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The Handwriting Is on the Wall (2002)

By John W. Ritenbaugh
September 20, 2002
Tape FT02-01

We are going to begin this sermon by turning to Deuteronomy 28.

The events of September 11, 2001 brought to light a problem that has been building, I would have to say silently (for the most part) for most people since 1965, and all the while proceeding virtually unnoticed by very large portions of the American population. I know that those of us in the church have taken some notice of it, but I do not believe many of us have considered it to be anything near a critical situation. But a mass—a critical mass—is being created it seems ever more rapidly.

The greatest amount of attention to this growing problem has been given by those who are labeled in the liberal media as "right-wing wackoes," or "ultra-conservatives," or "America-firsters," or the various militia groups that are scattered around the country. I am speaking of the rapidly growing Gentile population and the pressures of their presence within our borders. This is why I want you to go to Deuteronomy 28:43, where God warns:

Deuteronomy 28:43-49 The stranger that is within you shall get up above you very high; and you shall come down very low. He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him: he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail. Moreover all these curses shall come upon you, and shall pursue you, and overtake you, till you be destroyed; because you hearkened not unto the voice of the LORD your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded you: And they shall be upon you for a sign and for a wonder, and upon your seed forever. Because you served not the LORD your God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, for the abundance of all things: Therefore shall you serve your enemies which the LORD shall send against you, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon your neck, until he has destroyed you. The LORD shall bring a nation against you from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flies: a nation whose tongue you shall not understand.

A "stranger," in the biblical sense, is one that we may recognize by certain characteristics, but we do not really know them. We may even feel somewhat uncomfortable in their presence. These people are becoming increasingly stronger minorities, forcing their will upon the majority.

What we see happening in the rapid increase of Gentiles within our borders is viewed within Deuteronomy 28 as a curse. Even as it was a curse to the Indian population of America whenever the Israelites flooded in at God's direction, in like manner it was a curse to the Indian population of Mexico when the Europeans, particularly the Spanish, flooded into their country. When this occurs it begins to produce all kinds of problems generally associated with the Tower of Babel. When God mentions a language, as He does here in Deuteronomy, you can understand that it portends great problems.

The first focus in verse 49, where language is mentioned, is a single-enemy nation. I am not talking about that. That is still a ways off yet, but what we see here developing is a precursor of what is going to happen then, and already it is beginning to have quite an impact upon us. What we need to understand from this I think is the principle that is involved in the use of this word "language." What is experienced here, with what we will say the many Mexicans who are streaming into this nation looking for work and therefore money to live on, is that God is using the word language in order to express a more modern word—culture. It has the sense of communicating a culture. That is what language does. It communicates a culture.

I know that it makes us somewhat uncomfortable to hear people speaking in a different language when you are out doing your shopping or whatever it happens to be. You wonder, "Are they talking about me?" I do not know. They may be, but we do not understand it. They are probably not saying anything at all against us, but it still makes us feel a little bit on edge. Well, that is only a little bit of what I am talking about here.

The average man on the street may not understand Spanish, or Chinese, or Vietnamese, or Hindi, or Japanese, but even though we do have people who understanding those languages, none of us fully understands the cultures they represent and express within our North American Israelitish culture. Though the difference in language does cause some problems, the whole culture that is expressed is a far greater problem. It is like a leaven inserted into the culture, like leaven in bread dough. It is working, and it is already proving to be very costly monetarily, and it will not be long before there will be open clashes between the cultures.

Now what opened the door to this movement occurred in 1965 when President Lyndon Johnson quietly signed into law The Immigration Reform Act. This act overturned America's traditional immigration policy and replaced it with the most liberal easy-accessed entry in virtually any nation's history. The result today is that one million immigrants now legally enter our country each year, plus additional large numbers of illegal ones. The 2000 Census revealed that 8.7 million illegal aliens now live in the United States. That figure in just the past few weeks has been raised to 9 million.

I do not know whether you are aware, but it costs almost twice as much to educate each alien child as it does an American child because of the language difference alone. We are not the only Israelitish country being affected by this. It is also impacting on Canada, Britain, Denmark, Holland, and France.

When Richard and I were in France staying at the Boyers' home, during breakfast one morning I picked up a cereal box to read the ingredients. They were listed in seven languages. But that is a relatively minor impact. I recently read that state governments in the United States must now print state documents in seventeen languages. But there is a statistic even more alarming than those that indicates how tremendous this influx of immigrants is impacting us.

In a Los Angeles Times article of September 2, 2002 concerning a new Catholic cathedral that just opened and dedicated there, it was stated that the Catholic mass is now celebrated in 37 languages in Los Angeles county. Are we living in Babel, or what?

I read one account that stated illegals, mostly Mexicans looking for a better life, are streaming into the United States at the rate of 80 per hour, and fanning across the nation. Now how great is the impact? "Jose" moved into first place as the name of choice for a new-born boy in Texas and California. Demographers are now stating they believe that the legalities now have been cleared for 98 million more immigrants to enter this nation over the next five decades.

I can remember a number of years ago, thinking it strange whenever I flew into the Los Angeles airport to see signs in English, Spanish, and Japanese. Now I clearly see direction signs in English and Spanish in Charlotte! And Charlotte has a Spanish-language radio station. North Carolina has experienced a 400% increase in its Mexican-born population just over the last four or five years. At present rates of growth of the indigenous population, which is what we have now, the illegals and the legal immigration, the population in the United States, according to the Census Bureau, will double in fifty years. It is 287 million right now. If these rates are sustained, within fifty years the white population will be a slight minority, so say the numbers-crunchers who deal in such projections.

I have not said anything yet that gives you some measure of serious concern, but perhaps what I am about to say will help put things into a manageable perspective. In an article written for The Washington Times, August 16, 2002, titled Making Colonies out of Nations, Paul Craig Roberts states:

"Americans are losing their country too, but Americans are not allowed to say so. Third World immigration to the United States is higher than it is in Britain. One of five of the U.S. population was born abroad, or born of parents who were born abroad. This [is a] massive change from 1970, when new immigrants accounted for only 1 in 20 births. While the British worry about losing cities to Third World immigrants, the U.S. is losing entire states: California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas."

Roberts says that the American situation is actually worse than Britain's. But let me tell you how bad it is there. Third World immigration is quadrupling the rate of Britain's population growth and creating a new city of immigrants the size of Cambridge every six months. The staid London Times says immigration is transforming Britain into a foreign land.

Quote from The London Times:

"British society is being utterly transformed against the wishes of the majority of the population, damaging quality of life and social cohesion and burdening the health services to the breaking point. [Britain is literally disappearing.] In many British cities you can wander around for hours without seeing a white face. One mono-culture has replaced another."

"While the white population grew by 1%, the Bangladeshi community grew by 30%. The Black African population grew by 37%, and the Pakistani community by 13%. Whole villages in Bangladesh have been transplanted to northern English towns."

This has happened before in Israel. Let me give you a little biblical background before we get to this.

Deuteronomy 32:7-9 Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask your father and he will show you: your elders, and they will tell you. When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the LORD's portion is his people: Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.

Acts 17:24-26 God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is LORD of heaven and earth, dwells not in temples made with hands: Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he gives to all life, and breath, and all things. And has made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation.

With that now we are going to go back to Judges 5, which contains the story of Deborah and Barak, and throwing off the yoke of an invasion.

Judges 5:31 So let all your enemies perish, O LORD: but let them that love him be as the sun when he goes forth in his might. And the land had rest forty years.

Judges 6:1-3 And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD: and the LORD delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years. And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel: and because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strong holds. And so it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east, even they came up against them.

We see several different nations of people streaming into Israel. But why did they stream into Israel? Because God sent them there! With these three verses, I want you to understand that large segments of populations are moved from time to time by God from one area to another. Often times, on the surface, the reason these people move seems to be because of drought, or some kind of a famine going on, and so they leave in order to find better work, or more work, or money, or for whatever they have need to live.

What we are going to see here in just a minute is that God sent these people from Midian, from the Amalekites, and from the people of the east, and it is God who is sending these Gentile populations into the United States, into Canada, into Britain, into France, into Holland, into Denmark, and in some cases they are overwhelming the economic system.

Judges 6:3-4 And so it was, when Israel had sown, that the Midianites came up, and the Amalekites, and the children of the east, even they came up against them: And they encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth.

I want you to see that as they came in it was not an armed force that was coming in. It was not an invasion of an army. It was simply an invasion of people moving from one country, from two countries, or from five countries, and they were moving into Israel. What were they doing in Israel? They were breaking the back of the economy, and undoubtedly creating a great deal of social and cultural hardships as well. You cannot feel very friendly toward people who are eating up all your increase.

Judges 6:4-5 And they encamped against them, and destroyed the increase of the earth, till you come unto Gaza, and left no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass. For they came up with their cattle and their tents, and they came as grasshoppers for multitude; for both they and their camels were without number: and they entered into the land to destroy it.

I do not think there was an ancient Israelite judge who signed an immigration act (as was done in 1965) that invited them in! They just came. But we invited them in.

Judges 6:6 And Israel was greatly impoverished because of the Midianites: and the children of Israel cried unto the LORD.

Who can blame the Mexicans from flooding in here if the Lord has sent them? Well, we ca nnot. We are paying the price for doing what we have done in relation to God in our lack of the right kind of conduct before Him.

We are just beginning to see the tip of the economic iceberg that this immigration is costing. Four hundred thousand foreigners are receiving SSI benefits from the Social Security Administration without having to work one day in America. Foreigners receive Medicare benefits 64% more often than native-born Americans. Cuban-born economist, George Borjas, shows that this immigration costs American-born workers $133 billion a year in lost wages because they cannot get a job. Perhaps even more serious is that our pride in America's heroes, history, and achievement is being undermined and replaced with an ethic of "political correctness" and a view of America as an oppressor nation.

A huge percentage of crime is being committed by these people. I was unaware, until I began preparing this message, that 30% of all federal prisoners are immigrants. In some areas of the country 12% of the felonies, 25% of the burglaries, and 34% of the auto thefts are committed by these illegals, and they are such really a small percentage of the population.

Now one final quote from Paul Craig Roberts' article:

"The United States, like Britain, faces extinction as a nation-state. Both countries are becoming colonies for a plethora of Third World countries. As one Britain put it, 'We resisted Hitler in order to become a colony for Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.' "

The United States has done the British one better. We have become the world's colony, because they are not only streaming in from the places that he mentioned, but many others besides.

These crime statistics are astounding considering what a small part they are of the overall population. Their cultural views are not the same as ours, and these differing views will show up in conduct.

So far I pretty much focused on the illegal Mexican flood into the United States, but overall I feel that at this time they are not as great a problem as a much smaller-in-numbers group. Now despite the Mexicans being of a different culture, we nonetheless share many cultural concepts that are similar largely because of the same basic religious faith. But a far greater threat, especially in regard to violence, is that of the legal aliens from the Islamic nations. We share almost nothing in common with them culturally, and many of them, especially those of the Islamic Fundamentalist Sect, bear a consuming hatred of our way of life. They love the wealth that God has given us, but they hate us. Now who are these people?

If you know anything about the list of nations there in Genesis 10, these people are largely descendants of Cush, through Mizraim and Canaan; thus we are dealing with Egyptians, Indians, Indonesians, and African nations. And then there are the descendents of Ishmael. You can find this in Genesis 16:11-12, from whom came the Midianites, the Ishmaelites, and the Arab Bedouin peoples. Then there are the descendents of Lot: Ammon and Moab; and the descendants of Joktan, who are primarily today in Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and any other "stan" that is around! One man calls this whole area "chaos-stan." I only intend this naming as a generality. There may be more families represented, and they are not necessarily separated by national boundaries as we see them on a modern map, but they are in all probability somewhat mixed together.

In Deuteronomy 7:1-11 we will see a charge God gave to Israel.

Deuteronomy 7:1 When the LORD your God shall bring you into the land whither you go to possess it, and has cast out many nations before you, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than you.

I might just interject here something that we all know, that as the Israelitish people came up through northwest Europe, and of course eventually over into the United States and Canada, they always had to push other nations out. That was God's doing as He moved the Israelite into the land that He had reserved for the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Then those other peoples were displaced from the land. So we are reading something here that is a parallel of what happened when our nations today were settled.

Deuteronomy 7:2 And when the LORD your God shall deliver them before you; you shall smite them, and utterly destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them, nor show mercy unto them.

Now why would God be so cruel? The answer is He did not want the cultures mixed. He is going to deal with those people later. You cannot put diverse cultures together and expect them to get along. They just a have different basis of operation in their thinking. They do not think in exactly the same category.

Deuteronomy 7:3-4 Neither shall you make marriages with them: your daughter you shall not give unto his son, nor his daughter shall you take unto your son. For they will turn away your son from following me, that they may serve other gods: so will the anger of the LORD be kindled against you, and destroy you suddenly.

This is something that we Israelitish people have been unable to resist. We have a fascination for what other people are doing, and for some reason we want to do what they do, whether in religion or whatever.

Deuteronomy 7:5-6 But thus shall you deal with them: you shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire. For you are a holy people unto the LORD your God: the LORD your God has chosen you to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.

None of this means that we are better than they. We are holy only because of what God has given us because of what He has made available to us. That is His Word, and because we have His Word we think differently from the way they do. We do not think as perfectly as God would like us to think according to His Word, but nonetheless there is just enough there that makes us different from them. That is what holy means. The essential meaning of the word "holy" is different. You are different. But it also carries with it connotations of being a cut above. I do not mean better, but "a cut above," again because of what God has given us. This is what has made us a cut above. It is what God did, and not what we possess innately. He begins to explain this in verse 7.

Deuteronomy 7:7-11 The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you because you were more in number than any people; for you were the fewest of all people: But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, has the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the LORD your God, he is God, the faithful God, which keeps covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations; And repays them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hates him, he will repay him to his face. [This is what is beginning to happen here.] You shall therefore keep the commandments, and the statutes, and the judgments, which I command you this day, to do them.

It would not have mattered had God used Chinese, Japanese, or Tibetan instead of the names of the nations that He did here at the beginning of chapter 7. His concern is expressed with religion in mind for two very important and logical reasons. The first reason is because of the sin factor. Intermarriage with other nations' people will almost inevitably produce idolatry, and from idolatry will flow a whole host of other sins. The second reason is because religion is the most powerful influence shaping a nation's culture. It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who succinctly observed: "That one must be careful what one worships, because what one worships, one becomes."

There are people in the mass media, and quoted by the mass media, who claim that Christian nations and Islamic nations worship the same God. I think that we understand that in a technical sense this is true, but Satan is the one being worshipped, and in Satan's efforts to produce confusion and violence he has given each of these nations teaching that is in many cases diametrically the opposite, and they will clash.

It is obvious in the western world (whose major religion is nominal Christianity) and the Middle East (whose dominant religion is Islam) that it is Islam that is being vigorously incited by the radical fundamentalists within it who do not think the same way about so many cultural characteristics, that there is no hope of reconciliation between the two. It cannot happen the way things are. Relations can only get worse.

Daniel 11:40 And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him: and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships: and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.

I believe that we are at the beginning stages of the end-time fulfillment of this prophecy. Maybe you do not know it, but Islam has been at war with the West for over a thousand years. The fortunes of this war have ebbed and flowed, with Islam holding the upper hand for the greater portion of that time.

At one time Islam had conquered territory larger than the Roman Empire ever was, but the Protestant Reformation, beginning in the 1500s, triggered a series of events that culminated with the rise to power, first of the Dutch, and then Spain, and then France, and then England. In the mix of these processes the Muslim countries were pushed back into their present geographical location, as much or more, by economics as by any defeat in outright warfare. Most of the time the West has defeated Islam, but the times are changing, and once again Islam is on the rise. They are flexing their economic, military, and political muscle. There is oil money—great gobs of oil money that they are trying to get their hands on. They are pushing against primarily the Israelitish people.

I think that most Americans are totally unaware that these people are the descendants of many of the enemies of ancient Israel. What goes around comes around. Some things never change, and this is because God never changes, and Satan never changes, and human nature never changes. Dates change, names change, geographical locations change, but the same basic event between the same basic peoples keeps happening over and over again.

Please understand that the people like the leadership of the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Al Quaeda, Hezbollah know full well that they cannot defeat America and the West in head-to-head warfare, and they will not even attempt that . . . yet! They have a short-range goal, and a long-range one. We are on their long-range list. Right now the goal of the radical fundamentalists is to seize control of their own nations, and only if they accomplish that can they turn their full attention to an out-an-out confrontation against the King of the North. But first they need to gain control of the moderate Arab states. This includes Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Oman, Yemen, and Kuwait. They need to control them with the same kind of strength that Qadhafi has in Libya, that Hussein has in Iraq, and that the Assad family has in Syria.

Their attacks against us are made first because they hate us, and second because they feel that through these attacks they are gradually breaking our will to support the positions of the moderate Arab states. The object of terrorism is to create fear, instability, uncertainty, and then freeze us to confuse inaction. In addition, terrorism gains them favor in the eyes of the man on the street in those Islamic nations—those people who are sitting on the fence. Maybe they can be made to lean toward radical fundamentalism.

There is a vivid and powerful lesson for us in what is happening between Islam and the West as we watch this clash of cultures. I am shifting gears here just a little bit to II Corinthians 6:14 through II Corinthians 7:1. These are familiar scriptures, but I want you to see once again how God looks at this. We saw how He sees it in Deuteronomy 7, now let us see how He sees it in a spiritual context.

I am going to read II Corinthians 6:11 to you, but I forgot to write down from which version I got the scripture. It says this:

II Corinthians 6:11 O Corinthians, we have spoken openly to you, and our heart is wide open. You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted by your own affections. [Those affections can be good or bad.] In return for the same, I speak as to children. You also be open. Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness?

Look what we have done in inviting these people into our nation. It is not just a couple of them that come here and get educated, it's millions of them!

II Corinthians 6:14-17 What fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? What communion [or sharing, or cooperation] has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the Temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God. As God has said, I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God and they shall be My people. Therefore, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord, and do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you."

According to this context, those people are "unclean."

II Corinthians 6:18 I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.

II Corinthians 7:1 Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

I think if there might be any theme of my sermons during this Feast, we just read it.

The United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and all the Israelitish countries have violated the principles of this command, and they are paying the price. We, here in the United States, have not taken the counsel even of our founding father and first president, George Washington, who in his farewell address counseled those who followed in his steps to "avoid foreign entanglement."

The invasion of people from Middle Eastern nations is so great in America and Britain that it is becoming very difficult for the present administration to conduct a pro-Israeli foreign policy, and plan invasion of those nations. Do you know why? Because of political correctness. This minority is becoming something that has to be dealt with politically.

Immigrants—legal and illegal—are entering into this

JWR/smp/cah

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