Through the Book to God

By Samuel Dickey Gordon


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What God has spoken to others has been written down for us. … God spoke in His Word. He is still speaking in it and through it. The whole thought here is to get to know God. He reveals Himself in the word that comes from His own lips, and through His messengers’ lips. He reveals Himself in His dealings with men. Every incident and experience of these pages is a mirror held up to God’s face. In them we may come to see Him.

This is studying the Bible not for the Bible’s sake but for the purpose of knowing God. The object aimed at is not the Book but the God revealed in the Book. A man may go to college and take lectures on the English Bible, and increase his knowledge, and enrich his vocabulary, and go away with utterly erroneous ideas of God. He may go to a law school and study the codes of the first great jurist, and get a clear understanding and firm grasp of the Mosaic enactments, as he must do to lay the foundation of legal training, yet he may remain ignorant of God.

He may even go to a Bible school, and be able to analyze and synthesize, give outlines of books, and contents of chapters and much else of that invaluable and indispensable sort of knowledge, and yet fail to understand God and His marvellous love [and] will. It is not the Book with which we are concerned here but the God through the Book. Not to learn truth but through truth to know Him who is Himself the truth.

There is a fascinating bit of story told of one of David’s mighty men.1 One day there was a sudden attack upon the camp by the Philistines when the fighting men were all away. The Philistines were the traditional enemy. The very word "Philistines" was one to strike terror to the Hebrew heart. But this man was reckoned one of the first three of David’s mighty men because of his conduct that day. He quietly, quickly gripped his sword and fought the enemy single-handed. Up and down, left and right, hip and thigh he smote with such terrific earnestness and drive that the enemy turned and fled. And we are told that the muscles of his hand became so rigid around the handle of his sword that he could not tell by the feeling where his hand stopped and the sword began. Man and sword were one that day in the action of service against the nation’s enemy.

When we so absorb this Book, and the Spirit of Him who is its life that people cannot tell the line of division between the man and the God within the man, then shall we have mighty power as God’s intercessors in defeating the foe. God and man will be as one in the action of service against the enemy.



I want to make some simple suggestions for studying this Book so as to get to God through it.

First there must be the time element. One must get [time] daily when the mind is fresh. A tired mind does not readily absorb. This should be persisted in until there is a habitual spending of … time daily [with] the Book, with a spirit at [rest] from all else, so it can take in.

Then the time should be given to the Book itself. If other books are consulted and read, as they will be, let that be after the reading of this Book. Let God talk to you direct, rather than through somebody else. Give Him first chance at your ears. This Book in the central place of your table, the others grouped about it. First time given to it.

A third suggestion brings out the circle of this work. Read prayerfully. We learn how to pray by reading prayerfully. This Book does not reveal its sweets and strength to the keen mind merely, but to the Spirit-enlightened mind. With all the mental keenness possible, with the bright light of the Spirit’s illumination—that is the open sesame. I have sometimes sought the meaning of some passage from a keen scholar who could explain the Orientalisms, the fine philological distinctions, the most accurate translations, and all of that, who yet did not seem to know the simple spiritual meaning of the words being discussed. And I have asked the same question of some old saint of God, who did not know Hebrew from a hen’s tracks, but who seemed to sense at once the deep spiritual truth taught. The more knowledge, the keener the mind, the better if illumined by the Spirit that inspired these writings.

There is a fourth word to put in here. We must read thoughtfully.Thoughtfulness is in danger of being a lost art. Newspapers are so numerous, and literature so abundant, that we are becoming a bright, but a not thoughtful people. Often the stream is very wide but has no depth. Fight shallowness. Insist on reading thoughtfully. A very suggestive word in the Bible for this is "meditate."

Run through and pick out this word with its variations. The word … means to mutter, as though a man were repeating something over and over again, as he turned it over in his mind. We have another word, with the same meaning, not much used now—ruminate. We call the cow a ruminant because she chews the cud. She will spend hours chewing the cud, and then give us the rich milk and cream and butter which she has extracted from her food. That is the word here—ruminate. Chew the cud, if you would get the richest cream and butter here.

And it is remarkable how much chewing this Book of God will stand, in comparison with other books. You [can] chew a while on Tennyson, or Browning, or Longfellow. And I am not belittling these noble writings. I have my own favourite among these men. But they do not yield the richest and yet richer cream found here. This Book of God has stood more of that sort of thing than any other, yet it is the freshest book to be found today. You read a passage over the two-hundredth time and some new fine bit of meaning comes that you had not suspected to be there.

There is a fifth suggestion, that is easier to make than to follow. Read obediently. As the truth appeals to your conscience, let it change your habit and life.



Abridged from Quiet Talks on Prayer by Samuel Dickey Gordon (Fleming H. Revell, 1904). Published on Anchor August 2013. Read by Simon Peterson.


1 2 Samuel 23:9–10.

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Chemical Hypocrisy: Lies and Disinformation on the Road to War

[CLICK HERE to continue watching the video on BoilingFrogsPost.com]
by James Corbett
BoilingFrogsPost.com
August 26, 2013

With the latest allegations that Assad used chemical weapons on his own people in Syria, the world once again stands on the brink of outright military intervention in the country. As the calls for intervention by the usual suspects increases in intensity, military strikes on Damascus are looking more and more inevitable.

And with these pompous bloviations, Kerry and the warmongers of the American war machine have raised their collective middle finger not just to the Bashar al-Assad government, not just to his allies in Tehran and Moscow and Beijing, not just to the overwhelming public opinion of their own citizens, but even to the old conventions of giving lip service to truth that has run this murderous system of lies for so long.

To hell with the facts. Damn those who ask for the presentation of any shred of proof that these chemical weapons attacks can be blamed on Assad. Damn all logic in asking us to believe that Assad waited until chemical weapons inspectors arrived in his country before using chemical weapons in a war that he was already winning anyway. Damn the staggering 91% of the public who do not support the idea of military intervention. None of that matters to the psychopaths who are hell-bent on yet another murderous conflict. The American/Israeli/French/British war machine cries out for the blood of more innocents, and this it shall have come hell or high water.

We are being told that this attack is being prepared because Assad crossed the “red line” of chemical weapons use. This is a lie. America has never cared about the victims of chemical weapons attacks ever in its history unless it can achieve its own military objectives by parading on the corpses of those victims. This time is no exception.

Chemical weapons are weapons that use chemical agents to harm or kill enemy combatants, often in painful and horrific ways. These include such categories of weapons as blister agents like mustard gas, nerve agents like VX and Sarin, blood agents and choking agents. Their use is proscribed under international law by the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention.

Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons was often cited in the run up to the 2003 war on Iraq as one justification for that war. In this latest round of war propaganda surrounding the Syrian incident, it is particularly ironic that newly declassified documents show that the United States actively aided and abetted Saddam’s use of the weapons throughout the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s through the provision of technical and logistical support that helped Saddam plan his attacks. The documents show that US intelligence apparatus was fully aware of Saddam’s intent to use chemical weapons, and the instances in which he did so, but did not withdraw their support for his regime, as the Reagan White House did not want to see Iraq lose the conflict.

In an even more blatant case of hypocrisy, both the US and Israel have used white phosphorous in warfare in the last decade. The US deployed white phosphorous against civilians in Iraq in 2004 and Israel did so in its “Operation Cast Lead” in Palestine in 2009. The use of WP as a weapon against civilians is prohibited, but it was done knowingly in both cases, constituting a war crime under both countries’ own laws and treaty obligations.

The US has also used depleted uranium (Preview) in virtually every country it has fought in over the past two decades. Depleted uranium has been linked to a range of health effects (Preview) including birth defects, cancer and other diseases, resulting in “the highest rate of genetic damage in any population ever studied” in one area of Iraq.

Meanwhile, the US and its allies are perfectly happy to look the other way when their pliant puppet regimes around the world use chemical weapons. In Bahrain, for example, the Bahraini government has been weaponizing tear gas, locking down cities and flooding the area with the chemical until many of the inhabitants are debilitated or even dead. For some reason, however, there is no 24/7 coverage of the crisis in Bahrain, nor are there any Beltway pundits or talking heads providing interviews to the dinosaur media laying out the case for war against the chemical weapons-deploying Bahraini regime.

The simple fact is that this war, like all the others before it, is being waged for the expansion and preservation of the oligarchies self-interest.

It’s about pipeline politics. A freshly inked Memorandum of Understanding between Damascus, Baghdad and Tehran has brought the Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline one step closer to reality. But that pipeline would undercut Qatar’s importance as a gas producer and undermine Turkey’s position as self-appointed East-West energy crossroads, and thus cannot be allowed to stand.

It’s about regional dominance. The removal of Iran’s so-called Shia land bridge that cuts through Iraq and Syria to join up with Hezbollah in Lebanon effectively undermines any chance for Iran to assume the regional dominance that it would otherwise have, while aggrandizing Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and others vying for the region’s driver seat.

It’s about the increasing isolation of Iran in preparation for the coming assault on that country. As the now-infamous 2009 Brookings Institution report, “Which Path to Persia?” contends, the road to Tehran goes through Damascus.

And, of course, as always, it’s about the ever-present need to feed more and more people into the maw of the military-industrial complex to maintain the justification for its existence.

The public is not stupid. It understands these things. But after the demoralization of the Iraq war fiasco, in which the largest simultaneous worldwide protests in the history of the planet failed to deviate the oligarchy from its invasion plans one inch, there seems to be nothing to stop the forward progress of this march to war.

And yet, the need to stop this madness has never been more urgent and the stakes in this increasingly insane game of imperial chess have never been higher. As French/Syrian political activist Ayssar Midani pointed out in yesterday’s special report, the coming attack on Syria is not just directed at Assad, but at all of Syria’s increasingly agitated (and increasingly powerful) allies.

Where does this leave us? Once again watching helplessly as yet another overwhelmingly unpopular war is launched to the detriment of all but the oligarchy and their cronies. And where is the anti-war movement that could even potentially demonstrate the public’s resistance to this agenda, let alone deviate the war machine from its path? Has it really come to this, after decades of hard-fought, sometimes bloody resistance to war after war? Can the US government and its allies really start another “kinetic military action” without the approval of Congress and without showing a shred of evidence to the public to back up their phony justification? Unfortunately, we’re about to find out.

And until the political status quo changes and people stop voting for the better of the two proffered slave masters every four years, nothing is going to change. Sadly, however, given the state of the inter-nicene squabbling between those factions who should be opposed to this agenda, such a change in consciousness seems as far away as ever. And the war machine marches on unimpeded…

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V - The Guerrilla Economist Updates- Why Syria? It's not what you think or what you are being told!

http://www.stevequayle.com/index.php?s=598&d=17

Why Syria? It's not what you think and it's not what you've been told.

Sun Tzu said that "All war is deception." Syria like Iraq and Afghanistan before it is no different. Let us look at the real reason why the globalist corporations and banking interests are fixated on this nation. A fixation that started over a decade ago. A fixation that has the potential to lead to a major global war as key world powers are now involved.

If one remembers in the late 90's the ruling party in Afghanistan was the Taliban. They have rested most of the control of the nation from their Northern Alliance adversaries and were enjoying favor from Washington. Then it was discovered that this mountainous grave yard of empires can serve a purpose in running a gas as well as an oil pipeline dubbed the famous Caspian Pipeline. Ring a bell?

The objective of the pipeline was to run a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Azerbaijan, through Georgia and into to Turkey onto the destined Euro-Mediterranean markets. All the while bypassing Russia and allowing at that time the European Economic Community to be free of Russian Natural Gas and Gazprom.

In Early 2000 there was a meeting between leaders of the Taliban and Assistant Secretary of State, Political Crony and Known Leaker of the Valerie Plame CIA agent scandel, Richard Armitage. Armitage gave them an offer that they could not refuse. Run a secondary pipeline through Afghanistan as well and into Pakistan, out to the Arabian Sea. All facilitated by Unocal and their now famous or infamous,depends how you look at it employee Hamid Karzai. Unfortunately for the Taliban they refused. Armitage it was reported stated to the visiting Taliban delegation, "You can take the offer either with a carpet of Gold or a Carpet of Bombs."

Fast Forward one year and Afghanistan is invaded, the Taliban overthrown and Unocal employee Hamid Karzai is put in power as president. The shocking thing is this, If one takes the time to look at the Afghanistan map, large US military bases are on the very path of the purposed pipeline. This as well that some of the proceeds from the lucrative opium trade will find it's way back to US banks which will launder the money in order to help fund Unocal in the purposed pipe building project. Win Win.

So what does this have to do with Syria. Syria is the final chess piece of a move to cut Russia's lucrative lock in Natural Gas and Oil that it supplies to Europe. If this connection is cut in any way it will bring severe consequences to the Russian economy as well as Russia's natural gas company Gazprom. This is a move that the US stands to gain from.

The trouble for Syria began with two things. First the discovery of natural gas in the Mediterranean right off the coast of Syria, Lebanon and Israel. Read that list again, especially LEBANON and SYRIA, is the picture becoming clearer? This discovery took place about a decade ago, the thing is though there already exists within the middle east a Liquid Natural Gas Producing power house. That my friends is the tiny nation of Qatar.

Now here is where you need to put your thinking caps on. Qatar is floating in LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) It has over 77 Billion Tonnes in Reserve and that is with a moratorium in place. The problem is that Qatar would love to sell it's LNG to the EU and the hot Mediterranean markets. The problem for Qatar in achieving this is their regional big brother Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have already said "NO" to an overland pipe cutting across the Land of Saud. So what is the oil rich micro mite to do? Simple cut a deal with the biggest bully in the neighborhood, you guessed it, the US.

As recently as May of this year deals have been put in place by Exxon Mobile and Qatar Petroleum International, a $10 Billion deal that allows Exxon Mobile to sell natural gas through a port in Texas to the UK and Mediterranean markets.. So little Qatar is anxious, power hungry and dangerous, the only thing standing in the way of their aspirations is Syria.

The US plays into this in that it has vast wells of natural gas, in fact the largest known supply in the world. There is a reason why Natural Gas prices have been suppressed for so long in the US. This is to set the stage for US involvement in the Natural Gas market in Europe while smashing the monopoly that the Russians have enjoyed for so long.

Enter Nabucco signed by a handful of European nations and Turkey back in 2009 it was an agreement to run a natural gas pipeline across Turkey into Austria bypassing Russia again with Qatar in the mix as a supplier to a feeder pipeline via the proposed Arab pipeline from Libya to Egypt to Nabucco (is the picture getting clearer?). The problem with all of this is that a Russian backed Syria stands in the way.

Is it not interesting that the main cities of turmoil and conflict in Syria right now, the ones so spoken of in the news are Damascus, Homs, and Aleppo. Coincidentally folks those happen to be the same cities that the proposed gas pipelines happen to run through. Qatar is the biggest financier of the Syrian uprising having spent over $3 billion so far in conflict. The other side of the story is that Saudi Arabia also financiers anti-Assad groups in Syria. You see the Saudis do not want to be marginalized by their ambitious little brother, thus they too want to topple Assad and implant their own puppet government, one that would sign off on a pipeline deal and charge Qatar for running their pipes through to Nabucco.

Hence this is the reason why you have two somewhat opposing factions in Syria. On one side you have the Qatari backed Muslim Brotherhood and it's subsidiaries who have very close ties with the Emir of Qatar. On the other side you have the Saudi backed Wahhabi AL-Queda and it's subsidiaries. Hence you have various levels of atrocities from the cannibalism of the Wahabis to the Christian slaughter of the "Brotherhood". These all have Qatari and Saudi fingerprints all over them.

In the background of this den of Jackals is the chief Hyena the US ready to spread Love and Democracy not by war but "Kinetic Action". You see as the economy in the US crumbles, Pax Americana is in it's final death rattles, it desires to see it's age old rival Russia knocked off it's energy pedestal in the highly lucrative Euro market. It also is anxious to get a piece of the Natural Gas Pie. Folks you have to understand that Qatar and Saudi Arabia are proxy puppet states to the Anglo-American powers. The US will stand to gain immensely no matter which faction topples Assad. In fact deals have been cut since 2009. Again the problem is Russia stands in the way.

The recent Cyprus bail in was not something that was just a simple bank failures, which was inevitable but it was primarily designed to go after the wealth of the Russian Oligarchs who coincidentally have strong ties with the Russian energy sector. Lucky for them they were warned in advanced by a Cypriot banker and they were able to liquidate before they lost everything. This has not gone unnoticed by Putin. Why do you think that immediately after the Cyprus fiasco Russian warships docked there the following week. This was Putin sending a very strong message to the Western Banksters that Russian interests will not be messed with.

Russia is now forced to draw the line, a very hard line in the sand. Syria is much more than losing a strategic port in the Natural Gas rich middle east. It is about losing the entire European region to Middle Eastern and Caspian Energy interests. Russia cannot allow that, this is why they are moving their military assets in place, This is also why resource hungry China cannot have it's natural gas flow interrupted as well and have sided with the Russians when it comes to Syria.

Folks this is the real reason for Benghazi it is much more than giving arms to Al-Queda, and theories about shooting down Western Airliners. It about arming a large rag tag mercenary army that will help engage the Russians on the ground when the time comes. That is what Benghazi is all about is another Bear trap just like Afghanistan was for the Russians. Facing Guerrilla tactics in the desert by religious zealots is a situation that Russia is trying to avoid. So the answer to ending all of these problems for Russia is to engage the Americans directly. We are leaving them no choice. This is the reason for Benghazi.

Why Syria? It is THE way to break Russia. COPYRIGHT THE GUERRILLA ECONOMIST MAY BE REPOSTED PROVIDED LINKS ARE INCLUDED TO THIS LINK

Aug 25, 2013

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Obama Weighs 'Limited' Strikes Against Syrian Forces

By Thom Shanker, C. J. Chivers and Michael R. Gordon, NY Times, August 27, 2013

WASHINGTON—President Obama is considering military action against Syria that is intended to “deter and degrade” President Bashar al-Assad’s government’s ability to launch chemical weapons, but is not aimed at ousting Mr. Assad from power or forcing him to the negotiating table, administration officials said Tuesday.

A wide range of officials characterized the action under consideration as “limited,” perhaps lasting no more than one or two days. The attacks, which are expected to involve scores of Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from American destroyers in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, would not be focused on chemical weapons storage sites, which would risk an environmental and humanitarian catastrophe and could open up the sites to raids by militants, officials said.

The strikes would instead be aimed at military units that have carried out chemical attacks, the headquarters overseeing the effort and the rockets and artillery that have launched the attacks, according to the options being reviewed within the administration.

An American official said that the initial target lists included fewer than 50 sites, including air bases where Syria’s Russian-made attack helicopters are deployed. The list includes command and control centers as well as a variety of conventional military targets.

Perhaps two to three missiles would be aimed at each site, a far more limited unleashing of American military power than past air campaigns over Kosovo or Libya.

Some of the targets would be “dual use” systems, like artillery that is capable of firing chemical weapons as well as conventional rounds. Taking out those artillery batteries would degrade to some extent the government’s conventional force—but would hardly cripple Mr. Assad’s sizable military infrastructure and forces unless the air campaign went on for days or even weeks.

The goal of the operation is “not about regime change,” a State Department spokeswoman, Marie Harf, said Tuesday. Seeking to reassure the public that the United States would not be drawn into a civil war in the Middle East, and perhaps to lower expectations of what the attack might accomplish, Obama administration officials acknowledged that their action would not accomplish Mr. Obama’s repeated demand that Mr. Assad step down.

Some lawmakers have warned that the operation might turn out to be a largely symbolic strike that would leave the Assad government with the capability to mount sustained attacks against civilians with artillery, rockets, aircraft and conventional arms and would do little to reduce the violence in Syria, limit the flow of refugees or encourage Mr. Assad to negotiate seriously if a Geneva peace conference is convened.

The main American attack is expected to be carried out by cruise missiles from some or all of the four Arleigh Burke-class destroyers within striking range of Syria in the Mediterranean: the Mahan, the Barry, the Gravely and the Ramage.

Each ship carries about two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles, a low-flying, highly accurate weapon that can be launched from safe distances of up to about 1,000 miles. Tomahawks were used to open the conflicts in Afghanistan in 2001, in Iraq in 2003 and in Libya in 2011. Attack submarines also carry Tomahawks and are assumed to be on station in the Mediterranean as well.

Officials said that while Syrian rocket and artillery sites were expected to be targeted, there were no current plans to use Tomahawks to crater airfields used by the government to receive weapons and military supplies from Iran, an important lifeline for the Assad government.

Weapons experts said that Tomahawk missile strikes, while politically and psychologically significant, could have a limited tactical effect. The weapons are largely fuel and guidance systems and carry relatively small high-explosive warheads. One conventional version contains about 260 pounds of explosives and another version carries about 370 pounds. Each is less than the explosive power of a single 1,000-pound air-dropped bomb.

The weapons are not often effective against mobile targets, like missile launchers, and cannot be used to attack underground bunkers. Naval officers and attack planners concede that the elevation of the missile cannot entirely be controlled and that there is a risk of civilian casualties when they fly slightly high.

Some officials have also cautioned that Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants might step up terrorism around the region in reaction to American strikes on Syria. Another risk is that Mr. Assad might respond to the attack by firing missiles at Turkey or Jordan or mounting even more intensive attacks against civilians.

Although some experts believe that the Syrian government already has its hands full trying to contain the rebels and would not relish a war with the United States, they say that the Obama administration needs to be prepared for another round of airstrikes should Mr. Assad raise the stakes.

Attacking chemical weapons storage sites comes with the same difficulties and risks associated with attacking munitions depots generally, and with its own special dangers, which the American military encountered in two wars in Iraq. First among them are risks of contamination to the very Syrian civilians that any military action would officially be intended to protect.

Many veterans suspect that some of the effects of Gulf War syndrome that afflicted veterans of the Persian Gulf war of 1991 were caused by exposure to chemical weapons released in clouds by conventional airstrikes against Iraq’s chemical weapons sites in southern Iraq.

After the first gulf war, an American Army unit near Kuwait breached chemical weapons while destroying conventional munitions at Khamisiyah, creating an environmental hazard that persisted throughout the American occupation of Iraq after the invasion in 2003.

Similarly, airstrikes in 1991 on bunkers at the Muthanna chemical weapons complex near Samarra, Iraq, led to security and environmental problems that continue to the present day.

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Saudis offer to pay Russia to back off on Syria?

By Fred Weir, CS Monitor, August 27, 2013

Moscow—An odd and difficult-to-confirm story that keeps popping back onto news cycles, almost zombie-like, describes an alleged attempt by Saudi Arabia to bribe Russia into dumping its Syrian client, Bashar al-Assad, with a huge $15 billion arms deal and lucrative oil-and-gas concessions.

The news reports, though many of them are dated today, actually refer to a four-hour July 31 meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and the head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, at Mr. Putin’s Novo Ogaryovo dacha outside of Moscow.

The meeting was widely reported by Arab media within days, along with the version, apparently leaked by the Saudi side, that Prince Bandar had offered Putin generous Saudi contracts to buy Russian tanks, attack helicopters, and other weaponry in return for Russia’s agreement to scale down its support for Mr. Assad and not to veto any more UN Security Council resolutions pertaining to Syria.

That story was flatly contradicted by the Kremlin on Aug. 9. Putin’s foreign policy architect, Yury Ushakov, admitted that the meeting with the Saudi intelligence chief had taken place, but insisted that only “philosophical” matters had come up.

Russia and Saudi Arabia have plenty of issues to talk about, in principle, and some sources suggest that secret meetings like this have been going on regularly for quite a few years.

The two countries are the world’s No. 1 and No. 2 oil producers—they alternate in first place from year to year—yet Russia does not cooperate with the Saudi-led Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), a cartel that seeks to maintain balance between global oil supply and demand in order to keep prices buoyant.

One report of the Bandar-Putin meeting quotes the Saudi official as offering not to “contest” Russia’s gas market in Europe and other forms of cooperation that could prove profitable for Russia.

"Let us examine how to put together a unified Russian-Saudi strategy on the subject of oil. The aim is to agree on the price of oil and production quantities that keep the price stable in global oil markets," one media report quotes Bandar as telling Putin.

Besides a common—if often clashing—interest in Middle Eastern affairs, Russia accuses Saudi Arabia of exporting a militant brand of “Wahabbi” Islam that Moscow claims is fueling extremist activity in its mainly Muslim regions of the north Caucasus and the Volga republic of Tatarstan.

Some versions of the story about Bandar’s meeting with Putin suggest that the Saudi intelligence chief went so far as to offer Russia its help in containing potential terrorist threats to the upcoming Sochi Winter Olympics, and suggesting that the Games could be in danger if Moscow fails to come to an agreement about Syria.

Some Russian experts say the accounts of what Bandar proposed to Putin may be accurate, but say they doubt Putin—who is able to splash out over $50 billion of Russia’s own oil money to host the Olympic Games—would renege on his own strongly expressed and oft-repeated policies on Syria in exchange for a few billion dollars in dubious arms contracts.

"Yes, it seems Saudi Arabia made a proposal to buy $15 billion worth of Russian arms, but the Kremlin made clear that it wasn’t making any behind-the-scenes deals. And that was the end of it," says Vladimir Sotnikov, a Middle East expert with the official Institute of Oriental Studies in Moscow.

"It was probably some kind of trial balloon. But Saudi Arabia is no friend of Russia’s, and it really wouldn’t suit Putin to do deals behind Assad’s back. Russia is standing on principles of international law regarding Syria, and it has enough points in favor of its position that it sees no reason to risk all its credibility with some move like that. Even if it were an offer to join an oil price-fixing cartel, even then Russia wouldn’t go along. No bargain like that is going to happen," says Mr. Sotnikov.

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CIA Files Prove America Helped Saddam as He Gassed Iran

By Shane Harris and Matthew M. Aid, Foreign Policy, August 26, 2013

The U.S. government may be considering military action in response to chemical strikes near Damascus. But a generation ago, America’s military and intelligence communities knew about and did nothing to stop a series of nerve gas attacks far more devastating than anything Syria has seen, Foreign Policy has learned.

In 1988, during the waning days of Iraq’s war with Iran, the United States learned through satellite imagery that Iran was about to gain a major strategic advantage by exploiting a hole in Iraqi defenses. U.S. intelligence officials conveyed the location of the Iranian troops to Iraq, fully aware that Hussein’s military would attack with chemical weapons, including sarin, a lethal nerve agent.

The intelligence included imagery and maps about Iranian troop movements, as well as the locations of Iranian logistics facilities and details about Iranian air defenses. The Iraqis used mustard gas and sarin prior to four major offensives in early 1988 that relied on U.S. satellite imagery, maps, and other intelligence. These attacks helped to tilt the war in Iraq’s favor and bring Iran to the negotiating table, and they ensured that the Reagan administration’s long-standing policy of securing an Iraqi victory would succeed. But they were also the last in a series of chemical strikes stretching back several years that the Reagan administration knew about and didn’t disclose.

U.S. officials have long denied acquiescing to Iraqi chemical attacks, insisting that Hussein’s government never announced he was going to use the weapons. But retired Air Force Col. Rick Francona, who was a military attaché in Baghdad during the 1988 strikes, paints a different picture.

"The Iraqis never told us that they intended to use nerve gas. They didn’t have to. We already knew," he told Foreign Policy.

According to recently declassified CIA documents and interviews with former intelligence officials like Francona, the U.S. had firm evidence of Iraqi chemical attacks beginning in 1983. At the time, Iran was publicly alleging that illegal chemical attacks were carried out on its forces, and was building a case to present to the United Nations. But it lacked the evidence implicating Iraq, much of which was contained in top secret reports and memoranda sent to the most senior intelligence officials in the U.S. government. The CIA declined to comment for this story.

In contrast to today’s wrenching debate over whether the United States should intervene to stop alleged chemical weapons attacks by the Syrian government, the United States applied a cold calculus three decades ago to Hussein’s widespread use of chemical weapons against his enemies and his own people. The Reagan administration decided that it was better to let the attacks continue if they might turn the tide of the war. And even if they were discovered, the CIA wagered that international outrage and condemnation would be muted.

In the documents, the CIA said that Iran might not discover persuasive evidence of the weapons’ use—even though the agency possessed it. Also, the agency noted that the Soviet Union had previously used chemical agents in Afghanistan and suffered few repercussions.

It has been previously reported that the United States provided tactical intelligence to Iraq at the same time that officials suspected Hussein would use chemical weapons. But the CIA documents, which sat almost entirely unnoticed in a trove of declassified material at the National Archives in College Park, Md., combined with exclusive interviews with former intelligence officials, reveal new details about the depth of the United States’ knowledge of how and when Iraq employed the deadly agents. They show that senior U.S. officials were being regularly informed about the scale of the nerve gas attacks. They are tantamount to an official American admission of complicity in some of the most gruesome chemical weapons attacks ever launched.

Top CIA officials, including the Director of Central Intelligence William J. Casey, a close friend of President Ronald Reagan, were told about the location of Iraqi chemical weapons assembly plants; that Iraq was desperately trying to make enough mustard agent to keep up with frontline demand from its forces; that Iraq was about to buy equipment from Italy to help speed up production of chemical-packed artillery rounds and bombs; and that Iraq could also use nerve agents on Iranian troops and possibly civilians.

Officials were also warned that Iran might launch retaliatory attacks against U.S. interests in the Middle East, including terrorist strikes, if it believed the United States was complicit in Iraq’s chemical warfare campaign.

"As Iraqi attacks continue and intensify the chances increase that Iranian forces will acquire a shell containing mustard agent with Iraqi markings," the CIA reported in a top secret document in November 1983. "Tehran would take such evidence to the U.N. and charge U.S. complicity in violating international law."

At the time, the military attaché’s office was following Iraqi preparations for the offensive using satellite reconnaissance imagery, Francona told Foreign Policy. According to a former CIA official, the images showed Iraqi movements of chemical materials to artillery batteries opposite Iranian positions prior to each offensive.

Francona, an experienced Middle East hand and Arabic linguist who served in the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, said he first became aware of Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iran in 1984, while serving as air attaché in Amman, Jordan. The information he saw clearly showed that the Iraqis had used Tabun nerve agent (also known as “GA”) against Iranian forces in southern Iraq.

The declassified CIA documents show that Casey and other top officials were repeatedly informed about Iraq’s chemical attacks and its plans for launching more. “If the Iraqis produce or acquire large new supplies of mustard agent, they almost certainly would use it against Iranian troops and towns near the border,” the CIA said in a top secret document.

But it was the express policy of Reagan to ensure an Iraqi victory in the war, whatever the cost.

The CIA noted in one document that the use of nerve agent “could have a significant impact on Iran’s human wave tactics, forcing Iran to give up that strategy.” Those tactics, which involved Iranian forces swarming against conventionally armed Iraqi positions, had proved decisive in some battles. In March 1984, the CIA reported that Iraq had “begun using nerve agents on the Al Basrah front and likely will be able to employ it in militarily significant quantities by late this fall.”

The use of chemical weapons in war is banned under the Geneva Protocol of 1925, which states that parties “will exert every effort to induce other States to accede to the” agreement. Iraq never ratified the protocol; the United States did in 1975. The Chemical Weapons Convention, which bans the production and use of such arms, wasn’t passed until 1997, years after the incidents in question.

The initial wave of Iraqi attacks, in 1983, used mustard agent. While generally not fatal, mustard causes severe blistering of the skin and mucus membranes, which can lead to potentially fatal infections, and can cause blindness and upper respiratory disease, while increasing the risk of cancer. The United States wasn’t yet providing battlefield intelligence to Iraq when mustard was used. But it also did nothing to assist Iran in its attempts to bring proof of illegal Iraqi chemical attacks to light. Nor did the administration inform the United Nations. The CIA determined that Iran had the capability to bomb the weapons assembly facilities, if only it could find them. The CIA believed it knew the locations.

Hard evidence of the Iraqi chemical attacks came to light in 1984. But that did little to deter Hussein from using the lethal agents, including in strikes against his own people. For as much as the CIA knew about Hussein’s use of chemical weapons, officials resisted providing Iraq with intelligence throughout much of the war. The Defense Department had proposed an intelligence-sharing program with the Iraqis in 1986. But according to Francona, it was nixed because the CIA and the State Department viewed Saddam Hussein as “anathema” and his officials as “thugs.”

The situation changed in 1987. CIA reconnaissance satellites picked up clear indications that the Iranians were concentrating large numbers of troops and equipment east of the city of Basrah, according to Francona, who was then serving with the Defense Intelligence Agency. What concerned DIA analysts the most was that the satellite imagery showed that the Iranians had discovered a gaping hole in the Iraqi lines southeast of Basrah. The seam had opened up at the junction between the Iraqi III Corps, deployed east of the city, and the Iraqi VII Corps, which was deployed to the southeast of the city in and around the hotly contested Fao Peninsula.

The satellites detected Iranian engineering and bridging units being secretly moved to deployment areas opposite the gap in the Iraqi lines, indicating that this was going to be where the main force of the annual Iranian spring offensive was going to fall, Francona said.

In late 1987, the DIA analysts in Francona’s shop in Washington wrote a Top Secret Codeword report partially entitled “At The Gates of Basrah,” warning that the Iranian 1988 spring offensive was going to be bigger than all previous spring offensives, and this offensive stood a very good chance of breaking through the Iraqi lines and capturing Basrah. The report warned that if Basrah fell, the Iraqi military would collapse and Iran would win the war.

President Reagan read the report and, according to Francona, wrote a note in the margin addressed to Secretary of Defense Frank C. Carlucci: “An Iranian victory is unacceptable.”

Subsequently, a decision was made at the top level of the U.S. government (almost certainly requiring the approval of the National Security Council and the CIA). The DIA was authorized to give the Iraqi intelligence services as much detailed information as was available about the deployments and movements of all Iranian combat units. That included satellite imagery and perhaps some sanitized electronic intelligence. There was a particular focus on the area east of the city of Basrah where the DIA was convinced the next big Iranian offensive would come. The agency also provided data on the locations of key Iranian logistics facilities, and the strength and capabilities of the Iranian air force and air defense system. Francona described much of the information as “targeting packages” suitable for use by the Iraqi air force to destroy these targets.

The sarin attacks then followed.

The nerve agent causes dizziness, respiratory distress, and muscle convulsions, and can lead to death. CIA analysts could not precisely determine the Iranian casualty figures because they lacked access to Iranian officials and documents. But the agency gauged the number of dead as somewhere between “hundreds” and “thousands” in each of the four cases where chemical weapons were used prior to a military offensive. According to the CIA, two-thirds of all chemical weapons ever used by Iraq during its war with Iran were fired or dropped in the last 18 months of the war.

By 1988, U.S. intelligence was flowing freely to Hussein’s military. That March, Iraq launched a nerve gas attack on the Kurdish village of Halabja in northern Iraq.

A month later, the Iraqis used aerial bombs and artillery shells filled with sarin against Iranian troop concentrations on the Fao Peninsula southeast of Basrah, helping the Iraqi forces win a major victory and recapture the entire peninsula. The success of the Fao Peninsula offensive also prevented the Iranians from launching their much-anticipated offensive to capture Basrah. According to Francona, Washington was very pleased with the result because the Iranians never got a chance to launch their offensive.

The level of insight into Iraq’s chemical weapons program stands in marked contrast to the flawed assessments, provided by the CIA and other intelligence agencies about Iraq’s program prior to the United States’ invasion in 2003. Back then, American intelligence had better access to the region and could send officials out to assess the damage.

Francona visited the Fao Peninsula shortly after it had been captured by the Iraqis. He found the battlefield littered with hundreds of used injectors once filled with atropine, the drug commonly used to treat sarin’s lethal effects. Francona scooped up a few of the injectors and brought them back to Baghdad—proof that the Iraqis had used sarin on the Fao Peninsula.

In the ensuing months, Francona reported, the Iraqis used sarin in massive quantities three more times in conjunction with massed artillery fire and smoke to disguise the use of nerve agents. Each offensive was hugely successful, in large part because of the increasingly sophisticated use of mass quantities of nerve agents. The last of these attacks, called the Blessed Ramadan Offensive, was launched by the Iraqis in April 1988 and involved the largest use of sarin nerve agent employed by the Iraqis to date. For a quarter-century, no chemical attack came close to the scale of Saddam’s unconventional assaults. Until, perhaps, the strikes last week outside of Damascus.

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Obama's Fateful Line in the Sand

By Andrew Levine, Counterpunch, August 27, 2013

Who would have imagined that, five years into Barack Obama’s tenancy of the White House, American whistleblowers would seek refuge in Russia (or China or in formerly subservient but now robustly independent South American countries) or that investigative journalists and documentary film makers would find Germany or Brazil safer havens in which to practice their trade than the United States?

The answer is no one: not even those of us who have always been skeptical not just of Obama’s leadership skills but also of his intentions.

But even with a President more “disappointing” than anyone would have imagined, and a government that demonizes its enemies’ depredations and cloaks its own in the mantle of “humanitarian” righteousness, the “line in the sand” that the Syrian government may or may not have crossed is still over the top.

Remarkably, though, hardly anyone in the political or media mainstream sees it that way.

President Obama declared long ago and more than once that should Syria’s President Hafez Al-Assad use chemical weapons against rebels trying to overthrow his government, he would risk bringing the United States—and whatever “coalition of the willing” partners he could cobble together—into the war on the rebel side.

It was plain even at the time that Obama had boxed himself in. If that line is crossed and he does nothing about it, he will look indecisive and weak. With elections (always) looming, a President, especially a Democratic one, cannot afford that. Neither can any leader of an imperialist super-power that bullies the world.

As of now, it is not certain what actually happened August 21 in Jobar, a rebel-held district on the outskirts of Damascus. All that is known for sure is that a lot of people, perhaps as many as thirteen hundred (though probably fewer), died.

Informed observers agree that chemical weapons were used, but there is no agreement on the identity of the perpetrators; each side blames the other. The predominant view—promoted by Western governments and by Assad’s enemies in the Arabian Peninsula and also by many Western and Middle Eastern journalists, is that it was Assad’s “regime.”

[In media parlance, the government Assad leads is a “regime,” while Obama heads an “administration.” “Regime” sounds nasty, and “regime change” is sometimes an estimable goal. “Administrations,” on the other hand, are benign and, as the word suggests, almost apolitical. School boards, universities and public utilities have administrations; dictatorships have regimes.]

Maybe Assad really is culpable; he has never been a leader who bothered much about ethical side constraints, and he does seem intent on holding onto power by any means necessary.

But the cui bono? (who benefits?) principle suggests the opposite. The Syrian government plainly has enough popular support to withstand the forces arrayed against it. Indeed, it seems to be winning the war.

Amidst all the murder and mayhem, it has become increasingly evident that the rebel forces cannot win—unless something happens to alter the balance of forces.

And what could happen besides Western, especially American, intervention?

Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states have been arming the rebels for some time; lately the West has joined in as well. The United States has already announced its intention to increase its already considerable share.

At the same time, our leaders understand that siding with the rebels is a risky business if only because the forces in rebellion include some of the Islamists the U.S. is fighting against elsewhere. The Obama administration has always been clueless on the Middle East, but there are limits even to its folly.

And so the prospects for a successful proxy war against the Syrian government are bleak; rebel forces can tie the Assad “regime” down, but not destroy it.

To effect regime change—in other words, to overthrow Assad’s government—the U.S. and its allies may have to go to war on their own.

But for that idea to sell, a suitable pretext must be found. Only then might the United Nations be persuaded to approve military action. So far, principled Russian and Chinese opposition have blocked that prospect.

The United States has lately settled on a principle sometimes called the “responsibility (and right) to protect.” That ostensibly well-intentioned notion is a concoction of “humanitarian interventionists.” Obama has brought some notorious proponents of that idea into his administration—Susan Rice and Samantha Powers, among others.

Humanitarian interventionism is neo-conservatism for liberals. It operates to “justify” the United States and other Western countries taking on the role of planetary gendarmes ever at the ready to visit death and destruction upon “regimes” that challenge American domination or otherwise thwart the empire’s will.

Because Russia—and therefore the United Nations Security Council—was not willing to go along, the Clinton administration had to resort to this kind of thinking to excuse the 1999 NATO bombing campaign against Serbian areas throughout the former Yugoslavia.

The pretext then was a “humanitarian crisis” in Kosovo. George Bush would go on to deploy even phonier pretexts to justify his wars. But it was the Clinton administration that showed how it could be done.

When hard core neocons came into power under Bush and Dick Cheney, the humanitarian intervention excuse became otiose—real neocons don’t need no stinkin’ responsibilities or rights to overthrow governments they don’t like. Under Obama’s aegis, with the neocons gone, the idea has sprung back to life.

Since he took office, the responsibility (and right) to protect has been invoked, at least implicitly, in each of the large-scale military misadventures Obama has undertaken—the “surge” in Afghanistan and the overthrow of the Libyan government in 2011. The former was his fabrication; in the latter, he only “led from behind.”

If the Obama administration has learned anything from those mistakes, there is no sign of it. And so, in our name, Syria is on line to become the next killing field.

Since drones are not enough, that will mean bombers—shades of Kosovo—and perhaps cruise missiles; anything to keep American casualties down.

That is crucial because, like Clinton before him, Obama fears hostile public opinion. In Clinton’s time, there were still vestiges of the Vietnam Syndrome to overcome. Now, as the endless wars spawned in the aftermath of 9/11 drag on, the public has grown war-weary.

Syrian casualties, however, are another story; racking them up is the whole point. To stop Assad from killing Syrians with poison gas, Obama will kill them with cruise missiles and bombs.

Even in a world that where rank hypocrites run the show, the hypocrisy in this instance is so breathtaking it can hardly be believed.

After all, Obama is the Commander-in-Chief of a military that, within recent years, has used napalm, white phosphorous and depleted uranium shells, along with a host of other conventional and non-conventional horrors. These weapons are not illegal under international law if used against combatants (a fine point the U.S. often ignores), but they are no less terrible than sarin gas.

Saddam Hussein used multiple chemical agents, reportedly supplied by the United States, against Iran during the Iran-Iraq War, and then in 1988, he used chemical weapons against the Kurdish town of Halabja, killing more than 3000 (perhaps as many as 5000) people, and injuring many others.

None of this bothered the United States until Bush the father found it expedient to demonize his erstwhile collaborator, the Iraqi dictator, during the buildup to the Bush family’s First Gulf War. Even then, it was only the massacre of the Kurds that provoked outrage; gassing Iranians was fine.

Chemical weapons cause injury and death; they ought never to be used. But they have been used without complaint on the part of “the world community,” and they are inherently no worse than many weapons that the American military regularly deploys.

They are certainly not worse than the nuclear weapons that figure prominently still in American strategic planning documents, and that might well be used should the United States or Israel invade Iran and then find their operations going poorly.

Why, then, is the use of chemical weapons in Syria, in the course of an on-going civil war, a reasonable basis for drawing a line in the sand, one that could trigger further disasters around the entire region and throughout the world?

The cynical answer is that neocons and humanitarian interventionists need pretexts, and this is the best they are likely to get. But then there is also the issue of historical memory.

In the aftermath of the First World War, where chemical weapons were indeed more horrifying than any other weapons in use, there were attempts to outlaw war and also, as it were, to civilize it. Needless to say, little came of these well-intentioned efforts.

But a taboo on the use of chemical weapons in combat did take hold. It held up even during the Second World War, and then in the countless counter-insurgency wars the West fought in its aftermath.

That this taboo endured is all the more remarkable inasmuch as it was not legally binding until 1997, when the Chemical Weapons Convention finally went into effect. Syria, by the way, has never been a signatory to that pact.

Why the special revulsion to chemical weapons? Is it worse to be attacked with sarin gas than with bombs or cruise missiles or, for that matter, with Obama’s drones?

Nothing beats drones for terrorizing populations because one never knows when they are coming, and there is no way to protect against them.

For the rest, including poison gas, at least there are shelters and gas masks. But what difference would that make to the dead and dying?

Why then draw a line in the sand where Obama did?

And why is there so much acquiescence worldwide to the idea that if the Syrian government did indeed cross the line, then something must be done? It is as if the world is in the grip of a dangerous collective imbecility.

The irony is that Obama plainly knows better; the last thing he wants—or needs—is another war of choice in the Middle East.

But he may not be able to resist the pressure.

It is coming full blast from the (increasingly vociferous) War Party in Congress, from Israel, from Britain and France (always eager, lately, for lovely little wars), and of course from the hordes of chicken-hawk pundits who populate the mainstream media.

This may be a case where the problem is not Obama’s instincts or judgment so much as his weakness, his inability to lead. That he drew a line in the sand doesn’t help either.

In all likelihood, there is still time for him to put reason in control, and Just Say No. Don’t count on it, however.

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The Real Antidote to Stage Fright

By Margaret Heffernan, Inc., Aug. 22, 2013

Do you suffer from stage fright? I am told that three out of every four people suffer from speech anxiety and that some of those would rather die than stand up and give a talk. I’m not one of them. I do a lot of speaking engagements, and that means I also get to hear a lot of speakers, many of whom I learn a lot from. But no speech ever taught me as much as the most disastrous case of stage fright I’ve ever witnessed.

The talk was in front of an audience of about 500 people and the speaker really knew her stuff. She’d given loads of talks before and there was no reason to believe that this wouldn’t go well.

I don’t really know what happened but clearly, about five minutes in, everything started to fall apart. You could see that she was struggling to remember the structure of her argument. In long, painful pauses, the audience watched as she mentally rehearsed what she’d already said and what she had yet to say. At times, she simply stopped, completely lost, confused, and appalled by an experience she didn’t understand. At no point did she give up, which meant that a 20-minute talk stretched out for what seemed an interminable period of time until, at last, she reached the end.

The audience cheered. Not because it had been a great talk but because she had shown great courage. And that was the powerful lesson I learned: The audience is on your side. If you struggle, stumble or make a mistake but can keep going, even acknowledging that you’re finding it hard, the audience will love you for it. The people in the your audience share your pain; they know how hard speaking is, and they respect you for daring to do what many would never attempt.

A great speech isn’t, finally, about the speaker but about the audience. People want you to succeed. You don’t have to be perfect. Just human.

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Attributes of God

A compilation


Audio length: 10:54
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The attributes of God tell us what He is and who He is.—William Ames

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Because God is spirit ... I will seek intimate fellowship with Him.
Because God is all-powerful ... He can help me with anything.
Because God is ever-present ... He is always with me.
Because God knows everything ... I will go to Him with all my questions and concerns.
Because God is sovereign ... I will joyfully submit to His will.
Because God is holy ... I will devote myself to Him in purity, worship and service.
Because God is absolute truth ... I will believe what He says and live accordingly.
Because God is righteous ... I will live by His standards.
Because God is just ... He will treat me fairly.
Because God is love ... He is unconditionally committed to my well-being.
Because God is merciful ... He forgives me of my sins when I sincerely confess them.
Because God is faithful ... I will trust Him to always keep His promises.
Because God never changes ... my future is secure and eternal.
—Dr. William R. Bright

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Among the attributes of God, although they are all equal, mercy shines with even more brilliancy than justice.—Miguel de Cervantes

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“What are the attributes of God?”

(Editor’s note: The Bible references within this text are hyperlinked, so you can follow through to the verse text easily.)

The Bible, God’s Word, tells us what God is like and what He is not like. Without the authority of the Bible, any attempt to explain God’s attributes would be no better than an opinion, which by itself is often incorrect, especially in understanding God (Job 42:7). To say that it is important for us to try to understand what God is like is a huge understatement. Failure to do so can cause us to set up, chase after, and worship false gods contrary to His will (Exodus 20:3–5).

Only what God has chosen to reveal of Himself can be known. One of God’s attributes or qualities is “light,” meaning that He is self-revealing in information of Himself (Isaiah 60:19; James 1:17). The fact that God has revealed knowledge of Himself should not be neglected (Hebrews 4:1). Creation, the Bible, and the Word made flesh (Jesus Christ) will help us to know what God is like.

Let’s start by understanding that God is our Creator and that we are a part of His creation (Genesis 1:1; Psalm 24:1) and are created in His image. Man is above the rest of creation and was given dominion over it (Genesis 1:26-28). Creation is marred by the fall but still offers a glimpse of God’s works (Genesis 3:17-18; Romans 1:19-20). By considering creation’s vastness, complexity, beauty, and order, we can have a sense of the awesomeness of God.

Reading through some of the names of God can be helpful in our search of what God is like. They are as follows:

Elohim - strong One, divine (Genesis 1:1)
Adonai - Lord, indicating a Master-to-servant relationship (Exodus 4:10,13)
El Elyon - Most High, the strongest One (Genesis 14:20)
El Roi - the strong One who sees (Genesis 16:13)
El Shaddai - Almighty God (Genesis 17:1)
El Olam - Everlasting God (Isaiah 40:28)
Yahweh - LORD “I Am,” meaning the eternal self-existent God (Exodus 3:13,14).

God is eternal, meaning He had no beginning and His existence will never end. He is immortal and infinite (Deuteronomy 33:27; Psalm 90:2; 1 Timothy 1:17). God is immutable, meaning He is unchanging; this in turn means that God is absolutely reliable and trustworthy (Malachi 3:6; Numbers 23:19; Psalm 102:26,27). God is incomparable; there is no one like Him in works or being. He is unequaled and perfect (2 Samuel 7:22;Psalm 86:8; Isaiah 40:25; Matthew 5:48). God is inscrutable, unfathomable, unsearchable, and past finding out as far as understanding Him completely (Isaiah 40:28;Psalm 145:3; Romans 11:33,34).

God is just; He is no respecter of persons in the sense of showing favoritism (Deuteronomy 32:4; Psalm 18:30). God is omnipotent; He is all-powerful and can do anything that pleases Him, but His actions will always be in accord with the rest of His character (Revelation 19:6; Jeremiah 32:17,27). God is omnipresent, meaning He is present everywhere, but this does not mean that God is everything (Psalm 139:7-13;Jeremiah 23:23). God is omniscient, meaning He knows the past, present, and future, including what we are thinking at any given moment. Since He knows everything, His justice will always be administered fairly (Psalm 139:1-5; Proverbs 5:21).

God is one; not only is there no other, but He is alone in being able to meet the deepest needs and longings of our hearts. God alone is worthy of our worship and devotion (Deuteronomy 6:4). God is righteous, meaning that God cannot and will not pass over wrongdoing. It is because of God’s righteousness and justice that, in order for our sins to be forgiven, Jesus had to experience God’s wrath when our sins were placed upon Him (Exodus 9:27; Matthew 27:45-46; Romans 3:21-26).

God is sovereign, meaning He is supreme. All of His creation put together cannot thwart His purposes (Psalm 93:1; 95:3; Jeremiah 23:20). God is spirit, meaning He is invisible (John 1:18; 4:24). God is a Trinity. He is three in one, the same in substance, equal in power and glory. God is truth, He will remain incorruptible and cannot lie (Psalm 117:2; 1 Samuel 15:29).

God is holy, separated from all moral defilement and hostile toward it. God sees all evil and it angers Him. God is referred to as a consuming fire (Isaiah 6:3; Habakkuk 1:13;Exodus 3:2, 4-5; Hebrews 12:29). God is gracious, and His grace includes His goodness, kindness, mercy, and love. If it were not for God’s grace, His holiness would exclude us from His presence. Thankfully, this is not the case, for He desires to know each of us personally (Exodus 34:6; Psalm 31:19; 1 Peter 1:3; John 3:16, 17:3).

Since God is an infinite Being, no human can fully answer this God-sized question [of what are His attributes], but through God’s Word, we can understand much about who God is and what He is like. May we all wholeheartedly continue to seek after Him (Jeremiah 29:13).—Got questions website1

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Never did the love of God reveal itself so clearly as when he laid down his life for his sheep, nor did the justice of God ever flame forth so conspicuously as when he would suffer in himself the curse for sin rather than sin should go unpunished, and the law should be dishonored. Every attribute of God was focused at the cross, and he that hath eyes to look through his tears, and see the wounds of Jesus, shall behold more of God there than a whole eternity of providence or an infinity of creation shall ever be able to reveal to him.—C. H. Spurgeon

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In learning about God’s nature, essence, character, and attributes, we should understand from the beginning that we can never know all there is to know about God. We are finite beings, and we are limited in knowledge. God is an infinite being, He is unlimited in knowledge, and the gap between the two can never be bridged. Christian doctrine teaches that God is incomprehensible, meaning that He is “unable to be fully understood.”2 This doesn’t mean that God can’t be understood at all; it simply means that He can’t be fully or exhaustively understood.

Even though we won’t ever be able to comprehend all there is to know about God, wecan know things about Him that He has revealed to us. Some we know in general terms, through the world around us—His creation. Others we learn more specifically, through the primary vehicle by which He has revealed Himself to humankind—the Bible. Within its pages are things which God has told humanity about Himself, and what He has said about Himself is true. He hasn’t told us everything about Himself, though, so no one can fully understand all there is to know about Him. But what He has said through His creation and through His Word are in any case the things that He has revealed about Himself to humanity. These revelations tell us a great deal about Him, and what we learn through these causes us to love, praise, and trust Him.—Peter Amsterdam3

Published on Anchor August 2013. Read by Jon Marc.
Music by Michael Dooley.

1 http://www.gotquestions.org/attributes-God.html.


2 Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 150.


3 Originally published August 2011.

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Sharing the Faith

Words from Jesus, unless otherwise indicated


Audio length: 8:41
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What have you done today to save a soul? Have you asked yourself this question today? Have you done your part to save a soul today?—Not only in deed, but have you done your part through prayer and supplication?

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You know the saying, ‘Four months between planting and harvest.’ But I say, wake up and look around. The fields are already ripe for harvest. The harvesters are paid good wages, and the fruit they harvest is people brought to eternal life. What joy awaits both the planter and the harvester alike!—John 4:35–361

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Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are already white to harvest. The harvest is plenteous and the trees are laden with ripe fruit. But even now the fruit falls to the ground and perishes for want of those to harvest it. Lift up your eyes and look upon the fields. Be not secluded in your blessings, but let your heart be touched with the feelings of those without—those who don’t know the truth and who don’t know the Savior, those who are dying of starvation and who freeze in the cold for lack of the warmth of My Spirit and My love.

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Have I not promised that they that understand among the people shall instruct many?2 Be faithful to give what you have received. Freely you have received, freely give.3 I will give you boldness and conviction that you may go forth to minister and to pour forth the Word of God that so many desperately seek.

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The only cause that is big enough to satisfy the yearning of our hearts is the cause of Jesus Christ, and its flag is the blood-stained body that was lifted on the Cross of Calvary for the redemption of the world. This invitation to discipleship is the most thrilling cause we could ever imagine. Think of it: The God of the universe invites us to become His partners in reclaiming the world for Him! We can each have a part using the unique gifts and opportunities God has given us.—Billy Graham

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I begin a work in the lives of those who don’t know Me years in advance. I work in their hearts and in their lives in order to prepare them, so that they may be in the right place, at the right time, in the right frame of mind, and in the right position of heart to receive My words of life.

It is also a matter of your prayers, for your prayers have influence. I do not force people to do things that they choose not to do, but through your prayers you enhance the power of the Spirit which speaks to their hearts.

This is an age of cynicism, an age of fear—but greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.4 I have given you great love to overcome this spirit that would envelop the world in coldness and darkness, for the love of many waxes cold, as I foretold ages ago by the prophets.5

As you pour out your prayers and your tears for those who have yet to be saved, I will cause the fires of faith to burn brightly and illuminate and warm the hearts of many.

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That was the true Light, that lights every man that comes into the world.—John 1:96

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I gave My life for you, for great was My love and compassion for you. I reached out to you in your time of need, when all seemed lost and there was great despair and life seemed meaningless and empty. I came to you and embraced you through the life of another who reached out with My love and the message of salvation which welled with great joy in his or her heart.

So I ask you to in turn reach out to the lost and the lonely, for they call unto Me in the darkness and in the cold. If you fail to reach out to those whom I place in your path, the opportunity of experiencing the joy, the freedom, the compassion, the understanding, the wisdom, and the great love that I have in store for them now can be missed or delayed.

Therefore stir yourself up and don’t become complacent! Proclaim the name and words of the Lord before the lost and the lonely. Go into the highways and byways and gather them to My bosom. There is great turmoil and confusion, and there is a great lack of love in the hearts of many in the world, and they yearn for answers, which they will only find in My salvation.

Give and it shall be given unto you. As you reach out to give to the needy in heart and spirit, I will anoint you with My power and strength. Your faith will grow and your joy will flow forth!

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We are the Bibles the world is reading;
We are the creeds the world is needing:
We are the sermons the world is heeding.
—Billy Graham

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I see the love in your heart for Me and for others. I see your desire to be a blessing and to serve Me with all of your heart, and I will bless you for that love and faithfulness.

You think that you don’t have much to give, but you have great treasures to give, much more than you understand. These treasures are from Me, and as you give them to others, as you scatter abroad, they will increase and I will be able to use you in even greater usefulness and fruitfulness, and will bring you greater joy and fulfillment in serving Me.

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A missionary does not necessarily go outside of his country, his state or even his own community. A true missionary needs only to go outside himself.—Author unknown

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God has given us two hands—one to receive with and the other to give with. We are not cisterns made for hoarding; we are channels made for sharing.—Billy Graham

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I have called and chosen you for the calling that you now find yourself in. I have placed the desire in your heart to be a representative of My love to the lost and to those who do not yet know Me and who do not yet know of My love. You have willingly taken up the calling and have accepted My will for you, and in this I am well pleased.

Thank you for answering My call, for following the path where I lead you. You are My mouth to speak words of love, to be a channel of My love toward others; you are My hands to comfort and soothe the hearts that are broken and the hopes and dreams that are shattered; you are My feet to carry My message to those who have not yet heard of Me; you are My eyes that weep tears of joy for each soul that finds Me. What a high privilege you have been called to—as My representative. Great is your reward.

Originally published 1997. Updated and republished August 2013.
Read by Jerry Paladino. Music by Michael Dooley.


1 NLT.

2 Daniel 11:33.

3 Matthew 10:8.

4 1 John 4:4.

5 Matthew 24:12.

6 NKJV.

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Letter to a dear friend like you!

Dear Friend,

Thank you for your message. We are hoping the best for you. Moving is like dying. It's the ending of one life and the beginning of another, but normally it helps us to grow as we broaden our horizons and move out of our comfort zone to face new challenges and in the end find new strengths. The Bible tells us to "look unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith." In moments like these as we open our lives to Him, we can rest in His arms knowing that He is in control and He will lead and guide us down the path He wants us to follow.

I had wanted to talk to you more deeply about this point at the meeting I attended with you, but was unable at the time. In my own personal life, it wasn't until I asked Jesus into my heart that I found that everlasting peace that I was looking for. I was a young university graduate facing the prospect of the Vietnam War and desperately seeking for answers to the many questions I had about life. The FBI was looking for me as I had not attended the required pre-military examinations and later induction. It often takes desperate situations that cause us to call out to God for His help. I had been reluctant to do that because I thought God was something to do with the religious system which I wanted nothing to do with. I thought believing in God would be taking a step backwards as I had been freed from the crutches of religiosity through my college education.

But when my mother called me on the phone telling me the FBI was looking to arrest me, I prayed crying out with tears that if there was a God could He please help me. When I got up off my knees, I thought, "that was stupid, there is no God, what's happening to me?" I had seen the falseness of religion and had seen what so-called religious people do. America was the epitome of religious hypocrisy with its wars and selfishness and greed. You see, I was having a hard time differentiating the religious system from God Himself. The Bible says God is love and that God is a spirit. So God is that loving invisible spiritual being who created and made the universe contrary to the Theory of Evolution.

It was a few weeks later that I met two your people who were hitch-hiking that led me in a little prayer. "Jesus, come into my heart. Forgive me for the things that I had done wrong. Give me the gift of eternal life. In Jesus' name I pray." I didn't hear the thunderclap or see stars or hear music of feel ecstasy. But I knew I had found what I was looking for. I also prayed to receive the Holy Spirit. My new friends explained to me that the Holy Spirit was a gift God had given to help lead and guide and strengthen His people. If I wanted to follow God then asking for the Holy Spirit would help me. And so I did. I prayed for an infilling of the Holy Spirit and that God would lead me into all truth.

These young people were travelling to a three month discipleship course, and so I decided to drive them to there destination. Tuition was free but all needed to participate in the running of the school. I was allocated a job in the school's cafeteria as breakfast overseer/ dishes overseer organizing the dish and kitchen clean-up crews for each meal of around 200 students plus staff. I dug into the Bible and eagerly attended all classes. I was especially interested in Bible prophecy and the classes on Daniel chapter 2 and Matthew chapter 24 which talked about the "last days." Hadn't I felt that the world was headed for its "last days?" I fell in love with Jesus and His word and spent all my free-time reading the New Testament, even memorizing important passages, or passages that spoke to me or gave me strength.

After the three month course, I received my certificate for the Ministry of Evangelization and was offered a position in a new youth center. I decided to dedicate my life to God and to helping others. Most importantly I decided to dedicate my life to sharing my God experience with others that they too might come in contact with the One who created all things, Jesus.

That's why I am sharing this e-mail with you, Dear Friend, in hope that you too will say that little prayer, if you haven't already, to let Jesus into your heart and life, that you will ask Him to fill you with the Holy Spirit to lead and guide you into all truth, that you will begin to have a personal relationship with Him by starting to read His words many of which are found in the New Testament. The famous social critic and writer Charles Dickens said that the New Testament was the best book that ever will be written. If you haven't read it recently, please pick up a copy and read it. Pay close attention to the words of Jesus. His word is food for your soul. He loves you and wants to be your closest friend and companion. He will never leave you nor forsake you and will help you through every difficult moment that you will experience in this life on into the next. It's just that simple and He’s just that wonderful. If you are interested in more reading material outside the New Testament, let me know. Praying that your new experience will be rewarding and will bring you to the place He wants you to be.

Much love,  Dennis

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Discipleship for Life

By Peter Amsterdam

Audio length: 14:33
Download Audio (13.3MB)

Discipleship isn’t easy. It never has been. Jesus made that clear from the beginning when He said: “If any man come to Me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple. Jesus saith unto His disciples, if any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it. If ye continue in My Word, then are ye My disciples indeed. By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another.”1

None of that is easy, but that’s discipleship as Jesus described it.

In a way, discipleship is like playing sports professionally. Lots of people, for example, play basketball. Some just shoot hoops once in a while, others play with their friends or in pickup games, others are in amateur leagues, and a few—very few—are professionals. They’re all basketball players, but they aren’t all professionals. What’s the difference? For the vast majority of people who play basketball, it’s just play and exercise, something they do in their spare or free time. For the professional athlete, their sport of choice is what they live for.

To be a pro you have to give your sport everything. Your workday is taken up with training, practicing, playing, or traveling to games. In the off-season you continue to train, body-build, run, and keep in shape. You don’t smoke, overdrink, or abuse your body, because if you do, it affects your ability to play. You have to be away from your loved ones when you travel to other places to play. You play for a team. You wear a uniform. There are functions you’re required to attend. You’re expected to keep yourself in shape and work hard to improve your skill, and if you don’t, then the coaches get on your case and make you work out. If you constantly cause trouble on the team or your performance is consistently poor, you’re usually dropped or traded to another team. If you break the rules, you’re fined, suspended, or fired.

So why do the professional athletes do it? Only for the fame and/or the money? I believe they do it because they love the game. There are other rewards and benefits—such as the fame and money—but I believe most of them play because they love to. They’re willing to put up with a regimented lifestyle, the rigors of training, and the sacrifice of not being able to do some things that others can do, because they love the game.

Why would anyone choose to be a disciple? Why put up with all that’s expected of a disciple? Why make the sacrifices discipleship demands? Because we love the Lord. Our love for Him causes us to live the discipleship life, and that’s not easy. We’re not just casual Christians; we’re disciples for life.

For many of us, Christian service is our profession. It’s what we do. It’s what we live for. As a pro, we have to keep ourselves in shape, grow in skill, and submit to our Coach, just like a professional athlete.

The fact is, there are a lot of requirements involved in being a professional Christian. A lot is expected of you. It’s often difficult, it’s sacrificial, but it’s what it takes to be a disciple, and that’s not going to change. Not only has that been the foundation of the Family from the beginning, but it’s right there in Jesus’ own words in the Bible.

As a disciple, we have to realize that there are some things that simply aren’t good for our spirit. We might like to do those things, we might even want to do them, but because we’re Christians and disciples, doers of the Word, then we should choose not to do things that are bad for us.2

None of us are perfect; we all have faults and commit sins. Every one of us have things we like to do which aren’t good for us, which don’t help us in our service to the Lord. The question each of us is faced with is what do we do about those things. If we know that those things don’t edify us, if they dull us spiritually, if they hurt us physically, if they’re not a positive force in our lives, if the Word tells us those things are not good for us, then we have to make a choice. Do we go ahead and do them anyway, or do we try not to do them?

As disciples, we should commit to not doing those things. Trying to live according to the discipleship code Jesus mapped out in His Word sometimes means not being able to do some things that we would like to. That’s part of discipleship.

Inflexibility has its place when it comes to certain absolutes. For example, eternal salvation. That is an absolute. But not everything is an absolute. Part of the problem is that it’s easier to be rigid, to keep things black and white, with no shades of gray in between. If you go the black-and-white route, it’s easy to judge situations; it’s easy to say what is right and what is wrong. The problem is, many things in life are not that simple. Usually there’s lots of gray in almost any situation, and it takes wisdom, prayer, and counsel to make the proper judgment. It also takes more time and more work, because you have to stop, assess the situation or the question, and pray, counsel, and hear from the Lord. This is necessary to make good, well-rounded decisions, and it’s not easy.

I know of people who’ve gotten hooked on certain websites and online activities, and have spent an inordinate amount of time at these sites. They’ve stayed up until the wee hours of the morning playing computer games, viewing porn sites, or wasting time on meaningless surfing. They’ve done it night after night, even though it meant they could hardly function throughout the day because they were so tired. Yet the next night they were back at it, getting high off the Internet again.

The Internet itself isn’t the problem; it’s the misuse of it that causes problems. It’s the time wasting, the negative input, the addiction, the unedifying sites that are wrong. It’s detrimental when it draws you away from being a disciple, from caring for others, from keeping a close relationship with the Lord, by either taking large amounts of your time or by filling you with things of the world. Of course, the Internet can be useful and entertaining, and it isn’t all negative. But it can be spiritually unhealthy if you’re spending too much time at it or if you’re visiting sites that aren’t good for you.

Everyone makes mistakes, everyone sins, everyone does wrong or stupid things once in a while, because we’re human. We’re not trying to achieve personal perfection and we shouldn’t expect such from others either. If we do, it places unrealistic burdens on ourselves and others.

On the other hand, we are a faith, a religion, a mission-based movement. We’re a band of disciples who are here to do a job, and to do that job you have to commit to staying in good spiritual shape. If you want total freedom to do what you want, whenever you want, as much as you want, then Christian discipleship may not be for you. If total freedom is your goal in life, then you should realize that there are spiritual requirements for disciples; there are things the Lord expects of us, which we need to live up to as Christians.

To change that and to throw the rules away, we’d have to drop the Bible. We’d have to get rid of verses in the Bible like, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world” or “Be ye separate and touch not the unclean thing” or “whosoever is the friend of the world is the enemy of God.”3

In today’s world that promotes personal freedoms, some feel that Christian faith and religion should allow people to do pretty much whatever they want to, that there should be no restrictions, and that even if something is spiritually or physically bad for them, they should be able to discern whether it works for them or not, as in “according to your faith be it unto you.”4

From the Bible that I’ve read, God seems to think that people need some rules and guidelines to live by. He’s put a number of them in the Bible. I think He knows that if there were no rules or guidelines to keep us in line, we’d stray pretty far from Him.

Jesus lived on earth. He was a man and He experienced the same feelings we do.5 And maybe that’s why He’s led His believers throughout all time to follow Him closely, because He knows how tempting and deceiving the things of the world can be. He said to His disciples, “You are in the world but not of the world.”6 Obviously He wanted His disciples to not be of the world. ”I have chosen you out of the world.”7

As a religion, we believe in “choosing the good and eschewing the evil.”8 We want to take things that are good and use them in a responsible manner. But some of those things, if misused, are no longer good and can be evil or damaging, either to ourselves or others.

As disciples, we are called to minimize ungodly influences in our lives, because ungodly things aren’t good for us spiritually. As disciples we should do our best to stay within the boundaries the Lord has set. We should have conviction to do the things the Lord is asking of us. However, no one is perfect, and there are times when we all slip. But if we’re constantly disobeying, if we’re going out of our way to disregard spiritual boundaries, or if some activity actually has a hold on us or we’re addicted to it and refuse to stop, that becomes a problem and a detriment to our spiritual lives.

Man is born in sin, and sin—doing wrong things—is part and parcel of human nature. Everyone sins; everyone does things that are wrong, even Christians, even disciples. The beauty of it is that we have forgiveness through Jesus. When we do those wrong things, when we sin, our sin can be blotted out by Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. That’s a wonderful thing. But that forgiveness does not mean that we shouldn’t make the effort not to sin. It doesn’t give us license to do whatever we want, whenever we want to, whether it’s good for us or not. That doesn’t mean that we can deliberately, knowingly, and willfully make wrong choices.9

As a religion, a faith, we have rights, responsibilities, and rules. That’s part of our responsibility as disciples.

The Lord does want us to have fun. He does want us to enjoy ourselves and to have times of relaxation, but that’s not our calling, that’s not what we have committed ourselves to. We’re disciples. We’re Christians who take our commitments to God seriously. We’ve committed to reaching the world with His message, to living His Word, to being a living example of Christian discipleship, to loving Him with all of our heart, soul, mind, body, and strength. That’s what being a disciple is all about.

Like thousands and thousands of other Christians the world over, I’m committed to discipleship. That’s what I do, that’s what I am, that’s what I live for, that’s what I’ll die for. If tomorrow the Lord sends me to a place where there are no videos, no Internet, no music, no pleasures of this life, then I’ll still serve Him, because I love Him and because that’s what I’m committed to.

Discipleship requires a high standard in spirit and behavior. As a disciple, sometimes you have to carry on when everything and everyone seems to be against you, when you feel so down you don’t see how you can last one more minute.

Discipleship is not an easy lifestyle. It’s extremely rewarding, but at times extremely difficult. Even in Jesus’ day, when the going got tough and the message got strong, “many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him.”10 When Jesus asked the 12 if they’d go too, Peter answered succinctly, with a powerful message as to why we are disciples, why we serve God every day: “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that Thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.”11

That’s what we believe, that Jesus is the Son of God, and that He has called us to serve Him as disciples at whatever price He asks. That’s the commitment, that’s the job, that’s the profession. And we’re proud to do it because Jesus, who is our King, Savior, best friend, and husband, has asked it of us.

Originally published April 2002. Updated and republished August 2013.
Read by Simon Peterson.


1 Luke 14:26,33; Matthew 16:24–25; John 8:31, 13:35.

2 James 1:22.

3 1 John 2:15; 2 Corinthians 6:17; James 4:4.

4 Matthew 9:29.

5 Hebrews 4:15.

6 John 17:14–18.

7 John 15:19.

8 1 Peter 3:11.

9 Romans 14:13–22.

10 John 6:66.

11 John 6:68–69.

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