On June 9, 2012, Robb Harris and Eric Rank will give split sermons, titled, respectively, “A Broken People” and “Cause and Effect.”

The services can be heard at www.cognetservices.org (12:30 pm Pacific Time; 1:30 pm Mountain Time; 2:30 pm Central Time; 3:30 pm Eastern Time). Just click on Connect to Live Stream.

On June 10, 2012, we are broadcasting the memorial service for Frau Marlene Link, which will be held in Ramona, California. The services can be heard at www.cognetservices.org (12:00 pm Pacific Time; 1:00 pm Mountain Time; 2:00 pm Central Time; 3:00 pm Eastern Time). Just click on Connect to Live Stream.

As we are preparing for my mother’s memorial service, we have been going through old pictures and video footage, triggering the return of almost forgotten memories. A particular photograph may have led to all kinds of warm thoughts and feelings—a special video clip might have brought back to mind the entire circumstances of that unique precious moment. I was reminded of a song which Elvis Presley made famous: “Memories.” In it, this line is repeated: “Memories, pressed between the pages of my mind. Memories, sweetened thru the ages just like wine…”

Indeed, memories can be sweet and become sweetened. In reflecting on my relationship with my mother, those are the memories I want to cherish. Of course, there were, on occasion, not-so-pleasant times, as they will be in any relationship—but I’d like to forget those. I don’t want to dwell on them or even be reminded of them.

Far too many seem to want to concentrate on and remember negative incidents and occurrences; they might even hold grudges against someone who has already died. That does not do them any good; in fact, those feelings can eat them up and literally destroy their whole being. Paul tells us to meditate on that which is of good report and praiseworthy (Philippians 4:8). How thankful can we be that God has promised us, for His own sake, to forget our sins and remember them no more (Isaiah 43:25). Shouldn’t we behave likewise toward others?

Cherishing good memories will do good for our own souls. Solomon wrote in Proverbs 10:7: “The memory of the righteous is a blessing” (New Revised Standard Version), or, “The memory of the just will be blessed” (New American Bible). Not only do we have “happy memories of good men” (so the Living Bible), but the righteous’s memories of others will be good memories, and they will therefore be a blessing to others and to himself.

Our memories of loved ones who fall asleep should be “sweetened thru the ages just like wine.” But we should not wait until death—it is so much better to work on and maintain a loving and caring relationship with them while they are still alive. Solomon encourages us to take it to heart—and respond accordingly–when we go to a house of mourning, because “that is the end of all men” (Ecclesiastes 7:2). We all will die and have to give account to God for how we lived (Romans 14:12).

Let’s make the best of our lives and do good, as we have opportunity (Galatians 6:10). Note Solomon’s admonition in Proverbs 3:27: “Refuse no kindness to those who have a right to it, if it is in your power to perform it” (New Jerusalem Bible). Our loved ones are entitled to our kindness—let us not fail to grant it. Our future sweet and sweetened cherished memories of our loved ones must not be the product of our imagination and wishful thinking, but rather, they ought to be an accurate reflection of our true and genuine loving relationship with them.

An interesting article is asking the question whether a “German populist” will arise soon, due, in part, to the failure and refusal of the German political “establishment” to deal with pressing issues. We are also focusing on the ongoing euro crisis and show that not only will the euro survive, but Germany is also pushing—or is being pushed—to help in establishing a European monetary or fiscal union which would severely limit the powers of national governments. In that context, the concept of a “two-speed Europe” is being re-visited.

We are continuing with our report on the rocky relationship between Germany and Israel, which we began in the last Update, bring to focus an overlooked development pertaining to the fall of Muammar Gaddafi;  revisit the frightening and suspect developments regarding American drone wars with new prospects that such highly controversial governmental action might very soon affect Americans in their own country; and focus again on the highly secretive meetings of the Bilderbergers.

We speak of Russia’s and China’s desire to move closer together; and conclude with several articles dealing with social and religious issues. While President Obama declares the month of June as “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month” and Europe has been described as the most “gay-friendly” continent in the world, such “evolving” thought processes are mirrored by quite different developments within the Catholic Church, showing corruption and power struggles, as well as “lies, intrigues and bitter feuds between rival parties” in high places. And finally, we report that drug-resistant strains of Gonorrhea have spread to countries across the world, and speak of a ghost story related to the White House which might make your hair stand on end.

Coming—a German Populist?

Reuters wrote on May 31:

“How many countries will Germany need to bail out before it has erased the guilt of the Holocaust? That is the provocative question posed by Thilo Sarrazin [a former regional politician and Bundesbank governor]… In a much-quoted passage, he says supporters of eurobonds are driven ‘by that very German reflex according to which atonement for the holocaust and the world wars will never be complete until we have delivered our entire public interest, and even our money, into European hands.’ This title has raced to the top of best-seller lists and sent jittery markets into panic…

“An opinion poll last week provides just the latest proof that Sarrazin has his finger on the national pulse: Over half of Germans think their country has suffered by joining the euro, while 79 percent reject eurobonds as a solution to the crisis… the German political establishment is falling over itself to bury his arguments… many topics are declared outside the realm of political competition. As a result, all mainstream parties are in favor of Europe, the euro and the Atlantic alliance, and against war, inflation and nationalism. The result is a restricted political sphere where politicians have often been able to act against public opinion without fear of challenge… But those who dare cross the threshold of political correctness – as Sarrazin has repeatedly done – tap into a vast reservoir of pent-up popular frustration. And because the establishment cartel turns them into outcasts rather than arguing with their views, this reservoir continues to grow…

“It is unlikely that the anti-charismatic Sarrazin will end up becoming the German equivalent of Holland’s Geert Wilders or Austria’s Joerg Haider. But the refusal of mainstream politicians to make the case for European integration or to engage in full-throated political competition with their opponents could pave the way for someone equally undesirable to claim that mantle. It would be a tragic paradox if the German establishment’s guilt over past extremism hampers its ability to overcome the populists of the future.”

Even though the euro will not collapse (compare also the next article) and Germany will not forsake the euro or leave the Eurozone, the warning in the article is well expressed. Partially due to the manipulative conduct of Germany’s “mainstream” politicians not to address or deal with politically incorrect or inexpedient issues (inexpedient for their political career in their respective parties, that is), and their consensual habit to tell the German people what they must and must not think, an extreme “populist” WILL arise in Germany. But most don’t realize that that strong charismatic politician will be pro-Europe—not against it—but he will see to it that all power and authority over Europe will ultimately end up in his hands.

The Euro Will Not Fail

The EUObserver reported on June 4:

“Top EU officials Herman Van Rompuy and Jose Manuel Barroso have told Russia that the euro is a safe bet.  The two men spoke alongside Russian leader Vladimir Putin in a press briefing after the 29th regular EU-Russia summit, held on Monday (4 June) in St Petersburg.

“Van Rompuy promised to publish a blueprint for deeper EU economic integration ‘by the end of this year’ and predicted that eurozone GDP will grow between 1 and 3 percent in 2013. ‘There is no way back for the euro, there is only the way ahead of more integration … As for what happens if we fail, I will not answer hypothetical questions. We will not fail. We will not fail,’ he said.”

And Van Rompuy is right—the euro will NOT fail. Note also the next article.

Estonia Is Booming Because of the Euro

On June 5, 2012, CNBC reported the following:

“Sixteen months after it joined the struggling currency bloc, Estonia is booming. The economy grew 7.6 percent last year, five times the euro-zone average. Estonia is the only euro-zone country with a budget surplus. National debt is just 6 percent of GDP, compared to 81 percent in virtuous Germany, or 165 percent in Greece… Estonia’s achievement is all the more remarkable when you consider that it was one of the countries hardest hit by the global financial crisis. In 2008-2009, its economy shrank by 18 percent. That’s a bigger contraction than Greece has suffered over the past five years.

“How did they bounce back? ‘I can answer in one word: austerity. Austerity, austerity, austerity,’ says Peeter Koppel, investment strategist at the SEB Bank… At a recent conference of European and North American lawmakers in Tallinn, Koppel was lambasted by French and Italian parliamentarians when he suggested Europeans had to prepare for an ‘inevitable’ decline in living standards, wages and job security, in order for their countries to escape from the debt crisis…

“Estonians have endured some of the harshest austerity measures with barely a murmur. They even re-elected the politicians that imposed them… memories of the grim days of Soviet occupation make it easier to accept sacrifices today. Among the young, there is a widespread awareness that in a nation of just 1.3 million people, the freedom and opportunities their generation enjoy depends on unity in times of crisis…”

So, it’s obvious that the institution of the euro is not the cause for financial problems—it is the way in which governments spend the money and go into heavy debt.

Germany Pushing for European Fiscal Union

Reuters reported on June 3:

“When Jean-Claude Trichet called last June [in Aachen, Germany, where Charlemagne was crowned as the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire] for the creation of a European finance ministry with power over national budgets, the idea seemed fanciful, a distant dream that would take years or even decades to realize, if it ever came to be. One year later, with the euro zone’s debt crisis threatening to tear the bloc apart, Germany is pushing its partners for precisely the kind of giant leap forward in fiscal integration that the now-departed European Central Bank president had in mind.

“After falling short with her ‘fiscal compact’ on budget discipline, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is pressing for much more ambitious measures, including a central authority to manage euro area finances, and major new powers for the European Commission, European Parliament and European Court of Justice…

“Until states agree to these steps and the unprecedented loss of sovereignty they involve, the officials say Berlin will refuse to consider other initiatives like joint euro zone bonds or a ‘banking union’ with cross-border deposit guarantees – steps Berlin says could only come in a second wave. The goal is for EU leaders to agree to develop a road map to ‘fiscal union’ at a June 28-29 EU summit… European countries would then put the meat on the bones of the plan in the second half of 2012… including a timetable for overhauling EU treaties, a step Berlin sees as vital for setting closer integration in stone… If European countries go ahead, the steps would represent the most significant policy leap since they agreed to give up their national currencies and cede control over monetary policy 13 years ago.

“But the hurdles are daunting… Spain, whose banking troubles have made it the latest target of financial markets, signalled over the weekend that it was on board with a key element of the plan… But other states, including the bloc’s second-biggest member France, have deep reservations about ceding so much sovereignty… But even if the Germans do win over the French and other sceptical countries like Finland and Austria, there are serious doubts about whether a 5-10 year plan for closer integration – weighed down by lengthy national debates over treaty change – will be enough to restore investor confidence now… As long as the Greek nightmare continues and doubts about Spain’s banks persist, no amount of closer integration is likely to calm investor nerves…

“Another problem with the German-led drive is that of democratic legitimacy. Many of Europe’s struggling citizens already blame technocrats in Brussels for their troubles. And lawmakers across the bloc are keen to safeguard their right to veto EU decisions. Against that backdrop it will be extremely difficult for leaders to convince their electorates about the integration steps under consideration in Berlin and other capitals. To address this, officials are mulling a significant strengthening of the role of the European Parliament (EP), which is directly elected by the bloc’s citizens… ‘The issue is that democratic control will now take place at a European level, and not at a national one,’ [a French] official said. ‘I think the problem is not so much the European people but the European politicians who don’t want to relinquish their power. There you will see a lot of resistance.’”

Still, fiscal and even military union will come—at least for core European nations, and perhaps after a prolonged crisis in Europe which may seem to allow for no other option. And then, out of that fiscal and military union will emerge, through flattery, a charismatic leader who was not originally chosen for that office. It is even possible that this leader had once an influential position, but that he received a  “deadly wound” or suffered political defeat, which would be cured or healed in time. Once in power, his mind will change. The Bible indicates that that leader might be a homosexual, and it calls this leader the beast, the king of the North, and King Jareb of Assyria. Note the following articles.

The Daily Mail added on June 5:

“European leaders are edging closer to a federal union in response to the financial crisis engulfing the Continent. In crisis talks yesterday, Britain and the US joined forces to urge Germany to create a central Brussels body that could assume sovereignty over individual countries’ budgets and fiscal policies.

“There is growing frustration in London and Washington at Germany’s reluctance to take steps towards a single economic government… fears were aired yesterday in a conference call between finance ministers from the G7 group of leading nations… They fear a core eurozone, led by Germany, would be in a powerful position to push whatever policies it wanted affecting the rest of the 27-member EU… German Chancellor Angela Merkel confirmed this week that measures to create a closer union for countries in the euro were being considered…”

So, this article states that other countries are pushing Germany to create a central Brussels fiscal body. The article from Reuters, quoted above, says the exact opposite—that it is Germany pushing the others. So whoever pushes and is being pushed—it is clear all want to create such a fiscal union. Deutsche Welle wrote on June 6, 2012:

“Faced with impending economic disaster, European leaders are thinking up new ways to save the single currency. ‘A secret plan to save Europe’: That’s how the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag described it this weekend… European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, Eurogroup chief Jean-Claude Juncker and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi were all working behind the scenes on a master plan… Last week, Barroso indicated that EU leaders were ready to discuss a closer economic union amidst mounting concerns about Spain… Barroso did not specify exactly what he meant by a ‘full economic union.’…”

But it won’t stay with just a fiscal or full economic union, as the next articles show.

“United States of Europe May Be the Only Way to Save Euro”

The Guardian wrote on June 4:

“It is a measure of the speed at which the politics of the euro crisis is changing… By announcing there could be no censorship of the eurozone to-do list, [Merkel] meant tabling radical, federalist steps involving gradual loss of national sovereignty over budgetary, fiscal, social, pensions, and labour market policies with the aim of forging a new European political union over five to 10 years.

“The USE – United States of Europe – is back. For the eurozone, at least. Such ‘political union’, surrendering fundamental powers to Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg, has always been several steps too far for the French to consider. But Berlin is signalling that if it is to carry the can for what it sees as the failures of others there will need to be incremental but major integrationist moves towards a banking, fiscal, and ultimately political union in the eurozone.

“It is a divisive and contested notion which Merkel did not always favour. In the heat of the crisis, however, she now appears to see no alternative… The impact of ‘the project’ will be immense, if it takes off… A much more entrenched two-speed Europe would emerge, with key decision-taking centred in the eurozone and not in an EU of 27 or 28.

“The gap between Britain and core Europe might become unbridgeable, generating only mutual rancour and ultimately ending the UK’s unhappy EU dalliance… In the third year of muddling through, the choices facing Europe’s leaders are getting starker – the death of the euro or the birth of a new European federation.”

The answer is clear from the Bible: There WILL BE a political union of core European countries—but apparently without Britain.

Political Union and Two-Speed Europe

Deutsche Welle reported on June 7, 2012:

“The German chancellor… [Angela] Merkel sees the future of the EU in a closer political union that gives Brussels more authority. ‘We don’t only need a currency union, we also need a so-called fiscal union…’ she said in an interview with German broadcaster ARD aired on Thursday. ‘And we also need first and foremost a political union, meaning we must cede responsibilities to Europe step by step,’ she added.

“Merkel acknowledged that the EU now has ‘different speeds’ referring to the countries in the eurozone and those that have their own national currencies. She said the differences would become more pronounced over time, because the euro countries would inevitably draw closer together. ‘We can’t stand still because [others] don’t yet want to come along,’ she said.”

The EUObserver added on June 7:

“… the Chancellor [made] the clearest case yet for a two-speed Europe in matters of economic integration. While these statements and similar comments she has made in the past are raising expectations about what the 28 June summit in Brussels can achieve, the German leader cautioned against thinking that it would lead to a big bang solution for the European Union. But even despite Merkel’s traditional down-playing of expectations ahead of an EU meeting – the summit is increasingly taking on a high-stakes feel…”

The Local stated on June 7:

“Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday that she would work towards a European political union even if that meant a two-speed approach.”

“Israel’s Deployment of Nuclear Missiles on Subs from Germany”

Der Spiegel Online wrote on June 4:

“Many have wondered for years about the exact capabilities of the submarines Germany exports to Israel. Now, experts in Germany and Israel have confirmed that nuclear-tipped missiles have been deployed on the vessels. And the German government has long known about it…

“Deep in their interiors, on decks 2 and 3, the submarines contain a secret that even in Israel is only known to a few insiders: nuclear warheads, small enough to be mounted on a cruise missile, but explosive enough to execute a nuclear strike that would cause devastating results. This secret is considered one of the best kept in modern military history. Anyone who speaks openly about it in Israel runs the risk of being sentenced to a lengthy prison term.

“Research SPIEGEL has conducted in Germany, Israel and the United States, among current and past government ministers, military officials, defense engineers and intelligence agents, no longer leaves any room for doubt: With the help of German maritime technology, Israel has managed to create for itself a floating nuclear weapon arsenal: submarines equipped with nuclear capability…

“In Germany, the government’s military assistance for Israel’s submarine program has been controversial for about 25 years, a topic of discussion for the media and the parliament. Chancellor Angela Merkel fears the kind of public debate that German Nobel literature laureate Günter Grass recently reignited with a poem critical of Israel. Merkel insists on secrecy and doesn’t want… the details of the deal to be made public. To this day, the German government is sticking to its position that it does not know anything about an Israeli nuclear weapons program…

“For Israel, a country about the size of the German state of Hesse, which could be wiped out with a nuclear strike, safeguarding this threat potential is vital to its very existence. At the same time, the nuclear arsenal causes countries like Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia to regard Israel’s nuclear capacity with fear and envy and consider building their own nuclear weapons…

“Helmut Schmidt went even further, long before Grass. ‘Hardly anyone dares to criticize Israel here, out of fear of being accused of anti-Semitism,’ the former chancellor told Jewish American historian Fritz Stern. Yet Israel is a country, Schmidt suggests, that ‘makes a peaceful solution practically impossible, through its policies of settlement in the West Bank and, for far longer, in the Gaza Strip.’ He also condemns the current chancellor for, in his view, allowing herself to be essentially taken hostage by Israel.

“Schmidt says, ‘I wonder whether it was a feeling of closeness with American policies, or nebulous moral motives, that led Chancellor Merkel to publicly state in 2008 that Germany bears responsibility for the security of the State of Israel. From my point of view, this is a serious exaggeration, one that sounds very nearly like the type of obligation that exists within an alliance… Germany has a particular responsibility to make sure that a crime such as the Holocaust never again occurs. Germany does not have a responsibility for Israel’…

“For Chancellor Merkel, on the other hand, there was never any doubt that she would do what Israel asked, even at the cost of violating Germany’s own arms export guidelines. The rules, amended in 2000 by the SPD-Green coalition government, do allow weapons to be supplied to countries that are not part of the EU or NATO in the case of ‘special foreign or security policy interests.’ But there is a clear regulation for crisis regions: The rules state that supplying weapons ‘is not authorized in countries that are involved in armed conflicts or where there is a threat of one.’ There is no question that that rule would include Israel. But that did not stop the chancellor from making a deal for the delivery of submarine number 6 — just as she was not deterred by Netanyahu’s unwillingness to make compromises…

“Still, disappointment within the Chancellery is running high, as Netanyahu has simply ignored Merkel’s requests. Israel’s policy of settlement continues unabated… Merkel has apparently reached the conclusion that there’s no point in saying anything further to Netanyahu, since he’s sure not to listen in any case…”

As mentioned in our previous Update, the relationship between Israel and Germany is a rocky one, and many Germans are not thrilled with the course of their government. How long will Germans tolerate conduct, as described in the article, stemming from their leaders and Israel’s politicians? How long will German politicians “cooperate”? The revelation that Germany is providing Israel with the opportunity to deploy nuclear warheads on German submarines is most certainly not going to be ignored.

Fall of Gaddafi Not Good News for Fight Against Locusts

The Financial Times wrote on June 5:

“The death of Muammar Gaddafi continues to reverberate across Africa – this time in the form of desert locusts. The Food and Agricultural Organisation of the United Nations warned on Tuesday that croplands in Niger and Mali were at imminent risk from locust swarms moving south from Libya and Algeria. The revolution in Libya played a major role in allowing the pests to breed, it said.

“‘The fall of Gaddafi was an enormous factor, to be honest,’ said Keith Cressman, FAO senior locust forecasting officer. ‘It depleted the Libyans’ capacity to monitor and respond as they normally would.’ Insecurity along the Libya-Algeria border – a fallout from the uprising – meant that teams are still unable to properly spray the affected areas.

“Desert locusts have the capacity to destroy vast areas of croplands. During a plague, a swarm can stretch for several hundred square kilometres comprising billions of locusts, each capable of eating its own weight in food a day… Desert locust swarms formed in Libya and Algeria in mid-May, after good rains and the resultant growth of vegetation on which they feed. The first swarms have already been sighted in northern Niger, which is currently experiencing a food crisis…”

Highly-praised and politically “correct” revolutions might have negative repercussions which we might not even think of—apart from instability and insecurity, as can be seen presently in Egypt where the Islamist “Muslim Brotherhood” and representatives from the “old Regime” are fighting for political leadership.

Use of Drones All Over America?

WorldNetDaily reported on June 1:

“America is not a battlefield, and its citizens are not ‘insurgents in need of vanquishing,’ argues a civil rights attorney who is urging the governor of Virginia to move forward carefully in the state’s use of the remote-controlled aerial vehicles.

“‘A rapid adoption of drone technology before properly vetting the safety, privacy and civil liberties issues involved would be a disaster,’ said John W. Whitehead, founder of the Rutherford Institute, in a letter to Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell today. Whitehead was reacting to a radio interview in which McDonnell said that the use of drones in American skies was ‘great’ and ‘the right thing to do.’ The governor said the abilities that made drones effective on a battlefield also would make them effective in America…

“WND recently reported the federal government is moving quickly to open the skies over America to drones for commercial and government purposes. Veteran Washington Post and Fox News commentator Charles Krauthammer is forecasting ‘rifles aimed at the sky all across America’… the federal government announced it is beginning to allow public safety agencies to fly unmanned aircraft – drones – with fewer and fewer restrictions… Congress has adopted the position of encouraging more drone flights, with the ‘goal of adapting technology used by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan.’… not only can drones spy on people, many of them now are armed.”

As we reported in our last Update and addressed in our StandingWatch video and radio programs (see the posting of the radio program on www.standingwatch.org), “Does God Approve of US Drone Attacks?”, most Americans are indifferent regarding the use of drones in foreign countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan, even though thousands of civilians and children have already been killed in the process, being labeled as casualties of war. But apart from legitimate privacy concerns, what if those drones are being also used soon in our own country to kill innocent Americans? This possibility is not far-fetched, given the preparations of Congress and the Feds. Will American citizens wake up to these real and frightening dangers, before it is too late and before they themselves have become the targets of uncontrolled governmental violence and even death?

What’s Bilderberg Up To?

WorldNetDaily wrote on June 2:

“An intense and amplified police presence outside the Westfields Marriott Convention Center greeted the more than 1,000 protestors of the Bilderberg Conference on Day 3 of the secret conclave that gathers global leaders of finance and government. More than 35 uniformed police officers guarded the primary entrance of the Westfields Marriott, where Bilderberg attendees were quickly shuttled in and out amidst a hail of verbal assaults from protestors, the primary question constantly being asked by those in [the] crowd being why these world leaders were meeting behind closed doors and a wall of armed security.

“‘We know you are in there, the world knows you are in there, and we know what you are up to,’ shouted radio personality Alex Jones… who hosts the radio program ‘The Alex Jones Show’ and runs the popular news site Infowars.com… Comparing the Bilderberg Conference to the shadowy globalist group that controlled S.H.I.E.L.D. in this summer’s mega blockbuster ‘The Avengers,’ Jones said that the United States was losing its sovereignty to a cabal of unelected and unaccountable globalists with the ultimate goal of subjugating the U.S. military to the control of the United Nations and NATO generals… Wired.com reported that the Pentagon pulled out of working on ‘The Avengers’ film, because they couldn’t ascertain who the fictional, multinational peace-keeping organization answered to… ‘That is the ultimate goal of Bilderberg, the end of American sovereignty and the implementation of a globalist elite that controls every aspect of your life,’ said Jones…

“Daniel Estulin, author of ‘The True Story of the Bilderberg Group,’ contends the idea behind each and every Bilderberg meeting ‘is to create what they themselves call the aristocracy of purpose between European and North American elites on the best way to manage the planet… In other words… the creation of a global network of giant cartels, more powerful than any nation on Earth, destined to control the necessities of life of the rest of humanity’…

“Four years ago there were rumors that Barack Obama had been picked as the Democratic presidential nominee. Two days after the event, Hillary Clinton bowed out. Observers also point out George H.W. Bush attended in 1985. He became president in 1988. Bill Clinton attended in 1991. He became president a year later. Tony Blair attended in 1993. He became prime minister of England in 1997. Romano Prodi attended in 1999. Later that year he became president of the European Union Commission. In 2004, Sen. John Edwards spoke to the group. He was later anointed the Democratic vice presidential nominee by presidential candidate John Kerry.

“Estulin… described the group as ‘a vehicle through which private financier oligarchical interests were able to impose their policies on what is nominally sovereign governments’… The meetings are private, invitation-only for about 150 individuals from the worlds of politics, business, finance, energy, media and nobility. No resolutions are voted on, no minutes are taken and no statements are issued.

“Estulin has cited David Rockefeller’s own admission. Rockefeller, a Bilderberg member, wrote: ‘Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.’”

“In 2009, Bilderberg Chairman Etienne Davignon boasted that the Euro single currency was a recommendation of the Bilderberg group.”

Especially interesting is the statement that the euro was a recommendation of the Bilderberg group. Since former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl was extremely instrumental in creating the euro, being referred to in Germany as the “father of the euro,” it must be asked what direct or indirect relationship, if any, he had with the Bilderberg group. In any event, if all the alleged facts mentioned in the above-quoted article, and in articles quoted in our previous Update, are true, then all of us are in deep trouble. Note the next article as well.

Why Do Greens Attend Bilderberg Conferences?

Der Spiegel Online wrote on June 6:

“Industry leaders from around the globe, heads of government and leaders of organizations such as the World Bank and the World Trade Organization gathered over the weekend in Chantilly, Virginia for the 60th edition of the fabled Bilderberg conference on finance and foreign affairs. The list of participants reads like a global who’s who of the rich and powerful. Outgoing Deutsche Bank CEO Josef Ackermann was there, as was Shell CEO Peter Voser, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann. Jürgen Trittin, co-floor leader of the Green Party in German parliament, was also in attendance.

“Now Trittin has found himself having to defend his participation after many people asked what a Green Party leader — one who represents the left wing of his party, no less — was doing at the secretive annual gathering. The politician… has been the subject of a flood of criticism since his return from the US.

“The German business news magazine Wirtschaftswoche has described the Bilderberg conference, which takes place at a different location each year, as ‘the most admired circle of power.’ Critics of globalization, including many Green Party supporters, would rather describe it as the most dangerous circle of power. For them, the exclusive, invitation-only meetings, named after the Hotel de Bilderberg where the first conference was held in 1954, represent a kind of informal, non-democratic world government.

“According to the Bilderberg website, ‘the meeting is private in order to encourage frank and open discussion.’ But the fact that the media is excluded from the meetings has encouraged the proliferation of conspiracy theories. For many people on both extremes of the political spectrum, Bilderberg represents a kind of secret society which meets to make deals on issues of global importance. Some even see it as an attempt to create a totalitarian world government, dubbed a ‘new world order.’…

“Unfortunately for Green Party politician Trittin, many of his own supporters subscribe to the Bilderberg conspiracy theories… Tritten is not, however, the first Green Party politician to take part in Bilderberg. Former Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer attended the conference in 2008. That was, however, after Fischer had already retired from active politics.”

Still, Fischer’s attendance at the Bilderberg conference in 2008 is remarkable. One might wonder what, if anything, was discussed in regard to his future political career.

Russia and China Moving Closer Together

On June 5, 2012, AFP wrote the following:

“Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in China on Tuesday for a three-day visit aimed at bolstering a crucial alliance that has seen the giant neighbours block further action against Syria. Both energy and foreign policy cooperation are high on the agenda… Putin’s China trip, his first to Asia since starting an historic third term last month, comes after failed attempts by EU leaders to sway him on Syria — a Soviet-era ally Moscow still supplies with arms.

“Beijing and Moscow have walked in lockstep on Syria to growing anger from Arab and Western nations, with EU President Herman Van Rompuy telling Putin in Russia on Monday that world powers needed to ‘find common messages on which we agree’… Putin has been keen to play up the importance of Russia’s at-times uneasy ties with China, which have grown stronger in the past year as both used their veto power on the UN Security Council to block action against Damascus.

“Although the two nations had periodic border conflicts and viewed each other with suspicion in Soviet times, foreign minister Sergei Lavrov declared this weekend that Russia had an exemplary partnership with China on foreign policy. ‘All in all, we consider the cooperation on foreign policy on all levels between Russia and China a successful model of coordination between partners,’ Lavrov said in comments posted on the Russian foreign ministry’s website. Beijing’s state-run China Daily newspaper also played up the relationship between the two countries in an editorial on Tuesday, saying it was in ‘good shape’ and ‘bodes well for the future’…

“Putin is a frequent guest of Chinese leaders, last visiting Beijing in October in his then capacity as prime minister. It was his only foreign trip after he announced in September his plan to run for president. A month after his trip, he was awarded a Chinese version of the Nobel prize for ‘keeping world peace’.”

The cooperation between Russia and China and other Far Eastern countries will continue, ultimately leading to war between them and Europe.

June Declared as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month

The Christian Post wrote on June 2:

“President Barack Obama called on Americans to celebrate evolving attitudes toward the homosexual community as he proclaimed June as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month.

“This June, let’s take some time to celebrate teachers and students who take a stand against bullying openly gay and lesbian service members’… he urged. Obama made the proclamation Friday and expressed again his evolved personal belief in ‘marriage equality for same-sex couples’ ‘because we must treat others the way we want to be treated.’ He cited the Golden Rule when he first revealed on May 9 that he now believes gay and lesbian couples should be able to get married… His proclamation for LGBT Pride Month comes just after a group of African-American pastors requested a meeting with Obama to discuss their concerns over his ‘endorsement of gay marriage as a civil right.’ The Coalition of African American Pastors says they’re disappointed and heart-broken over the president’s new stance.

“Obama has declared June as LGBT Pride Month every year since taking office in 2009. Considered the most pro-gay president in history, Obama has repealed the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy in the military to allow gays to serve openly, stopped defending the Defense of Marriage Act in court, and after many years of ‘evolving’ expressed support for same-sex marriage, among other things… The president vowed to continue to ‘advance the rights of LGBT Americans’ and called on Americans to… ‘celebrate the great diversity of the American people.’”

President Obama is really pushing the envelope. Not that this is so surprising—given his extremely liberal views throughout his political life… and his activities before he entered politics. And so, we are not hearing about an Obama declaration of a specific month to celebrate “True Christian Standards,” nor do we learn about “the Married Couple between a Man and a Woman Pride Month.” Not that it would really matter that much—except, it would make his preference for conduct which the Bible terms to be abominable less obvious, and he would at least apply the Golden Rule correctly, rather than misinterpreting it for behavior for which it was never intended. If anyone thinks that such actions and proclamations by President Obama and his Administration have no serious consequences for the direction of this country, think again and read the next article, as published by WorldNetDaily on June 4:

“A ruling from Judge Tim L. Garcia in the New Mexico Court of Appeals says states can require Christians to violate their faith in order to do business, affirming a penalty of nearly $7,000 for a photographer who refused to take pictures at a lesbian ‘commitment’ ceremony in the state where same-sex ‘marriage’ was illegal. The women complained under the state’s anti-discrimination requirements and a state commission, the New Mexico Human Rights Commission, imposed the penalty, which now has been affirmed by the appeals court judges. The judges explained in the 45-page ruling that the photography company is a ‘public accommodation’ and those cannot discriminate under state law based on ‘sexual orientation.’…

“When the district judge’s decision arrived, it seemed to substantiate the concerns of opponents of a federal ‘hate crimes’ bill signed into law by President Obama during his first year in office that gives homosexuals special rights. Attorney General Eric Holder admitted in a congressional hearing that under the measure an attack on a homosexual would be dealt with differently than one on another citizen.”

But America is by no means alone or unique in its “evolution” towards acceptance of same-sex marriages. Please note the next article:

Europe the Most “Gay-Friendly” Continent on the Globe

The EUObserver wrote on June 6, 2012:

“Despite a recent surge in homophobia and differences between countries, Europe on the whole remains the most gay-friendly continent on the globe. Nowhere on the old continent – except in Turkish-controlled north Cyprus – is homosexuality illegal, ‘making Europe a region that stands out,’ according to Ilga, a global umbrella organisation for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi- and transsexual people’s) rights, in a report released last month.

“France was the first to decriminalise same-sex sexual acts between consenting adults shortly after the French Revolution in 1791. Armenia was the latest, in 2003. By contrast, roughly 40 percent of countries – mostly in Africa and the Middle-East – still penalise homosexuality. Some even execute gay people – Mauritania, Sudan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, as well as parts of Nigeria and Somalia.

“There are countries outside Europe which are catching up on toleration, notably in Latin America. Argentina, for example, recently passed a law on gender change that experts say goes well beyond those adopted in Europe… Big differences exist within Europe, with the east being less gay-friendly in general. Sexual minorities in Russia in particular are not as well off as they would be in, say, Germany or the UK.

“Russia’s legal code lacks the most basic protection from discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. Recently, St Petersburg adopted laws banning the homosexual ‘propaganda’ – a move widely regarded as contrary to the freedom of expression. The European Parliament last week in a resolution singled out Russia along with Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania and Hungary, where similar laws have been tabled, condemning homophobia…

“Of the 10 countries in the world that allow same-sex couples to marry, seven are in Europe. EU law prohibits LGBT discrimination in employment situations. Europe is alone in having openly gay heads of government – in Iceland and in Belgium. It is most intolerant of hate crimes and most compliant with allowing adoption for same-sex couples or with recognising gender change…”

The Widening Catholic Scandal

Der Spiegel Online wrote on June 4:

“Though Pope Benedict XVI’s personal butler has been arrested in connection with the ‘Vatileaks’ scandal, new documents released over the weekend indicate he had powerful backers that remain unidentified. The secret documents expose the pontiff’s awkward and helpless leadership in the Church… There’s no doubt that this flood of paper out of the Vatican is a sign of what the Italian weekly magazine Panorama calls one of the ‘worst crises in the history of the Holy See’… Despite the butler’s arrest, the leaks continued over the weekend…

“[Journalist] Nuzzi’s revelations open a unique window onto the inner workings of the Vatican and furnish proof of how the game of politics is played in the domain of the Holy Father. They show that, just like elsewhere, there are lies, intrigues and bitter feuds between rival parties… there is a memo the pope sent to the Vatican’s ambassador in Berlin, in which he gives the ambassador permission to complain to Chancellor Angela Merkel about criticizing Benedict’s behavior in the affair surrounding the controversial Catholic splinter group, the Society of St. Pius X…

“The questions have yet to be answered about who slipped Nuzzi the documents and who was keen for the world to find out about the allegedly deplorable state of affairs within the Vatican. Nevertheless, there is much speculation on St. Peter’s Square… These speculations often have something to do with power struggles between senior Italian Church officials intent on putting their favorite candidates in good positions for the next papal election. Others speculate that it involves a conspiracy against Bertone, the No. 2 official in the Vatican and confidant of the pope, whom many view as excessively high-handed. Supporters of this theory point to the fact that, in the wake of the recent child-abuse scandal, there was already a period in which even people within the Church were calling for Bertone’s dismissal.”

Will these scandals and power plays in the Catholic Church lead to the arrival of an extremely powerful pope? Or will the current pope feel the pressure and react with strength and determination to the butler’s backers of the breach of trust in the Catholic Church?

Gonorrhea Is Spreading

Reuters and The Guardian wrote on June 6 and 7:

“Drug-resistant strains of gonorrhea have spread to countries across the world… Scientists reported last year finding a “superbug” strain of gonorrhea in Japan in 2008 that was resistant to all recommended antibiotics and warned then that it could transform a once easily treatable infection into a global health threat. The World Health Organisation (WHO) said those fears were now reality with many more countries, including Britain, Australia, France, Norway and Sweden reporting cases of the sexually transmitted disease resistant to cephalosporin antibiotics – normally the last option against gonorrhea… more than 106 million people [are] newly infected with the disease every year…

“If left untreated, gonorrhea can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy, stillbirths, severe eye infections in babies and infertility in both men and women. It is one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases in the world and is most prevalent in south and south-east Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. In the United States alone, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the number of cases is estimated at around 700,000 a year… Gonorrhea can be prevented through safer sexual intercourse…”

The truth is, it can be prevented through no sexual intercourse outside marriage.

Ghosts in the White House

Roll Call reported on June 6:

“House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) celebrated the 25th anniversary of her election to Congress today at an event moderated by television personality Rachel Maddow… Pelosi… recounted an unusual anecdote about how the ghosts of past women leaders spoke to her at her first White House meeting as Speaker… Maddow [who is openly gay] began the conversation by recounting how in Pelosi’s first remarks after being elected in June 1987, the new Member said she had come to address HIV/AIDS issues. ‘As a gay kid growing up in the San Francisco Bay area in the 1980s … you became the person who all of us believed that no matter where we lived, anywhere in the country, that you were our Member of Congress,’ Maddow said…

“Finally, the Minority Leader offered a story from her first White House meeting after Democrats won control of the House in 2006, propelling her to Speaker. The meeting, between Bush and the leadership of the House and Senate to discuss the legislative agenda, was the first time a woman represented either the Senate or the House in such a setting. Though she’d been to the White House many times before, Pelosi said she suddenly felt ‘really closed-in in my seat’ on this occasion.

“‘I realized that on that chair with me was Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Alice Hall, Lucretia Mott, you name it, they were all there. Sojourner Truth. They were all there on that chair with me. And I could hear them say “at last we have a seat at the table,”’ Pelosi said.”

Since there are no ghosts of those who have died, IF what Mrs. Pelosi described is accurate and not just based on imagination, these “ghosts” speaking to her would have been demons. (For more information, please read our free booklet, “Angels, Demons and the Spirit World”). It is interesting that according to many reports, the ghost of Abraham Lincoln, as well as the ghosts from other Presidents, supposedly reside in or haunt the White House.

The Wikipedia Encyclopedia writes:  “There have been several stories about ghosts of former Presidents revisiting the White House. However, the most common and popular is that of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln’s Ghost, or to others as The White House Ghost, is said to have haunted the White House since his death.”

The website of haunted-places.com states:  “The White House has a reputation for being one of the most haunted homes in America. President Harry Truman said the place was haunted ‘sure as shooting.’ Kennedy’s Press Secretary James Haggerty admitted to sensing the presence of Lincoln’s ghost in the White House, and Clinton’s Press Secretary Mike McCurry admitted he was a believer… Hillary Rodham Clinton said: ‘There is something about the house at night that you just feel like you are summoning up the spirits of all the people who have lived there and worked there and walked through the halls there.’…

“There have been many séances in the White House, but the majority occurred during the administration of Abraham Lincoln. While living in the White House, he and his wife held several séances in the Green Room in an attempt to contact the spirit of their son, Willie, who died there… In his book The Choice, Bob Woodward of Watergate fame describes how in 1995, a séance was held by psychic Jean Houston in the White House solarium, during which Hillary sank into a trance and channeled the spirits of Eleanor Roosevelt and Mahatma Gandhi…

“Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands was a guest of the White House when she heard a knock on her bedroom door in the middle of the night. When she answered it, Lincoln stood before her with his famous top hat and all. The Queen fainted, and when she came [to], he was gone. Britain’s Winston Churchill refused to sleep there after sighting President Abraham Lincoln’s ghost lurking about… in the Lincoln Bedroom… He couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw Abraham Lincoln standing by the fireplace in the room, leaning on the mantle. The two men looked each other in the face… as Lincoln’s apparition slowly faded away.

“Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Margaret Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Jacqueline Kennedy, Ladybird Johnson [wife of Lyndon Johnson], Susan Ford [Gerald Ford’s daughter], and Maureen Reagan [Ronald Reagan’s daughter] have all admitted sensing the presence of the Civil War president in the White House… Maureen, and her husband, Dennis Revell, both saw Lincoln’s transparent form next to the bedroom’s fireplace.”

On July 9, 2009, Weekly World News reported this:

“Just as Bill Clinton did before him, President Barack Obama is now getting help in the White House – from Abraham Lincoln’s ghost! A government insider has revealed that Honest Abe’s apparition has been seen in the Oval Office on several occasions, quietly conferring with the President on vital world issues!… In a 1993 issue, Weekly World News stunned the world with its exclusive story that the Great Emancipator was helping President Clinton guide America’s ship of state through troubled waters…”

This is eerie and spooky… but it shows where the leaders and influential people of the world—including those from the United States of America—might get their inspiration from.

In a previous Q&A we discussed the meaning of grace. We pointed out that grace does not dispense with individual responsibility. In this Q&A, we will show in more detail what God expects of us.

It is claimed that the New Testament teaches that we are no longer obligated to keep God’s Law, and that especially Paul made clear that the Law is no longer binding for us. This is a terrible and, quite frankly, abominable doctrine stemming from demons.

An important tool for right Bible study is to look first at the clear and plain passages, before trying to understand the more difficult ones. Even Peter said that Paul wrote a few things, which are difficult to understand, and that the unlearned try to misinterpret and twist them for their own purposes (2 Peter 3:16). Let’s not make the same mistake, but look at Paul’s clear and plain statements.

And so, Paul is telling us in Romans 2:13 that the doers of the law, and not the hearers, will be justified. (James 1:25 says the same thing, and James 2:8-12 shows that the law is a reference to the Ten Commandments, and that we are guilty of the transgression of the entire law if we break just one of the Ten Commandments. Compare also James 4:11-12).

In Romans 2:22-23, Paul reconfirms that he is speaking of the Ten Commandments (referring to idolatry and adultery as examples), when he says that we dishonor God when we break the law.

In Romans 2:27, he states that those who keep the law, even though they are physically uncircumcised, will judge those who are physically circumcised, but who transgress the law—clearly referring to the Ten Commandments.

Romans 3:31 does away with the wrong concept that because of faith, we are no longer bound to keep the law. Rather, Paul says here that we do not make void the law of God through faith, but quite to the contrary, we are establishing the law.

To leave no doubt as to how Paul felt about the law of God, he tells us in Romans 7:12 that the law is holy, and that the commandment (that is, any one of the Ten Commandments) is holy and just and good.

He also adds in Romans 7:14 that the law of God is spiritual, and he states in Romans 8:7, 9, that the carnal mind does not and cannot obey the law of God in its final spiritual application, and that one must have God’s Spirit dwelling in us to be able to obey the law of God.

In Romans 13:8-10, Paul emphasizes that God’s Law is a law of love, and that we fulfill the law (at least the portion of the law which deals with our relationship with our fellow man) when we love our neighbor. He stresses the same in Galatians 5:14, stating that all the law (dealing with our fellow man) is fulfilled by us when we love our fellow man; and he says in Galatians 6:2 that we fulfill the law of Christ when we love our neighbor by bearing his burden.

However, many have a wrong concept of love, thinking that we can love someone while breaking God’s law. This is totally false. When we break God’s law, we do NOT love our fellow man. God’s Law DEFINES for us what true love is. We read in 1 John 5:3 that “this IS the love of God, that we keep His commandments.” When we commit adultery with our neighbor’s wife, we do not love our neighbor or his wife. When we kill or lie to or steal from our neighbor, we do NOT love him.

But Paul says in Galatians 5:22-23 that when we love our neighbor and live in peace with him, have patience with him and bring joy to his life, etc., then we do not transgress the law, because against such right conduct and feeling, there is no law. In other words, the law does not prohibit right conduct. It does not tell us, for example, not to have peace with your neighbor.

The same is expressed in 1 Timothy 1:9-10 where we read that the law is not made for the righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, and then Paul lists numerous examples of sinful conduct. This statement must not be twisted to say that the righteous is under no obligation to keep the law. Rather, as long as he lives righteously, he obeys it and the law is not convicting him as a transgressor; but once he begins to disobey it, he lives no longer in righteousness and has become a transgressor of the law.

And so, Paul tells us that if we are unrighteous and abide in the kinds of sins which he listed in 1 Timothy 1:9-10, we will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).

(To Be Continued)

Lead Writer: Norbert Link

A new member letter has been written and sent out this week. It is also posted on our website (www.eternalgod.org). In the letter, Eric Rank reminds us of the importance of involvement in and support for God’s Work and for one another, and he explains how this can be done.

A new StandingWatch program was recorded and posted on YouTube and our website (www.standingwatch.org), titled, “Germany—Israel’s Friend or Foe?” German-Israeli relations have never been easy. Even though Germany is officially considered one of Israel’s closest allies, most Germans view Israel as aggressive and feel that Germany has no special obligation towards Israel. Some historians state that no friendship exists between Germany and Israel, and that in German eyes, Israel is one of the most unpopular states in the world. Recent revelations have not helped that Israel has been deploying nuclear missiles on submarines which were received from Germany. What does all of this mean in the light of biblical prophecy?

The audio portion of this program will be broadcast on our radio programs, beginning this Sunday.

A new German sermon was posted on YouTube, titled, “Gottes Zorn ueber den Ungehorsam” (“God’s Wrath for Disobedience”).

A reminder for those wishing to attend the Feast of Tabernacles with us for 2012–please review details posted on our website under the “FEASTS” heading. Our locations for this year are Pismo Beach, California, and Deganwy, North Wales.

On June 2, 2012, Michael Link will give the sermon, titled, “In the Face of Death.”

The services can be heard at www.cognetservices.org (12:30 pm Pacific Time; 1:30 pm Mountain Time; 2:30 pm Central Time; 3:30 pm Eastern Time). Just click on Connect to Live Stream.

A religious minister in the UK founded the Polite Society in 1986. Later they changed the name to “the Campaign for Courtesy” as they decided that the word “polite” had passed its sell-by date. Politeness can be defined as “The act of showing respect or regard for others”. Wikipedia defines it this way: “Politeness is best expressed as the practical application of good manners or etiquette”.

However, there is the “Polite Society” organisation in the USA which is actually about guns and weapons, and they state that “Our name derives from Robert Heinlein’s famous quotation, ‘An armed society is a polite society.’” I would suggest that the quotation, and their adoption of it, is a misuse of the phrase.

One writer on an Internet forum opined: “Yet, it is that acceptable social condition called politeness that polite society itself, through its repression and recrimination has been the greatest source of the travesties and injustices of Man against Fellow Man.” Having read that phrase a number of times, I’m still unsure what he means except that politeness does not rank high on his list of attributes.

Showing respect and regard for others is not about carrying and using guns, nor is it repressive or recriminatory. It is simply another definition that echoes the requirement of a true Christian. It is certainly about courtesy, good manners and etiquette and considers others as much as self.

It was interesting to read the story that youngsters gave up their seats on a bus to two pensioners (who were two of the founder members of the National Polite Society). The couple was so impressed by their courteous behaviour that they nominated them for a Polite Society award. I am sure this was encouraging to the recipients, but it does reflect that which should be the norm in society is now considered old fashioned, out of date or unnecessary! Not so, some decades ago, but politeness is not something that seems “cool” today.

One quotation I read was very interesting when the writer said: “One of the greatest victories you can gain over someone is to beat him at politeness.”

William Arnot, a clergyman, wrote in his book “Illustrations of the Book of Proverbs”: “I do not say that politeness will do as a substitute for religion; but politeness is of use as the handmaid of religion. Indeed, rude speech and manners are both the signs of moral evil already existing, and the causes of increasing it… Christianity with its living power in the heart will produce refinement in the manners; and outward refinement will throw a shield round inward principle, and keep it out of harm’s way.”

The Bible sums up, succinctly, the qualities needed to reflect our calling, showing politeness and courtesy:

• “Nothing is to be done out of jealousy or vanity; instead, out of humility of mind everyone should give preference to others” (Philippians 2:3 NJB).  
• “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 7:12 NIV).  
• “Be kindly affectionate to one another with brotherly love, in honor giving preference to one another” (Romans 12:10 NIV).  
• “Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another; love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous (1 Peter 3:8 New King James Version)

Pentecost, which we’ve just celebrated, was the time when the Holy Spirit was given to the New Testament Church (See Acts chapter 2). Today, baptised members of the true Church of God can reflect their calling by being polite and courteous in a dark society, which emphasises the promotion of self and other carnal traits. Our way is the opposite to that, as Scripture reveals. It is a way that improves society, creates happiness and ensures that we are moving towards being in the Kingdom of God at Christ’s return.

We begin with a report on the interesting relationship between Germany and Poland on the one hand, and Germany and the Ukraine on the other hand, showing how biblical prophecy is important in this context. Other articles explain the prophesied predominant role of Germany in Europe and the desire of the EU to create a political union.

We continue with the rocky relationship between Israel and Turkey, and between Israel and Germany; we address the situation in Iran and Syria; and we focus on a traumatic power struggle and corruption in the Vatican, which might include most important and influential cardinals. This earthquake in the Catholic Church might be mirrored by real earthquakes in Italy which struck again this week.

We conclude with three articles of a diverse nature—the suspicious and secretive dealings of the Bilderberg group; the ongoing controversial US drone attacks in other countries; and the “natural born citizen” controversy regarding Barak Obama, which had been raised before—in regard to Mitt Romney’s father, presidential candidate George Romney, who was born in Mexico.

Poland– a Country to Be Reckoned With

On May 25, 2012, Der Spiegel Online wrote the following:

“Poland… has become the most astonishing success story in Eastern Europe. Relations between Berlin and Warsaw have never been better… The country sees itself as a pioneer and role model for the ‘others’ in the East. It wants to become a power in Europe and for Europe, thereby assuming what it has always believed to be its rightful place in the world. We are a country to be reckoned with, say the Poles in Warsaw, Gdansk, Wroclaw and Krakow.

“Poland is one of the world’s few success stories since the fall of the Soviet bloc, a development that is particularly noticeable in comparison with other countries in Eastern Europe. One of those is Ukraine, the second host of the European Championship, plagued by human rights violations and ruled by an authoritarian regime. If Poland is Europe’s model pupil, Ukraine is its bad boy…

“In 2009, a year of crisis, when the German, Italian and British economies each shrank by about 5 percent, Poland was the only country on the continent to experience economic growth (1.7 percent). By 2011, the Polish economy was already growing by an impressive 4.4 percent…

“Amid speculation over Greece’s future in the euro zone, the Polish government is fighting to join the common currency. Warsaw expects to fulfill the criteria by no later than the end of 2015. To do so, it is also prepared to give up sovereignty rights… Hardly any other population is as pro-European as the Poles. In surveys, more than 80 percent say that their country has benefited from joining the European Union…

“Just as Germany and France improved relations after World War II and then became friends, the same progression also seems possible between Germany and Poland today. Berlin is already Warsaw’s biggest trading partner…

“Krakow is the most beautiful city in Poland, a Central European jewel and UNESCO World Heritage Site… Legend has it that the mythical ruler Krakus founded the city on Wawel Hill after killing the dragon that had lived in a cave there… The city is a veritable think tank, with its 23 universities and colleges, and about 200,000 students… In addition to the Polish kings, the country’s greatest figures are buried in a crypt beneath the cathedral. Two years ago, former President Lech Kaczyski was also buried there, in a sarcophagus framed in a sea of white and red roses. For the country’s archconservatives, the fact that he lies so prominently in state is an appropriate appreciation of the former president. But his political opponents see it as presumptuous. They accuse the Catholic Church and Kaczyski’s party of operating a cult for what they see as a rather unsuccessful, nationalist politician…”

The Bible predicts that the Ukraine will forsake Europe and become an integral part of the Russian war machine, while Poland will be, in all likelihood, a strong player in the European unification. It might even become one of the ten core nations or groups of nations which will lead Europe for a short time.

Germany—The Savior of Europe?

The Local reported on May 25:

“Germany is developing a six-point plan to boost growth in Europe, a magazine reported on Friday, amid a heated debate among EU leaders on how to best help indebted eurozone states. The plan, being worked on by the German government, includes setting up special economic zones in crisis-hit countries which could woo investors with lower taxes and less regulation, Der Spiegel said, without revealing its sources.

“Special bodies to privatise state-owned enterprises, along the same lines as when the assets of the former communist East Germany were sold off following German unification, would be created, the magazine said in a copy of its Monday edition. In addition, the proposals included labour market reforms, such as making it easier to hire and fire employees and bringing down wage costs. The plan further entailed proposals to boost on-the-job training for young people, similarly based on the long-established German model, the magazine said.”

Again, Germany is seen as the leader of Europe, destined to save the euro, and it becomes more and more willing to fulfill that role. To privatize and sell state-owned enterprises might sound to be a good idea, but if history is a guide, many West Germans suffered greatly financially when getting involved in buying property in East Germany. In addition, and for all practical purposes, East Germany was swallowed up by West Germany. It was by no means a unification of two equal partners, or a merger, but it was a (peaceful) occupation and takeover by the West Germans. Virtually all East German institutions were dismantled, and even the registration of West German churches in East Germany was disallowed and set aside by the new powers of occupying West Germany.

Europe Forced to Become a Political Union

The EUObserver wrote on May 22, 2012:

“The European Commission has said it will soon bring forward plans for an economic and political union…Last week, German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said the European Commission should be the government of Europe and its president should be directly elected.

“Britain, outside the euro and one of its more sceptical members, has also started making public statements about the need for fiscal and political union, with many arguing that the eurozone’s woes have been exacerbated by the fact that the EU lacked the tools – such as a central transfer system – to effectively deal with it.”

As the Bible shows, Europe will become a political AND military union—with frightening consequences for the rest of the world.

Israel vs. Turkey

Haaretz reported on May 30:

“Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Tuesday in a meeting with German President Joachim Gauck that despite Turkey’s vicious tongue-lashing against Israel over the past few years, Jerusalem has been behaving with ‘maximum restraint toward the Turkish provocations.’ Lieberman added that despite Israel’s restraint, it will not allow its officers and soldiers to be terrorized, for they acted completely justifiably and in accordance with international law, as was also determined by the UN’s international investigatory committee into the Gaza flotilla.

“‘We hope that the European nations will not cooperate with the Turkish provocation of baseless indictments against the former Israel Defense Forces chief of staff and other senior officers,’ Lieberman told Gauck, who is visiting Jerusalem. ‘We hope the European nations will put Turkey back in its place and prevent wild behavior by the NATO member that has gone off course and is behaving contradictorily to all acceptable international laws.’”

According to the Bible, the relationship between Israel and Turkey is bound to deteriorate even further.

The Rocky Relationship Between Germany and Israel

Deutsche Welle reported on May 26:

“German-Israeli relations have never been easy. German President Joachim Gauck hails from the former German Democratic Republic, which did not maintain official relations with Israel. As an ‘anti-fascist’ state, the GDR government did not consider itself in succession of the law of the Third Reich, and therefore did not shoulder the burdens of responsibility of German history. For West Germany, on the other hand, unconditional solidarity with Israel became a cornerstone of its policy.

“Konrad Adenauer, West Germany’s first chancellor, laid the groundwork in building a good relationship with the Jewish state, which was founded in 1948. In 1952, Adenauer and founder and Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion signed a reparations agreement – which entered into force the following year – to compensate for some of the atrocities of the Holocaust. Diplomatic relations were established in 1965. Today, Germany is considered one of Israel’s closest allies.

“German Chancellor Angela Merkel has even deemed Israel’s security a raison d’être of the German state, yet German citizens themselves long ago stopped heeding this principle. Israel has increasing lost respect among Germans [Note: Please note our next article and our accompanying comments on that issue.]

“‘Friendship does not exist between Germany and Israel,’ Munich-based historian Michael Wolffsohn noted matter-of-factly. A sense of distance has been growing between the two nations since 1981, clearly evidenced in surveys, he said at a recent podium discussion in Berlin.

“Israel enjoyed an exceptionally good reputation among Germans following the Six-Day War in 1967, he pointed out, but it began to suffer after the Yom Kippur War of 1973. A deep fissure in the relationship developed in 1981 concerning German plans to deliver weapons to Saudi Arabia, leading to a hefty dispute between then government leaders Menachem Begin and Helmut Schmidt. Israel is now one of the most unpopular states in the world in German eyes, Wolffsohn said.

“Young Germans in particular have developed a critical distance toward Israel… 70 years after the Shoah, the Zionist project has failed. ‘The Jewish state offers security neither to its Jewish nor its non-Jewish residents,’ historian Amar-Dahl said. Germans are slowly waking up to this as well. ‘People are beginning to realize that Israel’s hopeless policies have helped create this situation,’ she noted… Amar-Dahl said she could not speak of a ‘normal relationship between Germany and Israel.’ This would not be possible given the extent of Germany’s radical and monstrous crimes against Jews…

“In Israel, Germany is highly regarded as a weapons supplier. Just a few weeks ago, the Israeli Navy received the fourth Dolphin-class submarine from Germany. Israel has ordered a total of six German-made, nuclear-capable submarines, each costing up to a half-billion dollars, making them Israel’s most expensive weapons. Germany covers part of the costs, with the first two submarines given to Israel for free and the construction of the rest subsidized with several hundred thousand euros (100,000 euros = $125,000).

“Germany’s supply of submarines to Israel also prompted poet and novelist Günther Grass to express his concerns over the growing tensions in the Middle East and his criticism of Israel’s politics. The poem “What Must Be Said” by the Nobel Peace Prize laureate published in April in several German and international newspapers criticized Israel’s policies and its threats of attack on Iran, triggering a wave of outrage and prompting the Israeli government to deem Grass persona non grata…”

German-Israeli Relationship at the Brink

The Local wrote on May 23:

“A large majority of Germans view Israel as ‘aggressive’ and think Germany no longer has a special obligation to the Jewish nation, according to an opinion poll released Wednesday ahead of a state visit by Germany’s president.

“The survey, conducted by Forsa for Stern news magazine, found that 59 percent of those questioned viewed Israel as ‘aggressive’, an increase of 10 percentage points over a similar survey in January 2009. Seventy percent said they believed Israel pursued its interests without consideration for other nations, Stern said in a pre-release of its Thursday edition, up 11 percentage points from three years ago.

“And 67 years after the end of the Nazi regime, 60 percent said Germany had no special obligation towards Israel, while a third believed the contrary, according to the survey of 1,002 people conducted on May 15 and 16…

“German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been sharply critical of the Israeli government’s settlements policy in east Jerusalem and the West Bank, calling it an obstacle to fruitful peace talks with the Palestinians. And last month Grass sparked outrage when he published a poem in which he said he feared a nuclear-armed Israel ‘could wipe out the Iranian people’ with a ‘first strike’ and described the Jewish state as the region’s biggest threat to peace. Although his work came in for widespread condemnation in Germany, a subsequent move by the Israeli government to declare the 84-year-old author of ‘The Tin Drum’ a persona non grata was also roundly criticised.”

The relationship between Europe, under German leadership, and Israel will deteriorate. The results of the survey mentioned in the article are not representative of the overwhelming opinion of the German people—the number of those looking at Israel negatively is much higher than the official figure. The “widespread  condemnation” of Guenther Grass’s poem was not as severe as the article makes it out to be—and when evaluating Grass’s POETIC statements in context, they were not as critical of the state of Israel as portrayed by the mainstream media. Grass was in no way defending Iran, nor was he portraying himself as Israel’s enemy—just the opposite is true.

What is correct, however, is that the Israeli government’s move to ban any visits of Grass to Israel was condemned by the German people, as it was in Israel’s media. Grass published last week a new poem, criticizing Europe’s dealings with Greece. According to the German press, no uproar is expected, as he did not criticize Israel in his new poem.

The first state visit of German President Joachim Gauck in Israel has been observed with great interest.

Der Spiegel Online reported on May 31:

“Speaking to reporters on Tuesday in Jerusalem, Gauck appeared to distance himself from German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s stated position that the security of Israel is Germany’s raison d’état, or national interest, and that Germany would stand by Israel even in the event of war with Iran — comments for which she herself has been heavily criticized at home.”

The Local added on May 31:

“Gauck, who visited Israel this week, said he was not at all talking about drawing a line under the Holocaust debate. ‘But there’s one tendency I don’t want to follow – pulling the perception of the Holocaust into a quasi-religious dimension, into something surreal,’ he said. Gauck’s comments came as he visited Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas in Ramallah. Gauck promised Abbas that Germany would continue to provide financial aid to the Palestinians – currently amounting to €70 million a year – as long as there was no solution to the Mideast conflict… Gauck also told Die Zeit that he agreed with the intention of a statement by his predecessor Christian Wulff that Islam belongs to Germany. The comment stirred huge controversy in Germany. But Gauck said he would have put it differently. ‘I would have simply said that the Muslims who live here belong to Germany,’ he said.”

As the next articles show, Iran is getting closer to producing the bomb. With fanatics in charge in that country, who seem to be determined to wipe Israel off the map, war in the region is becoming more and more a distinct possibility—either way.

Iran Closer to Production of Nuclear Weapons

Reuters reported on May 27:

“Iran has significantly stepped up its output of low-enriched uranium and total production in the last five years would be enough for at least five nuclear weapons if refined much further, a U.S. security institute said…

“During talks in Baghdad this week, six world powers failed to convince Iran to scale back its uranium enrichment program. They will meet again in Moscow next month to try to defuse a decade-old standoff that has raised fears of a new war in the Middle East that could disrupt oil supplies. Friday’s report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a Vienna-based U.N. body, showed Iran was pressing ahead with its uranium enrichment work in defiance of U.N. resolutions calling on it to suspend the activity.”

The Financial Times wrote on May 25:

“Over the past few weeks, there has been growing optimism in western capitals that Iran might be forced into a compromise over its nuclear programme and avoid a war with Israel and the US. However, after two days of anguished talks this week between Iran and world powers in Baghdad, such hopes were doused in a very cold dose of reality.

“As Israel and the US make contingency plans for a possible strike, the six powers – the US, EU, UK, France, Germany, Russia and China – put a proposal to Iran that would have seen Tehran freeze its production of more highly enriched uranium in return for a package of inducements from the US and EU, such as providing parts for Iranian civil aircraft. But after often fraught bargaining in Baghdad, diplomats left declaring they had made no progress at all…

“Washington is desperate to stop Israel carrying out an attack before November – an event that would drag the US into war and also destabilise President Barack Obama’s chances of re-election… the negotiations will get a great deal harder if there is no clear progress at the next meeting in Moscow on June 18. The meeting comes just before US and EU energy and banking sanctions take full effect on July 1, after which a breakthrough will be much more difficult.

“At the same time, failure at Moscow will force Mr Obama to ratchet up the rhetoric against the regime in order to counter Republican accusations that he is being strung along by Iranian prevarication… contingency planning for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is intensifying in the US and Israel.”

Syria’s Civil War

Newsmax, Thomsen and Reuters reported on May 29:

“The State Department is expelling Syria’s top diplomat in Washington following a wave of deadly attacks on civilians in Syria over the weekend… The U.S. move was coordinated with at least seven other Western countries, which also expelled Syria’s ambassadors from their capitals on Tuesday in response to the coordinated killing of more than 100 civilians in a Syrian town. The joint action marked a new phase in the international effort to halt the repression of a 14-month uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad and force him to relinquish power… France, Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Australia said they were expelling the Syrian envoys from their capitals in a move that… underlined Assad’s diplomatic isolation…

“Gruesome video footage distributed by opposition activists has helped to shake world opinion out of growing indifference to a conflict in which more than 10,000 have been killed. But Russia, which with China has twice vetoed U.N. Security Council resolutions on Syria… insists that rebels share the blame for the massacre. Russia long saw Assad’s late father as the best defender of its interests in the region, and leases a major naval base in Syria… Sunni Muslim Gulf powers Saudi Arabia and Qatar favor arming the mostly-Sunni rebels fighting Assad, whose ruling cadre are mostly Alawites, members of an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam.”

The Austrian media outlet, net.news, published a biting and damning article about President Obama in the context of Syria. It titled its article “Coward Obama?”, and wrote on May 29:

“Barack Obama is silent. The man who normally cannot walk by a microphone, says nothing about the most recent massacre in Syria. For months he has been watching the slaughter without any action. Does the ‘World Power Number 1’ depart from its claim to protect the suppressed of this world, and to help the freedom fighters?”

Reuters wrote on May 31 that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary “Clinton rejects military option in Syria, following [the] Houla massacre. [She] says that unlike Libya, Syrian air defense is stronger, society is more diverse and opposition is not unified.”

At the same time, the German magazine Focus reported on May 29 that French President Hollande is now considering European military intervention in Syria. Angela Merkel responded that she is against any such action, but influential voices in Germany utter a different view point.

The Bible is very clear that in the end, Syria and Damascus will be destroyed, and Syrians will become slaves of a foreign power. In our Q&A on Syria, we stated the following:

“Jeremiah 49:23-27 gives us [a] stirring account of Syria’s impending destruction. It specifically mentions that the young men of Damascus will fall in her streets, and all men of war shall be cut off IN THAT DAY. It also says that GOD will kindle a fire in the wall of Damascus which will consume the palaces of the city and of the leadership and prominent people of Syria… We can safely say that in the end time, Syria and Damascus will be destroyed. Even though the Bible does not expressly state who will be the nation or ‘king’ who will destroy Damascus and enslave the Syrians, if we look at prior historical events, it is possible that it will be done through the modern Babylonian system under the leadership of the modern ‘king’ of Assyria–a mighty future leader in Germany, also referred to in the Bible as the beast, King Jareb, and the king of the North.”

Power Struggle and Scandals at the Vatican

The Associated Press reported on May 28:

“One of the Vatican’s biggest scandals in decades appears to be widening with reports that an Italian cardinal may be involved in a power struggle involving leaked documents, corruption and intrigue. The pope’s butler, who has been arrested in the scandal, has pledged to cooperate in the probe. Leading Italian newspapers Corriere della Sera and Il Messaggero reported Monday that the pope’s butler — arrested three days ago for allegedly feeding documents to Italian journalists — clearly did not act alone, and that an unidentified cardinal is suspected of playing a major role in the scandal…

“The commitment by butler Paolo Gabriele to cooperate with Vatican investigators raises the specter that higher-ranking prelates may soon be named in the scandal over leaks of confidential Vatican correspondence that have shed light on power struggles and intrigue inside the highest levels of the Catholic Church.”

In the German press, and especially its tabloids, conspiracy theories are rampant. Bild Online suggested that four most influential cardinals were attempting to unseat Pope Benedict XVI. Der Spiegel Online added that the Pope is powerless against the ongoing intrigue in the Vatican. As could be expected, the Vatican denied any power struggle or intrigue. Note the next articles.

Scandal and Corruption in the Catholic Church

Deutsche Welle wrote on May 30:

“It’s a case of intrigue, betrayal, and secret documents that would make a good plot for a thriller: Paolo Gabriele, personal butler to Pope Benedict XVI, was allegedly a mole who passed confidential Vatican information to the press, uncovering alleged corruption, cronyism and mismanagement at the heart of the Roman Catholic Church – he even passed on details of an alleged murder plot against Benedict himself… ‘The butler’s arrest is the affair’s dramatic climax, because there is no one nearer to the pope,’ said Ludwig Ring-Eifel, editor-in-chief of the German Catholic News Agency (KNA). Gabriele has been at Pope Benedict’s side since 2006.

“… the Italian media has been rife with conspiracy theories this week. But the only consensus among them is that Gabriele was not working alone…”

The Washington Post wrote on May 29:

“Rumors have been flying in the press about possible cardinals implicated in the probe… The scandal represents one of the greatest breaches of trust and security for the Holy See in recent memory given that a significant number of documents from the pope’s own desk were leaked to an investigative journalist… Few people think Gabriele worked alone… The motivations for the leaks remain unclear: Some commentators say they appear designed to discredit Benedict’s No. 2, the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone. Others say they’re aimed at undermining the Vatican’s efforts to become more financially transparent. Still others say they aim to show the 85-year-old Benedict’s weakness in running the church…

“Gabriele is an employee of the Holy See, a citizen and resident of the Vatican city state. He is being held by Vatican police…

“The scandal broke in January when Italian journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi revealed letters from a former top Vatican administrator who begged the pope not to transfer him for having exposed alleged corruption that cost the Holy See millions of euros (dollars) in higher contract prices. The prelate, Monsignor Carlo Maria Vigano, is now the Vatican’s U.S. ambassador. The scandal widened over the following months with documents leaked to Italian journalists that laid bare power struggles inside the Vatican over its efforts to show greater financial transparency and comply with international norms to fight money laundering. There was even a leak of a memo claiming that Benedict would die this year. The crisis reached a peak last weekend, when Nuzzi published an entire book based on a trove of new documentation, including personal correspondence to and from the pope and his private secretary, much of which paints Bertone in a negative light.”

More Earthquakes Hit Italy

Der Spiegel Online wrote on May 29:

“At least 15 people are dead after two earthquakes shook northern Italy on Tuesday. Just nine days after the last quake that left seven dead, many buildings had already been destabilized. Police reportedly struggled to handle a panic stricken populace amid communication and transportation difficulties… The first quake, which struck Tuesday morning around 9 am, registered a magnitude of 5.8, according to the US Geological Service (USGS). The second, which hit close to midday, reached 5.6.

“The temblors affected the northern Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, where residents were still trying to recover from the last deadly earthquake on May 20. That 6.0 magnitude disaster was one of the strongest quakes the country has seen in the last three years and shocked the area around Bologna, injuring 50 and leaving thousands homeless. Tuesday’s quakes were reportedly felt from Genoa to Venice and from Bolzano to Florence. Factories, churches and warehouses reportedly collapsed, with the cities of Modena, Brescia and Milan among the most affected.”

How Bilderberg and Other Powerful Groups Manipulate Us

rt.com wrote on May 29:

“Every time a Bilderberg Meeting takes place, important things happen. The last time they met in the US was an election year, 2008 – and the world got Obama. This year they’re back in the US: will they decide who the next president will be? When in 2008 they gathered from June 5 to 8 in Chantilly, Virginia – just a stone’s throw from… Washington DC – Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were neck-in-neck in the battle for the Democratic Party’s presidential candidacy. On June 5 of that year, Barack and Hillary mysteriously ‘disappeared’ for some hours ‘somewhere in the DC area.’ Their agendas blocked out, they clearly sneaked off to ‘Meet the Bilderbergers.’

“The media kept mum about that…  two days later, Hillary withdrew from the race and Obama became the presidential candidate. Did Bilderberg make Hillary ‘an offer she couldn’t refuse’ to clear the way for Obama to the White House? Did they promise her that she would become his Secretary of State?

“Although most Bilderberg annual meetings are held in Europe – France, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Denmark, England, Scotland, Norway – this US election year they’re again gathering at the Westfield Marriott Hotel in Virginia from May 30 to June 3. Either they’re very fond of that place… or of US elections… or both…

“We… saw George H. W. Bush attend their 1985 meeting, Bill Clinton attend their 1991 meeting, Tony Blair in 1993, and Romano Prodi, former head of the EU Commission, in 1999. So what exactly is Bilderberg? It’s neither an organization nor a lobby. The ‘Bilderberg Meetings’… is a ‘by-invitation-only’ club of around 140 very high-power people from business, finance, oil, politics, media, industry, academia and nobility who come together in a very private no-media / no cameras / extremely-tight-security surroundings…

“Though very high up on the Pyramid, Bilderberg is not the Global Elite’s power center. Rather, Bilderberg is a key group within a much more vast, more complex, less centralized, and highly effective Global Power Network… This includes such key entities as the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations (long-term geopolitical planners), its London-based sister entity Royal Institute of International Affairs (aka ‘Chatham House’), RAND Corp., CSIS, the American Enterprise Institute (strategic affairs specialists), Tavistock Institute in London (mass psychology research), the Carnegie Endowment, and the Trilateral Commission ‘umbrella’ entity (founded 1973 by Rockefeller / Morgan / Rothschild interests…)…

“It’s therefore no surprise to see that [Bilderberg’s] last year’s attendee list looks like a Who’s Who of banking, industrial and media CEO top brass: Deutsche Bank, HSBC, CitiCorp, European Central Bank, US Federal Reserve Bank, Lazard Frères, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Barclays, World Bank, Bank of Canada, AXA, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Fiat, Nestle, Novartis, Coca-Cola, Airbus, Eni, Telecom Italy, ExxonMobil, Alcoa, Marks & Spencer, Die Zeit, The Economist… European nobility regularly attend too: the Dutch Queen, the Spanish King and Queen, Norway’s Crown Prince… Interestingly, also in attendance are founders and top executives of giant Internet management and intelligence gathering companies as Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and Microsoft. Clearly, they run countries around the world, not voting citizens…”

The Digital Journal added on May 31:

“Starting today 150 of the world’s elite are meeting just outside Washington. Will they decide who to back as the next U.S. President? The agenda of the meeting is not available to the public, but much speculation is going around as to what the global elite will be discussing. Many people are wondering if the Bilderberg Conference is a place that decides the leaders in this world and many believe it is. Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush both apparently attended Bilderberg conferences in the years prior to election as President. Prior to becoming Prime Minister of England in 1997, Tony Blair was an attendee at the 1993 Bilderberg conference. Many believe that the 2004 conference decided 2008’s U.S. presidential election and rumors suggested that attending members backed Barack Obama for his future nomination at that year’s event.”

In its article of May 31, the Guardian confirmed the foregoing, strongly suggesting that the Bilderbergers decided on Bill Clinton and George W. Bush as the next Presidents.

It also stated: “As for this year’s election, rumours are already circulating about Bilderberg and presidential running mates, sparked off by a Washington Post report back in April on the matter of Republican senator Marco Rubio’s speech at the Summit of the Americas: ‘[John] Edwards gave a speech in June 2004 at the Bilderberg conference that was widely credited as one reason John Kerry chose him.’”

We may not be aware of worldwide activities of powerful secret groups, but that does not mean that they do not exist. In a revealing article in the German magazine “Wunderwelt Wissen,” which was published in May of 2012, the incredible and bizarre activities of the secret American organization “Skull and Bones,” which originates at the Yale University, were discussed (former President George W. Bush is a member of this group, and so is Democrat John Kerry). The same article also addressed other obscure groups, such as the Illuminati and the Bilderbergers.

Another German magazine, PM History, also ran an article in May of 2012, discussing the activities of the Free Masons. Most American Presidents belonged to that obscure, but powerful group, including George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt. So, the media knows about these secret groups, but generally omits to talk about them. As the article that was quoted above alleges, they may even be part of them. No wonder, then, that the media seems to manipulate the citizens in so many ways, by omitting to report important news, or by changing it when it does not fit their purposes.

Are U.S. Drone Attacks Christian, Moral and Legal?

The New York Times wrote on May 29:

“Mr. Obama has placed himself at the helm of a top secret ‘nominations’ process to designate terrorists for kill or capture, of which the capture part has become largely theoretical… Mr. Obama is the liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war and torture, and then insisted on approving every new name on an expanding ‘kill list’… When a rare opportunity for a drone strike at a top terrorist arises…  it is the president who has reserved to himself the final moral calculation.

“Nothing else in Mr. Obama’s first term has baffled liberal supporters and confounded conservative critics alike as his aggressive counterterrorism record… [It shows] a paradoxical leader who shunned the legislative deal-making required to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, but approves lethal action without hand-wringing…

“The administration’s failure to forge a clear detention policy has created the impression among some members of Congress of a take-no-prisoners policy… Beside the president at every step is… a priest whose blessing has become indispensable to Mr. Obama, echoing the president’s attempt to apply the ‘just war’ theories of Christian philosophers to a brutal modern conflict… Yet the administration’s very success at killing terrorism suspects has been shadowed by a suspicion: that Mr. Obama has avoided the complications of detention by deciding, in effect, to take no prisoners alive. While scores of suspects have been killed under Mr. Obama, only one has been taken into American custody, and the president has balked at adding new prisoners to Guantánamo…

“Justly or not, drones have become a provocative symbol of American power, running roughshod over national sovereignty and killing innocents. With China and Russia watching, the United States has set an international precedent for sending drones over borders to kill enemies.  Mr. Blair, the former director of national intelligence, [not to be confused with Britain’s Tony Blair] said the strike campaign was dangerously seductive. ‘It is the politically advantageous thing to do — low cost, no U.S. casualties, gives the appearance of toughness,’ he said. ‘It plays well domestically, and it is unpopular only in other countries. Any damage it does to the national interest only shows up over the long term.’

“But Mr. Blair’s dissent puts him in a small minority of security experts. Mr. Obama’s record has eroded the political perception that Democrats are weak on national security. No one would have imagined four years ago that his counterterrorism policies would come under far more fierce attack from the American Civil Liberties Union than from Mr. Romney.”

And that is a sad statement, indeed. And so is the following article:

US Drone Attacks Summary Executions and War Crimes?

The Guardian wrote on May 29:

“More than a decade after George W Bush launched it, the ‘war on terror’ was supposed to be winding down. US military occupation of Iraq has ended and Nato is looking for a way out of Afghanistan, even as the carnage continues. But another war – the undeclared drone war that has already killed thousands – is now being relentlessly escalated. From Pakistan to Somalia, CIA-controlled pilotless aircraft rain down Hellfire missiles on an ever-expanding hit list of terrorist suspects – they have already killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of civilians in the process.

“At least 15 drone strikes have been launched in Yemen this month, as many as in the whole of the past decade, killing dozens; while in Pakistan, a string of US attacks has been launched against supposed ‘militant’ targets in the past week, incinerating up to 35 people and hitting a mosque and a bakery.

“The US’s decision to step up the drone war again in Pakistan, opposed by both government and parliament in Islamabad as illegal and a violation of sovereignty, reflects its fury at the jailing of a CIA agent involved in the Bin Laden hunt and Pakistan’s refusal to reopen supply routes for Nato forces in Afghanistan. Those routes were closed in protest at the US killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers last November, for which Washington still refuses to apologise…

“In his first two years in office, the US president more than tripled the number of attacks in Pakistan alone. For their US champions, drones have the advantage of involving no American casualties, while targeting the ‘bad guys’… Since 2004, between 2,464 and 3,145 people are reported to have been killed by US drone attacks in Pakistan, of whom up to 828 were civilians (535 under Obama) and 175 children. Some Pakistani estimates put the civilian death toll much higher – plausibly, given the tendency to claim as ‘militants’ victims later demonstrated to be nothing of the sort.

“The US president insisted recently that the civilian death toll was not a ‘huge number’. Not on the scale of Iraq, perhaps, where hundreds of thousands were killed; or Afghanistan, where tens of thousands have died. But they gruesomely include dozens killed in follow-up attacks after they had gone to help victims of earlier strikes – as well as teenagers like Tariq Khan, a 16-year-old Pakistani boy decapitated in a strike last November after he had travelled to Islamabad to protest against drones.

‘These killings are, in reality, summary executions and widely regarded as potential war crimes by international lawyers – including the UN’s special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, Philip Alston. The CIA’s now retired counsel, John Rizzo, who authorised drone attacks, himself talked about having been involved in ‘murder’.

“A decade ago, the US criticised Israel for such ‘extrajudicial killings’ but now claims self-defence in the war against al-Qaida. These are attacks, however, routinely carried out on the basis of false intelligence, in countries such as Pakistan where no war has been declared and without the consent of the elected government… Of course, drone attacks are only one method by which the US and its allies deliver death and destruction in Afghanistan and the wider Middle East, from night raids and air attacks to killing sprees on the ground. The day after last Friday’s Houla massacre in Syria, eight members of one family were killed at home by a Nato air attack in eastern Afghanistan – one of many such atrocities barely registered in the western media.

“But while support for the war in Afghanistan has fallen to an all-time low in all Nato states, the drone war is popular in the US…”

Please view our latest StandingWatch program on the issue, titled, “Does God Approve of US Drone Attacks?”

The “Natural Born Citizen” Controversy

Politico wrote on May 29:

“During a phone interview from Las Vegas, [Donald] Trump defended his ongoing claims that Obama may not have been born in the United States, a charge that Mitt Romney has sought to distance himself from even as he courts Trump’s support. ‘Many people do not think [his birth certificate] was authentic,’ Trump said…”

Reuters reported on May 29:

“So on a day when real estate and media mogul Donald Trump was trying to help Mitt Romney by stirring up a new round of questions about whether Democratic President Barack Obama was born in the United States, Romney’s own birth record became a reminder that in the 1968 presidential campaign, his father had faced his own ‘birther’ controversy. Back then, George Romney – who died in 1995 – was a moderate who was challenging eventual President Richard Nixon in the Republican primaries.

“Records in a George Romney archive at the University of Michigan describe how questions about his eligibility to be president surfaced almost as soon as he began his short-lived campaign. In many ways, they appear to echo today’s complaints that Trump and some other conservative ‘birthers’ have made about Obama while questioning whether Obama – whose father was from Kenya and mother was from Kansas – was born in Hawaii.

“In George Romney’s case, most of the questions were raised initially by Democrats who cited the Constitution’s requirement that only a ‘natural born citizen’ can be president. As early as February 1967 – a year before the first 1968 presidential primary – some newspapers were raising questions as to whether George Romney’s place of birth disqualified him from the presidency.

“By May 1967, U.S. congressman Emmanuel Celler, a Democrat who chaired the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, was expressing ‘serious doubts’ about George Romney’s eligibility. The next month, another Democratic congressman inserted a lengthy treatise into the Congressional Record in which a government lawyer… argued that George Romney was ineligible for the White House because he was born outside U.S. territory.

“In what today might seem like deja vu, eminent legal authorities soon were queuing up to argue in favor of George Romney’s eligibility. The New York Law Journal published a lengthy argument by a senior partner from Sullivan & Cromwell, one of Manhattan’s elite law firms, arguing that the fact that both of George Romney’s parents were U.S. citizens clearly established him as a ‘natural born citizen’ who was eligible to be president.

“In a paper in November aimed at clarifying presidential eligibility, the Congressional Research Service declared that the practical, legal meaning of ‘natural born citizen’ would ‘most likely include’ not only anyone born on U.S. soil but anyone born overseas of at least one parent who was a U.S. citizen.”

It is interesting to us that in the case of George Romney, his eligibility was immediately questioned, whereas in the case of Barak Obama, this very issue was initially totally “ignored” or “overlooked.” The controversy on the eligibility of Barack Obama is not easily going away, even though the mainstream press would love to suppress it. To be fair, there are many different legal opinions as to the requirements of a “natural born citizen.”

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, wrote this:

“Status as a natural-born citizen of the United States is one of the eligibility requirements established in the United States Constitution for election to the office of President or Vice President. This requirement was an attempt to allay concerns that foreign aristocrats might immigrate to the new nation and use their wealth and influence to impose a monarchy. The Constitution does not define the phrase natural-born citizen, and various opinions have been offered over time regarding its precise meaning.

“A 2011 Congressional Research Service report stated: ‘The weight of legal and historical authority indicates that the term ‘natural born’ citizen would mean a person who is entitled to U.S. citizenship ‘by birth’ or ‘at birth,’ either by being born ‘in’ the United States and under its jurisdiction, even those born to alien parents; by being born abroad to U.S. citizen-parents; or by being born in other situations meeting legal requirements for U.S. citizenship ‘at birth.’ Such term, however, would not include a person who was not a U.S. citizen by birth or at birth, and who was thus born an ‘alien’ required to go through the legal process of ‘naturalization’ to become a U.S. citizen.

“The natural-born-citizen clause has been mentioned in passing in several decisions of the United States Supreme Court and lower courts dealing with the question of eligibility for citizenship by birth, but the Supreme Court has never directly addressed the question of a specific presidential or vice-presidential candidate’s eligibility as a natural-born citizen.”

In 2 Thessalonians 2:3 there is a falling away (“apostasia”) mentioned, which is defined by Strong’s Hebrew and Greek Dictionaries (G646) as “defection from the truth, falling away, forsake.”  This verse is in the section of Scripture (2 Thessalonians 2:1-4), which reads as follows in its entirety:
 
“Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ had come. Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.”
 
The context of these verses is interesting. This is talking about a falling away from the truth, and it is the only place in the Bible where the word “apostasia” is used. The apostle Paul is addressing “brethren” (verse 1) about an apostasy especially at the end time, as “the man of sin” is also mentioned who is to reveal himself during the very last days, and who will sit in the temple of God and pretend to be God himself. This strongly indicates that the Jews will build a temple in Jerusalem prior to Christ’s return, where they will bring sacrifices, and that the man of sin or the false prophet will occupy the temple for a while, when the armies of the beast power will occupy the city of Jerusalem and suppress the daily sacrifices. All of this will be fulfilling aspects of Christ’s end time warning that the abomination of desolation will be set up or standing at the holy place, where it should not be (Matthew 24:15; Mark 13:14).
 
It is correct, of course, that an apostasy from the true gospel already began during the lifetime of Paul, when he stated that he marvelled that so many in the Church of God had turned to another gospel (Galatians 1:6-7). But Paul’s warning, taken as a whole, is not about others who did not or do not have the truth, but he is addressing those who had learned it and who would nevertheless “fall away” or leave their own beliefs behind and go off in a different direction.
 
It is therefore clear that any revival of orthodox Christianity, including a revival of the Roman Catholic Church, the Greek and Russian Orthodox Church or the different Protestant churches (as mentioned in Revelation 13 and 17), is not in any way to be viewed as being an aspect of the end-time apostasy or falling away from true biblical teaching.

How can orthodox Christianity “fall away” from biblical beliefs that they do not accept in the first place, and have never accepted? For instance, the Catholic and Protestant churches have rejected, for nearly two millennia, the weekly Sabbath and the annual Holy Days. The Roman Catholic Church has stated that they had the authority to change the Sabbath day. James Cardinal Gibbons wrote in his book “The Faith of our Fathers”, 88th ed., p. 89:   “But you may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday.  The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify.”   Further, The Catholic Mirror stated in 1893:  “The Catholic Church, . . . by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday.”   There are many other admissions along these lines, and so it is a dogmatic statement which will not change.

The Protestant Church, even though they officially rejected and still reject the authority of the Catholic Church to change the teachings of the Bible, nevertheless followed the lead of the Catholic Church and adopted Sunday worship, while rejecting the Sabbath. Martin Luther himself declared that the Bible teaches the observance of the Sabbath, agreeing with the Waldenses who insisted at the time that the Sabbath must be kept, but he concluded that one should instead continue the observance of Sunday, as to avoid an unnecessary uproar. Other Protestant “reformers” such as Calvin understood that Easter is a pagan holiday, which is not enjoined in Scripture, but which the Catholic Church adopted from pagans who kept this day in honour of pagan gods. The goal was to  bring those pagans into the fold of the Catholic Church. However, these same Protestant “reformers” did not feel it necessary to abrogate Easter observance.

The food or dietary laws are ignored and nominal Christians are permitted to eat just about any abomination one can imagine, and the correct way of tithing is something that they have never believed in. At the same time, a false concept of God is being taught, where He is misrepresented as a Trinity—One Person in Three Persons—while the Bible clearly rejects such absurd doctrine. The list could go on and on, but suffice to say that orthodox Christianity could not be part of an end time “apostasia”, because they never had the truth in the first place from which to renege, and they most certainly do not have the truth today.
 
In Galatians 1:8-9, we are instructed in no uncertain terms to preach only the truth: “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.  As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.”
 
The true Church of God has always been a “little flock”.  Jesus said in Luke 12:32: “Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”   The history of the Church of God has shown, down through the centuries, that it has always been a little flock, whilst the Roman Catholic Church has grown to a membership of around a billion people.   The rest of the professing Christian world is about another one billion people, many of whom are nominal members.
 
It must be remembered that “a falling away” doesn’t have to be millions of people.   It is a falling away from a small flock, which the Church of God has always been, and therefore, numerically, won’t be millions of people. The “falling away” is only in connection with where the truth is and has been preached – and that is in the Church of God. We should also note that the Bible does not use the term, “great” falling away.
 
Paul’s warning for us today is therefore very sobering: Even though a falling away did undoubtedly take place at the time when a new administration came to power in the Worldwide Church of God, after the death of its human leader, Herbert Armstrong, in 1986, the apostasy from the truth within the Church of God will continue. As many fell away from the truth then, so many will still fall away in the future.
 
Many of us may remember that in the Worldwide Church of God, many things were changed, but the official explanation was that it was just another way of explanation or a “clarification.” That should be sufficient warning for all of us to be very careful, and check up on what the Bible actually says, rather than following any individual’s personal interpretations.
 
The reason for the ongoing apostasy, which will culminate just prior to Christ’s return, is clearly explained in 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12:
 
“The coming of the lawless one [the man of sin, mentioned in verse 3] is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the LOVE of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them [allow them to receive] strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”
 
There is also a warning about those who are always wanting to hear something new. In 2 Timothy 4:3 we read the following prophecy: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers.”   Others teach falsely that the Church of God does not need any true ministers.
 
And so, we have been warned not to be deceived. We must heed the warning, lest we fall away from God’s Church and God’s truth.
 
Lead Writers: Brian Gale (Great Britain) and Norbert Link

A new StandingWatch program was recorded and posted on YouTube and our website (www.standingwatch.org), titled, “Does God Approve of US Drone Attacks?” Are US drone attacks moral, Christian and legal, or do they violate biblical standards and constitute potential war crimes? The New York Times reported on May 29 that a priest blesses President Obama’s decisions to launch such deadly drone attacks. While the drone war remains popular in the US, it is being condemned in most other countries, as the British paper, The Guardian, reports on May 29. It is estimated that hundreds, if not thousands of civilians and children were killed in the process, but the facts and circumstances of such atrocities are rarely mentioned in the Western press. The drone war has been described by concerned Americans as “dangerously seductive,” and it is feared that its damage will show up in the long run. But it may not be that long.

We are planning to broadcast soon on radio the audio portion of this program.

A new German AufPostenStehen program was posted on YouTube and on our German website (www.aufpostenstehen.de) titled, “Die Verteufelung des Guenther Grass” (“The Demonization of Guenther Grass”).

Norbert Link’s most recent video-taped sermon, “God’s Gracious Gifts,” which was recorded on May 26, 2012, was posted on YouTube and our website (www.standingwatch.org).

A new German sermon was posted on YouTube and on our German website (www.aufpostenstehen.de), titled, “Gesetz und Gnade” (“Law and Grace”).

A reminder for those wishing to attend the Feast of Tabernacles with us for 2012–please review details posted on our website under the “FEASTS” heading. Our locations for this year are Pismo Beach, California, and Deganwy, North Wales.