Compass Point and Current News
Revelation 1:3 Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near.
Revelation is a book you do not want to ignore. We do so at our own peril. Verse one says it is the "revelation of Jesus Christ" which tells us it is His words, the same as any recorded in the gospels, and therefore profitable for teaching and instruction.
To read and to hear these words puts us in the future where Christ is, awaiting the culmination of this age and the dawning of the new world experience of the Kingdom of God.
Read, hear and keep. These are the watchwords for the book. The challenge is in hearing properly what Christ is saying and then keeping them in the right spirit and intent. I admit to a lifelong fascination with Revelation. Today I read the book more from a practical application to daily life in a complex and challenging world.
I am less interested in the numbers and symbols. Numbers are vague and subjective. The symbols are pretty easy to understand. But the layer of instruction that instructs a Christian how to live in the time of the end is fascinating for me right now.
Christ is teaching and telling us a great deal at this moment about our world. He is showing us how to respond to His lead in the church, the spiritual body, He leads and directs. The "time is near" and now is, for us to look at this book with fresh eyes and a renewed heart.
Sarkozy Articles
A lot of article out there about the French election of Nicholas Sarkozy. True, he says he wants to improve French/American relations. That is helpful. But Monsieur Sarkozy will have his hands full with French entitlement and social unrest when he tinkers with benefits. Look for more riots.
This article by Mark Steyn cites the exodus of French talent to London...
Somewhere between 400,000 and 500,000 French citizens live in Britain's capital. London is now the world's seventh-largest French-speaking city.
These are young talented dynamic people who like the same things about France the British and American tourists do -- the vin, the cuisine, the couture, the Provencal farmhouses and the Cote d'Azur's topless beaches -- but have concluded it is no longer a society in which you can fulfill your economic potential. They would presumably be Sarkozy supporters, but, like many who feel the odds are stacked against them, they chose in the end to bail out.
As for those who remain, they're sick of crime and unemployment and on the whole could do with rather fewer Muslims on the streets, but they're not yet willing to give up on the economic protectionism and lavish social programs that lead, inexorably, to the crime and unemployment and a general economic and demographic decline that leave the nation dependent on mass immigration and accelerating Islamization.
The Realignment of America
This article by Michael Barone is tedious-it deals with demographics- but it shows the population trends in America. Quite revealing about where immigrants are moving and where Americans are fleeing.
Report Card on the Bush Admin
You will see more articles like this over the next 20 months reamining in the Bush administration. This one seems even handed. I wonder at the truth of the polls taken today-just how many Americans are against the conduct of the war? I think by August we will have a clearer picture of how effective the surge has been.
