THE AMERICAN EMPIRE

INTRODUCTION

Most people today are completely unaware of the real foundations of America's ECONOMIC supremacy - a supremacy that mercilessly wrings out of the nations of the so-called "First World" (e.g., Japan, the E.U., Korea, Australia, Canada, etc., as well as "Second World" nations such as Russia, India and China) billions and billions of dollars each year in TRIBUTE money.

This money is then used to finance America's wars of conquest - wars that open up the economies of the so-called "Third World" to be cruelly and heartlessly raped and pillaged insofar as their "natural" and "human" resources are concerned. It is PRECISELY this pitiless savagery that gives rise to the Bible's description of America as a "BEAST NATION;" a nation that is "... DREADFUL" and "TERRIBLE," and "STRONG EXCEEDINGLY" with "great iron teeth;" one that "DEVOURS" and "BRAKES IN PIECES" (Daniel 7:7), and one that is an "OVERFLOWING SCOURGE." (Is. 28:18)

Moreover, it is exactly this TRIBUTE money - money that is recycled through American banks and then extended as additional credit to American consumers - that allows Americans to continue to live in relative opulence while piling up ever more personal debt - and doing so while much of the rest of the world starves.

THE EXTENT OF MOST PEOPLE'S
IGNORANCE OF AMERICA'S TRIBUTE SYSTEM

The extent of most people's ignorance with regard to this matter is reflected in the perpetual "hue and cry" of naïfs and ninnies regarding the nation's huge trade and budgetary deficits - the very deficits that create the TRIBUTE money that America has come to rely on both corporately (as a nation) and individually - and contributes to the false and even idiotic belief in most Christians that the U.S. will eventually bankrupt itself and sink into "second-class" status.

BUT MAKE NO MISTAKE ABOUT IT, WHILE MOST OF THE "PLEBES" AND "COMMON FOLK" IN AMERICA AND ABROAD ARE IGNORANT OF HOW AMERICA'S TRADE DEFICITS ARE "MAGICALLY" TRANSFORMED INTO TRIBUTE MONEY THAT FINANCES AMERICA'S WARS OF CONQUEST AND FEEDS THE INSATIABLE APPETITE OF AMERICAN CONSUMERS FOR MORE AND MORE "THINGS," THE ELITES THAT GOVERN THIS SYSTEM ARE NOT.

BENIGN NEGLECT

The crucial but furtive and underhanded role that these massive deficits play insofar as the American New World Order System is concerned is reflected in the "benign neglect" of the them by the "wise men" that govern the affairs of the nation as these deficits have mounted up to the heavens in the almost thirty-five years since America abandoned the gold standard. As Michael Hudson reports in his masterpiece, Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance:

"The [U.S. trade] deficit that caused a global crisis in 1971 when its $10 billion rate led to a 10 percent dollar devaluation has now risen to hundreds of billions of dollars annually, and is still rising … Still the government says that it is not worried and that the situation does not call for any action …"

This kind of thinking drives many people crazy as they try to understand the rationale behind America's "benign neglect" with regard to these deficits. But be assured, there is a rationale behind it all.  Hudson explains the REALPOLITIK governing America's policy of "benign neglect:"

"Gold was the monetary medium that CHECKED America's ability to run balance-of-payments deficits without limit. As the dollar ceased 'being as good as gold' leading up to 1971, the U.S. Treasury put pressure on central banks to demonetize the metal and finally drove it out of the world monetary system … Removing gold convertibility of the dollar - OR FOR THAT MATTER ITS CONVERTIBILITY INTO THE PURCHASE OF U.S. COMPANIES OR OTHER HARD ASSETS - enabled the United States to pursue its lethal economic and military policies with regard to the rest of the world."

NOTE: There are exceptions to the rule that forbids foreigners to buy up hard U.S. assets - as in the case where Daimler-Benz bought Chrysler, and other German companies such as Bayer and Siemens have been buying up parallel U.S. assets; and there are many, many other cases beyond Daimler-Benz, Bayer, and Siemens. But would you be surprised to learn that since the end of the Second World War, American shareholders have held a controlling share of the stock in these companies and many others besides, not only in Germany, but in the rest of Europe and in Japan. That, however, is another story; a story that has been carefully hidden from the American public, and a story that goes a long way in explaining why the U.S. has allowed these and other companies such as Toyota, Nissan, Sony, etc. to penetrate the American economy to the degree that they have. While this has played havoc with the jobs of ordinary Americans, it has had the wonderful effect (insofar a the elites are concerned) of -

1. Destroying American unions (which the American elites hate with a passion that is hard for ordinary people to understand), and -

2. Greatly enriching the American elites who systematically and very, very covertly bought up the stock of these companies after the Second World War from "native stockholders" who could at the time do nothing more than paper their walls with their all but worthless stock certificates - stock certificates that gave "native stockholders" a claim on nothing more than a pile of rubble. THE OWNERSHIP OF THESE "FOREIGN COMPANIES" BY AMERICAN ELITE INTERESTS IS ONE OF THE DEEPEST SECRETS OF THE POST WORLD WAR II ECONOMIC SYSTEM.

The United States dares not publicly announce that this is its policy vis-à-vis the rest of the world, but it's policy of "benign neglect" regarding its trade policy surely gives the game away because it can hardly be imagined that if these mounting trade deficits really hurt the U.S. (or at least the interests of the U.S. elites), they would be allowed to continue. The U.S. would simply return to its historic isolationism, throw up trade barriers, and go it alone, which it is perfectly capable of doing. The fact is, of all the economies of the world, it's the U.S. economy that would suffer the least under a regime of protectionism.

THE DOLLAR BECOMES THE
WORLD'S MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE

The United States, however, has not pursued a policy of protectionism, and the reason is this: The U.S. has the rest of the world by its testicles (to put it in the vernacular). And how is that? - when the U.S. abandoned the gold standard, IT REPLACED GOLD AS THE WORLD'S MEDIUM OF EXCHANGE WITH ITS OWN CURRENCY, THE DOLLAR; AND IT FORCED THE OTHER NATIONS OF THE WORLD TO DO SO AS WELL - i.e., TO USE DOLLARS RATHER THAN GOLD AS THE "BACKUP" OR SUPPORT FOR THEIR OWN CURRENCIES. Furthermore, it forced the other nations of the world to carry on all their international transactions with dollars. This confronts America's client-states in the First World - the E.U., Japan, Korea, Australia, etc. - with a dilemma; Hudson explains:

"If they let the U.S. payments deficit drag the dollar down, this will give U.S. exporters a price advantage [i.e., they can flood their markets with undervalued American products, causing unemployment and a host of other economic ills]. To protect their own producers [and workers], central banks must support the dollar's exchange rate by recycling their surplus dollars back to the United States. This option obliges them to buy U.S. government securities, as U.S. diplomats have made it clear that to buy control of U.S. companies [as well as to repurchase control of many of their own "national companies which they lost to American shareholders after the Second World War] or even to return to gold would be viewed as an UNFRIENDLY act."

A MAFIA PROTECTION RACKET

This TRIBUTE system is analogous to a MAFIA PROTECTION RACKET where shop keepers and other business people are forced to pay "protection" to the local Mafia Don in order to do business - and God help those who don't pay!

The local Mafia Don would consider that an "UNFRIENDLY ACT" - and, again, who would want to get on the wrong side of Mafia Don.

AN UNFRIENDLY ACT

And what's true with the Mafia is true with regard to the United States! No one wants to get on the wrong side of the United States insofar as its PROTECTION RACKET is concerned. After all, America is the CAPO DI TUTI (the Don of all Dons) - and one has only to view the wreckage of the old Soviet Union, Cuba, Iraq, North Korea, etc. to see what happens to countries that the U.S. views as "unfriendly." The fact that China has not suffered the same fate as the old Soviet Union is because China has now become a compliant member of America's New World Order System - all the rhetoric of political nincompoops to the contrary notwithstanding.

NOTE:  The fact is, the huge trade deficits that characterize U.S. trade with China are recycled back to America as TRIBUTE just as money from similar U.S. trade deficits are recycled back to the U.S. from Europe and Japan.

As famed economist Herbert Kahn says of this PROTECTION RACKET, it's "the greatest rip-off the world has ever seen" - and while many in the outside world might realize what's happening, what does one do when confronted by a thief who has a gun pointed at your head? One hands over the cash and keeps his mouth shut!

People know intuitively that in this world, as Mao once remarked, "POWER FLOWS OUT OF THE BARREL OF A GUN," and America has the "biggest and badest" guns in the world. IT'S THIS FACT THAT MAKES AMERICA'S PROTECTION RACKET WORK. And make no mistake about America's military supremacy: As I indicated in the Antipas Papers,

"The most powerful army in the world stands guard over her supremacy; no nation on earth can "mass" troops against it without being swept away in a few short hours. Her fleets dominate the seas; twelve Herculean naval battle groups prowl the oceans, each dominated by enormous and incalculably powerful "supercariers" - oceanic "BATTLE STARS" of immeasurable dread. No other nation on earth has anything comparable to them. Trident submarines larger than the battleships of World War II lie in wait beneath the seas, ready to unleash their horror and violence on anyone foolish enough to challenge her preeminence. Her air force overspreads the earth with its shadow and makes the nations of the world tremble with fear. America's MILITARY presence fills the world like some mighty colossus. She stands as a giant in a world filled with pygmies. Her existence shatters the pretense of all those who have gone before her - of Egypt, Assyria, Persia, even of ancient Rome - and she inhabits and diffuses the earth with her omnipotence and Titan-like bearing."

THE LIEBER / PRESS REPORT FOR
THE COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS

Indeed, the extent to which America dominates the world MILITARILY was made plain recently in an article that appeared in the March / April 2006 edition of Foreign Affairs (a CFR publication) entitled "The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy" by Keir Lieber of the University of Notre Dame and Daryl Press of the University of Pennsylvania. Lieber and Press write that it is now possible for the United States to -

"… destroy the long-range nuclear arsenals of (both) Russia and China with a first strike." [Please see our article, "A Dreadful Nation; An Overflowing Scourge: the Rise of U.S. Military Supremacy."]

Lieber and Press explain what a "first strike" is; It is -

"THE ABILITY TO DESTROY ALL OF AN ADVERSARY'S NUCLEAR FORCES, ELIMINATING THE POSSIBILITY OF A RETALIATORY STRIKE. IT IS KNOWN AS A FIRST-STRIKE CAPABILITY, OR NUCLEAR PRIMACY."

According to Lieber and Press, the United States now has the ability to destroy EVERY SINGLE RUSSIAN BOMBER BASE, AND EVERY RUSSIAN SUBMARINE AND ICBM WITH NO CHANCE OF A RUSSIAN COUNTER-STRIKE. Moreover, they continue:

"This finding is not based on best-case assumptions or an unrealistic scenario in which U.S. missiles perform perfectly and the warheads hit their targets without fail … OUR MODEL INDICATES THAT ALL OF RUSSIA'S STRATEGIC NUCLEAR ARSENAL WOULD STILL BE DESTROYED EVEN IF U.S. WEAPONS WERE 20 PERCENT LESS ACCURATE THAN WE ASSUMED, OR IF U.S. WEAPONS WERE ONLY 70 PERCENT RELIABLE, OR IF RUSSIAN ICBM SILOS WERE 50 PERCENT 'HARDER' (MORE REINFORCED, AND HENCE MORE RESISTANT TO ATTACK) THAN WE EXPECTED."

Concerning China, Lieber and Press write:

"China's nuclear arsenal is even more vulnerable to a U.S. attack. A U.S. first-strike could succeed whether it was launched as a surprise first strike or in the midst of a crisis during a Chinese alert."

Moreover, Lieber and Press go on to say,

"It is doubtful that a Chinese second-strike force will materialize anytime soon. The United States has a first-strike capability against China today and should be able to maintain it for decades to come."

Finally, what can be said with regard to Russia and China, can be said with regard to all the other nuclear powers of the world. The fact is, THE U.S. COULD STRIKE ALL THESE POWERS - ALONG WITH RUSSIA AND CHINA - AND TAKE THEM ALL OUT IN A SINGLE, MASSIVE STROKE. IT IS PRECISELY THIS OVERARCHING MILITARY POWER THAT PERMITS THE U.S. TO ENFORCE ITS TRIBUTE SYSTEM ON THE WORLD.

So much then for the possibility that the nations of the earth can break free of America's grip. Hudson writes:

"Foreigners have no say over these policies [i.e., the economic policies that undergird the American New World Order System]. Americans fought a revolution over the principle, 'no taxation without representation' two centuries ago, but Europe, Asia and Third World countries seem politically far from taking a similar step today. Their dollar claims [against the U.S. treasury as a result of America's trade deficit] do not give them the voting rights in U.S. policy formation, yet U.S. government, IMF (International Monetary Fund) and World Bank officials use their dollar claims on debtor economies in Latin America, Africa and Asia to follow the Washington Consensus."

HOW THE SYSTEM WORKS

In simple terms, the system works in this way: The U.S. buys more products than it sells to foreign countries. Like gold used to do, these dollars accumulate in central banks around the world and are used by them to carry on their international trade - to buy oil from OPEC (OPEC trades its oil only in dollars), to buy commodities such as fruit and sugar from Latin America, natural gas from Russia (Russia sells its natural gas only in dollars), copper from Chile, tin from Bolivia, electronic equipment from China, cars from Japan, etc. - again, all of which are traded in dollars.

But even after foreign countries have used their dollar surpluses to buy what they want from other countries, they still have a surplus of dollars. Hudson writes:

"In fact, the larger the U.S. balance of payments (i.e., its trade deficit) grows, the more dollars mount up in the hands of … [central banks] to be recycled to finance the U.S. budget deficit."

What can they do with their surplus dollars since the U.S. will not allow the holders of these dollars to buy up U.S. assets?  The only thing that they can do with them is buy U.S. Treasury bonds. Hudson explains:

"These dollar holdings - in the form of Treasury bonds - have become a seignorage tax levied by America on the world's central banks." [A seignorage tax redistributes money from the lender to the borrower; it's an upside-down situation where the borrower rather than the lender ultimately benefits.] 

This so-called seignorage tax the U.S. levies on the rest of the world is used by the U.S. to cover its huge budgetary deficits - BUDGETARY DEFICITS THAT ALLOW THE U.S. TO BUILD AND MAINTAIN ITS HUGE MILITARY MACHINE AND CARRY ON ITS INCESSANT WARS OF CONQUEST WITHOUT HAVING TO RAISE TAXES ON AMERICAN CONSUMERS. It's the people in America's system of client-states that finance America's military machine and pay for America's wars of conquest. That's precisely what the Ancients used to call "TRIBUTE." BUT IT'S A SUPER-SOPHISTICATED SYSTEM OF TRIBUTE THAT - WHILE WELL-KNOWN TO THE ELITES IN THE U.S. AND AMONG AMERICA'S "TOADY ELITES" ABROAD - REMAINS HIDDEN FROM THE MASSES OF THE PEOPLE BOTH IN THE UNITED STATES AND IN ITS CLIENT-STATES.

GETTING BACK TO OUR ANALOGY
OF A MAFIA PROTECTION RACKET

Getting back to our analogy of a Mafia PROTECTION RACKET - no one, not the Mafia nor the small shop keeper that is paying the Mafia for "protection" wants to admit OPENLY what's occurring. So the Mafia carries the money it extracts from the shop keeper on its books as a "loan" from the shop keeper to itself; and the shop keeper carries the money paid as "protection" to the Mafia as a loan it has made to the Mafia.

Of course, both know that the so-called "loan" is never going to be repaid - BUT IT BALANCES THE BOOKS INSOFAR AS BOTH PARTIES ARE CONCERNED. This is important because when it comes time for the shop keeper to explain to his family why they don't have quite as much money to spend as they thought they had (based on the shop's gross sale's receipts), the shop keeper tells his family that he has "invested" the money. Contrawise, it allows the family of the Mafia Don (who want to plead ignorance as to why they have so much more money to spend than they should have) to think that the money is a "loan" from some obscure "great uncle" who doesn't really want the money back.

Of course, the presence of so many armed "retainers" coming and going at the estate they live at in the Hamptons, the stories one hears wafting through closed doors about "hits," about "numbers being "run," the presence of so many "beautiful people" at the pool outside on the carefully manicured lawns, etc., leads one to wonder a little about what daddy is really up to and where all the money comes from. But a trip to the shopping mall quickly sweeps such "impure" thoughts away. And, then, each Sunday when the family attends Mass and the priest makes so much to do about Daddy, any thought that dear old dad could be up to "no good" is quickly banished from the mind.

AND ISN'T THIS THE CASE WITH
THE AMERICAN CONSUMER

And isn't this the case with the American consumer; isn't this the way that Americans react to the manner in which America is squeezing TRIBUTE money out of the rest of the world. Indeed, it's this more than anything else that reveals the impure and avaricious nature of America's citizenry (Christians and secularists alike), and exposes their deep participation in this immoral system. After all, how many Americans would stop buying their clothes at Wal-Mart, Macys, Target, etc. if they knew that these clothes were made in Third World sweat shops; OR how many Americans would stop buying their electronic gadgets at Fry's, Sears, Best Buy, etc. if they knew they were being made by political prisoners in China; OR how many American women would stop buying diamonds if they knew how much blood and misery are associated with them? Not many I imagine.

Plainly, then, it's not just the American elites that are participants in this system of organized pillage, but the American people as well - and all their long prayers for the poor in Africa, Asia and Latin America will not wash away their guilt.

WILLING IGNORANCE

The American people are practicing a form of WILLING IGNORANCE insofar as what the American New World Order System is all about. But the Bible does not excuse such ignorance, and it condemns those who involve themselves in this kind of ignorance: 

"For this they WILLINGLY are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:

"Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished …" (2Pe 3:5-6)

Is that what you are doing? - practicing a kind of WILLING ignorance insofar as the crimes of the American New World Order System are concerned; pretending, like the family of a Mafia Don - that you are unaware of where all your money comes from. You think, perhaps, that your PERSONAL piety (which may indeed be very real) will give you a pass when you appear before the Judgment Seat of Christ? - that because you make long prayers for the people of the Third World, that will excuse you from the crimes of the American New World Order System? God help you if that's your case!

As I have said in previous articles, the fact of the matter is, whether or not one recognizes that he is engaged in sin - that sin still has a poisonous effect on those it touches (cf., 2Pe 3:5-6). To think otherwise is akin to believing that because one does not recognize a poisonous snake as such, the danger that the snake poses is somehow or other abated. That's nonsense! The malignant effect that sin has on a person has little or nothing to do with whether or not one recognizes that what he is doing is sinful. If anything, it renders the sin that much more dangerous.

FALLING SICK WITH THE PLAGUES OF BABYLON

Dear saints of God, you must realize that God considers the condition of this great BEAST NATION so nauseous that He commands His people to -

"Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." (Rev. 18:4)

The Lord does not want His people CONTAMINATED by the sins of this BEAST NATION, and if they stay, they surely will be CONTAMINATED (fall "sick" with her plagues) - and that certainly is what's happening with many of my friends and loved ones who have chosen to remain in Babylon - they have fallen sick, and don't even recognize the fact that they have done so.

Again, the Bible says that you are to COME OUT, and the question is, Who or what is hindering you from obeying God. Paul faced a similar dilemma with those who followed him, but who - after he had left them - decided to stray from the truth that he had delivered unto them:

"Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?
"This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you.
"A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump." (Gal. 5:1-9)

Paul said, a "little leaven leaveneth the whole lump;" in other words, sin is contagious, and if you don't get away from it, it will contaminate you, AND THERE IS VERY LITTLE TIME LEFT TO OBEY GOD IN THIS MATTER.

So again, the question is, Who or what is hindering you from obeying God in relation to His command in Revelation 18:4? Time is running out for you! As Phil Gasper has said, events are developing right now in the Middle East that will -

"… MARK THE OFFICIAL EMERGENCE OF THE UNITED STATES AS A FULL-FLEDGED GLOBAL EMPIRE, seizing sole responsibility and authority as planetary policeman. It would be the culmination of a plan 10 years or more in the making, carried out by those who believe the United States must seize the opportunity for global domination [i.e., the neo-conservatives] … In essence, these men have laid out a plan for PERMANENT U.S. MILITARY AND ECONOMIC DOMINATION OF EVERY REGION ON THE GLOBE, unfettered by international treaty or concern ..."

When that happens, everything will change, and not necessarily to your advantage - and you should know in this connection that Gasper is a socialist! Jesus was certainly right when He said:

"The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light." (Luke 16:8)

ADMITTING TO A REALISTIC INTERPRETATION
OF THE "SIGNS OF THE TIMES"

Brothers and sisters in Christ, is it really that difficult to recognize -

1. The United States for what it really is: the BEAST NATION of Daniel 7:7 and Is. 28:18.

2. That no nation or combination of nations can challenge its preeminence.

3. That there is a great deal of significance to the fact that American troops are now ensconced in the land of ancient Babylon.

4. That the United States is now maneuvering "for the kill" in the Middle East by -

   1. Moving two huge U.S. carrier battle groups into the Middle East to augment the carrier battle groups already there. For what purpose? The defense of Baghdad? - if you believe that I have a bridge in Brooklyn I would like to sell you.

   2. "SURGING" 50,000 more troops into Iraq. Again, for what purpose? To halt the insurgent activity there prior to pulling out American forces from Iraq? - the logic here is so convoluted it hardly bears refutation.

   3. Deploying the new, improved Patriot Missile System to Iraq and Israel. Once again, for what purpose? To protect American troops in Iraq from the many "sophisticated" missile systems the Iraqi insurgents possess? To protect Israel from a war they are not even participants in? - it's all so farcical.

   4. Shipping several thousand "smart air launched weapons" to Israel. Again. For what purpose. These weapons are not needed to protect Israel from the crude rockets that Herzbollah possesses.

   5. Shipping to Israel some 500 "bunker-buster bombs;" specifically the conventional "bunker buster" (the BLU 113), and the B61-11, which is the "nuclear version" of the BLU 113. Nuclear weapons to Israel? Why? - for use against Hamas in the Gaza strip? If Israel uses these weapons in Gaza, they would probably take out half of Israel as well.

   6. Shipping US Harpoon missiles armed with nuclear warheads for use by Israel's submarine force. As if these weapons would be of any use to Israel except in an all out war with Iran.

   7. Deploying large numbers of air assets to the six "super-bases" the U.S. has built in the desert in Iraq. Once again, for what purpose? The U.S. already has an over-abundance of air power in Iraq insofar as its war against the Iraqi insurgents are concerned.

I can tell you as a former "Order of Battle" officer at the Combined Intelligence Center in Vietnam, that there is no surer way of anticipating future events on the battlefield than viewing realistically the order of battle of one's opponents. That was surely the case with the VC / NVA; that was certainly the case insofar as Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in the early 1990s; and that is assuredly the case now with regard to the deployment of U.S. military forces in Iraq.

IN THE REAL WORLD -

In the REAL world, if an opposing military commander ignored this kind of developing order of battle being arrayed against him, he would be relieved of his command and shot. But as I said in my last article,

"Oh, how hard it is to get people to take all this seriously - again, even friends and loved ones, even many in the ministry. I tell you the truth when I say that you cannot possibly imagine how difficult it has been for me during the last year or so to continue preaching the message that the Lord has given me. Even a great many of those closely associated with me have demurred at my insistence as to the IMMEDIACY of the situation before us, and I have been left pretty much alone to fend for myself up here in Canada. I have begun to learn through much heartache what Giovanni Papine meant when he wrote:

'NO ONE LOVES A PROPHET; he is a troublesome ... voice, HATED by the people and out of favor with the church. Like a wild, ragged, unkempt coyote scenting from afar the smell of carrion, like a raven ALWAYS CROAKING OUT THE SAME CRY, like a ... wolf howling on the mountain top, the prophet travels throughout the earth ... followed by suspicion and hatred ... He is ... a man who sees with a troubled heart - but with clear eyes - the compromises his friends and loved ones are making with the world today, and the consequences that will accrue to them tomorrow ... Like all truthtellers who disturb the slumbering majority and who unsettle the peace of the people, he is avoided like a leper, persecuted like an enemy and those who are looked upon as being 'reasonable people' detest him ...'"

OUR FAILURE IN CANADA & OUR HOPE THAT
OTHERS CAN LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKES

Brothers and sisters, I have kept our ranch in Canada open for over three years now, even after my dear wife of over 45 years suffered a heart attack and a stroke - and we (my wife and I) have invited all who wanted to come, to come. My hope was that enough saints would come who were MATURE enough that we could open up a "way station" for people choosing to get out of the United States; a place where people could be "trained up" in the Word of God and in the ministry; a place where we could learn to WORK TOGETHER for the glory of God and the preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom.

And  I must report to you that there were a great number of people who responded, but very few MATURE Christians answered our call - Christians who could guide, "raise up" and train the babes in Christ who did respond, and so when the enemy came in and brought false accusations against the brothers and sisters here, and caused friction among them, there was no one to "pour oil on the waters." On  top of that, the accusations flew against us - accusations that were even picked up and repeated by people who had no first-hand knowledge of what was happening. I was labeled a "Jim Jones" - even by people who had been with me for years and years, and who knew better - BUT WHO HAD BEEN OFFENDED BY MY INSISTENCE THAT CHRISTIANS IN AMERICA MUST TAKE GOD'S COMMAND IN REVELATION 18:4 SERIOUSLY. And my how these lies proliferated. And what now can I say about them all - not much, except what Jesus said about His accusers:

"And the Lord said, Whereunto then shall I liken the men of this generation? and to what are they like?

"They are like unto children sitting in the marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept.

"For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil.

"The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!

"But wisdom is justified of all her children." (Luke 7:31-35)

And this is certainly true with regard to the accusations that have been leveled against me! I have been called a tyrant (a "Jim Jones"), and I have been called too slack in the way I handle people. I have been called too "structured," and not "structured" enough; too tolerant and too intolerant - and on and on and on. What I needed during this time were enough MATURE Christians to come to handle all this - Christians like those who rallied around the early apostles in Jerusalem when this kind of chaos began to break out in the church there:

"And in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplied, there arose a murmuring of the Grecians against the Hebrews, because their widows were neglected in the daily ministration.

"Then the twelve called the multitude of the disciples unto them, and said, It is not reason that we should leave the word of God, and serve tables.

"Wherefore, brethren, look ye out among you seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business.

"But we will give ourselves continually to prayer, and to the ministry of the word.

"And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch:

"Whom they set before the apostles: and when they had prayed, they laid their hands on them.

"And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples multiplied in Jerusalem greatly; and a great company of the priests were obedient to the faith." (Acts 6:1-7)

But no one came though I begged on hands and knees for some to respond.

DON'T PITY THE POOR SOLDIERS
WHO HAVE TRIED AND FAILED

It's all spilled milk now, and there is no need to dwell too much more on what happened. My hope now is that we all can learn from our failure up here in Canada, and that some will take up where those of us who have tried and failed left off; that others will pick up the burden for Canada and find a spiritual and practical way of constructing a "way station" here in Canada for those who want to flee from the United States. I have always believed that people - when they act in concert with each other - can accomplish much more than when they act alone. Right now, however, I want to recognize those who "tried and failed" with me in Canada - who gave their all, and because of that, have nothing now to be ashamed of:

Sean Mayfield

I want to thank my dear co-worker Sean Mayfield - my "Timothy in the Lord" - for the heroic effort he made up here, despite his youth in the Lord; he suffered more from false accusations than any person his age in the Lord should ever have to suffer. My hope is that all of this will mature him that much more insofar as the work God has called him to. I believe that there is much to learn from the tribulation we suffer in this world. The Bible says that -

"We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." (Acts 14:22)

And my hope is that he will come to glory in the tribulations he suffered up here in Canada, and the wounds that were inflicted upon him by his so-called "friends" -

"… knowing that tribulation worketh patience;

"And patience, experience; and experience, hope:

"And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." (Romans 5:3-5)

Don and Eileen Hansen

I also want to thank Don and Eileen Hansen who took the chance to "put their good name on the line" up here in Canada knowing the great risk they were taking financially when they did so. Words can never express my gratitude to them. Over the last three years or so Don and Eileen have rode to the rescue of the ranch time and time again, and doing so by putting their own finances at great risk. They are the kind of people about whom the Bible said of Joses:

"And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, (which is, being interpreted, THE SON OF CONSOLATION), a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus,

"Having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet [for the sake of the work to which they all had been called].

Truly Don and Eileen have been the son and daughter of CONSOLATION for us up here in Canada.

Jack Shearer

I also want to thank my precious son, Jack, who has remained THE MOST FAITHFUL SERVANT OF ALL with regard to the message of Antipas. Jack is one of "those hidden ones of the Lord," without which the work of the Lord could not go forward; one of the very few who is willing to take the lowest seat at the table (though he deserves much more) - and doing so without murmuring. I know of a certainty that he is one of those about whom the Lord remarked:

"When thou art bidden [to a great man's wedding feast], go and sit down in the lowest place; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee.

"For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted." (Luke 14:8-10)

Lucy Shearer

Finally, I want to thank my BELOVED wife of forty-five years, Lucy. She has been my ONE and ONLY wife, and I have been her ONE and ONLY husband, something that not many people can say in this wicked and adulterous generation. She never flinched in our attempt to get something going up here in Canada. Even after suffering a massive heart attack and stroke, she still insisted on coming back to Canada, and in doing so she put to an open shame all those who demurred from coming because of health reasons. She has always been by my side through thick and thin, and she has always shown the world what a "HELP MEET" is really all about. She lived it; she didn't talk about it as so many wives do, she lived it, and she has lived it to the maximum - and all the while she has never had a "permanent abode." She knows what it means to be a PILGRIM in this life; a SOJOURNER - and that's borne out by the fact that we have lived in more than sixty different locations FOR THE SAKE OF THE LORD in our forty-five years together. She is one of those very, very few women who can say with the Lord,

"Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." (Luke 9:58)

Lucy, more than anyone else, made Antipas Ministries possible; she did so by working as a registered nurse for more than twenty-five years while I labored to put "on paper" what the Lord had given me in my spirit. During most of this time, she and she alone not only put food on our table, but financed the ministry.

ALL OF THESE PEOPLE I HAVE LISTED ABOVE GAVE THEIR ALL FOR THIS NOBLE EXPERIMENT HERE IN CANADA. The fact that we failed in the end means nothing. All of us - Sean, Don, Eileen, Jack, Lucy and I - can now say with Pete Seeger,

WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW

Don and Eileen are making plans to go to Central America; Sean is still "up in the air" as to what he is going to do; Lucy, Jack and I are now in the process of selling the ranch; we will be moving to Leipzig, Germany where I will continue with the work of the ministry there - which is first and foremost the publication of the wisdom God has GRACIOUSLY given me concerning His Word in the "end of days."

In saying that, I'm not trying to be elitist; but I can tell you that I know of no one else who is saying the things that I am saying in these "Last Days," and that's just the plain fact of the matter - and if you are offended by my saying this, so be it. There are, of course, some who were once part of this ministry; people who over the years came and went three or four different times, learned from me, and now are trying to parlay what they learned from me off on an unsuspecting Christian community. Now, if that's all they were doing, that would be okay; after all, I am able to say with Paul,

"Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good will:

"The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds:

"But the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defense of the gospel.

"What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence, or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice." (Phil. 1:15-18)

But the problem with many of those who were once with me and have since left, have left because they could not endure the COMPLETE message that was delievered into my hands, and have, as a result, watered it down to suit their own impure sensibilities - especially as those sensibilities relate to "Coming out of Babylon" in answer to God's call in Revelation 18:4.

Still, I know of a SURETY what the Lord has committed into my hands, and I am resolved to be faithful to that which He has given me in these "Last Days" - even if in the end I am left totally alone. I am not into this work in order to make it palatable to those who must swallow the medicine (as it were). What good does it do for a doctor who must tell a patient that he has cancer of the leg, and that - as a result - the leg must be amputated. There is no easy way to say such a thing, no more than there was an easy way for Christ to say:

 "And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.

"And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell." (Matthew 5:29-30)

But it's better for the patient to hear the truth, and have his life saved by the amputation, than not to hear the truth and lose his life altogether. That's severe! - but it's the truth. And so I say to all those who hear this message, and who for one reason or another "water it down," there will be a reckoning some day! THERE WILL BE A RECKONING!

WE CONTINUE TO NEED YOUR FINANCIAL HELP

Finally, I will continue to need the financial support of those who are still giving to the ministry in order to transition the ministry out of North America to Germany. So I say to you, if the spiritual things that I have ministered unto you have profited you, then please respond with your material things. As Paul said under similar circumstances so many years ago:

"If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great thing if we shall reap your carnal things?" (1 Cor. 9:11)

God bless you all,

S.R. Shearer
Antipas Ministries