Friday, February 27, 2015

THERE IS ONLY ONE RELIGION IN THE WORLD THAT PRACTICES BEHEADING. AND THAT RELIGION IS ISLAM.


The Beast : ISIS Islamic Caliphate in the Middle East bringing rise to the Anti-Christ



The Law has Passed: Killing American Christians by Guillotine



End Time Martyrdom


BY Joel Richardson

While the last chapter dealt with the concentrated hatred and murderous spirit of Islam toward the Jewish people, this chapter deals in a more general sense with the worldwide persecution and martyrdom that will be waged against anyone who is a follower of Jesus or who refuses to become a Muslim during the last-days. 

Beheadings In The Last-Days

In the Book of Revelation, chapter twenty, the Apostle John sees a particular company of people.  John gives us a very brief synopsis of what he sees.  He is specifically describing the future end-time Martyrs:

I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. Revelation 20:4

I’ve dwelled on this verse many times.  The Bible says that in the last-days, beheading will specifically be the primary method by which people will be martyred.  They will be killed specifically for their “testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God.”  It is a strange picture to try to imagine.  Is the Bible implying a worldwide resurrection of guillotines in every town square?  What exactly is the Bible inferring will occur that will result in a worldwide standard of using beheading specifically, as a means of executing Christians?  As I have tried to envision the nature of the end-times and what they will look like, I have often wondered about this verse.  There are other passages that are very similar to this one.  They also speak of a future persecution and a global trend of executing Christians for their faith in Jesus:

Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me.  Matthew 24:9

Here Jesus warns His disciples that they will be hated and ultimately put to death as a result of their identification with Him.  But then there is a prophetic expansion on this prediction.  Jesus says that “you will be hated by all nations because of me.”  Jesus specifically predicted a global element to this future persecution against Christians.  This next verse gives us even further insight:

All this I have told you so that you will not go astray.  They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think he is offering a service to God.  They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me.  I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you.  John 16:1-4

In this passage from the Gospel of John, Jesus is initially speaking to the disciples outside of a strictly end-time context.  He first warns the disciples that in the days ahead they would see his followers put out of the synagogues.  This prophecy came to its fullest expression after what became known as the Bar Kochba rebellion in 132-135 A.D.  It was during the Bar Kochba rebellion that the final separation of church and synagogue took place.  Bar Kochba was a false Jewish Messiah.  He was supported and endorsed by the highest level of the rabbinic authority at the time, the renowned Rabbi Akiva.  As a result of Akiva’s support, Bar Kochba was authenticated as Messiah in the eyes of the Jewish people.  When Bar Kochba led the Jews in a rebellion against Rome, any Jew who did not participate was viewed as a traitor to the Jewish nation.  The Jews who were followers of Jesus however, who before this time, still regularly participated in the synagogue services, could not support a rebellion led by someone whom they knew to be a false Messiah.  As a result the Jewish followers of Jesus were expelled from the synagogues en masse and Jesus’ prophecy was fulfilled in the second century. 

But in the second part of this verse, Jesus is speaking of the end-times.  “In Fact”, he goes on to say, “the days will come when your persecutors will do far more than merely expel you from a synagogue; they will literally kill you.”  But the most bewildering and intriguing aspect of this verse is the next portion of Jesus’ statement.  He says that those who kill you will literally think that in doing so, they are offering a service to God.  It is this portion of the verse that is key.  How could someone in today’s world literally think that God demands the killing of other human beings simply because they believe differently?  It’s such a completely foreign concept to most modern western minds.  It is not, however, a foreign concept to history.  Both Islam and Christianity – both Catholic and Protestants, are guilty of this very thing, murdering those who are perceived to be heretics from the only true religion.  Jihad, the Crusades, the Inquisitions – all fit the bill of murder for and in the name of God.  One thing is for sure, an absolutely necessary ingredient in any such bloody exchange would have to be a firm conviction that God is on one’s side and that He commands such executions.  It is impossible to imagine any belief system or philosophy on the earth that could carry out such a thing other than a well-established world religion.  While totalitarian regimes are certainly capable of such a thing, this verse specifically says that the ones who carry out these executions will believe themselves to be serving God in doing so.  No, the system that carries this out will be a religious system that views itself as the earthly steward of some form of global divine government.  It must view itself as God’s only organization or community on the earth.  Only such a scenario can account for the actions that we read about in these verses.

In summary then, when we compare these three verses we get a very specific picture of what end-time persecution and martyrdom will look like.  Firstly, it will be global.  Secondly, it will necessitate a belief system that views itself as having a divinely appointed governmental role on the earth.  Thirdly, it will involve the specific method of beheading as its primary method of execution.  So we have a global religion that will view itself as a divinely appointed system on the earth authorized by God to behead those who refuse to join.  As we are about to see, in terms of religious systems that exist in the earth today, only the religion of Islam fulfills these requirements.

Beheadings in the News

At the time of this writing, in late 2004, there is in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and a few other countries, a new story, now just about weekly of foreigners and Christians being beheaded by Islamic radicals.  As such there has been a debate raging about whether or not this practice is indeed “Islamic” or if it is merely the barbaric practice of a few radicals who are violating the true principals of Islam.  Among the public statements intended to be picked up by the western media are the usual statements denouncing of such incidents as having anything to do with “true Islam.”  In most cases, the western media gobbles these disavowals up and reprints them without much question.  But if we examine not only Islamic tradition and history, but also the “word on the street” feelings of those Muslims who make their opinion known everyday, on Internet message and chat groups, we find a much different reality.  Islamic message boards all over the Internet have been debating the legitimacy or non-legitimacy of such actions since they have become front page news stories.  An article from CBS News entitled, Saudia Arabia’s Beheading Culture, dated June 27, 2004, also picked up on some of this Internet “chatter”:

And on Islamic Internet forums, mostly used by radicals, beheading has been a popular topic in recent weeks, with many participants describing it as the "easiest" way to kill an American or a Saudi from the ruling family.1

The only mistake that CBS made is to assume that most of the participants who use such forums are indeed “radicals.”  I have participated in several such Islamic “communities” and have befriended many Muslims through such groups.  Many in these forums presently live in the USA and Canada and many are converts from Christianity.  While the writer of the CBS article assumes that because of the barbaric nature of such discussions that the individuals are all thus “radicals,” I have found many of them to simply be individuals who take their faith as a Muslim seriously, even as I take my faith as a Christian seriously.  While some of the members of these discussion groups seem to be disgusted and ashamed by the recent rise of beheadings, the overarching majority seem to be far more focused on doctrinal issues such as whether the beheadings were done properly or if the specific victims were considered enemies or were innocent parties etc.  Sam Hamod, who is the former director of the Islamic Center in Washington D.C., when given the opportunity to chime in on this issue, in an article featured in the Washington Times used the moment not to condemn the beheadings, but to make the point that the men committing the beheadings in Iraq and elsewhere are doing it all wrong:

“You can't do it like the idiots on TV. The right thing to do is slit the person's throat, not cut off the entire head.” 2

Beheading In Islam: Muhammad’s Example

Beheading in Islam is not a new phenomenon by any means.  Due to the utter disgust of many throughout the West with regard to this practice of late by radical Muslims in Iraq and elsewhere, many moderate Muslims and Muslim apologists have repeatedly been making the claim that beheading is not an officially sanctioned Islamic practice.  They claim it defies the basic tenants of Islam.  These claims are made to create a better image of Islam in the western eye.  Unfortunately, these claims are either made out of ignorance of Islam’s history or are made with an active intent to deceive.  Indeed, as we are about to see, beheading is the very heritage of Islam.  Beheading is not only commanded as a specific method of killing ones enemies in the Quran, but as we will see, it was also a favored method of killing by Muhammad and many of his followers. 

When Muhammad began his career of violence and aggression, his band of Muslim warriors was still very small.  Caravans traveling back and forth from Mecca and Damascus became Muhammad’s favorite soft targets.  Because the inhabitants of Mecca depended on these caravans for their life they were more than a bit disturbed after several attacks by Muhammad and his gang of marauders.  Finally, men from the tribe of Quraysh came from Mecca to attack Muhammad and his men.  This battle, which came to be famously known as the Battle of Badr, saw Muhammad and his fledgling army gain a surprise victory over the Quraysh.  Among the people who were slain was Abba Hakam. 

Aba Hakam was severely wounded but still alive when Abdullah, the servant of Muhammad, ran up, put his foot on Aba Hakam’s neck, got a hold of his beard and started insulting the fatally wounded man whom his own people had named “the father of wisdom.”  Abdullah cut off Abba Hakam’s head and carried it to his master.  "The head of the enemy of Allah!" exclaimed Muhammad joyously; ---- "Allah! There is no other god but he!" - "Yea There is no other!" responded Abdullah, as he cast the severed head at the Prophet’s feet. "It is more acceptable to me;" cried Muhammad, hardly able to contain his joy, "than the choicest camel in all Arabia.” 3  (emphasis mine)

Sadly the blood lust of Muhammad and his followers only increased from here.  In 627 A.D. Muhammad himself oversaw what can only honestly be called a mass slaughter.  Muhammad and his army laid a siege around the Jewish village of Qurayzah.  After twenty-five days, the village surrendered, hoping that Muhammad would be merciful to them.  Instead Muhammad had his soldiers dig several trenches and forced between six to nine hundred men to march into them.  At the hands of Muhammad’s soldiers, they were all beheaded.  The trenches became mass graves.  From Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul, Islam’s earliest and most well received biography of Muhammad we read the gruesome account:

Then they (Qurayza) surrendered and the apostle confined them in Medina...  Then the apostle went out to the market of Medina (which is still its market today) and dug trenches in it.  Then he sent for them and struck off their heads in those trenches as they were brought out to him in batches… They were 600 or 700 in all, though some put the figures as high as 800 or 900… This went on until the apostle made an end to them.  4
Apparently, after this great slaughter, something was awakened in Muhammad.  Those 600-900 men from Qurayza who were beheaded were not enough.  Soon after this incident, Muhammad had 400 more Jews beheaded.  Muhammad was allied with two groups of men, the Khazraj and the Aus.  The Khazraj were in charge of beheading the four hundred Jews but the Aus were standing by on the sidelines.  When Muhammad looked and saw that the faces of the Khazraj were taking pleasure in beheading all the men and the Aus were standing on the sidelines, he ordered that the last twelve beheadings be carried out by the Aus:

Abu ‘Ubayda told me on the authority of Abu ‘Amir the Medinain, when the apostle (Muhammad) got the better of the sons of Qurayza he seized about four hundred men from the Jews who had been allies of Aus against Khazraj, and ordered that they should be beheaded.  Accordingly Khazraj began to to cut off their heads with great satisfaction.  The apostle saw that the faces of the Khazraj showed their pleasure, but there was no such indication on the part of Aus, and…when he saw that there were only twelve of them left he gave them over to Aus, assigning one Jew to every two of Aus, saying, “Let so-and-so strike him and so-and-so finish him off.” 5

Later, another campaign of beheading took place under Muhammad as he re-entered the city of Mecca with his army of ten thousand he called to the warriors in his army from Medina and asked them, “Do you see the soldiers from Quraysh (from Mecca)?  Go and slaughter them.”  Mark A. Gabriel explains the meaning of the word that Muhammad used for slaughter in Arabic:

The Arabic word for slaughter presents the picture of a farmer harvesting his crop with a scythe.  In other words, Muhammad was telling them, ‘Cut their heads from their bodies as you would cut fruit from the branch of a tree.’ 6

So this is where it all began, with Muhammad.  But it’s certainly not where it ended.  Remember that whatever Muhammad says or does is considered just as authoritative and as inspired as the very Quran itself.  It is the actions of Muhammad that dictate the model for living that Allah has ordained as his will for all Muslims:

If you love Allah, then follow me (Muhammad).  -Sura 3:31 (Shakir)

Ye have indeed in the Apostle of Allah a beautiful pattern of (conduct) for anyone whose hope is in Allah and the Final Day. -Sura 33:21.

By slaying the men of these Jewish villages this way, Muhammad set the example of what Allah has ordained and even commanded for all faithful Muslims to follow. 

Beheading Among Muhammad’s Followers

Abu Bakr, Muhammad’s best friend and successor, became the first “rightly guided” Caliph of Islam after Muhammad’s death.  Abu Bakr’s general was Khalid bin al-Walid al-Makhzumi who also fought under the leadership of Muhammad.  Under Muhammad, Khalid fought so effectively that he earned the title, The Sword of Allah

Upon Abu Bakr’s orders, in 633-634 A.D., Khalid extended an invitation to the people of Arabia to accept Islam.  This “invitation” however, was actually nothing more than an overt threat of war and death to those who refused to convert and submit to the rule of Islam.  The actual invitation read as follows:

In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful.  From Khalid bin al-Walid to the governors of Persia.  Embrace Islam so that you may be safe.  If not, make a covenant with me and pay the Jizyah tax.  Otherwise, I have brought you a people who love death just as you love drinking wine. 7

After this “invitation” to Islam, many refused to convert to Islam.  Among those who refused were a group of Persians and Christians from Ullays on the Euphrates River.  Khalid attacked them in 633 A.D.  The battle was fierce and so Khalid made a vow to Allah during the battle that if he could defeat them that he would make the canal that surrounded their village literally run with their blood.  He commanded that all who were defeated by taken alive.  There were so many captives that it actually took a day and a half to behead all of the men.  The blood however, coagulated and Khalid’s troops were forced to eventually release water into the canal in order that it would run red with the blood of the slain lest Khalids vow be left unfulfilled.  Abu Jafar Muhammad ibn Jarir At-Tabari, the early Islamic historian and theologian recorded this event:

Khalid said, “O Allah, if you deliver their shoulders to us, I will obligate myself to You not to leave any one of them whom we can overcome until I make their canal run with their blood.”  Then Allah defeated them for the Muslims and gave their shoulders to them.  Khalid then commanded to his herald to proclaim to his men, “Capture! Capture! Do not kill any except he who continues to resist.”  As a result the calvary brought prisoners in droves, driving them along.  Khalid had detailed certain men to cut off their heads in the canal.  He did that to them for a day and a night.  They pursued them the next day and the day after, until they reached the Nahrayn and the like of that distance in every direction from Ullays.  And Khalid cut off their heads. 8

Some of Khalid’s men proclaimed to him:

“even if you were to kill all the population of the earth, their blood would still not run… Therefore send water over it, so that you may fulfill your oath.”  Khalid had blocked the water from the canal.  Now Khalid brought the water back, so that it flowed with spilled blood.  Owing to this it has been called Blood Canal to this day. 9

Amir Taheri, an Iranian born journalist, in an article from the New York Post, May 14, 2004 entitled “Chopping Heads”, outlines several other incidents throughout Islam’s history of the practice of beheading:

In 680, the Prophet's favorite grandson, Hussein bin Ali, had his head chopped off in Karbala, central Iraq, by the soldiers of the Caliph Yazid. The severed head was put on a silver platter and sent to Damascus, Yazid's capital, before being sent further to Cairo for inspection by the Governor of Egypt. The Caliph's soldiers also cut off the heads of all of Hussein's 71 male companions, including the one-year-old baby boy Ali-Asghar. 10
Thus the pattern had been established and now the principal that Muhammad had modeled now came back and touched his own family.  Eventually stories of beheading came to fill Islam’s history.  Andrew Bostom, editor of The Legacy of Jihad points out that in the late fifteen century,
Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire, who is revered as a paragon of Muslim tolerance by modern revisionist historians, recorded the following in his autobiographical “Baburnama,” about infidel prisoners of a jihad campaign:  "Those who were brought in alive [having surrendered] were ordered beheaded, after which a tower of skulls was erected in the camp." 11
Skipping forward to a slightly more modern era, Taheri continues:

In 1842 the Afghani Muslims overtook the British garrison in Kabul and beheaded over 2000 men, women and children.  The heads were placed on sticks around the city as decorations. 12

The practice continued during the 1980’s, in Afghanistan, where an estimated 3,000 Soviet troops were beheaded by the Afghani warriors.  The practice of beheading was also a common practice throughout the Iranian revolution:

In 1992, the mullahs sent a "specialist" to cut off the head of Shapour Bakhtiar, the shah's last prime minister, in a suburb of Paris. When the news broke, Hashemi Rafsanjani, then president of the Islamic Republic, publicly thanked Allah for having allowed "the severing of the head of the snake." 13

Taheri even makes reference to one Algerian “specialist” named Momo le nain, who was recruited by an Islamic group known as the GIA specifically for the purpose of chopping off heads:

In 1996 in Ben-Talha, a suburb of the capital Algiers, Momo cut off a record 86 heads in one night, including the heads of more than a dozen children. In recognition of his exemplary act of piety, the GIA sent him to Mecca for pilgrimage. Last time we checked, Momo was still at large somewhere in Algeria. 14

Taheri likewise relates the situation in Pakistan where:

Rival Sunni and Shite groups have made a habit of sending chopped off heads of each other’s activists by special delivery.  By one estimate, over 400 heads have been chopped off and mailed since 1990. 15

And today, we see the power of beheading on the Indonesian Island of Borneo, where Muslims have been using beheading as means to drive out the Christian majority.  Nearly half of the Christians have fled the island. 

And beyond all of these very incriminating examples there are also the government sanctioned beheadings that take place weekly in Saudi Arabia after Friday prayers just outside the Mosques:

The Saudi government beheaded 52 men and one woman last year for crimes including murder, homosexuality, armed robbery and drug trafficking… A condemned convict is brought into the courtyard, hands tied, and forced to bow before an executioner, who swings a huge sword amid cries from onlookers of "Allahu Akbar!", Arabic for "God is great."  16

Allahu Akbar was also the phrase being screamed by the murderers of Nicholas Berg, the Jewish-American contractor, and Kim-Sun-il, the Korean translator and evangelical Christian, whose dream of one day being a missionary to Muslims was indeed both fulfilled and brought to an end in the very same moment…

So while it is clear what the history of Islam teaches, we also need to look at what the scriptures and scholars of Islam have to say about this subject.

The Value Of A Non-Muslim Life

Whenever a Muslim “extremist” carries out a horrifying act in the name of Islam, most Muslims that I know are very quick to state that, “That is not Islam!  Islam is not to be judged by the behavior of a few, but needs to be studied to see what it really teaches.”  Fair enough.  So the question then is: What does Islam really teach about the killing of non-Muslims? 

The first thing that should be pointed out is that according to Islamic law, Muslims are for all practical purposes, allowed to kill non-Muslims.  This is based on the law of Qisas.  Qisas is essentially the law of reciprocity.  It is the Islamic version of an “eye for an eye.”  Qisas for instance states that if a Muslim murders another Muslim, then that Muslim will likewise be executed.  Amazingly though, this law does not apply to a Muslim who murders a non-Muslim.  This teaching is found in a Hadith from Sahih Bukhari:

Narrated Ash-Sha'bi: Abu Juhaifa said, "I asked Ali, 'What is (written) in this sheet of paper?' Ali replied, it deals with The Diyya (compensatory blood money paid by the killer to the relatives of the victim), the ransom for the releasing of the captives from the hands of the enemies, and the law that no Muslim should be killed in Qisas (equality in punishment) for the killing of (a disbeliever). 17(emphasis mine)

In some cases of course, other penalties such as prison or a fine might be given to the murderer.  But sadly, reality bears out that in such a culture that does not value the life of non-Muslims as much as that of Muslims, a blind eye is most often turned to the murder of non-Muslims.  If you go to the website of the Voice of the Martyrs at www.persecution.org, or the Barnabas Fund, at www.barnabasfund.org, you can read hundreds of stories, updated daily, of Christians who are mistreated or even murdered without any legal repercussions for the Muslim murderer.  The statement below is a perfect example of the mentality that I have often encountered when talking to many Muslims from the Middle East.  This statement was made on an Internet interfaith discussion group.  Notice the attitude toward the killing of non-Muslims (kaffirs):

The kaffirs (unbelievers) have been attacking Muslim countries killing Muslim people from the beginning of time… when we have done nothing. Like the people of Israel attack the Muslims from Palestine because they do it for the land and because they hate Arabs/Muslims ...we defend them for Allah.  We try and spread Islam, The one and only true word of Allah.  They rejected it, therefore we are allowed to kill them. It is not haram (forbidden/illegal) to kill a kaffir.  Of course we want to Inshallah (by the will of Allah) peacefully live with them and Inshallah teach them about the beautiful religion. 18 (emphasis mine)

Do you see the altogether twisted mentality expressed in the above comment?  The “beautiful religion” that allows the killing of those who do not belong to it?? 

The Quran On Killing Infidels

Perhaps the quranic verse that is most often quoted by westerners to demonstrate the violent nature of the Islamic religion is the verse known within and without Islam as “the verse of the sword”:

So when the sacred months have passed away, then slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them captives and besiege them and lie in wait for them in every ambush, then if they repent and keep up prayer and pay the obligatory charity, leave their way free to them; surely Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.  -Surah 9:5  (Shakir) (emphasis mine)

As many times as this verse is quoted, there has been a Muslim who has stated that this verse is not applicable today.  While I would certainly love to believe this, the real question that needs to be asked is: How do the teachers and scholars of Islam interpret this verse?  Do they say that it still applies today?  The overriding majority of modern and classical Muslim scholars agree that it does.  Remember the concept that the behavior of all Muslims is dictated by both the Quran and the Sunna (sayings, actions and behavior of Muhammad).  From Ibn Kathir, the renowned eighth-century scholar, we learn the true Islamic interpretation of this verse.  Kathir begins by citing for support of his interpretation, several eminent early Muslim Hadith narrators/scholars; Mujahid, `Amr bin Shu`ayb, Muhammad bin Ishaq, Qatadah, As-Suddi and `Abdur-Rahman.  Kathir then explains the meaning of the verse:
The four months mentioned in this verse refer to the four-month grace period mentioned in an earlier verse: “So travel freely for four months throughout the land.”  Allah said next, “So when the Sacred Months have passed,” meaning, upon the end of the four months during which [Allah] prohibited you from fighting the idolaters, Muslims are to, “fight and kill the idolaters wherever you may find them.” “Whenever you find them” means, on the earth in general… Allah said here, to execute some and keep some as prisoners.  “Besiege them, and lie in wait for them in each and every ambush” means, do not wait until you find them, rather, seek and besiege them in their areas and forts, gather intelligence about them in the various roads and fairways so that what is made wide looks ever smaller to them.  This way, they will have no choice, but to die or embrace Islam… Abu Bakr [Muhammad’s closest friend and successor upon Muhammad’s death] used this and other honorable verses as proof for fighting against those who refrained from paying the obligatory charity tax. This verse allowed fighting people unless, and until, they embrace Islam and implement its rulings and obligations.19
This doesn’t really leave any room for debate.  Ibn Kathir lays it out as clearly as anyone could.  We see that Muslims are allowed and even commanded to fight against the unbelievers (Mushrikun) and even seek them out where they are in order to force them to convert to Islam or accept death.  Again it must be noted that Kathir is not an “extremist” Muslim but is perhaps one of Islam’s most universally received classical scholars.

Another pertinent verse from the Quran that applies to our discussion is the infamous “beheading: verse:
If you encounter (in war) those who disbelieve, you may strike the necks -Surah 47:4 (Khalifa)
When ye encounter the infidels, strike off their heads. –Surah 47:4 (Rodwell)
Ibn Kathir explains that the purpose of this verse is to:
(Guide) the believers to what they should employ in their fight against the idolators, Allah says, “So, when you meet those who disbelieve (in battle), smite their necks,” which means, when you fight against them, cut them down totally with your swords. “Until you have fully defeated them,” meaning, you have killed and utterly destroyed them.  This is referring to the prisoners of war whom you have captured. 20
So when we look at these verses we see that Muslims are commanded to behead (or at a bare minimum “smite the necks”) of those non-Muslims whom they are fighting against.  Sheik Omar Bakri Muhammad, judge of the Shari'ah (Islamic Law) court in Great Britain, as well as the secretary general of the Islamic World League and the spokesman for the International Islamic Front however, has a slightly different opinion:
What's the verdict? "The punishment of those who wage war against Allah and His apostle and strive to make mischief in the land is only this, that they should be murdered or crucified or their hands and their feet should be cut off on opposite sides or they should be imprisoned; this shall be as a disgrace for them in this world, and in the hereafter they shall have a grievous chastisement." 21
After examining just a sampling of Islamic texts as well as the opinions of Islamic scholars, spokesman and everyday Muslims, we see that Islam not only commands the killing of non-Muslims but also supports a culture where killing non-Muslims has become an acceptable practice.  But before we finish this discussion, there is one more very specific tradition that will surely come into play if indeed the person of the Mahdi ever becomes a reality.

Death To Those Who Dispute The Authority Of The Caliph.

The leadership role of a Caliph in Islam is a very powerful concept.  The Caliph is viewed as the both the successor of Muhammad, and the leader of all Muslims.  He is in a sense, the Pope of the Muslim world. The last Caliph that both Sunnis and Shia’ accept as justifiably elected was Ali, Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law.  Ali died in 661.  Since then, many other Caliphs have held office, but none that held the universal sway that the first four Caliphs held.  Muslims have been awaiting the restoration of the Caliphate to restore unity and leadership to Islam worldwide.  As we have already seen, the Mahdi is expected to fulfill this role.  From a Hadith in Sahih Muslim we read of the punishment for those who dispute the authority of the Caliph:

Whoever wishes to be delivered from the fire and enter the garden should die with faith in Allah and the Last Day…  He who swears allegiance to a Caliph should give him the pledge of his hand and the sincerity of his heart (i. e. submit to him both outwardly as well as inwardly). He should obey him to the best of his capacity. If a man comes forward, disputing his (the Caliph’s) authority, they (the Muslims) should behead the latter.  22 (emphasis mine)

The Saudi Arabian Government holds this same opinion as well.  On the official Saudi Arabian Islamic Affairs Department (IAD) website, we find a similar declaration:

The Noble Prophet said: 'It is obligatory upon a Muslim to listen and obey (to the authority of the Caliph) whether he likes it or not…One who has already taken an oath of allegiance to one leader (Imam) and has committed his hand and heart to him, should obey him as much as may be possible for him. If somebody else opposes and contests the authority of that leader (Imam), the said opponent should be beheaded."  23  (emphasis mine)

According to Islamic law, anyone who simply disagrees with the authority of a seated Caliph should be beheaded. 

Summary and Conclusion

Now let us review the points that have been made.  First, we have seen that the end-times as described in the Bible will be a time when Christians will be persecuted and murdered for their faith.  The specific manner of death that the Bible mentions for Christians will be martyrdom by beheading.  As we have most clearly demonstrated, it is quite undeniable that beheading is a tradition that stretches throughout Islamic history.  Islam itself has thoroughly documented the fact that Muhammad and his immediate successors practiced beheading as the specific means to kill “the enemies of Islam.”  This practice has continued in certain quarters of Islam to this very day.  The Quran itself actually encourages beheading, or at a bare minimum, “smiting the necks” of “idolaters” and any “prisoners of war.”  We noted some examples of the beheadings of such “prisoners of war” that have recently been in the news in Iraq and elsewhere.  The death sentence is also prescribed for those who do not submit to or agree with the authority of the Caliph.  As such it is actually very fair to assume that in the Islamic vision of the last-days, if a Caliph, specifically the Mahdi comes forward and accepts the notion that all Christians, Jews, Israelis, and any who support them are considered “enemies of Islam”, then it would be considered universally lawful and indeed even obligatory for all Muslims to “make war” and “smite the necks” of all Christians, Jews, or westerners, etc. as well as any who dispute the authority of the Caliph. 

Once again then, Islam, its practices and teachings, fulfill exactly the description of the forces that will gain power and dominate the world in the biblical end-time scenario.  Having seen the murderous nature of the Islamic texts, as well as the proper Islamic interpretation of them, it is important to see the reality of how this mentality plays out in the mind of an ordinary Muslim from the Middle East.  Following is a post from an Islamic/interfaith Internet message board.  It is the kind of post that is only too common on such forums.  We end this chapter with one Muslim’s thoughts regarding the murder of Daniel Pearl, the slain American journalist:

Firstly Pearl is a Jew, a Munafiq, (a hypocrite) a Spy, and a Kaffir (unbeliever).  Do not be fooled by these people.  Their hatred for Islam can be seen from their mouths and what their heart conceals is much worse.  I do not see where the sick part is in slaughtering… In Islam we… can't even torture the kaffir- we just slit their throat, and it’s proven when you pass a special area in the neck, they no longer feel pain.. And remember when we Muslims capture a Muslim munafiq, we do the same to him, we slaughter him.   What do you think of a Dirty Jew, Stupid Munafiq, Two-Timing Spy, and a Kaffir? We do the same to him. Walhumdulilah. (Thanks be to Allah)  And Remember the Rasoul (Muhammad) slaughtered a great number of Jews in one battle; the best of creation did this, because the Jews backstabbed Prophet Muhammad.  And if you think this is still sick, InshaAllaahi (I hope by the will of Allah) you’re alive when Mahdi is around cause your going to see many Jew/munafiqqin (Jews/hypocrites) heads on the floor. 


Saturday, February 21, 2015

IS IT WRONG FOR CHRISTIANS TO CONSULT THE ZOHAR?









Jose J. Bernal
New Jersey
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ACTIVITIES

IN THE VIDEO BELOW JOSE J. BERNAL A MINISTER  

UNDER JONATHAN CAHN, USES RABBINICAL 
WRITINGS WRITTEN BY NEW AGE RABBINICAL SAGES I.E.
RABBI SHIMON BEN YOHAI PRINCIPLE AUTHOR OF THE ZOHAR
THE PREMIER TEXT OF OCULTIC KNOWLEDGE  AND THE
BABYLONIAN TALMUD TO SUPPLEMENT HIS APOLOGETIC
 ABOUT YESHUA(JESUS) THE MESSIAH. IS HIS APOLOGETIC
APPROACH BIBLICALY BASED? FOR THE ANSWERE TO THIS QUESTION
READ THE ARTICLES BELOW TAKEN DIRECTLY FROM OTHER MESSIANIC
JEWS WHO WERE HONEST ENOUGH TO EXPOSE THE HIDDEN DANGERS BEHIND
THESE EXTRA BIBLICAL JEWISH SOURCES!

The passage which Jose J. Bernal is quoting from at time frame 11:55-12:00 is as follows:
"And the King Messiah will be revealed and all the nations of the world will gather around King Messiah, and the verse will be fulfilled [Zohar 2:172b]. "


Exposing the Zohar!



JOSE J. BERNAL

JOSE J. BERNAL PICTURED ABOVE, A MINISTER UNDER THE PASTORAL LEADERSHIP OF JONATHAN CAHN(author of the book THE HARBINGER) BELIEVES IT'S OKAY FOR CHRISTIAN BIBLE SCHOLARS(INCLUDING HIMSELF & JONATHAN CAHN) TO USE THE ZOHAR, A JEWISH MYSTICAL SATANIC BIBLE TO SUPPLEMENT THEIR APOLOGETICS.

Jose J. Bernal said:

"Isn't it amazing how God uses Paul in Acts 17 to teach the pagans from their own writings on Mar's Hill and how in Apologetics even the Book of Zohar unwittingly supports the Gospel because it has been used by faithful witness Apologists as a "hostile witness" of the Gospel? Only God can do such things; turn something like the Book of Zohar into a tool that bears witness that Jesus is the Messiah! Thank you."

"The only thing that I would use the Zohar for and the Baybylonian Talmud would be for the same use that eminent Messianic Jews such as Dr. Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, Dr. Michael Rygelnik, Dr. Michael Brown, Dr. Mitch Glazer, and many more, such as Pastor and Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Cahn would use such works for; to affirm from them the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This is called in Apologetics "the fair use of a hostile witness" to affirm a specific matter".

Zohar: means RADIANCE OR SPLENDOR. It is the PREMIER TEXT OF OCCULTIC KNOWLEDGE within the KABBALAH & a basis for laws instituted by NEW AGE RABBINICAL SAGES. AUTHORSHIP attributed in legend to NEW AGE RABBI SHIMON BEN YOHAI 2nd century A.D.. The Zohar is the SYNTHESIS OF THE OCCULT GNOSIS of PHARAONIC EGYPT & ANCIENT BABYLON. The Lord God NEVER INSPIRED these new age rabbinical sages to write this OCCULTIC BOOK UNWITTINGLY OR OTHERWISE as Mr. JOSE J. BERNAL EMPHATICALLY IS CLAIMING. This  clearly reveals that Mr. Cahn author of the book The HARBINGER  and Jose J. Bernal are using OCCULTIC WRITINGS  to SUPPLEMENT THEIR SERMONS, TEACHINGS AND APOLOGETICS.

Rabbi Simeon Ben Yochai author of the Zohar:
The Roman Emperor of the 2nd century of the C.E. placed a death sentence upon the head of Rabbi Yochai for fear of his power & great influence. In order to escape the Roman Soldiers, the great kabbalist together with his son Rabbi Elazar took refuge in a cave in Pequi"in, Israel. There for 13 years they buried themselves in the ground up to their necks in order to subjugate the distractions of their bodies. It was during this time that they SUPPOSEDLY recieved instructions in the deepest mysteries of the Torah from ELIJAH THE PROPHET. These teachings would later become the foundation of THE ZOHAR.

.IN ORDER TO PROVIDE FURTHER BACKGROUND INTO THE CORRUPT DOCTRINES AND MORAL DECAY OF RABBI SIMEON BEN YOHAI, I MAKE THE FOLLOWING QUOTATION WITH REGARDS TO HIS APPROVAL & LEGALIZATION OF CHILD SEX WITH 3 YEAR OLD GIRLS AS FOLLOWS
YEBAMOTH 60b: IT WAS TAUGHT: RABBI SIMEON BEN YOHAI STATED: A PROSOLYTE WHO IS UNDER THE AGE OF 3 YEARS AND ONE DAY IS PERMITTED TO MARRY A PRIEST. FOR IT IS SAID, BUT ALL THE WOMEN CHILDREN THAT HAVE NOT KNOWN MAN BY LYING WITH HIM, KEEP ALIVE FOR YOURSELVES, AND PHINEAS WHO WAS A PRIEST, SURELY WAS WITH THEM.
As Christians are being misled by their Judaizing preachers & popes who are increasingly consulting Jewish rabbinical sources for a "PURER" understanding of the Old Testament, they are unknowningly consulting the OCCULT.
Judaism is the religion of the Pharisees and the patrimony of Babylon from where the Talmudic & Kabbalistic traditions of Judaism ultimately derive. Orthodox Judaism's other sacred book, the Kabbalah( THE ZOHAR BEING IT'S PREMIER TEXT OF OCCULT KNOWLEDGE) is filled with astrological teachings, fortune telling, gematria, necromancy & DEMONOLOGY.
Orthodox Rabbis place curses, cast spells & imagine they have powers greater than God, derived from their study of the Sefer Yezriah(a book of Kabbalistic Magic). Christians are TRAFFICKING in Babylonian Paganism when they DEFER to the the Rabbis of Judaism "Michael Hoffman".

I MAKE THE FOLLOWING QUOTATION FROM TED W. PIKE'S BOOK "ISRAEL OUR DUTY OUR DELIMMA" FROM PAGE 103: " The Kabbalah at this time was a Babylonian brew which included such occult features as REINCARNATION, NECROMANCY, CONJURATION, ASTRAL PROJECTION, COOPERATION WITH DEMONS, ASTROLOGY, NUMEROLOGY, AND A VAST SYSTEM FOR THE USE OF CHARMS, AMULETS & INCANTATIONS". In short, most of what was distinctive of BABYLONIAN & EGYPTIAN SORCERY WAS INCLUDED IN THE ZOHAR! Even today virtually all occult systems (especially THEOSOPHICAL ONES) and practices, including WITCHCRAFT & SATANISM, borrow heavily from the KABBALAH(AS PRESERVED IN THE ZOHAR) in their rituals and symbolism".

Evil Teachings of Kabballah/The Zohar/The Talmud

Torah Restoration Ministries - Evangelist Daniel John Lee

www.spiritandtorah.com/evilteachings_renewedcov.html

First, I want to apologize for not writing this article sooner.  It is long overdue, and I am grieved at the many Messianics and Hebrew-Christians who, upon entering into the Truth of Torah-keeping, are quickly overcome by the wicked one in falling into a deception as old as babylon.
In fact, it was in Ancient Babylon, while the Jews were captive during their 70 year exile, that the Kabballah was first introduced into Jewish culture.
Kabballah, Talmud and the Zohar continued to grow once the Jews returned to Israel and completely infested the Pharisees and Sadducees of the 1st century.
By the 13th century, Kabballah/Zohar and the Talmud had become so complicated and bloated, it threatened to destroy the Jewish people.  Fortunately, even some Jews who had not yet come to Messiah, began to finally see how satanic the teachings first brought from ancient babylon were.
Avi Ben Mordechai and James Trimm, respected "elders" in the Messianic movement, both teach and support kabballah.  Kabballah is a so called "way to interpret the Torah using mystic Jewish understanding" and its supporters claim they are led by the Ruach ha Kadosh.
In fact, as someone once commented to me, Kabballah is merely a replacement for the Ruach itself.
Kabballah teaches, among other things, that eventually you can become so godlike, so close to YHVH that you no longer need Torah.  That you no longer need to obey YHVH.  That you can basically be YHVH yourself.  Utter blasphemy.
It is no coincidence that satanists, witches, warlocks and other pagans love kabballah and use its teachings and incantations often.
There was even a Messianic pastor in southern California, tutored and instructed by Avi Ben Mordechai, who became so wrapped up in Kabballah, Talmud and the Zohar, that he began using wands, casting spells and even erected a mirrored pentagram in the main sanctuary.  YHVH struck this pastor with cancer and he perished, but Avi Ben Mordechai continues to peddle his black-magic teachings cloaked in the guise of Hebrew-roots and Torah teaching.
I suppose it is inevitable that Satan, desperate to stop the rising surge and tide of Truth, would pull out his darkest and most evil strategy -- reviving the kabballah.
The Talmud, which has now been codified, contains so many blasphemous instructions, so many rules AGAINST the written Torah -- NO ONE should ever study it.  The kabballah is FAR WORSE than the Talmud.  The Zohar is just as bad as the kabballah.
Many Messianics and Hebrew-Christians, along with other Israelites and other Torah-keeping movements, think it is beneficial to study the Talmud.  Wrong.  Talmud is wholly darkness and ought not to be learned.
While there are some Jewish traditions which are harmless -- such as observing Hanukkah or placing a seat for Elijah at Passover -- most of them are so steeped in satanism, witchcraft and darkness that no one should ever even read the Talmud.
If you have a Talmud, any books on kabballah (such as those written by Avi Ben Mordechai), or any reference to the Zohar -- you should BURN THEM.  They will lead you into perdition.
To the Torah and the Prophets should have been the rallying call of the Messianic movement.  Unfortunately, those who do not even bother to keep Torah, but are merely watered-down versions of pagan christian churches, have lost their savor.  My former congregation -- Rehoboth -- was Laodicean to the core.  However, those who are serious about keeping Torah tend to get trapped in Talmud, the Zohar and kabballah.  Nathan Lawrence has committed this error and made a shipwreck of his faith and his congregation (which I visited during my time at Rehoboth).
It is time to return to ONLY the Torah and the Prophets.  They are breathed with the Ruach and, as the ReNEWed Covenant authors did, can be used to understand our Messiah YahShua even more.
Child Sex in Talmud
As an addendum to my article on Kabballah, I would like to prove that the Talmud is wicked.
The link below proves that the Talmud allows sex between adults and children as young as 3 years old.  Utter wickedness.  The Jews often refer to this wicked Talmud as the Torah.
The Jews did the SAME thing in the 1st century, referring to their man-made, wicked Talmud as the Torah.  Torah has NOTHING to do with Talmud.
Now, NO Messianic or anyone else who desires to keep Torah can justify studying the Talmud.  It is completely evil.

Kabbalah Secrets Christians Need to Know: 

An In Depth Study of the Kosher Pig 

and the Gods of Jewish Mysticism 

A top selling book in Christianity and Ministry on Amazon!   

by Deanne Loper


We live in a time when false teachings are infiltrating Christian Theology at a rapid rate. This important book exposes one of the greatest threats to pure Biblical Christianity. Deanne Loper uncovers the deception by giving a detailed description of what Kabbalah is and equips believers to recognize it in its morphed form of Christianity. The evidence shows that the god of today’s Babylonian and kabbalistic Judaism is NOT the God of the Bible and that the current convergence of Christians coming under rabbinic authority will bring them, not to the one true God of the Bible, but to the subservience of the god of Kabbalah – Ein Sof – and to its hierarchy of gods.

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

KABBALAH INFILTRATING CHRISTIANITY

THE DEADLY FRUIT OF KABBALAH  

And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
Genesis 4:5

Tragedy of a Jewish Mystic

Last week, the Associated Press (8/31/99) reported the controversial fatal shooting by New York police of a mentally disturbed Jewish man. It seems that Gideon Busch had been "brandishing a hammer and threatening children while singing loudly. . .
"At least five officers arrived and found Gideon Busch, 31, in the basement of his house, wearing a prayer shawl and leather pouches used to hold pieces of scripture, police said. The officers retreated onto the street and Busch followed them, carrying the hammer, said Detective Robert Samuel. Tear gas failed to subdue the man. One police sergeant stumbled to the ground and Busch struck him several times with the hammer, officers said. After Busch ignored several orders to drop the hammer, officers fired at least 12 shots, striking him in the torso at leastseven times, police said."
A few days later, a New York Times feature story described the mental deterioration of the once bright and affable Jewish medical student who became the tormented and psychotic Gideon Busch.
MAN SHOT BY CITY OFFICERS WAS ON A TROUBLED QUEST
By Susan Sachs
The New York Times
September 2, 1999
        Ten years ago, at age 21 and with a promising medical career in front of him, Gideon Busch learned he had an incurable kidney disease.
        It was that knowledge, his family and friends said, that capsized all the plans he had for his life, driving him on a search for spiritual enlightenment in Orthodox Judaism and sometimes sending him skidding into immobilizing depressions.
        Most of the time, he was a sweet-natured young man everyone called Gary, who loved music and the quiet grace of celebrating  the Jewish Sabbath with friends. But Mr. Busch could also slide into a deeply troubled and disoriented world or his own frenetic prayers, fears and symbols.
        The two sides -- often incompatible and impenetrable -- followed him to his death.
        The police officers who shot and killed him in Brooklyn on Monday evening said Mr. Busch, tall and skinny at 6 feet 3 inches and 159 pounds, attacked them with a hammer outside his tiny basement apartment in Borough Park. On that hammer, Mr. Busch, 31, a deeply religious man who prayed so loudly the neighbors complained, had carved the four Hebrew letters signifying the name of God.
        "In his good times, he was an outgoing fellow and would talk and sing psalms around the Sabbath table," said Rabbi Yakov Saacks, the director of the Chai Center in Dix Hills, N.Y., where Mr. Busch grew up in suburban comfort on Long Island. "In his bad times, perhaps when he wasn't taking his medication, he didn't look up from his prayer book or his food.
        "There were two different Gary Busches," the rabbi added. "I loved them both."
        As they prepared for his funeral today in Dix Hills, Mr. Busch's family said he was a gentle, if distressed, young man who never hurt anyone.
        "He had a mental illness, no question about it," said his father, Norman Busch, a retired dentist living in the Long Island town of Bay Shore. "But he was not a violent person. He was never violent."
        But Mr. Busch was hospitalized involuntarily for psychiatric treatment three times at a hospital on Long Island, where doctors said he had made threats to his parents and evinced signs of paranoid schizophrenia. Two years ago, he entered a residential program for the mentally ill in Borough Park but soon checked himself out against the advice of doctors who said they did not believe he was capable of living on his own.
        Still, his family said they did not recognize the man portrayed in published reports since the shooting as behaving so erratically that his neighbors called the police and as lunging with a hammer that the police said was inscribed with Hebrew letters.
        "This is not what he was or who he is," his mother, Doris Busch Boskey, said, weeping. "They've created a person to explain away or excuse what happened and what they did."
        Mr. Busch was studying to be a doctor at Mount Sinai Medical School when he discovered, when all the students tested their own urine sample as part of a classroom exercise, that he suffered from an immune system problem. He was given a diagnosis of IgA nephropathy, a disease that can lead to kidney failure.
        Until then, his relatives said, Mr. Busch showed no signs of mental  instability. But the diagnosis shook him deeply.
        Mr. Busch continued his studies, but in his third year of medical school, he told his family he wanted to drop out. He read books on philosophy. He immersed himself in his favorite classical music and jazz. He talked of finding a spiritual path to well-being, of exploring the meaning of life. His own religion, Judaism, called him and he moved to Israel.
        Mr. Busch spent much of the next seven years there, trying out different trends and practices within the religion. He studied Hebrew and the Torah in a conventional Orthodox yeshiva in Jerusalem. Drawn to the more mystical Hasidic movement, he delved into the messianic Lubavitch sect.
        Eventually, his family said, he drifted to the city of Safad in northern Israel to study at a school dedicated to the mystical teachings of Rabbi Nachman, founder of the Breslover Hasidic sect who died in 1810.
        The school and its graduates, however, are not associated with the mainstream Breslover sect, which has shunned them as a fringe group that has gone too far in making a cult out of the rabbi's memory. The group is known in Israel for spray-painting Rabbi Nachman's name on walls and bouncing up and down as if in a trance, on street corners. Mr. Busch threw himself into the group, worrying his relatives back home.
    "When you get involved in the inner circle of a fringe group, they are very warm and welcoming," Rabbi Saacks said. "But they had a very narrow focus. They were only reading Rabbi Nachman's books, only discussing his teachings, only telling the message of their teacher -- which I'm not sure what it is -- and not focusing on much else."
        Mr. Busch recently told family and friends that he had realized the group was too extreme and assured them he was gravitating toward the more mainstream Hasidic sect.
        But he seemed drawn, still, into his own sometimes inscrutable world of extremes, where his absorbing passion for religion turned into a fervor that seemed to amplify episodes of mental instability.
        "He bounced in and out of it," Rabbi Saacks said. "Last January, he said he felt he was maybe too entrenched and saw that he had to pull back. I welcomed that. And on August 8, the last time I spoke to him, he was back with 'Rebbe Nachman said this and Rebbe Nachman said that' and this very insular approach to life."
        What his family saw were periods of quiet, sometimes desperate depression. His mother said Mr. Busch once kicked a hole in the wall of his room in her house and became very agitated. "He kept saying, I can't believe I did that. I love this house. I grew up in this house," Mrs. Boskey recalled. Shortly after that, he became so depressed he was hospitalized, she said.
        About three weeks ago, Netanya Ullman ran into Mr. Busch on the subway to Manhattan. They had met briefly when both were studying in Safad five years ago, she said, and when they met again, there was an instant rapport.
        The couple decided to get married, she said, and spoke constantly of Mr. Busch's interpretations of Rabbi Nachman's teachings.
        "Its all about talking to God out loud and going into nature and praying and very intense meditation," Ms. Ullman said.
        When he meditated, he would play music very loudly, she said. Recently, he took to dancing with the hammer, which he called his staff.
        "He put God's name on it to make it something that would bring holiness into the world," Ms. Ullman said. "He'd go outside and dance with it and raise it up and move slowly. He was like bringing down light from his staff."
        "It was for holy purposes," she added. "He wanted to bring people closer and his way of doing that was this pushing toward the boundaries of what's acceptable."
        Mr. Busch's behavior drew comments from his neighbors in the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood where he moved last December in the apparent hope of immersing himself in the close-knit religious culture.
        He did not seem to connect with his neighbors, who said after the shooting that they regarded Mr. Busch as an oddball whose ecstatic dancing and music did not fit in.
        Even so, his parents said that Mr. Busch seemed content with his new life. He had taken a course in computer programming and was thinking of starting a business designing Web pages.
        But there were disturbing signs.
        Two weeks ago, he stopped by his brother Glenn's law office. "He seemed agitated, but O.K.," his brother said.
        Ms. Ullman said he stopped wearing his prescription eyeglasses. When the police came on Monday night, she said, he might not have seen them as anything more than blurry threatening figures. In the tiny basement apartment, the police said they found strange scribblings on signs on the wall. One spelled out the word "police," as "pointedly off-wing litigating intensely careful errand-deliverers."
        On Monday evening, someone called 911 to report that a man at Mr. Busch's address was menacing children in the neighborhood. When officers arrived to question him, they said, he waved the hammer at them.
        His family and friends, outraged by the shooting, said they believe Mr. Busch was frightened and panicked by the armed police officers. They said he was a spiritual man who wished for nothing but peace.
        "He was happy with the path he had taken," his father, Dr. Busch said. "But with mental disease, you do have periods of high emotion and periods of calm. He was a loving wonderful person, but he was never violent."
The September 3 New York Times stated that Busch believed he was the messiah:
"Mr. Busch told doctors at a psychiatric hospital that he increasingly feared his own impulses toward violence and repeatedly took cocaine and psychedelic drugs, his medical records show. [Doctors, nurses and social workers] said that when he was not taking his prescribed tranquilizers and antipsychotic drugs, Mr. Busch was delusional, believed himself to be the messiah, and was capable of doing harm to himself and others."
Drugs or Kabbalah?
Were drugs the catalyst which drove this tragic figure from a high level of mental competence to insanity? It is common knowledge that psychedelic drugs such as LSD are mind-altering.  However, the chemist who discovered LSD recognized early on its mystical qualities, as stated in Acid Dreams: The CIA, LSD and the Sixties Rebellion:
"[High Priest of LSD, Timothy] Leary also contacted Dr. Albert Hofmann, the Sandoz chemist who had discovered LSD nearly thirty years earlier. They met for the first time at a cafe in Lausanne. Hofmann told Leary about his informal 'wisdom school' centered around psychedelic sessions with leading European intellectuals, including Ernst Junger, the German novelist and mystic. Leary asked Hofmann about the dangers of LSD, and the elderly scientist insisted there was no evidence of brain damage caused by the drug. The only dangers, he maintained, were psychological and could be avoided by supportive conditions. In the final analysis Dr. Hofmann affirmed the importance of LSD as an 'aid to meditation aimed at the mystical experience of a deeper, comprehensive reality.'" [Acid Dreams: The CIA, LSD and the Sixties Rebellion, Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain, Grove Press, 1985, p. 269]
Although the NY Times recounted Gideon Busch's involvement in the Lubavitch and Breslover communities, there was no mention that these Hasidic sects would have encouraged the study of Kabbalah or that occult initiation in the mysteries of Kabbalah often leads to paranormal experiences similar to those produced by LSD. The end result of a course of initiation is all too frequently demon possession -- a condition the manifestations of which were exhibited by Gideon Busch.  The writings of Rabbi Nachman, founder of the Breslov sect, were diligently studied by Gideon Busch. According toBreslov on the Internet, Rabbi Nachman received his instruction in Jewish mysticism through the writings of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, author of the Sepher-Ha-Zohar, Book of Light, which is the premier book of Kabbalah:
Breslov Chassidus was founded by Rabbi Nachman of Breslov.  Rabbi Nachman was the great grandson of Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, who led one of the greatest spiritual revivals-renewals ever to occur among the Jewish people, two hundred years ago.
Rabbi Nachman followed in the tradition of Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov, Rabbi Isaac Luria and Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai.  Rabbi Luria, known as the Arizal, lived in the 16th century and was one of the greatest luminaries and expounders of Jewish mystical and spiritual thought.  Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai was the author of the Zohar.
In performing the rituals of the Hasidim, what curious purpose was served by Gideon Busch's hammer (which he called his staff) upon which he had engraved the four letter name of God? Someone who was also educated by the Lubavitchers, such as Peter Michas of Messengers of Messiah, would be well-qualified to explain the significance of the staff engraved with the name of God.  According to Michas' book, The Rod of an Almond Tree in God's Master Plan, a similar staff in the Old Testament was (1) a "divine rod" from the Tree of Life, (2) possessed of miraculous powers, (3) preserved by the Patriarchs and (4) will one day reappear to validate the true messiah. This rod had mystical powers because God had engraved upon it his own "Ineffable Name":
". . .God gave Adam a branch from the Tree of Life, which was engraved with the Ineffable Name of God (YHVH). Considering its source, it must have been of supreme symbolic significance. . .Perhaps at some future time, a discovery will be made to verify the history of thisdivine rod."(p. 119)
"According to rabbinical commentary and stories passed from generation to generation, the rod transferred from Adam successively down the line to Enoch, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses and David. According to the Midrash Yelamdenu: the staff with which Jacob crossed the Jordan is identical with that which Judah gave to his daughter-in-law, Tamar. . . (p. 120)
"According to one account: On Joseph's death the Egyptian nobles stole some of his belongings, and, among them, Jethro appropriated thestaff. Jethro planted the staff in his garden, when its marvelous virtue was revealed by the fact that nobody could withdraw it from the ground; even to touch it was fraught with danger to life. This was because the Ineffable Name of God was engraved upon it. When Moses entered Jethro's household he read the Name, and by means of it was able to draw up the rod, for which service Zipporah, Jethro's daughter, was given to him in marriage (emphasis added). (p. 121)
"What makes this account so remarkable is the reference to planting the rod engraved with the Ineffable Name of God (YHVH). Considering the prior reference to God's transplanting the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden, it seems of great consequence that a reference is made to planting a branch from this same tree in another garden." (p. 122)
"According to the Midrash Yelamdenu, David carried the rod into battle against Goliath. . .Undoubtedly, David's victory was proof of God's miraculous intervention. The rod, engraved with the Ineffable Name, bore witness to the authority which this miracle of redemption had been performed. . ." (p. 128)
Students of Scripture know that no such mystical branch from the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden is found in the Old Testament. Rather, based on mere legends, Peter Michas has grossly exaggerated the importance and chronological longevity of Aaron's rod, which Scripture only states (1) miraculously became a serpent before the court of Pharaoh to swallow up the rods of the Egyptian magicians, (2) later budded as proof of Aaron's authority, (3) was preserved for a time in the Ark of the Covenant.
Another Tree of Life is very mystical, however, and central to the initiatory process of Kabbalah. In this mystery religion, the initiate is taught that he will ascend toward divinity (Primordial Man or Adam Kadmon) through gates or ladders of wisdom called sephiroth on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. The sephiroth are comprised of the four letters of the Tetragrammaton (YHVH), which are supposedly vessels through which illumination is spread to the world.  According to Professor of Jewish Mysticism and prominent expositor of Kabbalah, Daniel C. Matt, the Light of the sephiroth is believed to be Ein Sof or "God as Infinity". The sum of all ten sephiroth is called YHWH. 
"The Light of the sefirot emanates and radiates from above to below in a direct path. . .While there are many unerasable names -- the ten divine names of the sefirot -- there exists one name that comprises all ten sefirot. This is the four-letter name: YHVH. Y symbolizes Hokhmah; H, Binah; V includes six sefirot; the final H. Malkhut. Ein Sof is concealed within Keter, while its light spreads through these four letters, from yod to he, from he to vav, from vav to final he(The Essential Kabbalah, pp. 48)
Daniel Matt tells of an "ecstatic kabbalist" of the early Renaissance period named Abraham Abulafia who recommended meditation on the name of God along with free-form physical activity as a method of entering altered states of consciousness:
"Abulafia. . .recommends focusing on the pure forms of the letters of the alphabet, or on the name of God. Here there is no concrete, particular meaning, no distraction, just the music of pure thought. As the highest form of this meditation, Abulafia recommends 'jumping' or 'skipping,' a type of free association between various combinations of letters, guided by fairly lax rules. Thereby consciousness expands." (The Essential Kabbalah, pp. 12)
This helps to explain why Gideon Busch engraved the name of God on the hammer and danced wildly with the irrational notion that such a ritual would "bring down light" and holiness into the world. The Times article reported that the fiancée of Mr. Busch told reporters that he would pray so loudly the neighbors complained:
"When he meditated, he would play music very loudly, she said. Recently, he took to dancing with the hammer, which he called his staff. He put God's name on it to make it something that would bring holiness into the world. . .He'd go outside and dance with it and raise it up and move slowly. He was like bringing down light from his staff."
Masonic Grand Master, Albert Mackey explained in The Lexicon of Freemasonry that uttering the Name of God endued one with the power of God.  Note Mackey's reference to the lost name of God, which Master Masons receive upon their initiation into the 3rd degree, according to the Masonic Legend of Hiram Abiff:
". . .The Tetragrammaton might only be uttered once a year on the Day of Atonement by the High Priest in the Holy of Holies amid the sound of trumpets and cymbals which prevented the people from hearing it. It is said that in consequence of the people thus refraining from its utterance, the true pronunciation of the name was at last lost. The Jews further believed that the Tetragrammaton was possessed by unbounded powers. He who pronounces it shakes heaven and earth and inspires the very angels with astonishment and terror.' The Ineffable Name thus conferred miraculous gifts; it was engraved on the rod of Moses and enabled him to perform wonders, just as, according to the Toledot Yeshu, it conferred the same powers on Christ. . ." [(2) Mackey, Lexicon of Freemasonry, p. 156; as cited in Nesta Webster, Secret Societies & Subversive Movements, p.167]
Ritual recitation of the name of God by the High Priest of Israel is also mentioned in The Torah Anthology of famous kabbalist, Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, to whom Peter Michas frequently refers in his own book.  According to Rabbi Kaplan, as quoted by Peter Michas, God increased the volume of the voices of Moses and the High Priest -- not when they preached the Word of God -- but when they "recited" YHWH on Yom Kippur:
"When the High Priest recited the Tetragrammaton [the name of God] on Yom Kippur [Day of Atonement] it could be heard at a very great distance. This was a great miracle, like when the Torah was given, as it was written, 'Moses spoke and God answered in a voice' (Exodus 19:19). God made Moses' voice so strong that all 600,000 Israelites could hear it. Similarly, the same was true of the High Priest. God would make his voice so loud that all the people could hear it (emphasis added)." (The Rod of An Almond Tree, p. 199)
Readers of Peter Michas' book are never told that Rabbi Kaplan or any of his other rabbinic sources are kabbalists. However, the Theosophical Glossary of H.P. Blavatsky states that ritual recitation of the Ineffable Name is a practice derived straight from the Zohar, the preeminent book of Kabbalah:
"But the Rabbins do not care to remember the Zoharic admission that YHVH means 'not as I Am written, Am I read' (Zohar, fol. III., 230a). One has to know how to divide the Tetragrammaton ad infinitum  before one arrives at the sound of the truly unpronounceable name of the Jewish mystery-god." (p. 155)
Part IX of Vicky Dillen's expose of the Hebrew Roots Movement deals with Practical Kabbalah: Talismans & Masters of the Name.  She writes, "The magical abilities of Jewish adepts were a sign of their mastery of the Ineffable Name. The Divine or Ineffable Name is believed to be known only by those adepts who qualify for that secret initiation and knowledge and these are believed to become endowed with 'magical powers' by uttering or writing the Name. Their magical abilities became the impetus for various Hasidic movements which divided the Jews over whether a particular adept was the long awaited Messiah. These adepts were called Masters of the Name or Baal Shems. The term, 'Baal Shem' means that the person was regarded as expert in the 'practical kabbalah' or magic. 'Baal Shem' means literally one who is master of the name of God, who knows how to employ it." [Gershom Scholem, "On The Kabbalah And Its Symbolism," p.200, Schocken Books, 1965/1996]
Part VII: Of Sages and Scholars reveals that incantations of the name of God were intoned by Jewish sages as methods of entering the very presence of God, i.e., astral projection, as documented in the section "All Sages GO to Heaven":
The earliest documents (100-1000 A.D.) associated with Kabbalah describe the attempts of "Merkabah" mystics to penetrate the seven halls (Hekaloth) of creation and reach the Merkabah (throne-chariot) of God. These mystics used the familiar methods of shamanism (fasting,repetitious chanting, prayer, posture) to induce trance states in which they literally fought their way past terrible seals and guards to reach an ecstatic state in which they 'saw God'. [Colin Low]
In some instances the sages believed themselves to have attained to the divine state, which accounts for the messianic delusion of Gideon Busch:
. . .Hekhalot texts do tend to summon angels (never God, I believe) in a very preemptory way, and they ask for various types of esoteric wisdom and theurgic power. It seems clear also that the Merkavah mystics were deified (turned to angelic creatures of fire) before the throne of God, at least for the duration of the heavenly journey. Enoch received this deification permanently when he was transformed into the angel Metatron in 3 Enoch. But perhaps not too much should be made of this either, since deification rites are also known from the pagan magical papyri . . . [J.Davila, Ancient Magic, Part III, Jewish Magic ]
In the 17th century, famous kabbalist Sabbatai Tzevi founded the Sabbatean Movement which had many elements in common with the present-day Lubavitch Movement. Tzevi's profile even resembles that of the Lubavitch messiah, Rabbi Menachem Schneerson. Of interest, both were prophets of millenarianism and national restoration:
"Sabbatai Zevi, 1626-76, Jewish Mystic and pseudo-Messiah, founder of the Sabbatean sect, b. Smyrna. After a period of study of Lurianic Cabala. . . , he became deeply influenced by its ideas of imminent national redemption.  In 1648 he proclaimed himself the Messiah, named the year 1666 the millennium, and gathered a host of followers. In 1666 he attempted to land in Constantinople, was captured and to escape death embraced Islam. Nevertheless the influence of the Sabbatean movement survived many years." [Columbia Encyclopedia, p, 2389]
Moshe Idel noted in his volume on Messianic Mystics that Sabbatai Tzevi claimed to be the messiah after discovering the correct pronunciation of the Ineffable Name:
"Considering the fact that Abulafia's Kabbalah focuses on techniques for meditating on holy names and that he also saw himself as the Messiah, his writings may constitute a crucial precedent for the first 'strange deed' of Sabbatai Tzevi -- the pronunciation of the Tetragrammaton. . .If we accept the evidence concerning the young Tzevi as pronouncing the divine name and proclaiming himself Messiah in public in 1648 or 1649 his later career should be understood as the culmination of a remarkable beginning. . . Tzevi's reading Abulafian quotations in Sefer ha-Peliyah prompted him to pronounce the divine name so he conceived of himself as the Messiah. . ." [Moshe Idel, Messianic Mystics, Yale University Press, 1998, pp. 187, 193] 
Other sources document the immense influence of Sabbatai Tzevi whose messianic claim instigated a great movement of consecutive Masters of the Name who were empowered as miracle workers:
"Since the sixteenth century the great mass of Jewry had settled in Poland, and a succession of miracle-workers known by the name of Zaddikim or Ba'al Shems had arisen. The latter word, which signifies 'Master of the Name,' originated with the German Polish Jews and was derived from the Cabalistic belief in the miraculous use of the sacred name of Jehovah, known as the Tetragrammaton."
"According to Cabalistic traditions, certain Jews of peculiar sanctity or knowledge were able with impunity to make use of the Divine Name. A Ba'al Shem was therefore one who had acquired this power and employed it in writing amulets, invoking spirits, and prescribing cures for various diseases. Poland and particularly Podolia---which had not yet been ceded to Russia---became thus a centre of Cabalism where a series of extraordinary movements of a mystical kind followed each other. In 1666, when the Messianic era was still believed to be approaching, the whole Jewish world was convulsed by the sudden appearance of Shabbethai Zebi, the son of a poulterer in Smyrna named Mordecai, who proclaimed himself the promised Messiah and rallied to his support a huge following not only amongst the Jews of Palestine, Egypt, and Eastern Europe, but even the hard-headed Jews of the Continental bourses. 1. Samuel Pepys in his Diary refers to the bets made amongst the Jews in London on the chances of "a certain person now in Smyrna, being acclaimed King of the World and the true Messiah." [(1)Harmsworth Encyclopaedia, article on Jews. (2) Diary of Samuel Pepys, date of February 19, 1666.; As Cited Webster op.cit., p. 181 (3) Jewish Encyclopaedia, article on Shabbethai Zebi B. Mordecai]
Through the more objective lense of history, Sabbetai Tzevi is described by the Jewish Encyclopedia as a pretender. Such will be the verdict of history against the numerous messianic mystics who would rob the true Messiah, Jesus Christ, of His glory:
". . . Shabbethai, who was an expert Cabalist and had the temerity to utter the Ineffable Name Jehovah, was said to be possessed of marvelous powers, his skin exuded exquisite perfume, he indulged perpetually in sea-bathing and lived in a state of chronic ecstasy. The pretensions of Shabbethai, who took the title of 'King of the Kings of the Earth,' split Jewry in two; many Rabbi's launched imprecations against him and those who had believed in him were bitterly disillusioned when, challenged by the Sultan to prove his claim to be the Messiah by allowing poisoned arrows to be shot at him, he suddenly renounced the Jewish faith and proclaimed himself a Mohammedan. His conversion, however, appeared to be only partial, for 'at times he would assume the role of the pious Mohammedan and revile Judaism; at others he would enter into relations with Jews as one of their own faith.' By this means the he retained the allegiance both of Moslems and of the Jews. But the Rabbis, alarmed for the cause of Judaism, succeeded in obtaining his incarceration by the Sultan in a castle near Belgrade, where he died of colic in1676." [(3)Jewish Encyclopedia, article on Shabbethai Zebi B. Mordecai.; (1) Henry Hart Milman, History of the Jews (Everyman's Library), Vol.II, p. 445; As cited, Webster, op.cit., p. 181-182]
We may reasonably infer that the Lord Jesus Christ had in mind the pagan ritual of chanting or reciting the so-called Ineffable Name when He preached the Sermon on the Mount: "But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking?" (Matt. 6:7) 
In stark contrast to the mindless rituals of messianic mystics, Jesus then gave to his disciples a simple model for prayer.  What Christians have come to call the Lord's Prayer is a rational approach to God that deals forthrightly with critical issues of sin that hinder prayer.
After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
Rather than recitation of the Lord's Prayer, Jesus intended His words to be a model for meaningful prayer. Rote prayers can easily become mantras, leading a person into a mesmerized state. New Age channeler and former Roman Catholic, Elizabeth Clare Prophet, wrote one publication which promotes the rosary as a method of entering an altered state.
Includes a practical explanation of Hindu devotion to Mother as the "Goddess KUNDALINI" --THE WHITE LIGHT that rises through the spiritual centers of your being, activating cosmic consciousness. You can accomplish this acceleration of light through the daily rosary.[Summit University Press, p. 6, as cited by Cathy Burns in Hidden Secrets of the Eastern Star, p. 351]
The New York Times account of the misguided Lubavitch adherent is indeed tragic. Unfortunately, the Times failed to uncover the real cause of Gideon Busch's destruction so that others in the Jewish community would be forewarned. It is regrettable that a newspaper with such circulation and influence among Jewry does not feature a series of articles on the dangers of Kabbalism. However, there is published on the Internet an excellent treatise on mysticism by an Israeli journalist who responsibly seeks to inform the Jewish people that the once proscribed Kabbalah is now entering the mainstream of Judaism:
MASTERS OF THE BLINDING LIGHT
What Jewish People Should Know About the New Age
by Hannah Newman
"In a similar development on the mystical side of Judaism, N[ew] A[ge] spokesmen applaud orthodox Jewish teachers for recently releasing Kabbalah from the restricted access imposed on it by past generations of Jewish sages, making its teachings available to all, and even encouraging free exploration without rabbinic supervision.  In Israel the Zohar (a major Kabbalistic work) is even being sold door-to-door. [This is strictly forbidden under the 'old order' of Judaism, but NAers are not concerned with proper understanding of the teaching, since Kabbalah is simply one path to their goal of getting as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, into 'contact with the spirit realm'].  These teachers are being hailed as 'co-conspirators' who are furthering the NA Plan. [not stated whether deliberately or unknowingly, but the results will be the same.]
"From the NA standpoint, however, the value of Jewish Kabbalah lies only in its teachings which overlap 'the other ancient occult doctrines', specifically: reincarnation; traffic with angels, demons and departed human spirits; 'monism' (light and darkness, good and evil, are all sides of G-d); attributing 'secret messages' or 'hidden meanings' to words or statements which mean something else at face value; self-induced trances, resulting in visions or 'astral' (out-of-body) travels; and harnessing of superhuman powers by pronouncing sacred names. [It is noteworthy that none of these can be supported by a clear (pashat or darash) Torah passage, while some are expressly forbidden; yet they are arguably the best-known elements of Kabbalah today.  The fact that they are accepted by so many Torah Jews in spite of their dubious relevance to Torah, only supports the claims of the NA missionaries.]  The NA goal is to promote a Kabbalah in the Jewish community which goes through successive 'transformations' until it is finally severed from all links with the Torah, thus 'recovering' its 'purity'."
Christian Kabbalah?
The infiltration of Kabbalah into the Jewish community is a tragic development that is drawing many into the experiential and irrational world of Jewish mysticism rather than the Torah (first five books) of Scripture, which is God's prophetic revelation of Jesus Christ. Happily, throughout history there have been Jews to whom has been revealed the true Messiah and these have been spared the spiritual bondage of the superstitious oral traditions of Jewish mysticism. However, non-Jews and converted Jews may not take comfort in believing that Kabbalah is an exclusively Jewish phenomenon. This sourcebook of Freemasonry and other occult traditions is becoming accepted and even fashionable in social and religious circles worldwide. 
Christians in particular would be unwise to consider themselves invulnerable to the creeping deception of Kabbalism, for its sorcery has gained a large following among those who subscribe to false teachings of The Hebrew Roots Movement.  The real tragedy is that these dangerous teachings -- which should easily be recognized as counterfeit by Christians -- are given the cloak of respectability and orthodoxy by the misnamed Discernment Ministries. In reality, the Hebrew Roots Movement promotes a form of Christianized Kabbalah, the true source of which is The Lubavitch Movement
Those who believe that the Hebrew Roots Movement is a last days return to the  Jewish roots of the Christianity should read up on Church history. Daniel Matt, noted in his introduction to The Essential Kabbalah that, during the Renaissance, medieval kabbalists gained entrance into the Catholic Church by feigning faith in Jesus Christ. 
"Although Kabbalah emerged within Judaism, and has deeply affected Jewish thought and religious observance, its influence extends far beyond. Italian Renaissance humanist Pico della Mirandola immersed himself in Latin translations of Kabbalah, believing it to be the original divine revelation. Long lost and now finally restored, Kabbalah would enable Europeans to comprehend Pythagoras, Plato, and the secrets of the Catholic faith. Pico claimed that 'no science can better convince us of the divinity of Jesus Christ than magic and the Kabbalah.' His controversial, syncretistic 900 Theses drew heavily on Kabbalah and laid the foundation for Christian kabbalistic literature. Pico's follower, Johannes Reuchlin, produced the first systematic work of Christian Kabbalah, De arte cabalistica." (The Essential Kabbalah: The Heart of Jewish Mysticism, p. 16)
Two centuries earlier, the kabbalists had not fared so well. The ecstatic kabbalist, Abraham Abulafia, "came to see himself as playing a messianic role, and he actually attempted to meet with Pope Nicholas III in the summer of 1280, apparently to discuss theological and political questions. The pope condemned him to death by burning, but before the sentence could be carried out, the pope himself died. After a month in prison, Abulafia was released." (The Essential Kabbalah, pp. 12)
However, by 1493, the works of Pico della Mirandola, the famous student of Marsillo Ficino, founder of the neo-Platonic Academy of Florence, had captivated Pope Sixtus IV who mainstreamed the Cabala as orthodox doctrine.
"This reasoning appears eventually to have been endorsed by the Church in the case of Pico, who joined to his Hermetism a 'Christian Cabala,' and concocted a universal system in which Cabalistic ideas played a considerable part. Although condemned by a tribunal, Pico's synthesis was rehabilitated in 1493 by Alexander VI, whose recognition of the Cabalist as a loyal son of the Church seemed to give some authority to Pico's position. It should be remembered in this context that Sixtus IV (Pope, 1471-84) had himself translated seventy Cabalistic books into Latin, and that the concept of the 'Christian Cabala' was not peculiar to Italian thought. Reuchlin, the foremost Orientalist of the time, and the author of the first Hebrew grammar, came nearest to success in the attempt to transform the Cabala into Christian philosophy - although his pupil Widmanstadt considered the Jewish tradition as 'a Trojan horse introduced into the Church'. But the Hermeticists and Cabalists of the Renaissance were always maintaining their orthodoxy." (James Webb, The Occult Underground, Open Court Press, 1976, p. 221)
It was one hundred years later, in 1586, that Pope Sixtus V arranged for an obelisk, the phallic symbol of Kabbalism and Freemasonry, to be moved from Vatican Hill to its present position before St. Peter's Basilica. This was the same obelisk which the Roman emperor, Caligula, had transported from Egypt to Rome in 37-41 A.D. [Ralph Woodrow, Babylon Mystery Religion, pp. 32-3]
Renaissance Gnostic, Hermeticist and Cabalist, Pico della Mirandola ". . .conceived of Hermes and Plato as aids to persuading those to religion who would not accept Scripture alone." Are spiritual conditions any different within the Hebrew Roots organizations which reject the authenticity of the Greek New Testament and/or require rabbinic commentaries to understand the New Testament? Have the Freemasons and Kabbalists changed their seditious tactics of infiltrating the Church so as to bring about another "renaissance of religion" -- as predicted by Jay Gary in his Bimillennial report?
"We must recover the simple idea that the spark of eternity has been placed within each human being. We must fan this flame, this tiny spark within each person -- and insure that no government, no group, or no authority is allowed to smother or snuff out this sacred flame&hellipAs early citizens of the 21st Century, we have a sacred duty to carry this torch across the length and breadth of the planet. Let's blow the Jubilee trumpet and herald this coming renaissance among government, education, arts, media, business, and religion."
Speaking prophetically, the Lord Jesus Christ warned his disciples about ravenous wolves who would enter the Christian Church, not sparing the flock. Like the famous Trojan Horse of Greek mythology, these infiltrators would masquerade as Christians, but purvey doctrines that are calculated to corrupt and destroy true Christian faith.
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Matthew 7:15-20
The unfruitful works of darkness became evident in the tragic life of Gideon Busch.
Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.  Galatians 5:19-21
Likewise, Galatians 5:22 describes the fruit of the Holy Spirit which are produced by the pure doctrine of the Word of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. 
Ephesians 5:9 also mentions goodness, along with two other fruit of the Spirit:
For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth; Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. 
Every spiritual leader will bear fruit either according to the works of the flesh or the fruit of the Spirit. Christians must therefore carefully evaluate the fruit of those who claim to teach the Word of God by the quality of character that is produced in their disciples. However, fruit takes time to grow and the Hebrew Roots Movement is a relatively new phenomenon. For this reason, Christians would be wise to examine the fruit of the Lubavitch Movement before entering the same broad road to destruction via the Hebrew Roots Movement. 



Kabbalah Secrets Christians Need to Know: 

An In Depth Study of the Kosher Pig 

and the Gods of Jewish Mysticism 

A top selling book in Christianity and Ministry on Amazon!   

by Deanne Loper

We live in a time when false teachings are infiltrating Christian Theology at a rapid rate. This important book exposes one of the greatest threats to pure Biblical Christianity. Deanne Loper uncovers the deception by giving a detailed description of what Kabbalah is and equips believers to recognize it in its morphed form of Christianity. The evidence shows that the god of today’s Babylonian and kabbalistic Judaism is NOT the God of the Bible and that the current convergence of Christians coming under rabbinic authority will bring them, not to the one true God of the Bible, but to the subservience of the god of Kabbalah – Ein Sof – and to its hierarchy of gods.