THE MARK OF THE BEAST, RAPTURE, ONE GLOBAL GOVERNMENT, AND THE REST OF THE CRAZY POSTULATIONS THAT CORONAVIRUS IS BRINGING OUT

For starters, Jesus Christ is not coming back anytime soon. At least not now. How do I know that?

First, Jesus Christ will come as a thief in the night. Unannounced. We won’t be prepared for His second coming. He will take us all by surprise (1 Thessalonians 5:2; Revelation 16:15).

Second, Jesus Christ himself does not know when He will be coming back to town. Only His Father, God Almighty, knows (Matthew 24:36). If Jesus Christ does not know. How can we know?

Third, the mark of the beast and the rise of the antichrist is after the rapture have taken place. Not before. Please let the Book of Revelation enlighten you. And for all I know, rapture have not taken place. Yet. And finally,

Because I know a man. A future president of the United States. For two full terms in office.* And he is yet to be appointed. For all I know he is a nobody right now. So, calm down folks.

When I read on WhatsApp and online the sheer amount of postulations crazy people and the lazy minds that subscribe to their craziness spread, I wonder what our world would’ve looked like if Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp were around at the twilight of 1999. When the new millennium was about to be ushered in and everybody was expecting the world to come to an end. Mehn. The one that surprises me the most is when people I consider enlightened, both in their secular professions and in spiritual matters, by themselves becomes agents of dispersion of these conspiracy nonsenses.

Hey, I am not unmindful that corona virus is a bad thing and have changed our world the way we knew it. And I am not in any way diminishing its impact, especially economic, on the average joe. But our world has been going through these evolutions and comes back from it. The Spanish flu, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention killed an estimated 50 million people globally. And Jesus Christ didn’t break out through the gates of Heaven. Regular flu, according to the World Health Organization, kills between 290,000 to 650,000 people worldwide on a yearly basis. And the mark of the beast has not been unleashed. So far corona virus has killed about 53,000 people globally. The number will increase, of course, before it dissipates. In some countries of the world, like in China where it originated, its wave has actually peaked and dissipated. I suspect, after the cloud clears, that global deaths from this corona virus may just as well equal the number of global deaths from seasonal flu as given by the World Health Organization. If the data from China is correct.

I do not know what actually caused it. Whether it came from bats that Chinese people were eating – can somebody tell the Chinese to stop eating all these crazy animals – or whether it was a bioweapon that leaked from the Chinese bioweapon laboratory in Wuhan. Because China has its largest bioweapon lab in Wuhan. But when the cloud clears, we will know. I cannot lay claim to information I am not privy to. But this I know, people in countries like our own where this virus is still in its wake should follow the guidelines of their respective health agencies to mitigate the spread of the virus. And eventually get it out of our lives. These are things we have the power to do. Besides that, we should use our time in quarantine to love on our friends and family. Sleep more. De-stress. Watch some good movies. And catch up on books we have been putting away for some time now.

If Jesus Christ is coming tomorrow, if the mark of the beast is to be unleashed, and if the time for the antichrist to be enthroned has come, believe me, they are all God’s program. And just like the corona virus, none of us will have the power or the means to affect it. So why not enjoy your family and friends while you can. The only singular thing you have the power to do and stop wasting time postulating craziness and wasting your mental energy on things you have no power to affect?

 

*Disclaimer. God, Jesus Christ, or the Holy Spirit didn’t tell me this last point, “as the Trinity are currently in the business of telling people stuff.” Just something I know.

 

THIS IS MY TESTIMONY: HE SAVED ME; HE CAN SAVE YOU…

It started like any other day. It had an extraordinary ending. On that fateful day, the first day of December 2001, and about 6pm in the evening, Nigeria local time, a friend of mine rode me on my dad’s bicycle to the pharmacy. We call it ‘chemist store’ in Nigeria.

Unlike in the United States where you can buy certain medicines over the counter but majority by prescription only, and where only trained medical professionals can dispense or administer medicines to you; in Nigeria, everything is bought over the counter. You do not need a prescription. In as much as you can pay for it, you can get whatever dosage you want for any medicine or combination of medicines. And you do not need to be a medical professional to open your own chemist store or administer medicines to customers. Folks who could not afford to go to a doctor can walk into a chemist and describe their symptoms to the chemist and he or she can prescribe medicines to them based on the information they gave to him or her. If they (the chemist) decide the customer needs a shot, they can as well decide the dosage of the shots they want to administer to the patient. The expertise of a chemist on the subject of medicine is gotten, not from going to school, but from apprenticing for an already established chemist. This apprenticeship can last from six months (for those that already have family money to fund their startup), to six years (for those who do not have family money to fund their store but based on the contract they signed with their master, hope that by the end of the six years, the master will give them enough capital to start their own business).

Now, that Saturday, December 1, 2001, was my fourth day visiting the chemist store for treatment. The chemist has been injecting me with the antibiotic crystal penicillin through my bottom for the past three consecutive days.

I was sick but didn’t know the cause of my sickness. Because I was a little bit reckless sexually as a teenager, I was afraid my sickness was a result of sexually transmitted disease I might have contracted through my philandering. But I didn’t want to find that out by going for a blood work, so I gave the sickness a name. I told myself I was suffering from pneumonia and went to the chemist and asked for seven doses of crystal penicillin, one of the antibiotics for treating pneumonia in Nigeria. She obliged me. Because the antibiotics is administered one dose per day, the injection was spread for a seven-day period.

Because of the effect the needle has had on my bottom for the past three consecutive days of injections, I couldn’t sit down comfortably anymore, and to bend down to pick up something or to wash my feet became very difficult. So, on that fateful Day 4, I suggested to the chemist to inject the antibiotic through my vein rather than through my bottom. That medicine is not intravenous. It didn’t stop there. I had four dosages of that injection left. Because I did not want to return to the chemist store anymore, I also suggested to her that she put the remaining four dosages into one and inject me with all four at once. Being a quack, she did not pause for a moment to think about the grave consequences of my suggestion. She readily accepted the suggestion of a novice (which is what I was as far as the field of medicine was concerned) and injected me with a heavy overdose of crystal penicillin. The antibiotic was supposed to be a cure to my imagined ailment, however, it turned out to be a precipitant for my untimely death.

Love and Fidelity (Part II)

I met a lady not too long ago. A very beautiful woman. Almost perfect in her beauty. She is well educated. She works for a Fortune 500 company. And she possesses the kind of physical appeal a guy would kill for. When I set my eyes on her for the first time, my heart stopped for a bit. I told myself that lucky is the guy that calls this woman his. So, I approached her. And we started talking. Small talk, America’s tradition. In the course of our conversation, I found out she does not have a man in her life. Rather she has a dog as her companion. I wondered why such a beautiful and accomplished woman does not have a man in her life. And I asked her why. Her response at the least stupefied me.

If fidelity is such a coveted virtue, and if a guy happen to be lucky enough to score, not just a very successful woman, but a beautiful one; one that does not see herself as all these, but one that is faithful to you and sees herself as someone in your life to ‘help’ you become your best; why then would a guy not treasure and show fidelity to such a gem? Why would such a guy throw away every potential good that could have materialized from such a relationship just for the transient thrill of dipping in a different bowl of pie that may not necessarily taste better?

By the way I am not suggesting that woman that are not beautiful, attractive, or have a successful career does not deserve fidelity in their relationship.

Love and Fidelity (Part I)

Every mentally or psychologically healthy human being wants to love and to be equally loved back.

This love can be platonic. It can be filial. And it can be intimate, as when two opposite sex consummate this kind of love in an ‘intimate’ sexual relationship. And when this is so, it is always expected that both partners in this intimate sexual relationship should be faithful to each other and limit their sexual partners to just each other. In other words, they are expected to demonstrate fidelity to each other.

The world asks for fidelity in everything that we do.

When you are applying for a job and the recruiters see that you seldom stay in a job for a long period of time, they will be hesitant to hire you because they want you to show fidelity to their organization and stay for a long time. So, if your resume shows a lack of fidelity by you to your previous employers, you may not get the job you’re looking for. Recruiters desire fidelity.

If for any reason you sign apartment contract and for any reason you break the lease – meaning you did not stay through the terms of your lease agreement and did not follow the stipulated legal means to terminate the contract – you may not in the life of you get the chance to lease another apartment by yourself. Renters want fidelity. Fidelity (working for long years for an employee) to an employee is smiled upon.

If you have a car note or a mortgage, and maybe due to financial challenges, you are not able to make your monthly payments on time. It will get on your credit report. And that will be very bad for you as a consumer getting other services that requires fidelity to agreed-upon contractual terms. Woe betides you if your car gets repossessed or your home gets foreclosed. That on itself will make it a very difficult task for you to be able to get a car note or buy a new house again. Because those financial institutions that finance car notes and mortgage lenders desires fidelity.

That is to say, the world, both secular and religious, desires, and most of the times, demands fidelity. Fidelity at paying your rent on time, or for the payment of any other consumer services that you signed up to that its payments accrues on a monthly basis. Services such as phone, cable, internet, credit card, car note, mortgages, insurances and so forth. Fidelity to making these payments on time determines how easy or tough life can be for you as a consumer. Because with demonstrable fidelity to your obligations, which in the United States is embodied by a good credit score, life will be easy for a consumer and providers of consumer services will be courting such a consumer to market their services to him or her at a very discounted rate. Because such a person possesses quality character. But if you do not have a good credit score, which most of the times are caused by bad personal choices, but can also be caused by vicissitudes of life, you are in for a tough run in life.

Have you ever tried working for the U.S. Government? The Q&A alone, besides your education background or work experience, will show you that fidelity is a coveted and widely appreciated quality to possess. It is a virtue.

To be continued…….

DEFENDING R. KELLY, THE ARTIST

I have not watched the documentary, Surviving R Kelly, which seeks to portray R. Kelly as a sexual predator and all. I do not know the man. I cannot speak to the validity or otherwise of claims made in the documentary. And because I have not met the man and I do not know his ex-wife or any of the women making these claims against him, I cannot claim to know that the claims made in the documentary are true or otherwise.

This is what I know: I respect the work of the artist. His work, especially his 2004 hit album, You Saved Me/Happy People, was one of the greatest tools that helped form the resilient, focused, and redoubtable man that I am today. Hit songs like The Storm Is Over, I Believe I Can Fly, If I Could Turn Back the Hands of Time, When A Woman Loves, and many more inspirational music of this artist is still doing for individuals around the world, what many of his songs did, and is still doing for me. Which is to lift me up whenever I am down, buoy my faith, and cheer me up. There are few artists whose work can do all these things.

I know this too, I have been ganged up on by multiple women. Not for similar case as R. Kelly the man. But a much more worse situation. I was married, and my ex-wife was living a reckless lifestyle that endangered the wellbeing of our baby we just gave birth to. When I could not talk her out of it, I enlisted the help of Texas Child Protective Services and when the women of CPS saw that I was an immigrant and my ex-wife is American by birth, they turned on me. All of them. They knew my ex-wife’s lifestyle posed a grave danger to our son’s wellbeing but because they wanted to make a statement, they cared less about our son’s welfare. My ex-wife told them that I had an African girlfriend and that I wanted to take our son and go and form a new family with my African girlfriend. And that was all it took for objectivity, professionalism, and the need to investigate my ex-wife’s abuse of our son got thrown out of the window. I could not believe that people whose job it is to protect the welfare of a child was enabling my ex-wife to beat drug tests, falsify reports to make me look bad, and enlist the help of her friends to give false testimonies about her ability to be a mother. At a point, when they could not discourage me to stop fighting for my son, these CPS ‘investigators’ took issues with me. They tried to muscle my ex-wife to go and get a restraining order against me on a false claim, so I can stop seeing my son. My ex-wife was a good person who made wrong choices. She said no to that. I had to fight them back through their office of consumer relations. And I eventually had to go the route of divorce to save my son from her destructive lifestyle.

What am I saying? That someone lined people up to shed tears on camera and make claims against another person does not mean that the accused is guilty. Out of our unanchored emotions these days, men and women alike, and this inexplicable and sinister need to jump in on the bandwagon, many have hastily forgot that there are laws in this land. And as far as I am concerned, no court of the land have found R. Kelly the man guilty of the claims against him. And as I write this piece, I have not heard about any charges filed against him based on these claims. So how can we just declare a man guilty and go after his life’s work simply because someone aired a documentary? Did we offer R. Kelly the man the opportunity to defend himself before we throw him out to wolves? Just as in my case against CPS personnel who chose to use their government offices to harass me because “I did not know my place,” have we tried to question the motive behind this documentary. Have we tried to look into the relationship, past and present, between the producer of this documentary and the man, R. Kelly? What is in it for her? where is the “Why”? Have we become so dumb to objectivity and skepticism?

THE SHUTDOWN CONUNDRUM. IF I WERE THE PRESIDENT

When the president of the United States said in his press conference couple of days ago that you can’t impeach someone who is doing a good job, as you can see from the attached YouTube video, I bowed my head in shame and wept for America.

Why did I weep?

First of all, there is this thing called the law, Mr. President. If you break it, irrespective of the end that came out of your unlawful activity, you will still have to be held accountable for breaking the law. Our president, who is supposed to be an embodiment of the law, just said to the world, that if a robber should rob a bank, regardless of the fact that he/she broke the law by robbing a bank and enriching him/herself at the expense of the public, so far as he/she donates part of his/her loot to charity, that he/she should be let go. Just like that.

How did we get here, America?

Never in the history of these united states have I seen a public servant, much more the president of the United States, publicly, at every given opportunity, undermine the rule of law and obstruct justice. Do you need a laundry list? Of course, you do not.

I digressed. Let us refocus.

Sometimes politicians accuse their colleagues of oversimplifying matters they themselves thought were complex. But the fact of the matter remains that many problems facing our country today are matters that have simple solution. What is/are lacking is the political will to do, but more importantly, the courage to do what is right and easy to do. If our politicians should consider themselves public servants who serve for the ‘general’ public good and worry less about their job security, things will be different today. And do not call me naïve. Because we have a history of statesmen and stateswomen in this country, both living and dead, who have in the time past paid political price for the ‘general’ public good.

Having said that, if I were the president, how do I go about reopening the government in such a way that America will come out a winner, not the democrats, not the republicans, and definitely, not any extreme group.

Border security is very important to this country. We cannot live in a borderless society. And we cannot have people flooding into our country illegally. Furthermore, we cannot continue to allow the flood of drugs unchecked into our country. But that is a story for another day because if there are no demands from us, no market for their products, there will be no incentive for drug peddlers to be flooding us with drugs. And to be candid, these two-bit criminals are not sophisticated enough to be braving our security personnel and technology at our borders. There are people in high places who enable the ease with which these drug peddlers beat our system. The wall is no solution to any of these. They tunneled themselves from Mexico into a vacant KFC Restaurant in San Luis, Arizona. Think about that for a minute. The wall as is currently proposed the president and his supporters, to every sane person, is just a symbol of us versus the other. Complete politics and no substance.

The State of America

The 116^th Congress has just been instituted. Nancy Pelosi is back at the speaker’s seat, and the institution of the presidency is no longer venerated.

The state of our union is not that strong. America is as divided as has never been witnessed since the civil war. And politics has been reduced to a game of pettiness. There are literally no statesmen left in Washington to inspire leadership and mobilize their side and significant number of willing members from the other side of the aisle to come together and work out a compromise for national good. The federal government shutdown has entered its 14^th day. There is no end in sight.

Democrats may not give in on President Trump’s demands because giving in on the demands of the president for a $5bn for a border wall does not sit well with majority of party faithfuls. They consider the wall immoral. The president being an egomaniac and goaded by his base may not shift grounds because shifting grounds means losing part of his base who will consider him weak for shifting grounds. And there is no one in the ranks of the republican party to encourage him to compromise since they see compromise on the wall as the demise of their party. Then comes the question of what is leadership and why is the president in the White House and members of Congress in office if they cannot do the job the American people sent them to Washington to do?

RUSSIA’S BELLIGERENCE AND ITS IMPLICATION FOR OUR NATIONAL SECURITY

A Russian Su-24 buzzes the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea on April 12, 2016. (U.S. Navy)

CNN reported the other day that Homeland Security officials said that Russia tried to penetrate the US energy power grid, and left tracks to show its hackers had the ability to shut down the grid, but didn’t. That is to say that Russia literally have the ability to shut down our power grid, and by implication, our economy, and by implication, our defense infrastructure, and by implication, our way of life. But chooses not to do so.

Why?

Because this is not the right time for Vladimir Putin to do so? Maybe he’s preserving his cyberweapon for a time when his adventure in global disorder will be at crossroads with our core national interests. And when that time come and if the administration in power do not kowtow to his ambitions he will then deploy his weapon and cripple us. Could that be it? Just a maybe.

This is not the first time that Russia has so affronted us and got away with it. The history has existed of Russian aircrafts buzzing US spy plane in international airspace, buzzing our destroyer many times in the Black sea, and buzzing our warship in the Baltic sea. Early this year, a Russian spy ship was spotted 100 miles off the coast of North Carolina and based on historical precedents was predicted to be on a four-to-six-months deployment off the East Coast where it will be conducting intelligence operations near Cape Canaveral, King’s Bay, Norfolk and New London. Locations that are home to US naval installations.

These incidents do not seem to rattle our leaders in Washington and there has been no occasion where it was shown that any of these incidents have provoked President Obama and now President Trump to communicate to Russia in unequivocal terms that these sorts of behaviors will not be tolerated and cannot be allowed to repeat themselves without serious consequences or injury to the Russian federation.

Why?

I was not around during the Cold War but from literature that I have read and from movies that I have watched, our presidents during those trying times were clear in their message to Russia. President Kennedy couldn’t be more clear and direct with Chairman Khrushchev with the paragraphs below in his address to the nation during the Cuban missile crisis:

 

It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union. . . .

I call upon Chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless and provocative threat to world peace and to stable relations between our two nations. . . . He has an opportunity now to move the world back from the abyss of destruction. . .

 

Those were strong words coming from our Commander-in-Chief. And there was no doubt in the Kremlin that those words were gonna be matched with actions if need be. Eyeball to eyeball, the Russians blinked and we won the Cold War.

Since the days of Barack Obama however, courage has given way to appeasement. From President Obama asking Medvedev during the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit in Korea to communicate to Putin that his tough talk on Russia were just mere talk, solely for the purpose of winning a second term, to President Trump idolizing the same Putin, one is led to wonder what hold, if any, that Putin have on the national security of the United States. Since the days of Obama. Such that whenever the occupant of the Oval Office becomes privy to that information will have no choice than to defer to Putin? Or did the election of Barack Obama usher America into the era of electing to power our own Neville Chamberlains?

AN ALL-AMERICAN WAY TO FIX THE IMMIGRATION CONUNDRUM (Part I)

Illegal immigrants in the United States line up against a U.S. Department of Homeland Security bus in El Paso, Texas, so they can be unshackled and led across the border to Juarez, Mexico, by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, Tuesday, January 27, 2009. (Alex Garcia/Chicago Tribune/MCT) (Newscom TagID: krtphotoslive342933.jpg) [Photo via Newscom]

Every nation on earth, every society, have laws that govern it. Without laws, society will descend into anarchy. It will be a free for all and the weak will always be at the mercy of the mighty. Laws, are what protect the weak from becoming ever constant prey of the mighty. Laws ensures order in a society.

The United States of America is a sovereign nation like many others and have laws that govern human conduct, human interactions, and human-government relations within its borders. Among these laws are immigration laws that stipulates how a foreigner can legally come to this country for whatever purpose, and how such a foreigner can legally become resident in this country, if said foreigner at one point or the other decides that such a course of action is what he or her wants to pursue.

If anyone should enter this country illegally by not having the proper entry documents issued by the United States diplomatic centers all over the world, that person by default have committed a crime against the United States and cannot claim protection of the law of the land because he or she broke the law of the land in the first place by entering this country illegally. And such a person should be removed from the country.

Laws are what guarantees a nation’s sovereignty and security and protects a land from being overran by mischief-makers, and hence must be obeyed. At all times. Laws are not made with anyone in mind and should not be subjected to emotions especially when one deliberately violates them. Laws are not hobbies that one can pick up at one’s whim and drop at his or her discretion. Laws, are, laws.

So, when someone deliberately enter our country illegally, there should be no doubt about the person’s intent – which was to flout our laws – and there should be no sentiment about applying the law to its fullest extent in such a situation.

I had a conversation with a Norwegian the other day regarding immigration policies in nations of advanced economy. I have lived in Europe. I have visited Israel, and I have vacationed in Mexico. And in the course of our conversation, comparing one country’s immigration policies to that of another, we came to the conclusion that the United States of America has the most benevolent immigration policy. Ever.

REGARDING A GOOD HEALTHCARE SYSTEM

PART 1

What constitutes a good healthcare system?

1. One that is affordable such that every citizen with a meaningful job can purchase it.
2. One in which doctors and the legion of healthcare providers are paid well for the life-saving services they render.
3. One in which the health insurance companies can make profits while insuring our health. By the way they are primarily profit-making enterprises and they have to stay in business.
4. One in which there can be multiple plans such that people with varying levels of income can go for whatever plan their income can afford.
5. One in which people with pre-existing conditions will not be denied coverage because they have pre-existing conditions but one also in which those with pre-existing and possibly expensive-to-treat conditions do not expect to be covered under the same kind of plan that healthy people have.

There are Medicare and Medicaid issues that lie in-between. There are issues of whether taxpayers’ money should fund abortion or contraception. There are issues of whether taxpayers’ money should fund organizations such as Planned Parenthood, which provide abortion, among other services, to women. There are chatter about cutting funding for WIC, the healthy-food supplement program for pregnant women. There are issues with how ridiculously expensive prescription drugs are in this country in comparison to Canada and other industrialized nations. There is a disagreement whether there should be an individual mandate to force individuals who can afford health insurance to buy it or face penalty. There are issues of having all employers, including small businesses who may not afford it, provide health insurance coverage for their employees. And then there are some other issues.

So how does a leader, whose intention is to pass a comprehensive healthcare law that will be fair to the health insurance industry, the healthcare practitioners, and the end users, go about addressing these issues?