American spring perspectives for 2017

An American spring perspective for the time that is almost 2000 years from the Lord’s resurrection!

The actions of President Donald Trump are making people wonder what comes after his first 100 days. Will he put tens of thousand of ground troops in Syria and get us involved in another ground war? Will more of America’s finest come back in body bags for no good reason? Will Trump bomb North Korea and get us in a war with them?

Will president Trump dump the conservatives and move toward the establishment and neo-con worldview? What will Donald Trump do? I do not think anyone has a clue. Trump started good but even before the first 100 days were over he is flippant over his flip-flopping.

In spite of Trump saying that he would not put troops on the ground in Syria, it appears that he is doing so. There are well over 1000 military already on the ground and thousands more are on the way. There are credible reports that the Trump administration is preparing to put tens of thousands of American troops in Syria. Be aware that most of our foreign wars started with a small force. Then mission creep began and the numbers kept increasing. If America uses its forces in Syria to try to overthrow Assad, America would get into a proxy war with Russia and Iran. That could very well be the start of World War III.

The cruise missile attack in Syria and the dropping of America’s largest conventional bomb (MOAB) seems all by design to send a message to North Korea. Kim-Jong-un is obviously planning for a nuclear test somewhere around Kim Il-sung’s birthday in mid April. Nobody knows what Kim-Jong-un will do or what Donald Trump will do. Will Trump use the mother of all conventional bombs to blow out the birthday celebration?  Will Kim-loon then start all out war on South Korea? With Trump in the White House, I don’t think this Jong-un should be making any big plans for his own 34th birthday.

For strategic reasons no preemptive attack on North Korea would occur before America has three aircraft carriers withing striking distance. Three aircraft carriers are on the way to be in that area next week.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (also known in Iran as The Monkey) is running for president again in their May election. It would be fitting for Ahmadinejad to win. Then when he once again shoots off his big mouth about destroying Israel and America, Trump could fill it with a MOAB.

Turkey today voted to make Erdogan their dictator. Turkey has designs to take back what they lost as a result of World War I. That war changed the borders in the Middle East. Er-dog-an wants a greater empire. He wants most of Syria to be part of Turkey. This is likely to be a major factor in the coming world war. There will be a war in the last days over control of the Middle East. I think Turkey, Iran the Saudis and Egypt will become major players in this world war. Keep in mind that the Muslim Brotherhood is behind Erdogan and Egypt is at war with the Muslim Brotherhood. Iran hates Sunni nations and wants Syria for itself. The Saudis hate Iran and Shiites and want control of the Middle East.

When all these powers do their best to destroy each other, Israel can just waltz into their full promised land without major resistance. Is this how the false Messiah of Israel begins to gain fame and how Israel gains border security? It should get interesting.

There are Presidential elections in France in April and May. There are four candidates with enough support to still be in the running. Two of the candidates that get the most votes in April will have a runoff in May. Nobody has a clue who will be in the runoff because the polls indicate that it is a four-way toss-up. If Melenchon wins, France is doomed to even worse socialism. If Le Pen wins, she promises to take France out of the EU and to stop the Muslim invasion. The other two candidates that still have a chance are more centralist. I believe that Le Pen will be one of the two finalists but then the establishment will make sure that the fix is in for whomever opposes her.

Surprise surprise! Trump is being influenced by New York liberals. You can’t say that Ted Cruz did not warn you about that in the primaries. The Trump White House is increasingly under control of his daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner.

Nepotism is against the law in our federal government for darn good reason. Trump apparently does not see a problem with it. What are the qualifications of his daughter and son-in-law to run roughshod over the experts and to determine what information gets to the President? Trump can lose his whole base if this continues. Trump’s downfall might come as the result of having too much confidence in his own family.

Ivanka and Jared Kushner are elitist Democrats and they think and advise like such. The emotional response of Ivanka was the reason that Donald Trump took the cruise missile action against the airfield in Syria. Jared Kushner is acting like he is Secretary of State, Chief of Staff, and National Security Advisor all rolled into one. Everything goes through Kushner to get to the president. Those selected by Trump to do these jobs are getting frustrated by the White House nepotism. Trump needs to tell his daughter and son-in-law to go mind their own businesses. And he better do it before Melania moves into the White House this summer. I am sure that Melania is already tired of being second lady to Ivanka. I think conservatives will have lost the White House for good if Gary Cohn (Former CEO of Goldman Sax and a democrat) becomes Chief of Staff and Steve Bannon leaves,

On the ongoing religious apostasy, ten years ago, I warned about Hank Hanegraaff’s theology. That article is the third most downloaded post on my old blog. Hanegraaff is known as “the Bible answer man”. He is all over Christian radio. He is the head of the Christian Research Institute (CRI) founded by Dr. Walter Martin. I posted that article because Hanegraaff was coming up with wrong answers on theology. Hanegraaff started using his media platform to attack premillennial dispensational theology. Hanegraaff was denying that any future Bible prophecy would be fulfilled on earth. Hank Hanegraaff said he was a preterist. He started teaching that all prophecy for Israel was fulled by 70 AD.

Now, ten years later, Hanegraaff becomes a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church. He attacked those teaching premillennial Bible prophecy but he has no problem joining with a denomination that teaches prayer to the saints, a clerical priesthood, and confession of sins to those priests. Eastern Orthodox Catholicism teaches that every Christian needs to receive divine grace through keeping the sacraments of baptism, the Holy Eucharist, and confession of sins before a priest.

Eastern Orthodox says that the elements of bread and wine not only carry the Grace of God, as a mysterion, but are “changed” into and “are” the very Body and the very Blood of Christ, being a propitiatory sacrifice. They claim that the Chrismation of a newly baptized person is the confirmation of his faith which is “the seal of the gift of the Holy Ghost.”  In other words, they add their own religion to what the scripture teach. but still say that their religion is the apostolic truth. They are keepers of their traditions rather than keepers of the gospel given.

In his radio program, Hanegraaff liked to tell people which teaching were or were not within the pale of Christian orthodoxy. Now he puts a new meaning on his statement about Christian orthodoxy.

The Bible answer man has converted to a religion that adds and takes away from the gospel of salvation. Wise Bible teachers have said that those with wrong Eschatology also get other theologies incorrect. Hank Hanegraaff just proved their point. I suppose that the “Bible answer man” will now lose some of his following, as he should.  At 67 it may be time for Hanegraaff to retire from CRI before he misleads many more people in his old age. He can go out the way he came in. You can read about some of the other issues about Hanegraaff and CRI on the Apologetics Index.

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Comments

American spring perspectives for 2017 — 39 Comments

  1. Hi Don ,
    From the beginning I have had serious concerns about Trump, although I always thought he was a better choice than Hillary. Not that I have any reason to believe the media , but if their reporting is even in the ballpark The White House Staff is a disaster on their good days. I think it is just a wild guess what Trump may do about Syria. We should stay out of it and have no troops there.
    It is sometimes difficult to believe Trump is a rational person. I agree with you that Kushner and Ivanka have no business in any position of influence or authority. It will be interesting to see if Steve Bannon survives the turmiol. It is difficult to know if Kim-Jong-un is rational person or just wants publicity to soothe his ego. I consider him dangerous and have wondered why China has not come down on him hard about his behavior . Hank Hannegraaff is not even worth a comment . With Trump you never know what comes next , he should stay off Twitter.Things could get interesting or even scary. I know it’s a long way off , but I can’t see Trump being re elected unless his way of doing things changes . I will not surprise me if Trump gets impeached,
    I’d rather have Mike Pence anyway . Resurrection Blessing to You !!!!!!!

  2. Hi Don,
    With regard to a certain radio ministry, I remember many years ago when he attacked Chuck Missler.
    I need to say that I had listened to every commentary of every book of the Bible that Chuck had done over the years and also virtually every two tape topical study that he had done. As a result of that, I feel that I know Chuck’s heart. I love the man and his ministry. His fruit is very good. I am not saying he never erred, but over many years he was spot on and in love with the Word of God, and he is a man of humility. On the other hand, I listened occasionally to a certain one’s ministry from time to time and I did not have the same appreciation for his work and my estimation of him was not so good.

    I will never forget when Chuck was being attacked, how he handled it. I don’t think he mentioned his attacker by name, but it was obvious to me who he was speaking of because I knew the situation.
    What Chuck did, was go to Psalms 41: 9-13
    “Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me. 10 But Thou, O Lord, be merciful unto me, and raise me up, that I may requite them. 11 By this I know that Thou favourest me, because mine enemy doth not triumph over me.
    12 And as for me, Thou upholdest me in mine integrity, and settest me before Thy face for ever.
    13 Blessed be the LORD God of Israel from everlasting, and to everlasting. Amen, and Amen.”

    Chuck has been a huge help to me in my Christian walk with his expositional commentaries and topical studies. Can I hear an Amen from anyone?
    Best,
    Don Palmer

  3. Hi Don Palmer

    Amen, I have a number of Missler’s DVD’s on the Bible. I highly recommend that Christian’s get his Learn the Bible in 24 Hours DVD.

  4. Firefighters for Christ have most everything he’d done in his earlier years, and it’s all free. Yes, Learn the Bible in 24 Hours is an excellent resource. Years ago I offered a copy of it to my pastor. Got a strange look for him. In retrospect, he probably took it as a rebuke on his teaching. Not my intention, and it wasn’t, but, oh well.

  5. Hi all,

    I agree, Trumps daughter and pencilnecked geek husband should NOT be in the Whitehouse, and definitely Not be advising, or filtering information to Trump. Twitter had a field day when News and pictures got out about Kushners trip to Iraq. But, at the same time, news about Kushners security clearance paperwork neglecting to include HIS recent contact/meeting with the Russian Ambassador, I think, and or other high Official’s. This is a felony to lie about things for the security clearance. For that alone, he should be ejected from the Whitehouse, and his clearance revoked immediately.

    As for Hanegraaff, I stopped listening to him over ten years ago, because even then he would say things I either knew were wrong, or strongly suspected. But, I think the final straw was when I was studying the subject and found him knee deep in it. I liken Preterist to contortionist, for all the twisting they do to make their Point’s.

    Well, we sure do live in interesting times. It’s the box of chocolates left by Forest Gump, every day.

  6. Hi Doug,

    Pastors could learn a lot from “Learn the Bible in 24 Hours”. I was a believer for over thirty years and I learned things from it. I then played the DVD at a home group over about 48 weeks and they liked it. It contains over 48 hours of teaching by Missler.

  7. Hmm…

    With Er-dog-an, Mahmoud Imanutjob, Kim Jong-loon, and ASSad,

    It seems we have the Moe, Larry, Curly, and Shem of hate and trouble nominations for the month in place.

    As far as Hanegraaff, I hope the astute Christian doesn’t bother giving him any of their time…I watched John Haller dig into the apostasy of Hanegraaff this weekend also in Haller’s ‘Weekend Prophecy Update’.

  8. Chuck Misslers, “Learn The Bible In 24 Hours” is available for free on YouTube now and has been remastered.

    I, too, got a lot out of it…I consider LTBI24H a great foundational teaching tool.

  9. Other internet sources say Kim Jong Un’s birthday is January 8, not mid-April. True, not true? I enjoy reading your perspective on the Times, Don. Thanks!

  10. Hi Lara,

    You are correct and Jan 8th is correct date for Kim’s birthday. I was looking at an article published around his birthday thinking that it was talking about what they are celebrating in North Korea this month. I will fix it. Apparently Kim-Jong-un celebrated the birthday of Kim Il-sung on April 15th (the first communist dictator who brought about the Korean war). It is biggest holiday in North Korea.

  11. Chuck Missler’s Learn The Bible in 24 hours is available FREE from Firefighters for Christ on CD ROM . They have 2 chapters : Chapter # 1 E -Mail firefightersforchrist@cox.net ,Phone (949)470 – 9883, Chapter#2 E – Mail order@firefighters.org Phone # (949) 600 – 6025 .You can e -mail either chapter and ask for it , they will send it send it to you FREE. There are 2500 messages on MP3 you can listen too on their website. firefighters.org You can also download MP3 messages to your computer.

  12. I neglected to mention in my previous post that the CD ROM of Learn The Bible in 24 hours by Chuck Missler avaiable FREE from Firefighters for Christ also contains The E – Sword Bible Software . http://www.firefighters.org is the website . See previous post for e – mail addresses and phone numbers .

  13. What I found on the Syrian deployment issue:

    After Trump gave the Pentagon 30 days to present a plan to defeat ISIS Mattis and Vogel gave the WH an outline for a plan.

    The original plan was to abolish the troop caps put in place by the Obama admin. and increase deployment of U.S. troops as advisers to the Kurdish and Arab fighters. But not by tens of thousands.

    It’s McMasters who wants to send 50.000 troops to Syria. Mattis, Vogel and Bannon oppose it and Trump said it was not his strategy.

    Some are betting McMasters will get it his way. Maybe we should lay this on the democrats for getting rid of Flynn.

  14. Hi Caitlin,

    The democrats might have set him up but Trump fell for it and it was Trump that got rid of Flynn. Flynn probably would have had to go anyway because of what Flynn did not disclose. I think McMasters was a bad choice but Trump’s first good choice did not want to give up his present employment for a short term NSA appointment in the District of Criminals.

  15. Trump needs to get back on track with his promises or he will be a one term president.

    With regards to Syria, I am still not sure how a feel about our strike and the likelihood of further intervention. One part of me says that we should not be involved at all since we were never attacked. The other part of me says that if the war continues, Iran could gain a greater foothold and Israel could be put at a disadvantage. In the end I see it all working out God’s way.

  16. Hi Don,

    Your response to my comment is true. It doesn’t seem to matter which news article I read it all points to corruption deeper than I think anyone can clean up. I wonder if some of Trump’s appointees have deceived him in order to get the job then they promote their own agenda. I do keep in mind that the POTUS is a man and of course will make some bad moves during his term.

    Hi Doug,

    Trump does play Art of the Deal. From the outside it looks like flip-flopping and extremism-until he gets everyone lined up where he wants them. He’s different.

  17. don, what do u think about henry gruver? i keep reading alot about him having visions about how russia will nuke america with submarines. he seems like a man of god and says he had alot of visions in his early life too… i dont know what to think of him

  18. Don: Thanks for the Learn the Bible in 24 Hours recommendation. While I’ve only watched the first half hour so far, it’s been really interesting and has me thinking about things I’ve never thought about before.

  19. Hi 126cardinal,

    Henry Gruver has been dead for quite some time. Some still like to say he was a prophet just because he claimed being given a prophecy about America being invaded by Russia, China and Mexico. The things he said were said in the height of the cold war over thirty years ago. He obviously is a false prophet.

    Every time tensions increase between Russia some people pull out the Gruver narrative. Just like every time the economy looks like it is heading for a downturn some pull out the David Wilkerson narrative. There are some people that will not ever give up on the false prophets that they follow because they believe anybody “annointed” calling themselves Christians and giving a prophecy have to be telling something that they are hearing from God. The fact is that it is nothing but the presumptions of their own mind.

    Stick with the prophecies given in the Bible. There is not one so called church prophet in modern times that ever proved to be reliable

  20. Hi Gage,

    Yep, Learn the Bible in 24 hours is full of information and is very interesting. I think people that absorb this Misler teaching will know more about the Bible and the plan of God for the Church than 90 percent of people calling themselves Christians.

  21. oh geez yea ill stay away from people like these, thats why i always come here first to ask and get the truth.

  22. Hi Don,

    Thank you for another very informative post. I am not a resident of the U.S.A. so it’s good to get a perspective on what’s going on that is not tainted with the MSM agenda.

    I first came across Hank Hanegraaff through one of your articles and so was made aware of his aberrant theology. He has influenced a lot of churches, though, including a Baptist one that I used to attend. The entrenched leaders held a preterist view and quickly got rid of their new minister when he started preaching dispensational, pre-millennial theology from the pulpit. (I only found about the preterist views of the hierarchy after the minister’s removal but his being stood down suddenly made sense.)

    Jan Markell from Olive Tree Ministries posted an article on his conversion and one of the commenters to the article staunchly defended him, calling his critics “judgmental” and using the good old Matthew 7:1 verse to silence those who believed he was off track.

    Turns out his supporter had converted to Roman Catholicism, from having been raised an Evangelical Protestant, and felt Mr. Hanegraaff had finally found Jesus in a real way (as they said they had through the RC church and its sacraments).
    Having been raised a Roman Catholic before getting saved as an adult, I felt like replying to the lady but could tell she was not open to others’ views.
    Her having found Jesus in “a real way” was described in experiential language, which made me realise how important it is to line up our spiritual experiences against the Word. I am not decrying all spiritual experiences, as I do believe the gifts still operate, but so many people are deceived by positive feelings these days into believing they are having a “Godly encounter.”

    A few people asked her how she lined up various Catholic teachings with the Word but she pushed these concerns aside by referring back to the richness of spiritual experience she had found. A kind of, “if it feels good it must be right,” philosophy.

    Learn the Bible in 24 hours is a wonderful tool. I watched it many years ago and, now that I’ve been reminded of it, am considering buying it for my young-adult children, who are beginning to want to search the Scriptures for themselves.

    Again, thanks for all the info., Don.

    P.S. I think Henry Gruver is still alive.

  23. Hi Rose,

    Guess you are correct, I was mixing up Henry Gruver with Dumitru Duduman they were saying pretty much the same thing. They are false prophet birds of the same feather that hatched over thirty years ago.

  24. Don, Speaking of Missler, I recently watched his commentary on the Nephillim and the Magog Invasion. Very enlightening. I found one simple phrase he highlighted by the Iranian parliament brow-raising. Their oath so to speak, “Death to America, death to Israel”. Missler annotated the order of the phrase. First America, Then Israel.

    Of course he then went into detail about the EMP affect and how the Iranians seemed to rehearse firing missiles from container ships into the atmosphere above a target. Scary stuff, and this broadcast was probably from the mid 00’s.

    Another note was his prediction that Turkey would return to their Islamic roots and abandon attempts at gaining EU membership. I think we can see today how that may be happening with Erdogan’s ascension to dictator.

    Anyway it’s a great watch if anyone is interested, and I too will be watching the 24 hr Bible segment.

  25. Hi Don,
    Please forgive, this is off topic but could you tell me if you have a post covering preterism and what heading it would be under? If not could you recommend one? My Sunday school teacher is starting a “series” on the “past fulfillment” of the Oliver Discourse. I AM NOT in agreement but would like hear your understanding of it.

  26. Hi Teresa,

    I have an email address for questions like this. The best way to find out about what I have written anywhere on my website is to go to my website homepage and type in the keyword or keywords in the search box near the bottom of the homepage.

    I have not written much on Preterism but others have. I refer people in the following post to an expert on Preterism.

    http://www.thepropheticyears.com/wordpress/a-brilliant-defense-against-steve-greggs-preterism-from-dr-norman-l-geisler.html

  27. I’ve now gotten through the first six hours of the 24 hour bible study and have learned a wealth of things that I never learned in school or sermons at church. One thing that’s been sticking out to me, and I never fully realized it until watching this, is how, as Missler says, “the New Testament is in the Old Testament concealed and the Old Testament is in the New Testament revealed”. “Christians” who put down the Bible before studying it (and opening their hearts to the details of it) do not realize just how intricately connected the Old and New Testaments are, and how much they mirror each other. Missler has sparked my interest in further studying these many intricacies that I never learned about or noticed during my personal studies. I am hooked! I can’t wait to watch the rest of the series, and I also highly recommend people who haven’t seen it to watch it and learn from it. Thanks again Don! It also makes me realize just how much my church is missing when it comes to these intricacies and the details of the rapture and second coming.

  28. So many people (Christians especially) are deceived by Trump, mainly because he says he’s a Christian, yet he never repents, there are videos of him on Youtube saying he never asks for forgiveness. And also his pastor is Norman Vincent Peale, which this guy has a Wikipedia page as a Freemason.

    And they’re told to tell the public they worship a god, but not our God. Here is what Albert Pike , one of the top elite Freemason said “That which we must say to the crowd is, we worship a god, but it is the god one adores without superstition. To you sovereign grand inspector general, we say this and you may repeat it to the brethren of the 32nd, 31st and 30th degrees – the Masonic religion should be by all of us initiates of the high degrees, maintained in the purity of the luciferian doctrine.

    If lucifer were not god, would Adonay (the God of the Christians) whose deeds prove cruelty, perfidy and hatred of man, barbarism and repulsion for science, would Adonay and His priests, calumniate Him?

    Yes, lucifer is god, and unfortunately Adonay is also God, for the eternal law is that there is no light without shade, no beauty without ugliness, no white without black, for the absolute can only exist as two gods. darkness being necessary for light to serve as its foil, as the pedestal is necessary to the statue, and the brake to the locomotive.

    Thus, the doctrine of Satanism is heresy, and the true and pure philosophical religion is the belief in lucifer, the equal of Adonay, but lucifer, god of light and god of good, is struggling for humanity against Adonay, the god of darkness and evil” .

    This guy talks about so much more. of course you to take it with a grain of salt. But anyways this is just to expose Trump.

  29. Other than Trump’s​ belief in positive thinking like Peale I do not think there is any Mason connection.

    The Mason’s and Satin do stand truth on it’s head.

  30. Hey Tibs,

    I just approved your comments I also can ban you. Trump is not a Mason. If everyone we’re guilty by some sort of association with a Mason most of us would be guilty.

  31. That is totally fine if you ban me, all I wanted is to spread the word. Why do you think he’s not a Mason? Do you think he’s a true Christian? Someone who does not repent, looks very bad in God’s eyes. A true Christian stands for that. I am not arguing, I truly just want to know why you don’t believe he’s not a Mason. You may change my mind, I’m open minded.

  32. Hmm ok. Well I respect your opinion. To each their own. But I do enjoy your content btw.