Letter to Pastors - June 16, 2010

June 16, 2010
 
Dear Preachers:
 
I am recouping, readjusting, and reading, here at home, as I make preparations to leave for Texas a week from Friday. From there, I will go to Arkansas, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, and on to Pennsylvania.

My "brilliant" Jewish friend, Retired Major General Joseph Doriel, with whom I was privileged to meet on most recent Givati Brigade Family Celebration trip, sent the below article to me. It is an excellent synopsis of our predicament!

Obama administration conflicted about relying on BP to stop gulf oil spill
By Karen Tumulty and Steven Mufson
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/24/AR2010052404071_pf.html
 
The ecological disaster developing in the Gulf of Mexico threatens to spread, while at the same time exposing President Obama's style and political methods. According to the Washington Post , Obama is furious with British Petroleum about the flow of oil into the Gulf, but continues to present himself to the media as being in control of the situation.
 
The Post reports that Obama is becoming more and more tight-lipped in his media briefings . . .
 
[JAV opinion- Obama was the Post’s baby while running. Pray they’ll continue to write "the truth" as this is about our Muslim-Marxist-Socialist occupying the White House!]
 
Obama's predicament is not very different from that of the sorcerer's apprentice who tries to control forces greater than he. Having implemented his liberal-green policy of prohibiting the drilling of oil on land and on the continental shelf (for ecological reasons), he left the vilified oil companies with no choice but to drill further away and at dangerous depths, in this case at a depth of more than 1.5 kilometers below sea level, at the limits of technological know how.
 
Obama ignores the human tragedy of 11 fatalities in the gas explosion that occurred in the off-shore drilling rig.
 
What bothers him is the threat the oil spill might have on his ambitious agenda and public
image.
 
His orders and his threats, and his apparent assumption of responsibility – of not limiting the oil companies sufficiently (meaning that now he will limit them more) - cannot contain the leak. But what they can do is bring on further damage: oil price increases, the impaired functioning of the oil companies, and the setting up of another corrupt bureaucratic control system.
 
Control and threats by the administration have never solved a technological or economic problem. They didn't repair a single clutch in the cars of Toyota, the previous corporate victim of the administration's anger. Threats won't plug the oil leak, either.
 
What is needed are free-working and innovative engineers and businesspeople, promoting technology and knowledge.
 
The preliminary signs of Obama's belligerent mode of operation were evident to anyone who was prepared to observe reality. About two years ago the young senator Obama joyously declared that his nomination as the Democratic Party's candidate for the presidency indicates the moment at which "the planet begins to heal" and "the rise in the oceans begins to slow."
 
Today, two years after he commanded the oceans to recede and started revitalizing the planet, we can see the results of this amazing arrogance as we find ourselves surrounded by demons that have escaped from their lair, like the oil spill, which typifies the policy of President Obama, the sorcerer's apprentice.
 
The steps he took against the large corporations are just one manifestation of his agenda.
 
In the first week of June 2010, we have seen Obama support the removal of the ambiguity surrounding Israel's nuclear policy, and allow the dragging of Israel to the butcher's block of the organization of dictators known as the United Nations.
 
Instead of shutting down this corrupt organization and draining the swamp in which it dwells, as a first step for creating in its stead an organization that unites the free, peace-seeking countries, Obama, the revolutionary idealist, prefers the idea of equality and multiculturalism, for the sake of which he is prepared to sacrifice the freedom and security of freedom-lovers everywhere.
 
One of Obama's first acts in the White House was to remove the sculpture of Winston Churchill from the Oval Room. This was a symbolic gesture by someone who wished to distance the values of liberty and freedom from his administration, and someone who, facing danger in the future, would implement the policies of Chamberlain.
 
Instead of fighting America's enemies, Obama is turning America into a country of their ilk, depleting it economically and cutting off its productive juices, destroying its large defense projects, increasing the public debt to astronomic proportions, and punishing Americans for being the freest nation in the world, while at the same time apologizing to third-world dictators.
 
This dangerous ideology, accompanied by the humiliation of and harm done to America's allies, including Israel and Great Britain, will only help to consolidate the "the axes of evil" in the Middle East, South America and Asia.
 
Some of Obama's supporters, albeit very late in the game, have already drawn their own conclusions. Haim Saban, one of the Democratic Party's biggest financial supporters, recently described Obama as someone who identifies ideologically with the extreme left, and expressed criticism of the Obama administration's hostile attitude towards Israel.
 
Obama is executing by the book what his friends who chose an academic career are teaching: anti-Americanism from the doctrines of Marx, Marcuse and William Ayers. As this ideology becomes policy, the government turns into that of the angry crowds. And "when the massesare hungry, " as the philosopher
José Ortega y Gasset said "they destroy the bakeries".
 
When this conduct becomes the official policy of the most powerful administration in the world, lovers of freedom and producers would do well to maintain a safe distance from it. [end of article]
　
Then, let me give you an article sent me from Yom Kippur War Hero, another "brilliant" Jewish friend I have, Dr. Gadi Eshel, one of my longest-known friends in Israel. Gadi has a Ph. D. in Engineering from Purdue University in Indiana:
　
　
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said he had a one-on-one meeting with Obama, in which President Obama told him that he was still a Muslim, the son of a Muslim father, the stepson of Muslim stepfather, that his half brothers in Kenya are Muslims, and that he was sympathetic towards the Muslim agenda.
Finally, during the week of 14-18th of January 2010, just on the eve of my winter tour to the US, Rachel picked up a Nile TV broadcast in which Egyptian Foreign Minister Abul Gheit said on the "Round Table Show" that he had had a one on one meeting with Obama who swore to him that he was a Moslem, the son of a Moslem father and step-son of Moslem step-father, that his half-brothers in Kenya were Moslems, and that he was loyal to the Moslem agenda. He asked that the Moslem world show patience. Obama promised that once he overcame some domestic American problems (Healthcare), that he would show the Moslem world what he would do with Israel.
http://888webtoday.com/articles/viewnews.cgi?id=EkZEpkpklAfbjJyHhD

This is according to Israel Today here. Here is the passage from the May 2010 issue of "Israel Today." It is on page 3 in an article titled "Obama, a 'Strategic Catastrophe,'" by Aviel Schneider:
The feeling among the Israeli public is that Obama is appeasing the Muslim world at the expense of Israel."The American President told me in confidence that he is a Muslim," said Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Nile TV.
That could explain why Obama has instructed that the term "Islamic extremism" no longer be used in official government documents and statements. Furthermore, the US is now accusing Israel of harming American interests in the Middle East. General David Petraeus, the head of US Central Command, said Israel’s intransigence on resolving the conflict with the Palestinians is endangering US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Even the US Congress considers Obama’s behavior toward Netanyahu humiliating. Three-quarters of the House of Representatives, 337 of 435 members, signed a bipartisan letter to Clinton expressing "deep concern over recent tension" between the two countries, and demanding that it be smoothed over quickly and in private.
"Obama is a real problem for Israel," a senior official told told Yediot.
"He is Israel’s biggest strategic catastrophe." The newspaper also quoted another official who believes that for the first time Washington has switched sides.
"The Obama White House is putting pressure only on Israel but does not expect anything from the Palestinians," he said.
"These American demands are unacceptable."
　
　
This was a statement by Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit on Nile-TV. It was made on the «Round table show».
This is the statement recorded:
Adul Gheit said he had a one-on-one meeting with Obama, where the US President told him that He was still a Muslim, the son of a Muslim father, the step son of Muslim stepfather, that his half brothers in Kenya are Muslims, and that he was sympathetic towards the Muslim agenda.
Adul Gheit claimed Obama told the Arabs to show patience. Obama promised that once he overcame some domestic issues, like the Health care reform, he would show the Muslim World how to deal with Israel.
Source: Israeli magazine, Israel today.
This is akin to an SS officer getting elected president during WW II.
Every country in the free world must be cognizant of such a catastrophic sea change in the leadership of the free world (as witnessed by events over the past year).
This changes everything. He took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, and yet he has gone around the world promoting Islam, the sharia (Islamic law).
The alleged exchange between Obama and Gheit would almost certainly have happened in early January 2010, when Gheit was in Washington, D.C. regarding "Mideast peace talks

[End of article!]
　
You and I, my preacher friends, ought wake up and see, that very possibly we have the privilege to live in the Time Just Preparatory to the coming of our MESSIAH, and the Holy Scriptures give enormous examples of times such as we see happening with our Muslim-Marxist-Socialist sitting in the White House!

 
It is amazing how Scriptures, when we will but read them, apply to current events, personally, publicly, and all about us.
 
In Isaiah 7, Ahaz was the twelfth king of the separate kingdom of Judah, being the son and successor of Jotham. AHAZ REMINDS ME SO MUCH OF THE MUSLIM-MARXIST IN THE WHITE HOUSE.
At the time of his ascension, Pekah, king of Israel, and Rezin, king of Syria, were in league "against Judah."
 
They proceeded to lay siege to Jerusalem, intending to place on the throne Ben-Tabeal, a Syrian noble.

Isaiah 7:3 Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shearjashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller's field;
 
4 And say unto him, Take heed, and be quiet; fear not, neither be fainthearted for the two tails of these smoking firebrands, for the fierce anger of Rezin with Syria, and of the son of Remaliah. [The Jews in Israel have problems in this area, in my ole opinion, because they become "fainthearted"—letting their hearts be tender toward their surrounding enemies!]
5 Because Syria, Ephraim, and the son of Remaliah, have taken evil counsel against thee, saying,
6 Let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it, even the son of Tabeal:
 
Four great crises mark the period of Isaiah’s active ministry: [1] the Syro-Ephraimite war of 735-2; [2] the captivity of the Ten Tribes in 722; [3] the siege of Ashdod in 711; and [4] the invasion of Sennacherib in 701.
 
Now, preachers, I am just a hell-deserving sinner saved by the Grace of God. I try daily to remember that. When Mrs. Vineyard and I pray, I thank God for her! Yes, she’s a sinner just as I am, and she has her faults. Her birthday will be in 2 days. But, she really pours her heart out to God, for our families, their needs, then Israel as a nation, and its needs, and then for our country since we’ve elected this Marxist-Socialist-Muslim to the White House.
 
Having said all that, I know that I am no Isaiah. But, very much like Isaiah’s time, there was "danger from without" and "intrigues of opposing factions within." A wise man in the Ministry was needed to advise those at the tiller of the "ship of state." That man then was Isaiah, the king of the prophets, and the greatest statesman of his age. Again, I know that I am no Isaiah.
 
However, the LORD GOD OF THE HEBREWS has given this ole preacher-warrior a degree of discernment about events world-wide and particularly those for Israel, which, when we read, and heed, our Bibles, we see will be "center-stage" for everything going on from now on!
 
Isaiah was a "keen discerner" of the national issues; his horizon, however, was world-wide. Our horizons have to be larger than our "existing county lines." In the year that King Uzziah died, Chapter 6, Isaiah was called to the prophetic office. He saw a triple vision:
 
1. Of Jehovah as holy;
 
2. Of himself as sinful [which we need remember, about ourselves, every hour of every day];
 
3. Of Grace and Forgiveness.
 
And, when he heard a voice inquiring from heaven, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" he immediately rejoined, "Then said I, Here am I; send me!"
 
Jehovah God gave Isaiah a commission of judgment and mercy to the effect that the nation must never perish, but a "holy seed" should be saved. Isaiah never forgot the promise that a "remnant" should be saved.
 
The vision bears the impress of that grandeur of immigration which is the distinctive mark of Isaiah’s genius.
 
Imagine, Preachers, if you will, why the account of Isaiah’s call in chapter 6 should immediately follow the threats in chapter 5?

As I’ve mentioned, the first of the four great political crises of Isaiah’s time, the Syro-Ephraimite war comes on the scene in 735 B.C. Pekah of Israel, and Rezin of Damascus, make that conspiracy against Ahaz, King of Judah, hoping to depose him and place upon the throne of Jerusalem a "good-for-nothing" [like Obama] son of Tabeel, who would ally himself with them against Assyria.
 
Ahaz, like Obama, wasn’t true to his Judaism, just like Obama is not true to "his Americanism," whatever, in his case, that might be! Therefore, Ahaz, the man not to meet successfully such a crisis, appealed for protection to Tiglath-Pileser III., king of Assyria.
 
Isaiah was divinely charged to remonstrate with the young king Ahaz and show him the folly of his "short-sighted policies." Assyria, the prophet Isaiah insisted, would "first" help and "then" devour, which ole JAV sees the Saudis and whomever else our Muslim-Marxist holds hands with, will, too, do!
 
That occasion evoked one of Isaiah’s most famous prophecies.
 
Taking with him his son Shear-jashub, whose very name, "a remnant shall return," conveyed a prophecy, Isaiah approached the king and delivered his message: "Fear not. . . . because of these two tails of smoking firebrands" [Syria and the ten tribes of Israel] half-burnt off and wholly burnt-out, mere smoking fag-ends of wood-pokers; for withing 65 years Ephraim [i.e., Israel] shall be broken in pieces that it be not a people.”
 
And then, with a clever play upon words, he adds Isaiah 7:9, “And the head of Ephraim is Samaria, and the head of Samaria is Remaliah's son. If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established. {If....Judah does not hold fast [to his God], he will lose his fast hold [of country]!}
 
In vain, however, Isaiah attempted to dissuade the infatuated king from his suicidal policy of leaning "upon an arm of flesh." Ahaz was infatuated with himself just as the Muslim-Marxist is infatuated with himself and would not listen!
 
He refused even to ask a sign at the prophet’s solicitation, whereupon Isaiah delivered his famous "Immanuel - God with us," prophecy [7:14] which the Jewish Rabbis don’t believe to make reference to the Son of God, but as I see it, "the unpremeditated creation of his inspired imagination," pointing to "the MESSIANIC KING, whose portrait is here, in the Old Testament, the Bible of the Jews, sketched distinctly."

Tiglath-Pileser, of course, gladly consented to Ahaz’s invitation. He had long been looking for an opportunity to interfere there, and this was afforded to him by Judah’s king Ahaz.
 
He moved westward, besieged Damascus, and in 732 B.C., captured it; at the same time he also stripped the 10 tribes of Israel of all her possessions north of Mt. Carmel and east of the Jordan.
 
This brought the Syro-Ephraimite invasion to an end. Judah, herself, the two tribes, barely escaped ruin at that time.
 
Interestingly, folks who have the unfortunate advantage of having to grow up in a broken home, the "fear and dread" that Isaiah deals with in Isaiah 8:12 and 13, usually become present in their lives, and they have to deal with that, as I see it!

Isaiah 8:12 Say ye not, A confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid.
 
13 Sanctify the LORD of hosts himself; and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread.
 
Everything definitively, in our lives, for good and for God, depends upon us seeing which side God is on, and getting on that side.
 
When I was a young married man, at Lifegate Baptist Church, Indianapolis, Indiana, Dr. Ford Porter asked me to start a bus ministry for them. Since God was on that side, I immediately resigned my job and took that position. God blessed and we were averaging over 500 on their buses when we left to go to Landmark Baptist Temple.
 
At Liberty Baptist Temple, I worked for Dr. John Rawlings. God was on that side, and we were able to get the Bus Ministry Average up to over 2,500 each Sunday. Mrs. Vineyard and I have so many precious memories from that church employment. Dr. B. R. Lakin, the great "former Pastor" of Cadle Tabernacle, where my wife, as a young girl, was taken, became friends with us there.
 
Then, I worked for at Thomas Road Baptist Church, Dr. Jerry Falwell. God was on that side, and we were able to get the Bus Ministry Average up to over 3,300 each Sunday. Again, we have "precious memories" from our time there (1970-1972).
 
Then, I was privileged to work at First Baptist Church, Hammond, Indiana, for Dr. Jack Hyles, for 4-1/2 years. God was on that side, and we were able to average 6,444 for all that period of time on the buses. Our youngest son recently had occasion to talk with the principal’s secretary, at Hyles Baptist School, one of the Lapina girls, whose father was one of our Bus Captains. One of the Lapina girls went with my wife and meI on that trip to Israel with First Baptist Church folks in 1973, right after Gadi Eshel becoming a hero in the Yom Kippur war!
 
Then, from 1977 to 2007, God allowed me the privilege of pastoring Windsor Hills Baptist Church, where HE was on that side, and many, many wonderful things were to happen through our ministry here.
 
In 2003, I found God was on the side of getting involved to keep the land of Israel for the Jews — with one of our members writing that song — “ISRAEL BELONGS TO THE JEWS” — and to see how GOD ALMIGHTY HAS LED — and allowed this ole hell-deserving sinner to be a blessing to the Jews. O MY SOUL, what things Dawga Jo and I have to rejoice about this morning.
 
WAR is just over the horizon for the Jews in Israel. I have been invited to come and be with an IDF unit during that fracas. It will be expensive to go there during WAR! I will need your help financially in order to pull that trip off.
 
God bless you as you consider these words of this preacher-warrior, as my IDF Officer friends call me!
 
JIM VINEYARD
YEDIDIM OF ISRAEL
www.yedidimofisrael.com