KATYN – 84 YEARS AGO Unravelling One of the Many Secrets of the Second World War
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Disinformation Campaign Exposed
One of the most extraordinary mysteries, conspiracies and disinformation campaigns has finally been exposed, implicating numerous prominent heads of state in the atrocities and subsequent cover-up scandals. A complex edifice of deception has been thoroughly dismantled by patient and persistent perseverance and pressure.
One of the most extraordinary mysteries, conspiracies and disinformation campaigns has finally been exposed, implicating numerous prominent heads of state in the atrocities and subsequent cover-up scandals. A complex edifice of deception has been thoroughly dismantled by patient and persistent perseverance and pressure.
Mission to Poland
On a Mission to Poland in 1990, I saw a monument for the victims of the Katyn Forest Massacre in 1940, I questioned whether they did not mean 1941? “Surely you don’t believe the Russian propaganda?” they challenged me. I did not know what they were talking about. The Polish Christians were most agitated over my ignorance on this matter.
A Lesson in History
They explained that although Great Britain and France had declared war on Germany, 3 September 1939, ostensibly because Germany had invaded Poland, so Russia also invaded Poland in 1939. “Of course, most history books omit that fact.” The Katyn Forest is deep in Soviet territory, closer to Moscow than Warsaw, they pointed out. Over 22,000 Polish prisoners, including over 8,000 officers, were murdered in cold blood by the Soviet NKVD in the spring of 1940. When this crime was discovered, Stalin’s Soviet Russia was an ally of Great Britain and the United States of America. Therefore, they found it more convenient to attribute this Russian atrocity to their German enemies.
Judicial Fraud
The Polish Christians informed me that the British, Americans and French chose to participate in judicial fraud at the Nuremberg Trials by indicting the German Army with what were plainly Communist atrocities committed by Soviet Russia.
Missing Polish Prisoners of War
In December 1941, the head of the London based Polish government-in-exile, General Wladyslaw Sikorski enquired of Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin, what had become of Polish prisoners of war captured by the Soviets during their invasion of Poland in September 1939. Stalin assured Sikorski that all Polish POWs had been released. He opinioned that some might have moved to Manchuria.
Mass Graves Exhumed
In 1943, a German intelligence officer, Rudolph von Gersdorff, serving with the Abwehr, received reports about mass graves of Polish military officers near Katyn. A ditch 28m long and 16m wide was found which contained the bodies of 3,000 Polish officers piled up in 12 layers. This was only the first of many such graves to be unearthed. German soldiers unearthed numerous mass graves of many thousands of Polish officers who had been massacred in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk. German news reports claimed that this was yet another evidence of the war crimes and atrocities committed by the Communist commissars of the Soviet Union. When the German government announced the discovery of the mass graves in the Katyn Forest, the London based Polish government-in-exile requested an investigation by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Stalin immediately severed diplomatic relations with it and claimed that the victims had been murdered by the Nazis.
Investigation
The German government brought in a European Commission of 12 forensic experts and their staff from Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Croatia, the Netherlands, Romania, Sweden, Slovakia and Hungary. Even Polish, American and British Prisoners of War were included in the investigation. The reports of these neutral investigators confirmed that the victims were indeed Polish officers, NCOs and intellectuals who were victims of Russian forces in the summer of 1940. When the Polish government-in-exile insisted on bringing the matter before the International Red Cross, General Sikorski died in an aircraft crash in July 1943, an event that was described as “convenient to the allied leaders.” Numerous books and documentary films have been made of “The Assassination of General Sikorski.”
The Burdenko Commission
The Soviets hastened to orchestrate an alternative Soviet version of the now disclosed massacre, to claim that the Polish POWs had been massacred, not by the Soviets, but by the Nazis. Nikolai Burdenko, the President of the Soviet Academy of Medicine, presided over a commission appointed by Stalin to investigate the incident. Burdenko claimed to have interviewed more than a hundred eyewitnesses who swore that the Nazis had massacred the Polish POWs in autumn, 1941.
The Nuremberg Trials
At the Nuremberg Tribunal of 1945-1946, the German military was proclaimed guilty of shooting Polish Prisoners of War in the Katyn Forest. So, the Soviet version of the Katyn Massacre moved from war-time propaganda into school history books: The Germans shot Polish Prisoners of War in Katyn Forest in 1941.
Duplicity
The Polish-Soviet crisis threatened Western-Soviet relations and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and US President Franklin Roosevelt were torn between their commitment to their Polish ally and the demands of Stalin. In private, Churchill agreed that the atrocity was most likely carried out by the Soviets. According to Edward Raczynski, Churchill admitted on 15 April 1943, during a conversation with General Sikorski: “Alas, the German revelations are probably true. The Bolsheviks can be very cruel.” However, on 24 April 1943, Churchill assured the Soviets: “We shall certainly oppose vigorously any investigation by the International Red Cross or any other body…” Classified UK documents concluded that Soviet guilt was “a near certainty”, but the alliance with the Soviets was deemed to be more important than the moral issue. The official version parroted the Soviet propaganda and the censors suppressed all contradictory accounts.
Cover-up
The British Foreign Secretary pointed out several inconsistencies, and near impossibilities, in the Soviet version. Churchill’s post-war account of Katyn skirts over the Katyn Massacre by referring to “the 1944 Soviet Enquiry which attributed guilt to the Germans” adding cryptically: “belief seems an act of faith.”
Suppressed
When US Navy Lieutenant Commander George Earle produced a report concluding that the massacres were committed by the Soviet Union, President Roosevelt ordered Earle’s report to be suppressed. When Earle formally requested permission to publish his findings, the President issued a written order forbidding it. Earle was reassigned and spent the rest of the War in the remote island of American Samoa.
Reports Destroyed
Two senior American Prisoners of War, Lieutenant Colonel Donald Stewart and Colonel John van Vliet, taken by the Germans to Katyn for investigation, submitted a report, after their release in 1945, that the Soviets were definitely responsible for the Massacre. George Marshall’s Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, Major General Clayton Bissell, destroyed the report. During the 1951-1952 Congressional Investigations, General Bissell defended his action before Congress arguing that it was not in the US interest to antagonise the Soviet Union, which was America’s ally.
Embarrassed
The Americans and British were embarrassed by the Soviet inclusion of the Katyn Forest Massacre in the indictments against the German military at Nuremberg. Soviet General Roman Redenko, at the Nuremberg Tribunal, stated that “One of the most important criminal acts for which the major war criminals are responsible was the mass execution of Polish Prisoners of War shot in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk by the German Fascist invaders.” Katyn was: “The worst massacre of Prisoners of War in history.”
Hypocrisy
For sheer bare-faced hypocrisy, this accusation was classic. All present at the trial, including the one making the accusation, knew that this was judicial fraud and farce.
Censorship
The Black Book of Censorship in the People’s Republic of Poland expressly stated: “Any attempt to burden the Soviet Union with the responsibility for the deaths of Polish officers in Katyn Forest is forbidden.” Further evidence that everyone knew who was really responsible, was that even the most simple memorial erected in Poland such as Katyn 1940, was confiscated by police and destroyed. The Polish practice was to erect memorial crosses on All Saints’ Day. These were always dismantled by the police. If Katyn had really been a Nazi atrocity, it would not have been a taboo subject in Communist-controlled countries. Not only did the Soviet Union forbid any monuments to be erected to victims of the Katyn Massacre, but the British government also objected to plans to build a Katyn monument in the UK.
Disinformation Campaign
In the 1960s, the Soviets launched a Disinformation Offensive to side-track the persistent accusations of Soviet atrocities and massacres throughout Eastern Europe. A village in Belarus, Khatyn, whose name is very similar to Katyn, was chosen as a site for a memorial to commemorate the victims of Nazi atrocities. Apparently, 149 Khatyn villagers had been massacred by Ukrainian and Belarus soldiers fighting for the Nazis in March 1943. This Khatyn Memorial became an obligatory stop for all foreign visitors. This Disinformation Campaign scored its major success in 1974 when US President Richard Nixon was brought to Khatyn to remember the Polish victims of the Nazis! From this time all Soviet publications displaced Katyn with Khatyn, including in Polish encyclopaedias and historical dictionaries.
Facts are Stubborn Things
Every Soviet leader had to deal with the persistent Polish charges of the Katyn Forest Massacre. The Polish Solidarity movement in the 1980s used underground printing presses to expose the Soviet duplicity and print the facts about the Katyn Forest Massacre.
Gorbachev’s Glasnost
Mikhail Gorbachev launched a historical commission in 1987 to create a new Soviet version of what had actually happened at Katyn. Gorbachev’s Politburo proposed in 1988 to build a memorial to the victims of the massacre “executed by Hitlerites in Katyn” alongside a memorial to 500 Soviet POWs supposedly also killed at Katyn by the Germans – a myth created by the Burdenko Commission with absolutely no evidence that it ever happened at all. Gorbachev also offered the Poles “a simplified procedure” for relatives wishing to visit the sites where their loved ones lay buried.
One of the Worst Crimes Ever
However, the Polish historians tenaciously exposed the Russian responsibility, and the Catholic church in Poland labelled the Katyn Massacre “one of the worst crimes in the history of mankind.”
Exposure
Gorbachev’s trusted advisor, Valentin Falin, reported that Polish historians subverted the Soviet Commission by producing their own evidence exposing the 1944 Burdenko Report as spurious. Without waiting for the Soviet Commission’s response, the Poles began publishing the facts. The problem stubbornly refused to go away. Even the communist puppet government of Jaruzelski was forced to admit that “the liquidation of the Polish officers was the responsibility, of the USSR.”
Admission
On the symbolic date of 13 April 1990, 47 years after Berlin radio had announced the discovery of the massacre site, Gorbachev handed over two boxes of evidence to the Poles. The documents made clear that the Katyn Massacre was the work of the head of the NKVD, Lavrenty Beria. Gorbachev attempted to convince the Poles that more than 20,000 Polish nationals had been executed by the secret police chief without any authority from the Soviet Politburo!
Deception Rejected
This limited confession and further attempts at deception only enraged the Polish people further. An investigation conducted by the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Soviet Union in 1991, and later by the Russian Federation, confirmed Soviet responsibility for the massacres. However, the Russian Federation later tried to diminish the number of deaths to 1,803 Polish citizens. They also refused to classify the action as a war crime, or as an act of genocide. They declared the investigation closed on the grounds that the perpetrators of the massacre were already dead.
Finally the Truth Comes Out
In October 1992, Boris Yeltsin, who had replaced Gorbachev, lowered the Soviet flag, abolished the Soviet Union and handed over “newly found” secret documents from the Soviet Politburo to Polish president Lech Walensa. The Politburo order dated 5 March 1940, was entitled, Question of the NKVD. In it, Beria informed Stalin that 14,736 Polish officers, officials, police officials, gendarmes and other intellectuals were being held in prison camps in occupied Polish territory and that 18,632 similar people were being held in camps in the Western Provinces of Ukraine and Belarus. Beria requested permission to shoot them all.
Stalin’s Order
Stalin’s “in favour” and bold signature are scrawled at the top of Beria’s question. Five other Politburo members also signed and approved the execution order. The document was labelled Top Secret. Of the total killed, about 8,000 were Polish military officers taken prisoner during the September 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland. Another 6,000 were police officers, with the rest being Polish Intelligentsia arrested for being “bourgeois”. The Katyn Forest Massacre was justified by Stalin’s Politburo as necessary to deprive a potential future Polish military of its leadership. Since Russia intended to keep the Eastern portion of Poland, he was determined to deprive it of a large proportion of its military and intellectual elite.
Cold-Blooded Mass Murder
Those who were murdered, in the first batch alone, included: an Admiral, 2 Generals, 24 Colonels, 79 Lieutenant Colonels, 258 Majors, 654 Captains, 17 Naval Captains, 3,420 NCOs, 7 Chaplains, 20 University Professors, 300 Physicians, hundreds of lawyers, engineers and teachers, more than one hundred writers and journalists and over 200 pilots. Altogether during the massacres, the NKVD murdered 14 Polish Generals. Vasili Mikhailovich Blokhin, the Chief Executioner for the NKVD, is reported to have personally shot and killed 7,000 of the condemned, from the Ostashkov Camp, over a period of 28 days in April 1940.
A Legacy of Deception
Further documents revealed that every Soviet chairman since Joseph Stalin had signed out the Politburo’s Katyn file and was well aware of the Russian complicity in this crime. In a Memo dated 20 March 1959, to Chairman Khrushchev, Interior Minister Alexander Shelepin reported: “The Committee of State Security… has held, since 1940, case files and other materials regarding prisoners and interned officers, policemen, gendarmes, military settlers, landowners, etc., persons from former bourgeois Poland who were shot in the same year. In all, on the basis of the decision of a special Troica of the NKVD, USSR, 21,857 people were shot… the entire operation was carried out on the basis of the decision of the Central Committee of 5 March 1940. Since 1940, no information from these files was released to anyone. All of the files, numbering 21,857, have been stored in a sealed location. To Soviet organs, all of these files represent neither operational interest nor historical value. It is also doubtful that they could be of any real value to our Polish friends. Quite the contrary, any unforeseen incident may lead to revealing the operation with all the undesirable consequences for our state. This is especially so because, regarding those shot in the Katyn Forest, there is an official version supported by an Investigation carried out on the initiative of the Soviet state in 1944, by the Burdenko Commission… which concluded that all of the Poles liquidated there are considered to have been killed by the German invaders. The conclusions of the commission became firmly established in international public opinion. It seems appropriate to destroy all of the records regarding the persons shot in 1940, in the above mentioned operation.”
Evidence Destroyed
Shelepin’s recommendation to purge the records was carried out with these over 21,000 case files destroyed. However, the Politburo Execution Order and Memo from Beria remained in the official record. Files later released from Gorbachev’s time included advice from advisors, that should the truth of the Katyn Forest Massacre come out, “people could be convinced that the Soviet Union was no better than, and may have been worse than, Nazi Germany during the war and that the Soviet Union bears no less responsibility for the war.”
Polish Deportations
Polish historians point out that during the 1930s, hundreds-of-thousands of Poles living in the Western areas of the Soviet Union were marked out for persecution by Stalin – either execution, or deportation to Central Asia. The Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939, was followed by more waves of arrests and mass deportations to the East. When the Katyn Forest Massacre took place, hundreds-of-thousands of Poles, mostly the better-educated and economically active citizens, were already in exile in Siberia, or in labour camps in Central Asia. They were herded there in horribly overcrowded freight trains and at least one out of every five of them died during transportation to the Soviet concentration camps.
Oppression
Between 320,000, to possibly up to one million, Polish citizens were deported to the Soviet Union. Of one group of 12,000 Poles incarcerated in Delstroy, near Kolyma, in 1940, only 583 survived by 1942. Over 570,000 Polish citizens were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps by the Soviets during the war. Polish prisoners were subjected to lengthy interrogations between October 1939 and February 1940. These interviews were a selection process to determine who would live and who would die. According to NKVD reports, if the prisoners could not be persuaded to adopt a pro-communist attitude, they were declared “hardened and uncompromising enemies of Soviet authority” and condemned to death.
Further Massacres
When Germany launched Operation Barbarossa in the summer of 1941, the NKVD concentration camp guards massacred thousands more Polish prisoners before fleeing eastwards to avoid the German advance.
The Betrayal of Warsaw
When the war was reaching its end and the Red Army was at the very gates of Warsaw, radio broadcasts from Russia urged the Polish citizens to rise up in revolt! The Soviet Army was then ordered to stand by and render no assistance as the Germans crushed the Warsaw Uprising. Stalin said that it was better that all resistance in Poland be crushed before Soviet occupation.
South Africa’s Support Remembered
The Polish Christians in 1990 reminded me that only the South African Air Force (SAAF) had flown in weapons and aid to the Polish underground during the Warsaw Uprising. I was surprised. I had read that the RAF had done so – but that was another lie. It was actually the SAAF, but because of apartheid, historians had expunged South Africa’s role and replaced it with the RAF. The fact that history books could be re-written to conform to politically correct dictates is disturbing.
Never Liberated
Polish citizens strenuously objected to any suggestion that they had been “liberated” by the Soviets. “The Soviets never liberated anyone!” they insisted. The first act of the Soviets on occupying Poland was arresting all leaders of the underground army and government. Polish Christians pointed out that most of the atrocities attributed to the Germans were actually communist atrocities committed by the Soviets and conveniently blamed on their enemies. Polish relatives of the victims continued to urge the European Court of Human Rights to rule on the crimes of the Stalin regime.
Putin’s Perspective
To Vladimir Putin’s Russia, the Katyn Forest Massacre is an inconvenient truth which taints Russian war-time heroism. Putin’s chief military prosecutor, Alexander Savenkov, issued a ruling on Katyn on 11 March 2005, in which they acknowledged that the NKVD Troika found 14,542 Polish citizens, held in NKVD camps, guilty of committing state crimes and made a decision to shoot them in the spring of 1940. Putin’s representative claims that these Soviet officials “abused their authority,” but that no criminal cases could be opened against them because the guilty parties had since died. The Polish claim of genocide was rejected and although they agreed to hand over 67 of the 183 volumes of evidence, two-thirds of the remaining evidence was to remain classified.
Outrage
The Polish parliament was outraged and demanded that Russia’s Katyn archives all be declassified and that Russian courts rule that the Katyn Forest Massacre was an act of genocide. Communists throughout the world would prefer the truth about Katyn to be buried, but Christians in Poland, and throughout Eastern Europe, determined to exhume the secrets and expose the true nature of Soviet Communism.
Pressure
Human Rights societies continued to pressure the Russian government, until in November 2010, the Russian Duma approved the declaration blaming Stalin and other Soviet officials for having personally ordered the Massacre of Polish Prisoners of War. This was only after the disastrous plane crash of Polish leaders, enroute to Katyn for the 70th Anniversary Commemoration.
Death Flight – 12 Years Ago
On 10 April 2010, an aircraft carrying Polish President Lech Kaczynski, his wife and 87 other politicians and high-ranking army officers, crashed near Smolensk, killing all 96 on board the aircraft. The passengers were to attend a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre. The Polish people were convinced that they were the victims of a communist terror campaign which assassinated their president and senior leaders on the eve of the most important and solemn anniversary of this massacre. Many observed that it was like the assassination of Poland’s wartime leader, General Sikorski, in 1943. In the furore following the death flight of the Polish government, the Russian Duma finally acknowledged Russia’s guilt for the Katyn Forest Massacre.
War Crime
In 2011, the European Court of Human Rights declared admissible two complaints of relatives of the massacre victims against Russia concerning the inadequacy of their investigations. In a ruling on 16 April 2012, the court found that Russia had violated the rights of victims’ relatives and described the Massacre as a war-crime. It had taken 72 years, but facts are stubborn things.
“They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity…” 2 Peter 2:19
In His grace and service
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Please Pray for and Support: https://www.frontlinemissionsa.org/priority-projects.html
Sources:
Katyn: The Untold Story of Stalin’s Polish Massacre, by Allen Paul, Scribner, 1991
Katyn and the Soviet Massacre of 1940: Truth, Justice and Memory, by George Sanford, 2005
Katyn: A Crime Without Punishment, by Anna Cienciala, Jael University Press, 2007
Class Cleansing: The Katyn Massacre, by Victor Zaslavski, Telos Press, 2008
World War II Behind Closed Doors, by Laurence Rees, Random House, 2010
Katyn: Stalin’s Massacre and the Triumph of Truth, by Allen Paul, Northern Illinois University Press, 2010
See also:
Do Not Be Deceived (to see the video, click here; to listen to the audio, click here.)
How Propaganda Changes Perceptions and People (to see the PowerPoint, click here.)
Dealing with Deceit
The Greatest Killer (to see the video, click here; to see the PowerPoint, click here; to listen to the audio, click here.)
Death By Government
Communist Liberation – Myth and Reality (to view the tract, click here.)
The Heart of Communism (to see the PowerPoint, click here; to view the tract, click here.)
The Heart and Soul of Karl Marx (to see the PowerPoint, click here; to view the tract, click here; to listen to the audio, click here.)
Farms and Freedom Under Fire in South Africa (to listen to the audio, click here.)
Lessons from the Rwandan Holocaust (to listen to the audio, click here.)
Security and Survival Handbook
Camp Constitution is sponsoring a speaking tour for author and documentary producer Vince Ellison
Camp Constitution Speakers Bureau is pleased to announce that it is hosting a speaking tour for Mr. Vince Everett Ellison, author and documentary producer in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire from Thursday May 2 to Saturday May 4.
Where:
Rhode Island:
Thursday May 2
East Warren Rod and Gun Club. 24 Long Ln. Warren.
Time: 4:00 PM
Food and beverages available for sale
Mr. Ellison will start speaking around 6:00 PM
This event is hosted by CORR USA
Massachusetts:
Friday May 3:
12:00 Noon A luncheon at a private residence in Lexington, If interested, E-mail me for more info.
7:00 PM One Cranberry Hill Lexington
New Hampshire
Saturday May 4:
11:00 AM Charlies Barn Community Center 29 S. Village Rd. Loudon, NH
7:00 PM Alton Senior Center 7 Pierson Rd. Alton, NH
All events are free. Donations accepted.
Mr. Ellison’s bio:
Vince‘s Bio: Vince Everett Ellison was born on a cotton plantation in Haywood County, Tennessee. His parents at that time were sharecroppers. Through hard work and a belief in Jesus Christ, his parents pulled him and his seven siblings out of poverty. His family started the Ellison Family Gospel singing group, where Vince sang and played multiple instruments as a child and young adult. Vince worked for five years as a Correctional Officer at the Medium/Maximum Kirkland Correctional Institution in Columbia, SC. Afterward, Vince worked in the nonprofit arena.
In 2000, Vince received the Republican Party nomination for the South Carolina 6th Congressional District. In 2019, Vince wrote The Iron Triangle: Inside the Liberal Democrat Plan to Use Race to Divide Christians and America in their Quest for Power and How We Can Defeat Them, which became an Amazon #1 bestseller. He has appeared numerous times on Hannity, The Laura Ingraham Show, Newsmax, OAN, The Joe Pags Show, The Brian Kilmeade Show, Tucker Carlson, and many other radio and television programs. He is the producer of the documentary “Will You Go to Hell For Me.” His latest book is Crime INC.
Vince speaking at Camp Constitution’s 2023 annual family camp:
Sharing Christ Among the Suffering Unreached Among the Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist Worlds
Professor Chris Gnanakan of Liberty University gives a presentation on sharing Christ among the suffering unreached in Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist nations. This presentation took place at the Community Church of Alton, NH Saturday April 6, 2024. The church’s website: https://www.ccalton.com
Chris Gnanakan, from South India, worked as an electrician before studying Bible, Theology, and Missions at the Word of Life Bible Institute, NY and Tennessee Temple University. He researched Pastoral Theology & Counseling at the South Asia Institute for Advanced Christian Studies from where he earned his Doctorate in Ministry in Pastoral Theology, completed his Ph.D. from Leeds University, UK. Chris was awarded his Doctor of Divinity from Trinity Baptist College, FL, USA, for strategic leadership in missional movements.
Chris is our Professor for Theology and Global Studies at Liberty University and serves as the Director of Leadership Development for Christar. Chris and Dorothy have two daughters Alethea and Charis who graduated from LU. Chris loves to motivate people with God’s Word, mobilize them into the fields and mentor the next generation! Education D.D., Trinity Baptist College Ph.D., University of Leeds, UK D.Min., South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies M.Th., South Asia Institute of Advanced Christian Studies M.Div., Asia Graduate School of Theology B.A., Tennessee Temple University Diploma, Word of Life Bible Institute Diploma, Motor Industries Company Publications Weaver, P., Gnanakan, C., Wicks M., Oliveira R., Calhoun M., Merkh D., (2021), Surveying the Old Testament Poetic Books, Learn the Word Publishing, ISBN: 9798455407857, https://www.logos.com/product/213189/surveying-the-old-testament-poetic-books Beckwith, F., Campbell, R., Cobb Jr., J., Cumming, J., Gnanakan, C., Gundry, S., McDermott, G., Schwartz, W.A., Shenk, D., Walls, J., (2019), Do Christians, Muslims, and Jews Worship the Same God?: Four Views, Zondervan Academic, ISBN: 9780310538035, https://zondervanacademic.com/products/do-christians-muslims-and- jews-worship-the-same-god-four-views.
Constitutional Minute #26 What is “Federalism”?
I’ll explain it.
In short, it is the elevation of the State level of government over the authority of the federal government on most subjects.
“Federalism” was implemented beautifully by our Framers in our Constitution.
How many State governors understand and practice this??
To put it another way, when forming the central government, the States reserved to themselves the power to address ALL matters with the exception of those few matters exclusively given to the central government…and that was very few!!
Does the federal government have authority to regulate mortgage bailouts, medical care, pensions, family matters, education, housing, food stamps, tattoo removal, “community redevelopment”, light bulbs, minimum wage and the like?? NO!
How do we know? Because these are not listed among the enumerated powers delegated to Congress in the Constitution (the one document every elected representative takes an Oath to support).
Does the federal government have authority to issue patents and copyrights? Yes!
How do we know? Because Article I, Sec. 8, cl. 8 delegates this power to Congress.
The federal government isn’t supposed to have anything to do with our lives, liberties and properties except as follows:
- Other than those in military service, it has very little lawful criminal jurisdiction over us;
- It has no civil jurisdiction over us unless we file for bankruptcy; if we are inventors or writers, it secures for us the rights to patents and copyrights;
- It makes rules for naturalizing new citizens, and it delivers our mail! (Art I, Sec 8 and Art III, Sec 3, U.S. Constitution).
That’s basically it, Folks!
Source here: https://publiushuldah.wordpress.com/2009/06/20/basic-concepts-of-government/
Bob Hilliard
wethepeoplehandbook@gmail.com
Camp Constitution Report For the 1st Quarter of 2024
Camp Constitution in the News
Our lawsuit “Shurtleff v Boston” continues to be mentioned in the news around the United States. Cities and towns across the United States cited our case when passing ordinances banning all third-party flags including Lockhaven, PA, Enfield, CT and LaRue, TX. While other towns and cities, due to our case, have allowed the flying of Christian, and Pro-Life flags including Waltham, MA, Hartford, CT and Nashua, NH. In early January, Tucker Carlson aired his interview with Camp Constitution instructor Professor Willie Soon. Professor Soon gave a two-minute unscripted, from the heart, infomercial for Camp Constitution’s annual family camp. It resulted in over 50,000 views on our website, $2,200 in unsolicited donations, a batch of books orders from our on-line shop, and a number of new families signing up for our camp.
Christian flag flying over the Capitol Building Hartford, CT
Camp Constitution on the Air
We had two appearances on the Tamara Scott Show which airs on Frank Speech, two appearances on the Pro-America Report hosted by Ed Martin of the Phyllis Schlafly Eagles, an appearance on the Chris McCarthy Show on WBSM New Bedford, and for the first time, an appearance on the George Hale–Ric Tyler Show on WVOM FM Maine. We also appeared as a guest on Chattin with Janine- TV Show which airs on Merrimac, NH’s cable station, and hosted by New Hampshire State Rep Janine Notter. We also co-hosted a show on the newly rebooted Cathcing Fire News
Special Projects
Camp Constitution was invited to participate in a flag raising ceremony of Resurrection Sunday in front of Nashua, NH’s City Hall. The event was sponsored by Nashua residents Beth Scaer and Marc Vatter.
Thanks to two generous donors, we were able to run radio spots promoting the Sam Blumenfeld Archive and the Ladies Weekend Retreat on WRKO, the most popular AM talk radio show in New England, and WORD Radio WSEW in Rochester. The spots also ran free on New Hampshire Gospel Radio WVNH, WANH, and WJNHA link to the radio spot: https://youtube.com/shorts/CC7MaLHpQPQ?si=3wzZlG6P49CQ6NU6
YouTube, and Rumble
We received 280,000 views this quarter-the most we have ever received in a three-month period, as well as 6,600 new subscribers giving us close to 15,000 subscribers. According to YouTube, only four percent of channels have over 10,000 subscribers. Our Rumble channel had 2,036 views and 800 likes. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to these two channels and share the videos:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN7ME18Q1xiqcrPEn5h5FbA
https://rumble.com/account/content?type=all
Camp Constitution Radio on Podomatic and Other Platforms
Since January 2015, our 30-minute radio show has been airing on WBCQ The Planet, and for the past six years, we have uploaded our shows on Podomatic, and linking the show to Amazon, I-Heart, Spotify, and several other platforms. For this quarter we have received 481 plays and 1,077 downloads of our shows. We continue to be in the top ten for the category of conservative-right. In addition to our weekly show, we have uploaded some classic interviews and speeches by the likes of Dan Smoot, Gary Allen, and E. Merrill Root. A link to our show: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/shurtleffhal
Camp Constitution Press
We published The Racist Roots of Planned Parenthood and Its Legacy of Death and Art and Revolution, and we had another printing of Alpha-Phonics, and The 1928 U.S. Army Manual.
Speakers Bureau
We had 15 speaking engagements including several first time venues. Topics included Agenda 21, What is Camp Constitution, and The Racist Roots of Planned Parenthood, and CRT or Crazy Racist Trash
Website
Thanks to Willie Soon’s interview, we received more traffic to our website than ever before. For the first quarter, we had 63,000 views and 21,500 visits on the site.
Sam Blumenfeld Archives
164,279 Hits with 600 Alpha Phonics workbooks downloaded. As mentioned above, we reprinted 200 copies of Alpha Phonics and ran 30-second promotional spots on WRKO-AM
The Blumenfeld Archives
Facebook Page
We have 3,200 likes and over 3,500 following our page. We also manage six other groups and one other page-all of them growing in members
Stopping An Article V Convention
We testified against HCR 8 a resolution introduced by the far-left group Wolf PAC in New Hampshire’s House and it was soundly defeated, and we testified in favor of HCR 9, a resolution to rescind New Hampshire’s only Article V application. It passed the House by a voice vote which surprised many pundits, and it goes before the NH Senate. In Maine, we helped defeat a resolution for an Article V Convention. On the morning before the vote, we appeared as a guest on WVOM-the Voice of Maine to discuss the issue. A link to the interview: https://youtu.be/g72_f6vk1ts?si=7R8Mg2aog5ZRFBVr
Looking Into the 2nd Quarter
We will be busy the next three months with the 4th Annual Ladies Retreat April1-14, two homeschool shows, Patriot’s Day Overnight at the Lane House, a speaking tour for Vince Ellison, and several speaking engagements in NH and MA.
Our 16th Annual Family Camp
We not only expect a full house, but we had to rent a nearby house to accommodate the overflow. While there is still room, if you plan on attending, please get your applications in as soon as possible: https://campconstitution.net/camp-registration/ Early Bird Special: Apply for camp by May 1 and receive $50. off of each camp fee.
How You Can Help
Pray for our nation and for Camp Constitution.
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A thanks to all of you who have helped make our camp program possible and my position possible.
Blessings.
Hal Shurtleff, Director
Camp Constitution
Chrisitan Flag Is Raised Over Nashua City Hall on Resurrection Sunday
Nashau, NH residents Beth Scaer and Marc Vatter organized a raising of the Christian flag in front of Nashua’s City Hall on Resurrection Sunday March 31, 2024. Hal Shurtleff and Rev. Steve Craft of Camp Constitution were invited to speak at the event. Camp Constitution won a precedent setting 9-0 U.S. Supreme Court decision “Shurtleff v Boston” concerning the Christian flag, free speech, and religious liberty. Shurtleff urged viewers around the U.S to do events like this in their towns and cities. Mrs. Scaer had experienced viewpoint discrimination a few years ago when after getting approval and flying to fly her “Save Women Sports” flag, Nashua’s mayor caving into complaints by those who support biological men playing in women’s sports, Jim Donchess ordered it removed.
In 2017, The City of Boston denied Shurtleff and Camp Constitution a permit to raise the Christian flag to celebrate Constitution Day and the City’s rich Chrisitan history. This was the first time the city denied a permit to any group. Prior to that, the city allowed groups and individuals permits to raise the flags of Communist China and Cuba, and the Rainbow and Transgender flags. Camp Constitution sued the city. In May of 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 9-0 in favor of Camp Constitution. Since then, cities and towns across the United State have either allow Christians the same right to fly a flag as other groups or have changed their policies to only allow the U.S., state, and town of city flags. Last Thursday, the Christian flag flew on Connecticut’s Capitol Building, and on Saturday, the Christian flag flew on public property in Reading, PA attended by the city’s mayor Eddie Moran.
The case did not only concern flags, however. According to Liberty Counsel, the legal team that defended Camp Constitution, “Shurtleff v Boston” overturned what was known as the Lemon Test based on the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1971 “Lemon v Kurtzman” case that was used to restrict and silence religious expression in the public arena. For a detailed analysis of the case, visit www.lc.org/flag
https://youtu.be/fwl9-uygkAA?si=uENHK8M3xYpMbNny
Lamb of God sacrificed on Passover; In tomb on Feast of Unleavened Bread; Resurrected on Feast of First Fruits – American Minute with Bill Federer
LISTEN (text to speech)
Christianity is the largest religion in the world, around a third of the Earth’s population, and since Easter is the most important day to Christians, this day could possibly be considered the most important day in the world!
The word “Easter” appears only once in the King James Bible, Acts 12:4. In every other place, and in every other Bible translation, the word used is “Passover.”
President Ronald Reagan stated April 2, 1983:
“This week Jewish families … have been celebrating Passover … Its observance reminds all of … the battle against oppression waged by the Jews since ancient times …
And Christians have been commemorating the last momentous days leading to the crucifixion of Jesus 1,950 years ago. Tomorrow, as morning spreads around the planet, we’ll celebrate the triumph of life over death, the Resurrection of Jesus.”
Passover is the first of the seven major Jewish Feasts, as listed in Leviticus 25. The feasts are in three groups:
In the Spring are the Feast of Passover; the Feast of Unleavened Bread; and the Feast of First Fruits.
Fifty days later is the Feast of Pentecost at the beginning of the harvest. “Pentecost” means 50th.
At the end of the summer harvest are celebrated the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles.
Let’s look at these:
Passover was first observed around 1,400 BC, the night before the exodus from Egypt.
Egyptians had enslaved the Israelites. The Pharaoh ordered their infant boys thrown into the Nile River. In response, God sent plagues upon Egypt as judgments, the final one being similar to Pharaoh’s order, the angel of death sent to kill the firstborn of the Egyptians.
On the 15th day of the Hebrew month Nisan, each Israelite family was to kill a lamb and put its blood over the doorposts of their house so that the judgment of the angel of death would “pass over” their home, indicating their faith, that the lamb had taken the judgment in their place.
Exodus 12:8 gave instructions regarding the Passover lamb: “And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it.”
A Jewish day began at sunset and lasted until the next sunset. In 33 AD, Jesus celebrated the Passover meal with his disciples in the evening and then in the morning he was crucified — on the day of Passover.
The Apostle Paul wrote in First Corinthians 5:7: “For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.”
The lamb is considered the most innocent of animals. John the Baptist saw Jesus and exclaimed: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world!”
Justin Martyr, who live c.100 to 165 AD, described:
“That lamb … was commanded to be wholly roasted … a symbol of the suffering of the cross which Christ would undergo. For the lamb … is roasted and dressed up in the form of the cross. For one spit is transfixed right through from the lower parts up to the head, and one across the back, to which are attached the legs of the lamb.”
Crucifixion was the most painful Roman torture, reserved for slaves and rebels.
Dr. Alexander Metherell, M.D., Ph.D. wrote:
“The pain was absolutely unbearable … In fact, it was literally beyond words to describe; they had to invent a new word: ‘excruciating.’ Literally, excruciating means ‘out of the cross.’”
Cicero called crucifixion, “the most cruel and hideous of tortures.” Historian Will Durant wrote that “even the Romans … pitied the victims.”
Isaiah chapter 53 prophetically foretold the Messiah’s suffering:
“Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed …
The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent …
He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was punished … Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer … The Lord makes his life an offering for sin …
My righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities … For he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.”
The next Jewish Feast after Passover was the Feast of Unleavened Bread. “Leaven” is another name for “yeast” and is symbolic of sin. On this feast, Jews would get all the leaven or yeast out of their homes.
On the exact Feast of Unleavened Bread, Jesus was in the tomb – He “who taketh away the sins of the world.”
Paul wrote in I Corinthians 5:6–8: “Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven … Let us keep the Feast, not with the old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
Theologians have debated what Jesus may have experienced when He suffered. In Matthew 12, Jesus replied to those demanding a sign:
“None will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
The Book of Jonah recorded: “Jonah prayed unto the Lord his God out of the fish’s belly … out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice. For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and the floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me. Then I said, I am cast out of thy sight … the depth closed me round about, the weeds were wrapped about my head. I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me forever.”
Next is the Feast of First Fruits marking the earliest harvest of the spring, the winter barley, which is the first grain to ripen in Israel’s growing season.
As soon as it appeared above ground it was harvested and brought to the temple.
Leviticus 23:9-14: “When you enter the land … and reap its harvest, then you shall bring in the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest … The priest … shall wave the sheaf before the Lord.”
Jesus rose from the dead on exact day of the Feast of First Fruits.
Paul wrote in I Corinthians 15:20–23: “But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept … But every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.”
Jonah declared: “Thou hast brought up my life from corruption, O Lord my God. When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord; and my prayer went up to You, into Your holy temple … Salvation is of the Lord.’ So the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.”
The fact that the Gospels have women being the first to testify of Christ’s resurrection is evidence that the disciples did not make up the story, as women were not accepted as witnesses at that time. Josephus included in the Antiquities of the Jews this first century legal policy: “Let not the testimony of women be admitted.”
Anyone wanting to fabricate a story would certainly have had made it up with the most reputable men being the first witnesses, not uneducated fishermen and women.
Sir Lionel Luckhoo (1914-1997) was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as world’s most successful criminal attorney. He wrote:
“The bones of Muhammad are in Medina, the bones of Confucius are in Shantung, the cremated bones of Buddha are in Nepal. Thousands pay pilgrimages to worship at their tombs which contain their bones. …
But in Jerusalem there is a cave cut into the rock. This is the tomb of Jesus. IT IS EMPTY! YES, EMPTY! BECAUSE HE IS RISEN! He died, physically and historically. He arose from the dead, and now sits at the right hand of God.”
Fifty days after First Fruits was the Feast of Pentecost, or Shavuot – Feast of Weeks (seven weeks of seven days), officially marking the beginning of the main harvest season (the end of barley harvest and the beginning of wheat harvest.)
Fifty days after Jesus rose from the grave was the Feast of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the Apostles and the Church was born. The harvest of souls began.
Three thousand were saved the first day, and eight thousand by the end of the week. Then the new believers in Christ spread the harvest around the world.
If one zooms out and looks at all of recorded human history, it becomes clear that the world had been divinely set up for this moment.
c.1400 BC — Moses and the Children of Israel celebrated the first Passover, came out of Egypt and entered the Promised Land. The tradition of observing the Seven Feasts was instituted.
732 BC — The Ten Northern Tribes of Israel were taken captive by Assyria and scattered far and wide, resulting in pockets of Jewish communities being established around the known world.
509 BC – The Roman Republic was founded and began to expand with a road system connecting the known world.
335 BC — Alexander the Great conquered and spread the Greek language, which became the world-wide trade language.
285 BC – The Old Testament was translated into Greek, called the Septuagint.
27 BC — The Pax Romana began – a century of world peace.
33 AD — Jesus was crucified and resurrected. At the first Pentecost, Jewish believers were filled with the Holy Spirit. At the end of that week, they traveled from Jerusalem during the Pax Romana peace, on Roman roads, to Jewish communities scattered around the world, proclaiming that the Old Testament prophecies regarding the Messiah, which were internationally read in the Greek Septuagint, were fulfilled in the risen Christ. Romans 10:17, “Their voice has gone out into all the earth.”
While the great harvest of souls is continuing, the fulfillment of the last three Jewish feasts is still in the future.
In the Jewish year, the long months of harvesting continued as the Israelites worked in the fields, threshing, winnowing, sifting of the grain, as well as harvesting grapes, figs, almonds, and pomegranates, before the latter rain started.
At the end of the summer harvest, the Feast of Trumpets called the people to gather in from the fields to the Temple. The harvest was now complete.
Jesus prophesied in Matthew 24:40 “Two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left.”
1 Thessalonians 4:16–17 “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God.”
I Corinthians 15:52 “At the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”
The next two feasts are the Day of Atonement, the most solemn of all feasts, which students of prophecy speculate may be fulfilled in the Great Tribulation or the Judgment Seat of Christ.
Finally, there is the Feast of Tabernacles, where the Israelites dwelt in booths or tents to remind them of their pilgrimage 40 years following the presence of the Lord in the Tabernacle in the Wilderness. This could foreshadow the saints dwelling with the Lord forever.
John 14:2-3 (Amplified Bible) “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you, because I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and I will take you to Myself, so that where I am you may be also.”
One third of the Bible is prophecies, with over 300 prophecies specifically about the Messiah, 27 of which were fulfilled in one day.
Messianic prophecies include:
-He would be born in Bethlehem. Micah 5:2.
-He would be born of a virgin. Isaiah 7:14.
-He would be a descendant of David. Isaiah 9:7.
-He would be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver. Zechariah 11:12.
-He would be mocked. Psalm 22:7,8.
-He would be crucified. John 3:14.
-He would be pierced. Psalms 22:16.
-He would die with the wicked yet be buried with the rich. Isaiah 53:9.
That one person could fulfill just eight prophecies is considered a statistical impossibility.
Josh and Sean McDowell’s book, Evidence That Demands a Verdict (2017), quotes Professor Peter W. Stoner, Chairman of the Departments of Mathematics and Astronomy at Pasadena City College, who stated:
“We find that the chance that any man might have lived down to the present time and fulfilled all eight prophecies is 1 in 10 to the 17th power. That is one with 17 zeros behind it.”
The first prophecy was God telling the serpent that the seed of woman will crush his head.
Prophecies had to be not clear enough so Satan could not figure them out and try to stop them, like Herod tried when he was told the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, he killed all the baby boys; yet at the same time the prophecies had to be clear enough so that after Jesus rose from the dead they could prove He was indeed the promised Messiah.
In Luke 24, after His resurrection, Jesus walked with disciples along the road to Emmaus, and said:
“How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”
Robert Morris Page (1903-1992) was a physicist known as the “father of U.S. Radar for inventing pulsation radar used for the detection of aircraft. He served with the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., held 37 patents, and received the U.S. Navy Distinguished Civilian Service Award, and the Presidential Certificate of Merit.
The son of a Methodist minister, Robert Morris Page wrote concerning the hundreds of Old Testament prophecies Jesus fulfilled:
“The authenticity of the writings of the prophets, though the men themselves are human, is established by such things as the prediction of highly significant events far in the future that could be accomplished only through a knowledge obtained from a realm which is not subject to the laws of time as we know them.
One of the great evidences is the long series of prophecies concerning Jesus the Messiah. These prophecies extend hundreds of years prior to the birth of Christ.
They include a vast amount of detail concerning Christ himself, His nature and the things He would do when He came–things which to the natural world, or the scientific world, remain to this day completely inexplicable.”
In addition to this, many non-Christian ancient sources confirmed details of Christ.
Dr. Gary Habermas catalogued over 3,400 sources, many of which are skeptical or even critical of Christians, adding to their veracity, including:
- Josephus 37-100 AD,
- Suetonius 70-160 AD
- Pliny the Younger 61-113 AD
- Tacitus 56-120 AD
- Mara Bar-Serapion 72 AD
- Lucian 125-180 AD
- Babylonian Talmud.
Piecing together these non-biblical sources, they confirm the key points of the gospel, such as:
Jesus died by crucifixion; He was buried; His death caused the disciples to despair and lose hope, believing that His life was ended; The tomb was empty a few days later; The disciples had experiences which they believed were literal appearances of the risen Jesus.
The twelve apostles went to their deaths holding their faith in the risen Christ.
The date of Easter even changed our calendar.
How?
In 45 BC, Julius Caesar wanted a common calendar used in all the countries conquered by Romans. He switched their various lunar calendars, based on the monthly cycles of the moon, to a solar calendar of 365 days with a leap day every four years.
In the 4th century, Emperor Constantine stopped the persecution of the Christians and made Christianity the defacto state religion. He wanted a common date to celebrate Easter throughout the Roman Empire and he wanted it on a Sunday.
This would settle the “Quarto-deciman Controversy.
Encyclopaedia Britannica (11th edition) explained how the “Quarto-deciman Controversy” ended with the switching of Easter from the traditional Jewish Passover to a particular Sunday determined by a new formula:
“Polycarp, the disciple of St. John the Evangelist and bishop of Smyrna, visited Rome in 159 to confer with Anicetus, the bishop of that see, on the subject; and urged the tradition, which he had received from the apostle, of observing the fourteenth day (of the Jewish month of Nisan) …
A final settlement of the dispute was one among the other reasons which led Constantine to summon the Council of Nicaea in 325 …
The decision of the council was unanimous that Easter was to be kept on Sunday, and on the same Sunday throughout the world, and ‘that none should hereafter follow the blindness of the Jews’.”
This ended the tradition of asking Jewish rabbis when Passover would be. Constantine then adopted a new formula for determining the date of Easter, namely, the first Sunday after first full moon after Spring Equinox.
Peter Schaff wrote in History of the Christian Church:
“At Nicaea … the Roman and Alexandrian usage with respect to Easter triumphed, and the Judaizing practice of the Quarto-decimanians, who always celebrated Easter on the fourteenth of Nisan [Passover] became thenceforth a heresy.”
This was a defining split between the Jewish Christian Church — as Jesus and his disciples were Jewish — and the emerging Gentile Christian Church.
Church scholars compiled precise tables of when future dates of Easter would be.
Not everyone was quick to use the new church tables, particularly the Irish. This was because in 433 AD, the night before Easter, according to the old calendar, Saint Patrick confronted the Druid chieftain King Leary, resulting in thousands of Irish converting.
In 567 AD, the Council of Tours moved the beginning of the year back to March 25, as Julius Caesar’s January 1st was considered pagan.
During the Middle Ages, France celebrated New Year Day on Easter.
The Church’s table of dates based on the Julian Calendar had a slight discrepancy of 11 minutes per year.
After a thousand years, in 1582, the church tables made Easter ten days ahead of Constantine’s formula — the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox — and even further from its origins in the Jewish Passover.
Pope Gregory XIII decided to fix the problem by eliminating ten days from the calendar and skipping a leap day in years divisible by 100 and also divisible by 400.
It sounds complicated, but it is so accurate that the Gregorian Calendar is still the calendar used internationally today.
The Gregorian Calendar also returned the beginning of the new year from March 25 back to January 1st.
Thus, setting the date of Easter is the reason the world is using the Gregorian Calendar!
In closing, one last question needs to be answered. Why did the Lamb have to die?
To answer that, we must ask:
Why did God make us?
First, we are creatures made in His image with a free will ability to love God.
Secondly, God has to hide himself behind His creation for us to have a free will, because if He ever revealed Himself in all of overwhelming, omnipotent, universe creating power, your response would be involuntary. And for love to be love it must be voluntary!
Thirdly, God is just and therefore must judge every sin. If He does not judge a sin, His silence would be giving consent to sin.
Numbers 30 explains silence equals consent. This is seen in a wedding ceremony, where the minister asks if anyone objects they should speak now or forever hold their peace. By staying silent, those in attendance are giving their consent. In law, this is called “the rule of tacit admission.”
If God is silent and does not judge a sin, even the smallest, His silence would effectively be giving consent to the sin, denying His just nature, denying Himself. And 2 Timothy 2:13 declares “God cannot deny Himself.” So He must judge every sin.
In mathematical equations, there are constants and variables.
In the equation of redemption, the constant is God is just, forever was, is, and forever will be just. The variable is who takes the judgment – you or a substitute.
The Lamb is our substitute. The Lamb is God’s way to love you without having to judge you. God is just in that He judges every sin, but God is love in that He provided the Lamb to take the judgment for our sins.
The sacrifice of the Lamb was foreshadowed by the coats of skins God made for Adam and Eve.
It was foreshadowed by the sacrifices made by Abel, Noah, and Abraham.
In Genesis 22:7-8:
“Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, ‘Father?’ ‘Yes, my son?’ Abraham replied. ‘The fire and wood are here,’ Isaac said, ‘but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?’ And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for burnt offering.”
It was foreshadowed in the Law of Moses with the Passover lamb, and on the Day of Atonement when the High Priest brought the blood of lamb into Holy of Holies and sprinkled it on the mercy seat. The blood changed it from a “judgment” seat into a “mercy seat.”
It was foreshadowed by the sacrifices of David, Solomon, and Elijah.
Finally, John the Baptist pointed at Jesus and declared: “Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.”
Believers in the Old Testament had faith in the Lamb to come; believers in the New Testament have faith in the Lamb that came, but salvation is through the Lamb.
The Lamb of God took the judgment for all of your sins.
“For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son.”
Another question is, how was Jesus’ sacrifice enough to pay for the sins of all mankind?
Jesus is divine and experienced judgment in a dimension we will never understand.
2 Peter 3:8 says “A day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day.” Jesus experienced the day on the cross as if it were a thousand years.
In God’s perfect justice:
the eternal Being, Jesus, who is innocent suffering for a finite–limited period of time
is equal to
all of us finite–limited beings who are guilty suffering for an eternal period of time.
Infinity times finite equals finite times infinity.
An unlimited Being suffering for a limited period of time equals all of us limited beings suffering for an unlimited period of time.
Jesus suffered the equivalent of eternal judgement in all or our places, and He is THE ONLY ONE who could have done it!
When someone believes the Gospel – that Jesus suffered in their place, that their sins have been taken away, and that they are accepted by God – they are filled with joy and gratefulness.
Experiencing the unconditional love of God brings a behavioral change from the inside–out, a polarity change in the heart — instead of avoiding God, you are drawn to God — a personal relationship with God the Father through Jesus the Son, then, filled with Holy Spirit, there is a desire to share the unconditional love of God with a lost and hurting world.
—
This article was reposted with permission from the American Minute.
Celebrating the Natural Family
We recently interviewed Mr. James Harrison of the Natural Family Foundation to discuss the Foundation’s natural family celebration.
From their website: www.naturalfamilystrong.com
It is in our hands. It is our responsibility. Let’s grow strong healthy families. The family is vitally important; it has been the foundation of all societies down through the ages. Isn’t that Amazing? Isn’t that worth Celebrating? That is exactly why we are initiating an annual Natural Family Celebration from Mother’s Day through Father’s Day. Celebrating the family is a wonderful opportunity to restore the family back to to its Natural healthy state. It is here where we can reclaim the foundation of all societies, one biological born man, and one biological born woman committed in a lifelong monogamous relationship with their biological and/or adopted children.
A link to an audio version of the interview: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/shurtleffhal/episodes/2024-03-25T09_24_35-07_00
The Weekly Sam: Why Johnny Can’t Read The Movie?
Our late friend Sam Blumenfeld had an active intellect and was always trying to expose the deliberately dumbing down o America. Here is a letter Sam wrote to Mr. Bob Pfaltzgraff of Moving Pictures Institute https://thempi.org back in 2010 suggesting an idea for a movie on the dumbing down of America. Mr. Pfaltzgraff, who is now the president of Moving Pictures Institute never replied. But I think I will resend Sam’s letter to Mr. Pfaltzgraff.
S A M U E L L. B L U M E N F E L D
161 Great Road Littleton, MA 01460 781-354-2040
slblu123@verizon.ne
December 16, 2010
Bob Pfaltzgraff
Executive Director
Moving Picture Institute
375 Greenwich Street
New York, NY 10013
Dear Mr. Pfaltzgraff,
Thank you for the great work that you and your colleagues have done at the Moving
Picture Institute in bringing such difficult subjects as “The Cartel” to the screen. I agree
that our semi-literate public needs to learn–by way of movies–of the threats to freedom
that we face. As you know, the subject of education has long been neglected by our
documentary makers, even though the subject has the potential of waking up the nation.
As an author of more than ten books on education, and particularly on the subject of
literacy, I hope I can impress you with the need to produce a film on “Why Johnny Still
Can’t Read.” The subject of the deliberate dumbing down of children in the English
speaking world has been well documented by myself and other writers. My book, The
New Illiterates, revealed that the teaching methods being used in our schools were
actually creating functional illiteracy among the students.
At present, I am working on a new book, School-Induced Dyslexia, that proves beyond
any doubt that our public schools are deliberately creating reading disability among
millions of children by means of the faulty teaching methods being used in our primary
schools. A film exposing this widespread educational malpractice could go a long way
to restoring sanity in primary education.
The story behind the dumbing down process is a fascinating one, with historical
characters that few people know about. Those of us who have done the research are
sitting on a mountain of factual material that would reveal a socialist conspiracy at the
highest echelons of academia that has transformed public education into a gigantic
criminal enterprise.
I would love to sit down with you and your colleagues and give you an idea of the
powerful story that can be told on the screen that could blow the lid off the entire
educational conspiracy against freedom.
Sincerely yours,
Photo from Moving Pictures Insititute’s website
Climate Change The Movie-A New Documentary Refuting Climate Change
Camp Constitution received permission to upload new documentary on climate change by Martin Durkin. The film presents a different perspective on climate change from the standard narratives promoted by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The film that lifts the lid on the climate alarm, and the dark forces behind the climate consensus. Written and directed by Martin Durkin. Produced by Tom Nelson. Although the movie promotes evolution, we find much of the information essential.
Dr. Willie Soon, CERES co-team leader, and Camp Constitution instructor was interviewed for this documentary, along with many other scientists and commentators.
Please view and share: