Jun 30, 2006

Yesterday I posted a log asking you to ratify the decree before the Divine Court involving the Bohemian Club that is meeting at this present time in their 2700-acre Bohemian Grove. Thanks to all who participated in this act of spiritual warfare. I am going to call it "He Cares" prayer campaign to contrast it with their "Cremation of Care."

For the past two weeks I have suspected that we might see some in-the-world manifestation (or a direct parallel) between the present time and what was accomplished at this time in 2001. If you have followed the web logs recently, you will recall I wrote that from July 1 to July 15, 2001 was a time of intense spiritual warfare (consciously) involving eight of us, though we knew that many others were joined with us in spirit.

I became involved in those battles on the first of July, but actually, the battles had already begun by that time. You see, I was on a trip and only arrived home after the opening battles had already begun. The battles had actually begun about June 28, 2001. So as I pondered this yesterday while driving, it occurred to me that this was running precisely parallel to the battles in 2001. The beginning dates were the same, so this may provide some good clues as to what to expect in the days ahead.

The "Cremation of Care" ceremony done at the Bohemian Grove is said to represent the removal of the "cares" of life in this retreat for the mighty men of Babylon. "Care" takes the form of a child that is burned in effigy. My friend, Dave, emailed me to tell me that he was led to add something to the prayer that we did, based upon a statement Peter made, "Casting all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you." From this verse we call it "He Cares" prayer campaign.

You see, the mighty men of Babylon are actually trying to eliminate "care" itself, because they do not care about the children. They work hard to make it LOOK LIKE they do, because that is politically correct and makes them popular. But in the name of greater goods and higher responsibilities, they do not care--at least, not in the way that God cares.

For this reason, they can justify the torture of other human beings, making the case that "If you knew that someone had information about a nuclear bomb in an American city, would it be right to torture him to save millions of lives?"

Of course, such a case would be extremely rare and is certainly not applicable to any of the "detainees" at Guantanamo. Even if some of them might know where certain "weapons of mass destruction" might be hidden, there is no way that the American government KNEW that they knew such information. Thus, the real question is this: "If you SUSPECT that someone had information about a nuclear bomb. . ."

Our American form of justice used to be based upon the idea that one is innocent unless proven guilty. President Bush and his advisors have now found a legalistic way to get around that. Just don't call them prisoners of war or even prisoners at all. Call them "insurgents" and "detainees." That way, we dehumanize them, we assume that they are guilty as not-yet-charged, and that somehow it all means that we may torture them at will--and not CARE.

Well, as I wrote months ago, torture is not one of the fruits of the Spirit. If we allow this to become ingrained in American law, then they will begin to expand the definition of "insurgents" until American citizens may also be classified as such if they oppose government policy. This is ALWAYS the way they do it, and they do not CARE, for they have already burned it in effigy.

Babylonian philosophy worships Wisdom, thinking it is a god. This is the 40-foot owl in the Bohemian Grove. But Scripture teaches us that the Wisdom of this world is foolishness with God (1 Cor. 1:20). Likewise, the wisdom of the true God is foolishness to them. They worship the carnal mind, as did the ancient Greeks. Paul tells us that the source of divine knowledge and wisdom is through the spirit, not the "natural mind" (psuchikos mind, or soulish mind).

The wisdom of this world is now justifying torture. "We do not torture prisoners," is the official statement. Of course not. They have no "prisoners." They have only "insurgents." Thus, through this legalism, they are able to circumvent all sense of decency and morality, as well as American law itself.

When President Clinton set forth his famous legalism in 1998, saying "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is," at least this did not involve torturing real people. Yet legalism destroys the law, for by it, the wisdom of this world seeks ways to violate the laws of God legally. This is the pharisaical, letter-of-the-law mindset that Jesus opposed in His day, calling it the "traditions of men."

When men rule by the wisdom of this world, they tend to "cremate care." They think that their positions make them responsible to think globally and to sacrifice the individual for the "greater good." But this is precisely what our founding fathers rejected when they drafted the Constitution. They actually made statements that anyone who values SECURITY over LIBERTY will end up with NEITHER.

And so I find it quite significant that the Supreme Court ruled against President Bush's policy at Guantanamo Bay. He did not want to give any of them a trial at all, but when forced to do so, he tried to make them appear before a military tribunal. The Supreme Court overruled this on the day of our prayer campaign the other day. It is a significant step to overrule the cremation of care.

To change the subject a bit, I want to mention something else that an alert reader pointed out to me yesterday. From our June 28, 2006 prayer to Oct. 31, 2007 is precisely 490 days. We have been contemplating the date of Oct. 31, 2007 for quite some time, because it is the 490-year anniversary of Martin Luther's "Ninety-Five Theses" that sparked the Protestant Reformation (Oct. 31, 1517).

We have wondered just how significant this date might be, but it has always been too early to tell. Even so, I had missed this connection completely. We do not yet have a good comprehension of what God is doing, but we are now on alert to make that discovery.

There is one striking connection, however, between "He Cares" prayer campaign and Martin Luther's act. Both are the starting points of a 490-cycle. Thus, there is a spiritual link between the two events. Even as the Christian President Bush seems to think that torture is justified--although the divine law makes no provision for torture at all, not even in "hell-fire"--so also the Christian Popes thought that torture was justified against the "insurgents" (dissidents, protestants) of their day.

In both cases, the torture mindset is justified by the idea that God does it, and so we are only following His righteous example. They do not realize that God's law itself is a "fiery law" (Deut. 33:2; Jer. 23:29), and that the laws demanding restitution (for example) are the "fire" of divine judgment. In Daniel 7, the "fire" proceeds from the throne, which is pictured as fire coming as a stream upon the people. When a king or judge sits on a throne to judge, the throne symbolizes the law itself--that is, he is judging according to law, not by whim. This is the same "lake of fire" in Revelation 20. It is NOT torture, but correction and purification.

For a fuller discussion of this, see my book, posted online, The Judgments of the Divine Law.

One of these days, the Church will have to study the divine law and stop attributing virtue to torture. Otherwise, the world will never learn righteousness (Is. 26:9).