Cannot Be Silenced

By Grace Baumgarten

Did you know? Theres a battle, raging for over 6,000 years and continuing until the end of time? Beginning in the Garden of Eden, between God and Lucifer, truth and falsehood, good and evil, light and darkness. A battle for the souls of Man.

God created man to multiply, subdue, and have dominion over the earth. But Lucifer, or Satan, the ruler of the world system, was envious of Gods love for man. He deceived Adam and Eve to sin against God. Ever since then, Satan has ensnared various men across time, advancing his agenda; to create world-wide financial dominion, thus controlling the political, spiritual and economic systems everywhere, with himself taking full lordship over Gods creation.

This is why I, Grace Baumgarten, Cannot Be Silenced. With this being an election year in the USA, and its consequent Changing of the guard, being informed about the secret societies, or Enlightened Elites, is imperative. Their ideology? True freedom is liberation from God, and from moral constraints; with no absolute faith. To them, All truth is relative to the individual or group. With back-room dealings, ruinous bailouts and elimination of basic human values, theyve turned the USA over to be dissected, corporate-style, and theyre forcing this fraud on you and me.

Yet, our founding fathers constructed a different concept; one of freedom, under the authority of Almighty God, as the Great Ruler; with His creation, nations and peoples empowered from on High, His Bible and His Commandments are the authoritative Word of God, and the basis for law, life, and true liberty.

My first book was just the beginning, and so much has happened! Therefore, following a one-year sabbatical, I started writing one sentence at a time, knowing one day, this book would be born. I Cannot Be Silenced.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512736977

Grace Baumgarten

Grace Baumgarten penned her autobiography, “The Victory Within,” plus contributed an article to the book, “I Love the Philippines.” As a US citizen, she wants to instill a love for country in everyone, and preservation of its constitution as founded; on Judeo-Christian principles.

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Copyright © 2016 Grace Baumgarten.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

WestBow Press

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-3696-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-3698-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-3697-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016905594

WestBow Press rev. date: 07/28/2016

Index

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1.   The secret societies of the Enlightened Elites

Chapter 2.   Jihad against America and the World

Chapter 3.   The Victory Within and I love the Philippines

Chapter 4.   The Affordable Care Act or Obama Care and the Federal Reserve Bank (FED)

Chapter 5.   Climate Change or Global Warming

Chapter 6.   My Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 at the US District Court

Chapter 7.   My Title VII case at the United States Appeals Court

Chapter 8.   My Title VII at the Supreme Court of the United States

Chapter 9.   Day one to Twelve Years Old (1959 to 1971)

Chapter 10.   Teenage Years and Martial Law (1972 to 1984)

Chapter 11.   A Quarter Century and the People’s Power (1985 to 1996)

Chapter 12.   Thirty-Eight to Fifty Years Old (1997 to 2009)

Chapter 13.   Life after Fifty

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my Uncle Levy, his wife Jan, my mother-in-law, Mary, and one of my best friends, Angie Ramos Pineda, who passed away on February 12, 2016. Their memories will always linger in my heart. I admit that their deaths have brought me sorrow and pain, but thank God His Son, Jesus has conquered death on Easter morning. Because of His resurrection, we all have the victory with Him and that victory is now within us.

That’s the reason I wrote this book so I can encourage those who want to overcome fear, anxiety, loneliness, sadness and grief associated with the death of someone they love or important to them. I do not want you to lose hope because one day you will see them again in heaven. And if you are ill and facing death, do not fret because the lover of our soul is preparing a wedding feast, a banquet and a grand reunion with Him and with our loved ones. All we have to do is to accept His proposal and His invitation to live in our hearts and be our Savior. For Jesus promised us that when we die, we will be with Him in paradise and will spend eternity with Him in heaven. So I encourage you to spread this good news to others so they too can be a part of this grand event.

I also want to dedicate this book to all my loved ones. Because I love you, I am willing to expose myself naked and bare my soul so I can share the Agape love of God with you. Because of God’s love working in my life, I can boldly say that yes it is possible to live a blessed, fulfilled, prosperous and productive life for our Creator. Because Jesus loves me, my sins were forgiven so even though I have committed a million mistakes and would sometimes goof-off, His love never fails. So I hope you will stand, fight, pray and have faith, believe, and act with me as we promise ourselves that we will never be silenced anymore by our enemies. Our victory with Him will help us speak boldly and freely about love, life, liberty, justice, equality and happiness for all.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my Creator for His unending agape love, mercy, grace and faithfulness to all of His creation.

I’d like to thank my MPF (my partner forever) for giving me his unconditional love, patience, and understanding ever since we became one flesh as husband and wife.

Thank you, my children, for giving me the chance to know, love and nurture you. I hope someday you will pass my good name, the memories of my wonderful life, my hopes and dreams as my legacy to your children and your children’s children. For it’s always been my desire that you will always work for God’s kingdom until the end of time.

My sincere thanks to the Weil family for sharing with me their Jewish theology, history, culture, customs, traditions and life experiences. Through them, the more I understand this Jewish man called Jesus Christ.

I also would like to thank my mom, my brothers and sisters and all the members of my family up to the 12th generation, without you, my genealogy will not be complete.

Thank you to all my friends who have stuck with me over the years, shared your lives with me, and then allowed me to write about our beautiful relationships.

My special thanks to Deborah Whiteman for editing the manuscript. Not only that you have saved me time and money, you are also proof that God answered my prayer when I asked Him to send someone to help me in correcting my writing mess and a partner in this endeavor.

I also would like to thank those people who have been the pillars of my faith, my mentors, my heroes and my role models who have shaped me into who I am today.

And most of all, thank you, dear readers, for engaging in the story of my life. Even though I consider myself an amateur writer, you have taken the time to know an unknown servant like me. I hope someday we could meet each other so that we can talk more about Him and less of me.

Introduction

Written in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, was God’s story. It all started in the story of creation, that in the very beginning, God made the heavens and the earth and everything on it. He created the world in six days, then rested, blessed and sanctified the seventh day. After He created Adam and Eve, He blessed and commanded them to be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth and subdue it. God also initiated the first marriage between a man and a woman in the Garden of Eden. In the last book of the Bible, Revelation, the last wedding will occur when you and me, the Church, and Israel will be the bride to be adorned for her husband, who is Jesus Christ. This marriage that will last through eternity will be the grand finale of the wonderful love story of God with His people.

Whether you are young or old, Jew or Gentile, man or woman, Muslim or Christian can be a part of this wedding depending on your own decision. Isaiah 54:5 says, Your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is His name and your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel. He is called the God of the whole earth. Do you want to become the bride of Christ and be part of this end-time event? According to history, there was a famous navigator, explorer, and colonizer named Christopher Columbus who believed that certain things must happen first in order for this end-time event to occur. First, Christianity must be spread throughout the world. Second, the Garden of Eden must be found. Third, the last crusade must happen so when Christ returns to earth, He will go back to the holy place where He lived and died which is Jerusalem. Last, a world emperor will be chosen to rule the earth.

Since Columbus believed in these end-time events, his primary goal was to spread the Christian religion around the globe. He initiated the European exploration and colonization of the American continents. He made four voyages to the Americas, the first being in 1492. His new discovery made the Europeans aware of the Americas. This brought an enormous impact in the historical development of the modern western world. He wrote all of these things toward the end of his life in the Book of Prophecies. He considered his achievements to be the fulfillment of the Bible prophecy in the context of Christian eschatology and apocalypticism. With the assistance of his friend, the Carthusian monk, Gaspar Gorricio, he was able to write the compilation of apocalyptic religious revelations, probably between September 1501 and 1505.

Eschatology is the study of end things, whether the end of an individual life, the end of the age, the end of the world and the nature of the Kingdom of God. Christian eschatology is the study of the destiny of humankind as it is revealed in the Bible. This great book is the primary source for all Christian eschatology studies. The major issues and events involve the death and the afterlife, Heaven and Hell, the Second Coming of Jesus, the Resurrection of the Dead, the Rapture, the Tribulation, Millennialism, the end of the world, the Last Judgment, and the New Heaven and New earth of the world to come.

There are many passages in the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, which speak of a time of terrible tribulation such as has never been known, a time of natural and man-made disasters on an awesome scale. Jesus said that at the time of His coming, There will be great tribulation such as has not been since the beginning of the world to this time, nor ever will be. The Messiah’s return and the tribulation that accompanies it will come at a time when people are not expecting it. Just like in the days of Noah, the coming of the Son of Man shall be. Jesus also said, "On that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven but My Father only. For as in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and given in marriage.

Before the great flood, the Sons of God were marrying the daughters of men giving birth to Nephilim or a race of giants, or mighty men. God saw that the wickedness of man was so great in the earth, that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually so He destroyed the entire surface of the earth with a flood and started all over again with a righteous man named Noah. Because Noah believed in God and he obeyed God’s instructions to build an Ark, his whole family, the plants and animals that were with him on the vessel were saved from the great flood. However, those who did not believe in God’s Words perished and died. However, God is merciful that He restored the earth again after the flood. Just like what He did when Adam and Eve sinned against Him when they disobeyed His command not to eat the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden.

Adam and Eve listened and believed the words of the snake more than following the instructions of God. Their sin resulted in the loss of their home in Paradise. God revealed His Master Plan for the human race when He cursed the ground and the snake by telling the animal, He, the woman’s seed will crush your head and you will strike His heel. The snake was to crawl on the ground, and therefore be susceptible to man’s heel crushing its head. This vulnerability is a direct result of Satan’s sin and also a foreshadowing of what will really happen to Satan someday. The seed of the woman who is Jesus Christ will crush the head of Satan and His heel will be struck (the crucifixion) in the process. Ever since then, Satan had tried to stop the birth of Jesus Christ.

In order for Satan to stop the birth of the Messiah, he and Lucifer’s followers have intermingled with human beings with the intention of corrupting the human DNA. They reasoned if human DNA could be corrupted or demonized, no Savior will be born and mankind would be lost forever. God’s plan for mankind was fulfilled when Jesus, the Son of God who is our Savior was born on Christmas day. He, the Lamb of God was sacrificed on Calvary’s cross, but on Easter morning, He defeated Satan by His resurrection. Although the first Adam, had made us all die in sin, the last Adam who is Christ has made us alive and live in victory forevermore.

After the great flood, the Earth was purged of the contaminated genes. Only eight people including Noah and, at least, two of very kind of animals were saved to re-populate the Earth again. Noah obeyed, trusted and found grace in the eyes of the Lord. God made a covenant or a promise with Noah that He would never send another flood again to destroy the earth and He sealed that promise with a rainbow. Noah’s family repopulated the human race and they branched out all over the earth. Through Noah’s son, Shem came Abraham, who became the father of the physical people of God on earth, the Jewish people.

Why would I say that the Israelites are the chosen people of God? God Himself answered this very question in the Bible. In addressing the ancient Israelites, He told them: For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. The Lord did not set His love on them nor choose them because they were more in number than any other people, for they were the least of all peoples, but because the Lord loves them and because God would keep the oath which He swore to their fathers. God chose the ancient Israelites because He had promised Abraham that his descendants would become a great nation and occupy the land of Canaan.

God blessed Abraham and his descendants because of Abraham’s faith, a living faith that resulted in diligent obedience to God’s instructions and law. This promise was repeated to Abraham’s son, Isaac, and to Abraham’s grandson, Jacob. God’s purpose in choosing Israel was for them to be a model nation to other nations and that through them all the families of the earth would be blessed. Yes, the non-Israelites would be blessed too through this Jewish man called, Jesus Christ. The Gentiles, who are the people from other nations, would be drafted in the family of God through His Son, Jesus. So everyone, Jews or Gentiles will be given equal opportunity to be a part of God’s family through Jesus by becoming His bride in the grand marriage of the Lamb. So if you are a Gentile or a Jew, Muslim or Christian, young or old, man or woman, God loves you and He wants you to live with Him in Paradise forever and ever. However, the decision is for you to make.

After Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden of Eden, their descendants started a civilization in Mesopotamia, which the Western world widely considered the cradle of civilization. Mesopotamia is located between two rivers, the Tigris, and the Euphrates. In its valley, the Sumerians built the world’s first cities with their ziggurats, tiered temples, a remarkable irrigation system, paths and roads and invented the bills of exchange in clay tablets. Their merchants thus traded far beyond the frontiers of the Empire. Their Cuneiform writing was the most important and most revolutionary invention because history would never have known monotheism, the idea of One God. Through writing on the tablets, the history of the Jewish people was carried forward.

Who are Israel’s founding fathers? Their Father Abraham, his son, Isaac and his grandson, Jacob, whom the writers of the Bible introduced in linear time into history. Since then, men began to write historical narrative as we still do today, one generation after another. It was written in Genesis 12:1-3, the Lord had said unto Abram (later changed to Abraham), Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee (promised Land), and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing; and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. God also made a covenant with Abraham saying, Unto their seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.

Unfortunately, the Israelites only occupied all of the promised land during the reign of King David and his son Solomon. However, even though the Jews are not occupying all of their land now, the covenant of God with Abraham is still valid until it will be fulfilled. When Christ returns to this earth and sets up the Kingdom of God, He will restore Israel to its position of leadership in the world. Israel, as God’s bride will then fulfill the leadership role God intended for them. Like marriage, a covenant is an oath-bound promise within which one party swears to bless or serve another party in a specified way. Covenants are made between God and man and between humans with God as their witness.

God said this to Abraham, Sarah, thy wife, shall bear thee a son and thou shalt call his name Isaac; and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him. Then, God tested Abraham’s faith to see whether he would doubt God’s word so He commanded him to sacrifice his son, Isaac, on Mount Moriah. Abraham obeyed and willingly gave up his son, Isaac. The willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son and the submission by Isaac in the whole ordeal is a foreshadow of the willingness of God the Father to sacrifice His Son and for Jesus to lay down His life so that God’s plan for human beings could be accomplished.

God intervened and spared Isaac’s life by providing a ram for Abraham’s sacrifice. Isaac had twin sons and one of them, Jacob, later changed to Israel means God’s wrestler or the one who wrestles with God in Hebrew. His twelve sons became the twelve tribes of Israel of the Jewish People. Jacob’s fourth son, Judah inherited the kingship when his father prophesied that the scepter shall not depart from his son, Judah. From Judah came King David the eternal royal line and through Joseph, the husband of Mary, our Messiah had come. The Israelite faith eventually became Judaism meaning, the religion of the clan of Judah.

To save the Israelites from starvation when the country had a famine, Jacob’s favorite son, Joseph saved his people by providing them food when he became the second most powerful man in Egypt. Although he was sold to slavery by his brothers, he forgave them and settled them in Goshen, a region that was particularly fertile. Unfortunately, after Joseph died, the Israelites became slaves in Egypt for 400 years. To free them from slavery, God heard their cries for help. However, when Moses was a baby, Pharaoh instructed all the midwives to kill all Israelites baby boys. Moses’ mother hid him in a basket and let it float in the river of the Nile. The daughter of Pharaoh found him, adopted him and also made his biological mother to take care of him. Moses grew up in the court but had to leave the palace because he killed an Egyptian taskmaster who was violently whipping a Hebrew slave.

Moses ended up in Midian, met and married Zipporah, the daughter of the priest named Jethro and had two sons with her. Moses spoke to God in the burning bush and was instructed to go to Pharaoh to free his people from bondage. Because Moses obeyed and listened to God’s instructions, he was able to free his people from slavery and lead them to the land flowing with milk and honey called the promised land of Canaan, which is Israel. Approximately three million people put their trust in their new leader and followed him into the desert on the road to the Promised Land. Although he failed to enter Canaan, he died looking out over the Promised Land beyond Jordan. It was in Mount Sinai where God wrote the Ten Commandments with His fingers. The law was given to Moses written on two stone tablets.

After Moses’ death, the Hebrews settled in the land of Canaan. The rule of law was established and the Judge exercised power. Since all the people around them had a king, the Hebrews went to the last of the Judges who is Samuel. The Hebrews got their first king Saul, followed by King David. Israel’s national and spiritual capital during the reign of King David was the old city of Jerusalem. One of the most important religious sites in this city is the Temple Mount. It is identified with two biblical mountains which are Mount Moriah and Mount Zion and was believed to be the place where the original Jebusite fortress stood. According to the Bible, originally Mount Moriah was a threshing floor owned by Araunah, a Jebusite. King David purchased the property from him for fifty pieces of silver, and erected an altar to God which replaced the Tabernacle, and served as the Temple of the Israelites in Jerusalem.

It was here that David’s son, Solomon built the First Temple to house the Ark of the Covenant. Upon King Solomon’s death, the nation split into two kingdoms. Judah in the south with Jerusalem as its capital and Rehoboam, as its King and the Kingdom of Israel in the north, whose capital was Samaria and Jeroboam, as its king. One side has two tribes while the other side has ten. The Kingdom of Israel kept going for centuries from 928 to 721 BC. The King of Assyria invaded and subjected its last king, Hosea. After the disappearance of Israel, only the Kingdom of Judah intermittently perpetuated the history of the Jewish nation. Henceforth, the Hebrews would be called Judaeans or Jews. Later in 586 BC, Judah and Jerusalem were conquered by the Babylonian army and the First Temple was destroyed.

The Second Temple, without the Ark of the Covenant to grace the Holy of Holies, was rebuilt under Zerubbabel and Nehemiah in 515 BC, during the reign of Darius the Great. Seventy years after the destruction of the First Temple, the Jews returned to Jerusalem following their Babylonian captivity. In about 445 BC, King Artaxerxes I of Persia issued a decree allowing the city, including its walls, to be rebuilt. Jerusalem resumed its role as capital of Judah and center of Jewish worship. A great builder around the first century named King Herod, devoted himself in developing and beautifying this city by building walls, towers and palaces. He also expanded and embellished the Temple that Roman Emperor Titus destroyed. He made a significant addition to the Second Temple, which later was called Herod’s Temple.

It was in Herod’s Temple that Jesus expelled the money changers, accusing them of turning His Father’s House into a den of thieves through their commercial activities. The word money changer or shulhani in Hebrew means money banker or money-broker. They would make large profits at the expense of the pilgrims. They treated the foreign guests with much contempt and abused the pilgrims who came to worship in the Temple. During Passover, Jerusalem was packed with pilgrims from all parts of the world and the Temple courtyard was filled with livestock and the tables of the money changers. Dove sellers were selling pigeons that were sacrificed by the poor who could not afford grander sacrifices. By charging exorbitant prices for substandard sacrificial animals and turning worship into a matter of convenience, the money changers were guilty of stealing the pilgrim’s money.

Instead of following God’s command to offer pure, spotless lambs from their own flocks at Passover, many Jews were guilty of commercializing the process by simply traveling to Jerusalem and purchasing animals from the market at the temple. This was not what the Lord had commanded them to do. So when Jesus went to the Temple on Passover with the mass of pilgrims and saw the money changers in the Court of the Gentiles located in the Temple’s porch, He chose to stop at this place to show His anger towards them. He made a whip of cords, overturned their tables and drove them all out of the Temple saying, Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise. This was the first account of Jesus protecting His people the Jews and non-Jewish people or Gentiles from thieves, greed and profit.

The ancient Israelites were instructed that they were to respect peoples of other nations who came to live with them. Jesus did that when He protected the pilgrims, especially those who came from foreign countries. These people carried coins from their hometowns that bore the images of Roman emperors or Greek gods. The Temple authorities considered these foreign coins idolatrous so they were exchanged for Jewish and Tyrian money or replaced with coins acceptable as donations toward the temple’s expense funds. The high priest had ordered that only Tyrian shekels would be acceptable for the annual half-shekel Temple tax because they contained a higher percentage of silver. The shulhani exchanged unacceptable coins for these shekels and of course, they extracted a profit, sometimes much more than the law allowed. Also, the shulhanis or exchange bankers would change foreign coins into local currency and vice versa.

Some pilgrims who were coming from distant countries would also bring their money in large denominations rather than the cumbersome small coins. To keep their money safe from thieves, they would deposit or hand over their coins to the Temple authorities for safe keeping in the Temple treasury. This made Jerusalem a sort of central bourse, or the stock market, and exchange mart, and the Temple vaults served as safe deposits in which every type of coin was represented. For the exchange of currencies, the shulhanis charge the pilgrims a small fee which varied from 4 to 8 percent. Sometimes, the shulhani as a banker would receive money on deposit for investment and pay out an interest at a fixed rate. This way, the shulhanis in the Temple were fulfilling three major functions such as foreign exchange, the changing of large denominations into small ones, and vice versa and banking.

Jesus cleansed the Temple from greed and profit by driving the thieves, cheaters and hypocrites out of the House of God. By doing so, He protected the Gentiles, the poor and women from the money changers who were oppressing and cheating the people who had come to the Temple to pay homage to the living God. This act of Jesus had angered the high priest, Caiaphas, whose family was in charge of the money changing in the Temple. The high priest received a percentage of the profit from the money changers and the merchants, so their removal from the Temple would have caused a financial loss to him. Jesus also challenged his authority and hurt his family holdings since they had grown rich from the sale of sacrificial animals. They took advantage of the pilgrim’s unfamiliarity with Jerusalem so the merchants sold sacrificial animals at a higher price than elsewhere in the city. The high priest overlooked their dishonesty, as long as he got his share.

That’s why the Bible warns us to watch for false prophets, false teachers, and false Messiahs who will come to us in sheep’s clothing ready to trick or treat us. In the end-time events, one of these deceivers, who is the False Prophet, also referred as the second beast will be the third party in the unholy trinity. Together with the anti-Christ, the False Prophet will have all the authority of the anti-Christ. Like him, Satan will also empower him. The second beast will use miraculous signs and wonders, including fire from heaven so he can establish credibility on both of them. Multitudes of people will fall before the two of them in adoration of their power and message. The deception will be so great that the people will set up an idol to the anti-Christ and worship it. Those who will not bow down or pay homage to the image of the anti-Christ will be subject to death. On the contrary, those who worship the anti-Christ will incur the wrath of God.

The image of the anti-Christ will be extraordinary, that it will be able to speak but this does not mean it will come to life. However, it will have some kind of ability to breathe forth the message of the anti-Christ and the False Prophet. In our technological world, it is not hard to imagine that the anti-Christ or the False Prophet will either be genetically created, a human hybrid containing superhuman genetic codes, a priest, a preacher or an orator whose demonically empowered words will deceive the multitudes to worship the Beast or the anti-Christ. As written in Revelation 13:11-18, the False Prophet will come out of the earth, not the sea. Just as the sea of nations are Gentiles, the use of the earth (land) is representative of Israel, which is the promised land. Jesus is the Lamb of God, the sacrifice that takes away the sins of the world, but the False Prophet will be a counterfeit-messiah, whose doctrine comes straight from Satan.

A common tactic of Satan is to imitate or counterfeit the things of God in order to make himself appear to be like God. Since the Holy Trinity consists of God the Father, the Son, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, their counterparts in the unholy trinity are Satan, the anti-Christ and the False Prophet. While the Holy Trinity is characterized by infinite truth, love, and goodness, the unholy trinity portrays opposite traits of deception, hatred and unadulterated evil.

Like the Jews, the Gentiles were given an equal opportunity to worship and bring burnt offerings to God in the First and Second Temple. However, in the Court of the Gentiles in Herod’s Temple, some of the merchants, who were mostly Jewish had turned the place into a bazaar, with vendors selling souvenirs, sacrificial animals, food, as well as money changers. This place was meant to be a place of worship for people of all nations. The Jews, as God’s chosen people, are supposed to be the light of the nations. But when they do things that openly damage people’s understanding of God, Jesus rebuked them especially the priests who used the Temple for their own gain and profit from the business. The priests also think that the market belongs to them and the money changers as their agents. So this must be the reason they hated Jesus so much that they orchestrated a way to crucify Him.

Outside the Temple was also the place for Rome to collect taxes. For Jews to worship, they have to pay-to-pray, a temple tax which went into the temple coffer (treasury) which then would pay for the temple expenses and Roman graft. Rome found this as another way to increase their coffer. The Roman soldiers were stationed right outside the Temple courtyard to watch over the tax money and they were all over Jerusalem to constantly check for any disorder which could spill over into an uprising against Rome. Their presence in the Temple area was a major concern for the Jews who wanted them out because their presence was a desecration and the Sadducees did not want them to find any opportunity to loot the temple treasury. The government, the priests, traders and the money-changers were using the Temple, the structure which is the seat of God, in preventing and stopping us from worshiping our Savior. Thus, Jesus cleansed the Temple. Jesus will do the same thing with us.

Our body is also a Temple of God. Our Savior, Jesus Christ will not only cleanse us or wash away our sins, but just like the way He protected the pilgrims, the Gentiles, the poor and women, He will also protect us from our enemies, the trick-or-treaters, the thieves, cheaters and deceivers whose desire is to harm, destroy and kill us. Jesus also allegorically compares His body to a Temple that will be torn down and raised up again in three days. This was His way of prophesying the destruction of the Second Temple. His words came to pass when the Romans, led by Titus, once again destroyed the Temple in 70 AD. All that remains of the Temple Mount of that era is a portion of a retaining wall known as the Western Wall or the Wailing Wall.

In 130 AD, Emperor Hadrian rebuilt the city of Jerusalem and initially thought of rebuilding the Temple according to a Midrashic tradition. However, Hadrian changed his mind thinking that rebuilding the Temple might be the cause for much sedition. Instead, he built a temple and dedicated it to the Roman god Jupiter on the ruins of the Temple Mount. He also built other temples to the various Roman gods throughout Jerusalem, including a large temple to the goddess Venus. He even renamed the city itself, as Aelia Capitolina after himself and Jupiter Capitolinus, the chief Roman deity. Practicing the Hellenic religion, he attempted to root out Judaism, which he saw as the cause of continuous rebellion, prohibited the Torah law, the Hebrew calendar and executed Judaic scholars. The sacred scroll was ceremonially burned on the Temple Mount.

In an attempt to erase the memory of Judaea, Hadrian renamed the province Syria Palaestina, after the arch-enemies of the Israelites, the Philistines, and barred the Jews from entering its rededicated capital. He erected a statue of himself at the site of the Bet HaMikdash on a day marking the anniversary of the Temple’s destruction by Titus. He also practiced the sacrifice of pigs before the altar and prohibited circumcision which resulted in the Third Jewish Revolt. When the revolt failed, all Jews were forbidden on pain of death from the entering the City. However, from the first to the seventh centuries, Christianity had spread throughout the Roman Empire and Jerusalem became predominantly Christian.

The Sassanid Empire drove the Byzantine Empire in 610 AD, giving the Jews control of Jerusalem for the first time in centuries. The Byzantine Empire took the area back in 615, but Jerusalem was captured by Caliph Omar who built the Dome of the Rock. In 715 AD, led by Caliph al-Walid, the Umayyads rebuilt the Temple and named it al-Aqsa Mosque. In 1099, the First Crusades recaptured Jerusalem and the Patriarch of Jerusalem gave the Knights Templar headquarters in the captured Al-Aqsa Mosque, which they referred as Solomon’s Temple. It was from this location that the new Order took the name of Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon or Templar knights.

In the Temple Mount, believed to be the place where the Temple once stood, the Third and final Temple will be rebuilt and at the same time, the ritual of animal sacrifices and incense offerings will resume once again. According to some Christian theologians, the Third Temple will be rebuilt when the anti-Christ, often identified as the political leader of a trans-national alliance similar to the European Union or the United Nations, secures a peace treaty between the modern nation of Israel and its neighbors following a global war. The anti-Christ will later use the Temple as a venue for proclaiming himself as God and the long-awaited Messiah, demanding worship from humanity. Currently, the most immediate and obvious obstacle to the realization of building the Third Temple is the fact that two historic Islamic structures, the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock which are 13 centuries old, are built on top of the Temple Mount (Mount Moriah). The Dome of the Rock is regarded as occupying the actual space where the Temple once stood, and Israel has undertaken to preserve access to these buildings as part of international obligations.

Hal Linsey, Christian author of The Late, Great Planet Earth believes that ethnic Jews are the chosen people of God. He also believes that the Dome of the Rock was built where the Temple once stood at the Court of the Gentiles, therefore, he thinks that the Third Temple and the Dome of the Rock could stand side by side. Why do you think this place is important? There are some rabbinic sages who believe that the place where the First and Second Temple were built was the same spot where God gathered the dust used to create Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. So if the rabbis are correct, the discovery of the location of the Garden of Eden will confirm what Christopher Columbus had believed, that this garden will be found before the end-times event will occur.

Ever since Satan was cursed by God in the Garden of Eden, the devil had tried so many times to stop the birth of the Son of God, who is Jesus Christ, the woman’s seed and the one who will crush the head of the serpent. Satan also tried to deceive mankind that there is no God or creator of the Universe and Jesus is not the promised Messiah. Because the devil was successful in tempting Adam and Eve to disobey and sin against God by using an animal, Satan has tried over and over again to use the animals to distract and lead mankind away from God. Truly, Satan is doing everything he can so human beings will lose their intimate fellowship and relationship with God and ultimately miss their chance to spend eternity with Him in Paradise. This is not good because God commanded human beings to be the rulers of the animal kingdom and to have dominion over them yet they allowed the animals to rule or lead them astray from God and lose their home in the Garden of Eden.

Why would I say that? Satan, as usual, deceived man into thinking that animals are gods, that they are sacred and should be worshiped. Satan also gave man the idea that divinity embodies itself in animals, such as a deity incarnate, that animals come back after death and live on earth among human beings. Some even believe that animals are regarded as the abode, temporary or permanent, of the souls of the dead, or sometimes as the actual souls of the dead. That’s why to some people, animals are like gods and are more important than humans. Why would I say that? In America, and in other parts of the world, most animals are protected by law more than unborn babies, sick and disabled human beings. People are becoming more concern with animal welfare more than their fellow human beings. Just watch out for the prize people are willing to give and pay for lost animals than lost people? Some people would even give their lives so they can fight for animal causes and rights than the rights of men.

Although God created the animals too, He killed an animal to provide clothing for Adam and Eve. God, ever so merciful with mankind, sacrificed an animal to die in order to get its skin for protecting and covering their naked bodies. This set the stage for the coming of Jesus Christ, who is the perfect and ultimate sacrifice whom God provided for His people as atonement for their sins. The blood of Jesus covers and protects us from Satan and the angel of spiritual death. Old Testament prophets Jeremiah and Isaiah foretold about the coming of the One who would be brought like a lamb led to the slaughter and whose sufferings and sacrifices would provide redemption for Israel. Their prophecies were fulfilled by the birth of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God."

The whole animal sacrificial system was started in the Garden of Eden by God and was followed by the sons of Adam and Eve who brought sacrifices to the Lord. Cain’s sacrifice was not acceptable to God because he brought fruits and vegetables while Abel’s was acceptable because it was the firstborn of his flock. Noah also offered a sacrificial animal to God as a thanksgiving to Him for saving and sparing him and his family from the flood that destroyed the whole earth. God requires animal sacrifices to provide a temporary covering of sins and to foreshadow the perfect and complete sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The animal served as a substitute to die in place of a sinner, but only temporarily until God sacrificed His own beloved Son, Jesus, to die in place of us, sinners.

Animal sacrifices ended because Jesus Christ was the ultimate and perfect sacrificial substitute for us sinners once and for all. Since the animals did no wrong, they died in place of the one performing the sacrifice. Jesus also did no wrong but willingly gave Himself to die for the sins of mankind. He took our sin upon Himself and died in our place. Through faith in what He accomplished on the cross, we can receive forgiveness. Jesus is now the only mediator between God and the human race. So animal sacrifices foreshadowed Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf. The Holy of Holies, which is the most sacred site located in the inner sanctuary of the First Temple, is where the High Priest on the Day of Atonement sprinkled the blood of sacrificial animals. This demonstrated the forgiveness and the removal of sin. Also, in this place is where the presence of God dwells.

It was in Herod’s Temple where Mary and Joseph went to sacrifice two turtledoves and brought baby Jesus with them to present Him to the Lord. In obedience to the Law of Moses, forty days after the birth of a male child, the child was to be brought to the Temple for dedication to the Lord at the completion of a mother’s purification. In the Temple, Mary and Joseph encountered Simon who had been promised that he should not see death before he had seen the promised Messiah, the light to reveal God to the nations and who is also the glory of the people Israel. Also, in the Temple was Anna, who had been waiting expectantly for God to rescue Jerusalem. When she saw Jesus, she told everyone who would listen that her Messiah had come.

So it was in Herod’s Temple that Jesus was brought as a child to be dedicated to the Lord and also the place where He attended all the festivals, including the day of Pentecost. According to Jewish tradition, the Pentecost commemorates God’s giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai. Later, this day became a feast commemorating the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and the followers of Jesus Christ as described in the Book of Acts. Sometimes, the day of Pentecost is described by some Christians as the birthday of the Church because on this day, the promise of Jesus to His disciples that they will receive power when the Holy Spirit will come upon them. As a fulfillment of this promise, the Holy Spirit had descended in the Upper Room where about 120 followers of Christ including His Brothers, the Twelve Apostles, and Jesus’ mother Mary were celebrating the day of Pentecost.

After Jesus rose from the dead, He told the apostles to wait in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit would come in His place. His words came to pass when His apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit in the Upper Room located in Herod’s Temple, which is the House of God. The Last Supper and the institution of Holy Communion were also held in the Temple. What is interesting, Jesus had cleansed the Temple first before the Holy Spirit had descended into the Temple on the day of Pentecost. Another prophecy of Jesus that also came to pass was when He promised the religious aristocracy that their Temple would be left desolate, and not a single stone of the Temple would be left on top of another that would not be thrown down. Not even forty years had passed when the words of Jesus were fulfilled. In 70 AD, the legions of Rome came, led by Titus, and the Temple was destroyed by the Romans during the Siege of Jerusalem.

The destruction of the Second Temple by Titus was the inauguration of the scattering of the Jewish people that has continued to present time. The Jewish Diaspora which is the dispersion of the Chosen people out of their ancestral land, Israel and the communities built by them across the world did not put an end to their history because they preserved the Ten Commandments and the texts that were composed by Moses. Also, from father to son, Jews passed down their new rules and commentaries by word of mouth. They remained the guardian of the Law that God engraved for humanity. So even if they sometimes failed in their duty, the Jews continued to bear witness to the divine existence.

The Jews wanted to rebuild the Temple but failed when they were banned from Jerusalem by the Roman Empire. Emperor Julian failed to rebuild it in 363 AD. In the second half of the 7th century, the Muslims conquered Jerusalem and built two mosques, al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock (the Mosque of Omar) with its golden dome. The Mount became the third most sacred site for Sunni Muslims after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia. In Jewish custom, religious Jews were forbidden from entering the site and possibly walking over sacred artifacts for centuries. They were enjoined not to ascend the Mount until the arrival of the Messiah and the construction of the Third Temple. However, this state of affairs began to shift after the 1967 Six Day War when Israel seized the West Bank, including the Old City of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, from the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.

When the First Temple was built by King Solomon, the Ark of the Covenant was placed in the Holy of Holies. What is the Ark of the Covenant? This is a gold-plated acacia chest created by Moses according to the pattern given to him by God on Mount Sinai. It contains the two Tablets of Stone on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed, Aaron’s rod and a jar of manna. The Ark was carried by the Israelites during their 40 years of wandering in the desert. Whenever they camped, the Ark was placed in a special and sacrament tent, called the Tabernacle. In Zion, David put the Ark in the tabernacle he had prepared for it, offered sacrifices, distributed food and blessed the people and his own household. The glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord wherever the Ark of the Covenant was placed. When the Babylonians destroyed Jerusalem and Solomon’s Temple, there was no record of what became of the Ark. However, written in Revelation 11:19, the Temple of God was opened in heaven, and the Ark of His Covenant was seen in His Temple.

So this means, the Ark of the Covenant will be in the Third Temple. Since there was no record of the Ark of the Covenant in the Second Temple, the presence of Jesus, the promised Messiah, the light to reveal God to the nations and the glory of the people of Israel had taken its place and filled the House of God. The Shekinah, or the divine presence of God and the Ruach HaKodesh, the Spirit of Holiness were present in the Second Temple. For according to the Babylonian Talmud, these things were lacking in the Second Temple but were present in the First Temple. Jesus had confirmed the presence of God in the Temple when He replied to Mary, Why did you seek me? Did you know that I must be about My Father’s business? Mary and Joseph were looking for Jesus and found Him in the Temple.

It was a star that led the wise men from the East to Jesus and alerted them to the birth of Christ. Since the heavens declare the glory of God, He used a celestial object to announce the birth of our Savior. Unfortunately, as an imitator of God, Satan or the devil named Lucifer, the morning star, the planet Venus, who was fallen from the sky will also lead those who choose not to believe in Christ to the False Messiah, called the Beast. The Bible has warned us of this man called the anti-Christ, a dictator or an emperor who will be a single figure of concentrated evil. Napoleon Bonaparte, a French Emperor who ruled from 1804 to 1814 had compared Jesus from other Emperors when he said this, I know men will tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between Him and every other person in the world, there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love, and at this hour, millions of men would die for Him.

Matthew, a disciple of Jesus Christ wrote in chapter 24, verses 15-26, When you see the abomination of desolation spoken by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place, let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains; when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then ye know that its desolation has come near. A world emperor called the Beast, the man of lawlessness or the anti-Christ will be revealed. If anyone says to you, Look, here is the Christ, do not believe it, for false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.

The Bible teaches us in Ephesians 4:14-15 That we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning and craftiness of deceitful plotting, but speaking truth in love, may we grow up in all things into Him who is the head…Christ. The people who have Christ and the Holy Spirit in them will be guided into all truth in love. They will be prepared and looking forward to the end-time events to happen. One of the events that will surely happen is the rapture of the saints. In Christian eschatology, the rapture refers to the belief that either before or simultaneously with, the Second Coming of Christ to earth, believers will be caught up in the air or raised from the earth to meet Jesus in the air.

Just like in the days of Noah, those people who did not survive the floods were busy eating, drinking, partying and they ignored Noah’s message of truth. They died in the flood for they did not endure sound doctrine. According to the Bible, there will come a time that people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers saying what their itching ears want to hear. For in the last days, the church will be led by a leader whom the Bible calls the False Prophet who will lead all nations to worship the anti-Christ or the Beast. In English translations of the Bible, the number of the Beast is 666. The Beast and the False Prophet will combine to rebuild and lead a powerful religious-governmental system. The deception will be so widespread that the two evil men will deceive all mankind into fighting Christ at His return. That’s why it is important for us to watch what is happening in Israel because this nation will be God’s prophetic time clock.

The signs of the end-time events are written and described in the Bible. Things such as war, famines, disease epidemics, earthquakes, thefts, religious persecution, rebellion against God, worship of demons, idolatry, murders, sorceries (addictions) and sexual immorality will happen in an unprecedented time of worldwide calamities and Israel will be in the center of it all. Columbus believed in the end-time events; MPF, (my partner forever) and I also believe in Christian eschatology and the coming events such as the apocalypse, which is the complete final destruction of the world as described in the Book of Revelation. While waiting for the Second coming of Jesus Christ, MPF and I want to stay in a place where we can build up our faith in God. That’s why just like Columbus, we navigated, explored and searched for a place where we would establish a permanent place for our family, our children, and our grandchildren. We find it a great blessing to be living here in the United States of America, the place which has a foundation, and whose builder and maker is God.

God promised Abraham that He will bless those who bless him. That’s why I strongly believe that my native country, the Philippines, and my adoptive country, the United States are two blessed nations because they opened their doors to the Jewish people. The Philippines did it during the Holocaust, and the United States became the refuge place for the Jews during the Spanish Inquisition. In 1492, by an edict issued by the Majesties Ferdinand and Isabella, the Jewish people were expelled from Spain. More than 200,000 Jews asked Columbus to take an expedition so he could find a place for them to live. The Spanish Inquisition was originally intended in large part to ensure the orthodoxy of those who converted to Christianity from Judaism and Islam.

After the royal decrees were issued, the declaration of faith of the newly converted intensified. Jews and Muslims were ordered to convert or leave the country. The Jews’ expulsion had been the pet project of Father Tomas de Torquemada. During that time, the Spanish Army defeated the Muslim forces in Granada, thereby restoring the whole of Spain to Christian rule. There were tens of thousands who were forcibly converted to Christianity on pain of death. The proceeds from the sale of the persecutees to slavery and sale of the properties that were confiscated during the Spanish Inquisition had generated so much wealth and income for the church and to individual inquisitors. This kind of forced religious conversion or acceptance of a philosophy against the will of the subject, often with the threatened consequence of earthly penalties such as job loss, social isolation to incarceration or harm like torture or death were contrary to teachings of Jesus Christ.

The beginning of Spanish colonization of my native country, the Philippines, was marked by the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan in 1521. The Philippines was under the Spanish Empire for 300 years. Just like the United States, the Philippines is a Christian country. More than 90% of our population are Christians and about 80.6% are Roman Catholics. My grandparents belong to the Protestant-Pentecostal denomination so I am always thankful to them because I was raised and grew up in a Christian home. Likewise, MPF also grew up in a Christian home so when we started looking for a place that we can call home our priority was to find a church close to where we live. That’s why when MPF and I saw the place where we can settle and start our family, we were greatly amazed.

God showed us the perfect place when we were standing on top of the mountain admiring the magnificent views of the whole coastal region. We promised ourselves that we would fulfill the call of God in our lives in this place where He led us to live. I said that because right after we got married, we were both dreaming of someday, somewhere, we would have a special place to call our own, raise our children and be part of the community. We were also praying to find a church close to where we live. We wanted a place where we could be established, committed to growing in our faith and to find people that we can help, serve and build lasting relationships.

Right there, set before our eyes were the beautiful coastal city of Pacifica, the place where we would set our roots. The P-town would be the simple taste of the heavenly place that Jesus is preparing for us to live someday when we leave planet Earth to live with Him in Paradise forever. We knew that P-town was the place for us since we both like to take nature walks around the different trails and terrains of the hills and mountains of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA) and the beach. To us, everywhere along the coast, we will be surrounded with the beauty and splendor of God’s creation that it will be difficult to deny the existence of a magnificent and awesome Creator.

That is why it was easier for us to reinforce our beliefs to our children that God is the Creator of the universe because everything that He created for us to enjoy, occupy and have dominion over can be seen and witnessed everywhere in this little paradise that we call the P-town. Like what the Bible says, God has made Himself known through His creation. For God filled the earth with His glory. That’s why I, Grace Baumgarten, cannot be silenced so every day of my life, I can get a glimpse of His glory and proclaim His awesome works.

On the day before my birthday, September 24, 2011, the P-town celebrated its 26th Pacifica Fog Fest. MPF played the drums for the worship team of Coastside Community Church in one of the biggest and most celebrated events in our city. It was the first time that our church had joined the parade. It also marked the history of the Festival when a church will have a float and a live band will be playing Christian music in the parade. The Fog Fest started in 1986 when the City of Pacifica decided to promote its wonderful coastal environment. A two-day celebration was scheduled every last weekend of September. This time of the year has the least fog in the coast and it’s the best way to say good-bye to summer. Since my birthday usually falls on the festival weekend, I always get to celebrate my birthday with two days of sun, sand, surf and all kinds of fun activities that this festival is well-known for.

The Fog Fest is just one of the many attributes that made our little town of Pacifica famous in California. Its natural beauty tops the list why so many tourists keep coming back to our little town that we call the P-town not only once but many times. Others come here to enjoy the scenic beauty of the hills, mountains, and the valleys or explore its wonderful shoreline and the sandy beaches. Some come here to satisfy their senses like smelling the freshness and the saltiness of the ocean breeze while watching the magnificent sunrise or gazing at the spectacular sunset, or just relaxing to the calming and soothing sound of