the southwestern quadrant of the country for many years, and things have really started to escalate here in 2020. What a crazy year this has been. We are still dealing with a global pandemic, 58 million Americans have filed for unemployment over the past 23 weeks, civil unrest continues to rage in our major cities and major politicians are being chased down the street, and this month we have been hit by one natural disaster after another. Now a presidential election is rapidly approaching, and many people believe that what we have experienced so far is just the beginning of our problems. Without a doubt, our world seems to be going absolutely nuts, and that should deeply alarm all of us. Daily Jot: Beneath the propaganda mask - Bill Wilson - www.dailyjot.com The mouthpiece for the socialist propaganda machine, CNN, continues to denounce all things Trump-Republican-conservative-Christian. A hit piece on August 28th's Anderson Cooper show underscores perfectly the propaganda and hypocrisy of these blasphemers of the Frist Amendment. Cooper found a doctor named Rob Davidson to bash President Trump and those attending his nomination acceptance speech for not social distancing or wearing masks. In the very same breath, however, this emergency room doctor said that it was all right for protestors to march against systemic racism while not wearing masks because racism is a public health crisis. Dr. Davidson condemned the people gathered at the White House and President Trump because they were not taking proper precautions against COVID 19. And at the same time, encouraged mass protests against systemic racism knowing full well that protesters were not remotely taking precautions against spreading the virus because "those folks are doing something very important today." Davidson said that systemic racism is also a public health crisis and that it was more important to protest against systemic racism than to worry about spreading COVID 19. He justified the protests weighing what he called a "risk-benefit" analysis. This CNN expert emergency room doctor is saying that protesting systemic racism without taking proper precautions far outweighs the dangers of spreading the deadly disease. Davidson says, however, the White House gathering was irresponsible. He said, "I was very concerned about the White House event last night. 1500 people packed shoulder to shoulder. The head of the White House coronavirus task force [Vice President Mike Pence] in attendance without a mask with his family, his elderly mother. It's concerning. We know people weren't tested. Only people in direct contact with President Trump had testing done. I think we're going to see cases come out of that, it's just modeling bad behavior. Now, when we juxtapose that to what's happening in Washington, DC, right now, people are mostly wearing masks. Now true, there are social distancing issues, however, this is a public health crisis they are marching against. Systemic racism has taken so many lives in this country, throughout our history." Beneath the mask is the rest of the story...Davidson is a leftist Democrat who failed in 2018 to unseat incumbent Congressman Bill Huizenga (R-MI). He is also the head of the Committee to Protect Medicare, an advocacy organization that opposes Trump's healthcare reforms. Davidson is hardly unbiased. Those attending the White House function who would come into contact with key officials were tested. The others were temperature checked. They didn't wear masks because they don't have COVID. This is condemned by the media. However, those protesters who march in DC and follow no health protocols are praised because they are standing against the public health crisis of racism. Proverbs 14:15 says, "The simple believes every word: but the prudent man looks well to his going." Be prudent. Look beneath the mask. Judge, but Don't Condemn - by Greg Laurie - www.harvest.org Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? -1 Corinthians 6:2 When someone says that a Christian should never judge, that's incorrect. But didn't Jesus say, "Judge not, that you be not judged" (Matthew 7:1 NKJV)? Yes, and He went on to say, "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves" (verse 15 NKJV). Unless we make some kind of judgment, how will we determine who a false prophet is? There is a place for judgment. The Bible even says, "For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?" (1 Peter 4:17 NKJV). Also, 1 Corinthians 6:2 tells us, "Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters?" (NKJV). There are many verses that actually teach us as Christians to judge, make evaluations, and exercise discernment. So yes, we are to make evaluations in judgment. It's very important. But having said that, what did Jesus actually mean when He said, "Judge not, that you be not judged"? A better way to translate this statement of Christ in Matthew 7:1 is, "Condemn not, that you be not condemned." There's a big difference between the two. As followers of Jesus Christ, we are to make judgments, make evaluations, and use our discernment. However, we are not to condemn others. We judge for identification, not for condemnation. We need to refrain from hypercritical, condemning judgment. As the late J. Vernon McGee pointed out, "The only exercise some Christians get is jumping to conclusions and running down others." While we should make evaluations in judgment, we should not condemn other people. 
FROM THE HEART
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