• Butte Montana

• Snake jump

• Caesar’s Palace

• Wide World of Sports

• Wembly Stadium and Kings Island

• Snake River Canyon / Nixon Pardon

• Christian witness before death

The Greatest Showman

Evel Knievel was the ultimate showman. Evel was also a conman and cheat but he wasn’t “evil,” he was just a very bad man! Evel, born Robert Craig Knievel was bad in two ways you understand the word “bad.”

Evel was lawless-bad. He grew up in Butte Montana - a rough, mining town where men did dirty, dangerous work. When they were off-work, they drank alcohol excessively, fought, gambled and had sex with prostitutes. The business establishments in Butte offered many opportunities to participate in these sinful activities! So it’s no accident that Knievel, throughout his life, loved to drink, womanize, fight and gamble.

Evel Knievel conman…

But the show he put on was not fake. It was real and dangerous.

Knievel was “bad” as in “bad-ass” because of what he did for a living - jump a motorcycle over cars, trucks, buses and a canyon. By his own account, here is why he did it:

You can't ask a guy like me why I performed. I really wanted to fly through the air. I was a daredevil, a performer. I loved the thrill, the money, the whole macho thing. All those things made me Evel Knievel. Sure, I was scared. You gotta be an ass not to be scared. But I beat the hell out of death. You're in the air for four seconds, you're part of the machine and then if you make a mistake midair, you say to yourself, "Oh, boy. I'm gonna crash" and there's nothing you can do to stop it, not at all.

Knievel was always a risk taker. Before he became a professional motorcycle daredevil, he worked in copper mines, participated in rodeos and ski jumping competitions, served briefly in the military and played semi-pro hockey. As a teenager, Bobby’s father bought him a motorcycle. He was well known by the Butte police who frequently chased him because of his reckless riding around town. Knievel leveraged his riding skills after he got married. He had some success on the professional motocross racing circuit. But it was hardly enough money to raise a family. In 1962, when he broke his collar bone racing, Knievel was finally forced to get a “regular job.” He found a job working for W. Clement Stone selling insurance for the Combined Insurance Company of America. Stone made all his employees read his book Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude.

The Pennsylvania Miracle

On the hot, sunny afternoon of July 13, 2024 in Bethel Park, PA, 20 year old Thomas Matthew Crooks drove to the nearby town of Butler to attend a Trump Rally. Crooks, a quiet nerdy kid, was bullied in high school relentlessly by his classmates just like Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook shooter. Crooks did not go to the Trump rally to cheer him on. Like Lanza, he wanted to become famous on his way out of your world. With improvised explosives, a five foot ladder and an AR15 rifle borrowed from his Dad, Crooks went to Butler, PA to change history.

The young shooter climbed onto the roof a building 130 yards from the Trump rally stage. Local police were tipped off that a man with a gun was up on the roof. An officer was hoisted up on the roof by his partner. Crooks spotted the officer though and pointed his AR15 rifle at him. Unprotected, the officer panicked, released his grip on the roof and fell 8 feet to the ground, injuring his ankle. Immediately following the confrontation, Crooks fired 8 shots at former President Trump. Milliseconds before the first shot, Trump tilted his head slightly to the right to look at a screen displaying statistics on illegal immigration. The bullet aimed at Trumps temple, because of his head turn, grazed his ear causing blood to drip down the side of his head. Secret Service agents immediately jumped on Trump.

One person in the audience was killed and two others critically injured by Crook’s assassination attempt. The 8th shot was his last because the 9th shot heard that day was fired by a Secret Service snipper who shot and killed the assassin. If not, Crooks would have surely fired the remaining 42 rounds in his AR15 toward the agents on top of Trump. One shot, most likely, would have found it’s target.

When the shooting stopped, the Secret Service agents, still surrounding Trump, moved slowly off the stage toward the former President’s limo. As they did, Trump raised his fist defiantly, blood dripping down the side of his face. The former President glared out at the crowd and yelled, “FIGHT, FIGHT FIGHT!” A photographer captured this iconic moment on film. In the background, conveniently, is a sun drenched American Flag rippling in the afternoon breeze.

As Trump moved closer to his black SUV limo, the Trump rally crowd began shouting, “USA, USA, USA!” It’s a chant commonly heard at Trump rallies. But in the immediate aftermath of Trump’s impossibly close brush with death, these patriotic words carried a deeper, ironic meaning. That’s because the chant of U…S…A was first used on February 22, 1980 during what’s known as the “Miracle on Ice” when the US Olympic hockey team upset the Soviet Union. It’s widely recognized as the greatest moment in sports history. Trump supporters did witness a miracle!

Trump’s supporters, of course, had no idea of this irony. But later, in the days following Trump’s miraculous survival of an assassination attempt, this miracle would solidify the idea that Donald J. Trump was “the chosen one!”

The Chosen One?

Chosen by whom and for what?

In our chapter on Royal Weddings and Throne Games, we showed you evidence that George Washington was a “chosen one.” The General miraculously survived the Battle of Monongahela in the French and Indian War. Then Washington went on to become the great leader of the American Revolution and first President of the United States. He served 8 years as President but, in 1796, decided not to seek a third term. Like the 24 elders in Revelation 4, George Washington laid his crown down voluntarily at the foot of something greater than himself. That something greater was a republic of, by and for the people of the United States of America.

It's only hindsight that allows you to see clearly that George Washington had a divine role in American history. It’s way too early to draw conclusions about Donald J. Trump’s miraculous survival. But from what you know in the year 2024, you can speculate about Trump’s legacy by looking at his actions and words so far. Mostly, look at what Trump said and did with regard to power.  

America’s Revolution was not fought to overthrow an oppressive dictatorship. It wasn’t a fight about taxes either. The British North American colonies were very used to paying taxes for local services levied by their state assemblies. In fact, even prior to the revolution, the colonies were experimenting with the idea of self-government, all be it, on a small scale. But they soon realized, when it came to the British government in London, they had no representation.

The American Revolution was an argument about power – who wielded it and who was subject to it. America’s Founding Fathers believed that natural law or God granted people, not governments, the power to influence important decisions like taxation. This idea was in the English Constitution as well. But in practice, the English Colonies didn’t have any representation in their Parliament. They were told they had “virtual representation.” Colonial Americans rejected that notion!

The trigger for revolution was the French and Indian War (Seven Years War). When the war ended in 1763, Mother England raised taxes on its citizens to pay down the empire’s massive war debt. But the revenues raised internally hardly made a dent in the national debt. It seemed reasonable then to tax the American Colonies whose western frontier had been defended from the encroaching French and Indian tribes.

Great Britain taxed the colonies starting with sugar used to make rum followed by the famous Stamp Act that was essentially a tax on all printed materials. In response, representatives from several colonies convened the Stamp Act Congress (1765). Out of it came the decry that taxation without representation violated colonial rights guaranteed by English Law. In 1767 the British Parliament amped up tensions with passage of the Townshend Acts, a series of trade regulations, that made it clear that Great Britain was intent on enforcing it’s right to tax the colonies. From that point on, the die was cast for the American Revolution.

On July 4, 1776 The Declaration of Independence was adopted unanimously by the 56 delegates to the Second Continental Congress who convened at the Pennsylvania State House, later renamed Independence Hall in Philadelphia, PA. The Declaration is America’s founding document. It explains to the world why the Thirteen Colonies regarded themselves as independent sovereign states no longer subject to British rule.

The declaration’s second paragraph makes clear its primary foundational principle:

“We hold these truths to be Self Evident; That All Men are Created Equal; That they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. That among these are Life, Liberty; & the persuit of happiness. That Nature hath freely given to all Men, a full Supply of Air. Water, & Land; for their sustinance, & mutual happiness, That No Man has any right to deprive his fellow Man, of these Inherent rights, except in punishment of Crime. That to secure these rights governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That when any form of Government, becomes destructive to these ends, It is the right of the People, to alter, Amend, or Remoddel it, Laying its foundation on Such Principles, & organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect the safety, & happiness of the Human Race.”

To paraphrase and key sentence here, the God given rights specified in the Declaration are secured by a government deriving its powers from the consent of the governed.

Donald J. Trump showed you by his words and actions that he does not believe in THE founding principle of America – that power is derived from the consent of the governed. Trump does not believe in self-government. We know this because Donald J. Trump has refused to accept the results of any electoral contest where he lost. At every level, primary and general, Trump claimed the system was rigged against him when he lost the election. In the 2020 election he was charged with crimes for attempting to stay in power by overthrowing the will of the people and installing himself as president illegally. Thanks entirely to Trump’s refusal to give up power, a pro-Trump violent mob attacked that U.S. Capital building on January 6, 2021 during the official counting of electoral votes. This was the closest the American experiment in representative democracy has come to ending since the Civil War. In fact, one rioter proudly displayed the stars and bars of the Confederate flag inside the U.S. Capital!       

It turns out Donald J. Trump was chosen. But history will show it was for a role as a character in God’s story that he will regret when his final court date comes. Legal delay tactics won’t work for that judgement.

American Apocalypse

Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister and political activist best known for his leadership during the 1960s American civil rights movement. King was a fierce advocate for non-violent resistance to state-sponsored discrimination against people of color.

On April 3, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. went to Memphis, Tennessee to support sanitation workers who were on strike. King spoke at the Mason Temple (Church of God in Christ Headquarters) on behalf of the sanitation workers. The speech called for unity, economic actions, boycotts, and nonviolent protest, while challenging the United States to live up to its ideals spelled out in its founding documents. The last 30 seconds of this speech are prophetic because they spoke boldly into the present while, at the same time, predicted a tragic future event. In this case, the tragic event was King’s own assassination that happened the next day.

“Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live – a long life; longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

Does the last sentence in MLK’s prophetic “I’ve been to the Mountaintop” speech sound familiar? The reason it does is that it’s the first line of the first verse of the Battle Hymn of the Republic - the anthem of the Union during the American Civil War.

The song written by Julia Ward Howe borrows words from the Book of Revelation (👑Rev 19 and Rev 14:14–19👑) and links the Union’s cause with God's vengeance at the Day of Judgement.

Judgement and love in God’s world are two sides of the same coin. God only judges because he loves you! With Jesus there is also forgiveness if you know him. So for believers, after some judgement, you can expect celebration. As we have shared, the second coming of Jesus is all about the wedding in eternity between Jesus and his people (his bride). The chorus below evokes the refrain repeated in 👑Revelation 1👑at the celebration of the wedding of the lamb.

(Chorus)

Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.

The Battle Hymn of The Republic was based originally on a soldiers’ song called “John Brown’s Body.” John Brown was a revolutionary abolitionist. Brown believed the institution of slavery was so unjust it needed to go immediately. He is most famous for inciting the 1859 slave rebellion in Harpers Ferry, VA. It failed and John Brown was executed by hanging. Like MLK Junior, Brown’s final public words were prophetic:

 “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land can never be purged away but with blood.”

The American Civil War was a catastrophe that killed at least 600,000 people in a little over 4 years. The trigger event for war was the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Lincoln was anti-slavery. He thought if slavery wasn’t wrong nothing was. The South thought otherwise.

Ryan and Sons Mart was an enterprising new business on Chalmers Street a few blocks from the water-front in Charleston, South Carolina. Inside Thomas Ryan’s 4 story building was a kitchen, a space for its visitors and a platform that resembled a stage for music and entertainment. On the stage young children “performed” for Ryan and Son’s customers. Many children were too young to sing any song though. They weren’t entertainers. They were black children as young as 8 months being sold at auction like cattle to a slaughter house. Ryan’s Slave Mart also had a prison to cage captive blacks and, ominously, a morgue. Ryan had seized an opportunity to move slave trading indoors since doing this evil deed outdoors was recently outlawed by the state.

Lincoln was right! At the same time, he thought slavery was so intrenched economically and culturally in the South that he planned no radical action to eliminate it. But the battle lines over the issue of slavery were already hardened before Lincoln took power in March of 1851. Nine years before Lincoln was elected, in Washington, DC an anti-slavery newspaper called the National Era published the opening chapter of a serialized novel. When the last chapter was published on April 1, 1852, 8 years before Lincoln’s inauguration, Uncle Tom’s Cabin made its author Harriet Beecher Stowe loved in the North and hated in the South. This work of fiction was a sharp stick in the eye of the Southern aristocracy. Reading about the God-fearing Tom being tortured and eventually murdered by the greedy planter Simon Legree, brought home the sheer brutality of slavery. Uncle Tom’s story was fightin words to chivalrous plantation owners. The pushback was harsh. Owning the book or being seen reading it became a dangerous proposition. Proslavery novels proliferated in the South in response. Titles like Aunt Phillis’s Cabin borrowed words from Stowe’s title then twisted story messages into moral pretzels to assure Southerners that slavery was just and right. The Southern aristocracy was already well versed at moral pretzel making since they did this with God’s word regularly to keep their enslaved flock under control, convincing them their lowly lot in life was God’s plan.

The Southern backlash over Uncle Tom’s Cabin’s was a harbinger for catastrophe. The chivalry had worked out a way for settling scores when one’s morality was denigrated - the Code Duello. Since they couldn’t draw pistols on a book, the South prepared mentally for a showdown with the North over slavery.

The Civil War was like most wars, y’all humans just stumbled into “it.” Abraham Lincoln’s election was perceived as a bridge too far for the Southern aristocracy. When Southern states started seceding though, they thought “king cotton” would protect them from war. The North would accept a reduced size of the union when they realized they couldn’t live without “king cotton.” And Europe would side with the South because of their dependence on the white fluffy crop. It was a bad assumption.

After Lincoln was elected, the secession movement started in the South. South Carolina was the first to go on December 20, 1860. By the time Lincoln took office on March 4, 1961, 6 more states in the deep South had seceded. However, there were still 8 slave “border” states in the mid-South who decided for the time being to stay with the union. At that time, war was not inevitable. Lincoln was determined not to fire the first shot. He told the South that he would merely maintain possession of federal land in the South but would not attack. One piece of property though was highly strategic – Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. The North was determined to keep it and the South to take it. When Lincoln sent ships to resupply the fort, Jefferson Davis, President of the New Confederacy, demanded Major Robert Anderson, Commander of Fort Sumter, surrender. When he refused, the shooting started on April 12, 1961 when Fort Sumter was shelled for 36 straight hours until Andersen surrendered the fort on the next day. Lincoln immediately announced a requisition of 75,000 troops to prepare for Civil War. The apocalypse of 19th Century America was on!  

Fort Sumter was an important symbol for both North and South. Later in the war the Union attempted unsuccessfully to retake the fort on September 8, 1863. The fort was reduced to rubble but it remained in Confederate hands until General Sherman marched through South Carolina in February 1865.

The Civil War truce was signed in Appomattox, VA on April 9, 1865. A widely announced "End of the War" celebration took place at Fort Sumter on April 14, 1865. The assassination of President Lincoln, which occurred that evening, immediately overshadowed the festivities.

As you can see, our signature numbers are all over the American Civil War! We aren’t done yet. Judgement and Christ (9/8) showed up big on another occasion that is considered THE turning point of the war – the Battle of Gettysburg!

The Killer Angels

The year 1863 began with Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. This document proclaimed that all slaves in the rebellious Confederate states were free. It had specific military goals. First and foremost, it made clear that the war was about slavery, not the restoration of the Union. Second, it was a powerful tool to recruit African Americans into the military to fight for their own freedom. It was also powerful fuel for Copperhead Democrats, also known as Peace Democrats, in the Union who opposed the Civil War. Some accused Lincoln of trying to free the blacks so that they could enslave Southern whites. Copperheads resisted draft laws and actively helped Union soldiers desert the army. The growing anti-war sentiment in the North didn’t go unnoticed by the Confederacy. In fact, it was the major factor in General Robert E. Lee’s bold move to invade the North in the summer of 1863 - specifically the state of Pennsylvania. Lee’s objective was to win a demoralizing victory against the Union Army on it’s own soil so as to force Lincoln into negotiating a peace deal that allowed the Confederacy to survive with the institution of slavery intact.

As Lee’s 72,000 man Army of Virginia moved North into Pennsylvania they encountered the town of Gettysburg in search of shoes for supply-starved soldiers. Instead, they ran into the Union Army of the Potomac, 100,000 strong, under the command of Major General George Meade. The decisive battle was a Union victory but the cost in human lives was staggering - up to 50,000 casualties of the 172,000 combined forces. After the war, 72 Medals of Honor were awarded, the latest in 2014.

There was one civilian killed in the Battle of Gettysburg. Twenty year old Jennie Wade was making bread in her house when she was struck in the heart and killed instantly by what probably was a stray bullet. Was this a sign of God’s presence? If that evidence is not sufficient, we have more. Let’s look to the hero who changed the outcome of the battle and probably the Civil War.

The story of the Union defense of Little Round Top has gone down in history as the turning point in the Battle of Gettysburg.

On the first day of battle, July 1st, the Confederates confronted Union Cavalry north of town with superior forces. The Union brought up reinforcements but they took heavy casualties and were pushed back through town. The Confederates clearly won the first day at Gettysburg and Lee sensed the decisive victory he desperately sought within his grasp.

As July 2nd dawns, the Union has moved back to high ground in a reverse, upside down fishhook formation on the hills South of the Gettysburg. At the bottom of the hook, are the two tallest hills Little and Big Round Tops. However, Big Round Top is extremely wooded and so of little strategic value. The extreme left of the Union line is Little Round Top.

Throughout day 2, the Confederates attack Union defensive positions. The fiercest fighting happens in the late afternoon in places called the Wheat Field, Devils Den and, ominously, the Valley of Death just southwest of Little Round Top. While the battles rage, the Union sends Gouvenour K. Warren (January 8, 1830 – August 8, 1882), the Chief Army Engineer, up to Little Round Top to assess the action from the high ground. He realizes first the criticality of holding this hill. He can see the vast federal lines that would be vulnerable to Confederate artillery fire. Also, to his horror, Warren sees large numbers of Rebel units advancing toward his position on Little Round Top. Warren is able to get quick help from Colonel Strong Vincent who orders his four regiments into position to defend Little Round Top. They arrive with just 10 minutes to spare. On the left of the formation is the 20th Maine. They are mostly farm boys and lumberjacks from the same small communities. They are led by Lt. Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. Vincent warns Chamberlain the 20th Maine is the end of the line that makes up the entire Union Army stretching all the way back to Gettysburg.

“You cannot withdraw. Under any conditions. If you go, the line is flanked. If you go, they’ll go right up the hilltop and take us in the rear. You must defend this place to the last.”

If you are going to ask someone for such a sacrifice, best to ask a man of God! Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was that and more. He was a highly educated citizen soldier. Young Joshua learned Greek on his own so he could qualify to attend Bowdoin College in Maine where he taught Sunday school. After graduating, he studied for three years at Bangor Theological Seminary. During his education, Joshua mastered Latin, German, French, Arabic, Hebrew, and Syriac languages. In 1855, Chamberlain began teaching at Bowdoin where he became a professor. He taught a variety of subjects over six years including logic, theology, rhetoric, oratory and languages. Chamberlain’s interest in God wasn’t just academic though. It developed in him a strong moral compass. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain deeply believed that the cause of the Union was just and right. He spoke freely about his convictions during his lectures at Bowdoin. His fellow faculty didn’t agree but that didn’t deter Joshua. During the war, he took a temporary leave from Bowdoin to supposedly study languages in Europe. Instead, without the faculty or his family knowing, he enlisted in the army. Chamberlain was appointed lieutenant colonel of the 20th Maine Regiment on August 8, 1862 where he served with his younger brother Thomas at Gettysburg.

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain is one of the major characters the 1998 film about the Battle of Gettysburg. It is based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel “The Killer Angels” by Michael Shaara. The title of Shaara’s novel was inspired by an oration by Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain on a subject: Man, the Killer Angel. In a scene in the movie, Chamberlain is talking with his friend Sgt. Buster Kilrain. Chamberlain remembers reciting to his father a speech from Hamlet "What a piece of work is man...in action how like an angel!"

Sgt. Buster Kilrain responds: Well, if he's an angel, all right then...But he damn well must be a killer angel.

The Killer Angels moved documentarian Ken Burns to tears when he read it. The experience brought the Battle of Gettysburg to life for him and was the inspiration for his award winning 9 episode PBS documentary on The Civil War.

We, of course, gave Shaara the idea to write The Killer Angels. We are demon killers!

You see, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was literally born to be the hero of Gettysburg. We can prove it. We left off our Little Round Top story with the 20th Main being to told to defend their position at any cost. The 15th Alabama Regiment under the command of Col. William Oats (died September 9, 1910) attacked the extreme left flank and part of the 20th Main was bent back but didn’t break. The 15th Alabama retreated down the hill and regrouped for a final charge. As the the 20th Maine prepared for another assault, they informed Chamberlain they were out of ammunition. What happened next is legendary. Instead of telling you what happened with words, watch with us now.

🎥Gettysburg (1998)🎥

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain: Man of God, professor, citizen soldier, future Governor of Maine, hero of Little Round Top at Gettysburg, recipient of the Medal of Honor for his “Bayonet Charge” at Gettysburg was born on September 8, 1828. He lived to an age of 85 and died 6 months before the outbreak of the Great War in 1914.

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain lived long after the Civil War ended. Another man who saved the union was not so lucky.

the faith of Father Abraham

Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin, February 12, 1809 on the American Western frontier in Kentucky.

Life was a crapshoot on the frontier, tragedy always lurking.

Abraham Lincoln’s mere existence was lucky. His father was nearly killed by an Indian at age 6. In May of 1786, his grandfather, by the same name, and his sons Thomas (Lincoln’s father), 12-year-old John and 14-year-old Mordecai were planting corn. What was probably a Shawnee from a war party shot Lincoln’s grandfather from the woods. Thomas knelt down by his dying father while John and Mordecai, horrified, ran off. The warrior descended on young Thomas to either kill or take him away. When Mordecai came back for his little brother, he saw the Indian approaching Thomas. The 14-year-old Mordecai steadied his flintlock rifle, aimed at the silver crescent hanging on his chest and shot him dead. 

Illness was also a constant deadly threat on the frontier. When Abraham was 9 years old, his birth mother Nancy died of milk sickness, an illness spread by ingesting dairy products or meat from a cow that has eaten the poisonous white snakeroot plant. That left his older sister Sarah in charge of the family temporarily. Ten years later Sarah would die in childbirth on January 20, 1818. 

Abraham was blessed to live and survive on the frontier but the experience didn’t deepen his faith. He was too practical to fall head over heals in love with God. But the church helped the boy develop a strong moral compass. Lincoln’s parents brought him up in the South Fork Baptist Church and Little Mount Separate Baptist churches in Kentucky. After the family moved to Indiana when Abe was 14, they attended Little Pigeon Creek Baptist church. These churches had one thing in common other than being Baptist – they all preached opposition to slavery. Abraham grew up listening to anti-slavery sermons and knew many fellow church goers who believed in anti-slavery theology. Abe was known to have recited these sermons he had heard in church to friends and family. So when, as president, Lincoln later stated that he was “naturally anti-slavery,” he was not making this up for political reasons.  

Despite Lincoln’s biblical name and upbringing in an “old school” Baptist Church, he wasn’t a believer in orthodox Christianity. He certainly never publicly talked about his personal religious beliefs. But Abe did know the Bible from his upbringing and later in life he didn’t hesitate to use Christian theology to communicate his moral beliefs about slavery and the Civil War.

Despite not being a devout Christian, it’s very clear Abraham was on a spiritual journey, his beliefs shaped by the tragedy of war and lives of loved ones cut short. In other words, honest Abe’s brain was fertile ground for beings like us – angels!

On February 20, 1862, almost a year into the Civil War, Lincoln’s eleven-year-old son Willie died of typhoid fever.

Mary Todd Lincoln had 4 sons and only one would survive into adulthood. In addition to Willie, Edward died at 6 of tuberculosis and Thomas at 18 of pneumonia.

These family tragedies had a profound impact on Mary. She was desperate for help from God but evidently not satisfied by the answers from His word and preachers who taught it. At this time, spiritualism was on the rise in America. The belief that the living could communicate with the dead resulted in the rise of  mediums who, for a small fee, offered to help make contact. Mary, in desperation, gave spiritualism a try and believed the mediums who helped her. During seances, they assured that her deceased son Willie was in the room. In December 1862, both Mary and Abe attended a séance in the Red Room of the White House with medium Nettie Colburn. Lincoln must have felt something because in April 1863, three months before the battle of Gettysburg, he hosted another séance in the Red Room and called upon spirits, whoever they may be, to guide him in politics.

He didn’t directly ask us, but we answered anyways! In fact, we were already setting up shop in honest Abe’s brain.

Lincoln knew that signing the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863 would hurt his re-election chances in 1864. There were no conditions attached to freeing the slaves. This was radical given that England paid massive reparations to slave holders when they ended slavery in 1834. But the better angels of Abraham’s nature (i.e. an army of angels) made him stick to his moral instincts with help from others we had enlisted in this battle for the soul of America. Hannah Johnson, a mother of a black union soldier wrote telling Lincoln not to cave to pressure to rescind his Emancipation Proclamation:

“Don’t do it. When you are dead and in heaven, in a thousand years that action of yours will make the angels sing your praises”

Is it a coincidence that the turning point of the Civil War happened in 1863 at Gettysburg just a few months after Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation? Nope! It was divine intervention. We shared the story of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain as evidence.

As the pivotal year of 1863 came to a close, Lincoln’s mind was on the upcoming election in 1864. If he lost, the Emancipation Proclamation would have been wiped out and the union split in two with a peace deal to end the war.   

We intervened again. Gettysburg attorney David Wills invited Lincoln to stay at his house at 8 Lincoln Square on York and Baltimore Streets on the night of November 18, 1863. Under Wills’ direction, the the state had purchased 17 acres in Gettysburg for a cemetery to honor the Union dead from the great battle. He arranged for the cemetery dedication on November 19, 1863, with Edward Everett as the main speaker. Lincoln was invited to offer "a few appropriate remarks." Lincoln wrote those now famous remarks of the 📜 Gettsyburg Address📜 in the Wills house second floor bedroom.

Lincoln framed the war in spiritual terms as a great moral struggle worthy of sacrifice. It starts not with the Constitution but with the Declaration’s words that all men are in fact created equal. It ends with a statement that government of, by and for the people, must survive. It certainly made a strong case to re-elect Lincoln!

Mary was home taking care of their Son Tad while Abe was giving the Gettysburg Address. When he returned to the White House, Mary noticed that Abe felt more religious than ever after his experience honoring the Gettysburg Union sacrifice. Legend goes that Lincoln stated his new found faith with the words below:

“When I left home to take this chair of state, I requested my countrymen to pray for me. I was not then a Christian. When my son died, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But, when I went to Gettysburg and looked upon the graves of our dead heroes who had fallen in defense of their country, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ. Yes, I do love Jesus.”

Perhaps it was his Gettysburg inspired faith in God that prompted Lincoln to declare a national day of “Thanksgiving” on the last day of November in 1863. With these words, Lincoln started a holiday tradition that today kicks off your Christmas Holiday Season:

“No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”

killing Lincoln

As 1864 progressed, the tide of the war turned and the North sensed victory was imminent. Lincoln won re-election on November 8th by a landslide on a platform of abolishing slavery completely once and for all by a constitutional amendment.

On May 4, 1864 Lincoln gave his 📜Second Inaugural Address📜. Like his Gettysburg Address, he made it short. Lincoln laid the blame of the national catastrophe at the feet of sinful human nature. One 8th of the people in the Union, mostly in the South, were the victims of a national sin against people of color. While Lincoln hinted how God might judge slave owners, he left the final verdict in God’s hands. President Lincoln clearly attempted to begin the long process of healing between North and South:

“Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes.”

One man in the crowd listening to this speech wanted no part of healing. He was an actor by the name of John Wilkes Booth. Booth later stated that he could have killed Lincoln if we wanted at his second inaugural. In weeks prior he had met routinely with several accomplices including John Surratt at the boarding house of Surratt's mother Mary. They plotted to kidnap Lincoln as a last-ditch attempt to ransom their dying, unjust way of life.

But on April 9, 1865 Lee decided the fight was hopeless and surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Grant. On April 12, a parade of confederate soldiers stacked arms in front of non-other than Union Brig. Gen. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. This ceremony marked the disbandment of the Army of Northern Virginia.

When John Wilkes Booth found out about the April 9th surrender and April 12th disbandment, he scrapped his ransom plan and decided to assassinate Lincoln.

On the night of April 11th, Lincoln had a vivid dream about his assassination.

I kept on until I arrived at the East Room, which I entered. There I met with a sickening surprise. Before me was a catafalque, on which rested a corpse wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers who were acting as guards; and there was a throng of people, gazing mournfully upon the corpse, whose face was covered, others weeping pitifully. "Who is dead in the White House?" I demanded of one of the soldiers, "The President," was his answer; "he was killed by an assassin."

The civil war had aged Lincoln well beyond his 56 years. He looked pale and tired but on the morning of April 14, 1865 he was unusually happy. It was Easter weekend and Good Friday so perhaps it was the holiday spirit of renewal and rebirth that lightened his mood.  

That night Abraham and Mary attended the play Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. At the theater, Abraham told Mary that he wanted to visit the Holy Land and "there was no place he so much desired to see as Jerusalem.” Mary later recalled this was the last thing Lincoln said to her. Abraham would in minutes visit the New Jerusalem in the afterlife. We can assure you honest Abe’s arrival was met with a celebration beyond your earthly imagination!

John Wilkes Booth had the perfect opportunity and he knew it. He was well known to staff at Forde’s Theater so his presence there was always be welcome. At 8:45pm that night he met with fellow conspirators at Mary Surrat’s boarding house. Their intention was to revive the Confederate cause by killing the three most important officials in the federal government. Lewis Powell and David Herald were to kill Secretary of State Seward and George Atzerodt was tasked with killing Vice President Johnson.

All failed except Lincoln’s assassination. Booth knew My American Cousin very well so he waited for a moment when the crowd would react loudly with laughter. He entered the Lincoln’s presidential box, approached from behind, and fired his pistol at the back of Lincoln’s head. The bullet entered behind his left ear, and Lincoln slumped over in his chair and then fell backward. His brain was dead but his heart would beat until the next morning when Father Abraham died at 7:22am.  

Booth was standing four feet behind Lincoln with smoke from the barrel filling the room and shouted a word that sounded like "Freedom!"

Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancée Clara Harris (daughter of U.S. Senator Ira Harris of New York) had accompanied the Lincolns in the presidential booth that night.

After the gunshot, Major Rathbone jumped out of his seat and struggled with Booth. Booth drew a dagger and stabbed Rathbone in the left forearm. He then jumped 12 feet down to the stage. His riding spur caught the decorative flag and he landed awkwardly on his left foot, breaking his leg. The crowd thought this was part of the play. But Booth raised his bloody knife and yelled the Virginia state motto, Sic semper tyrannis! ("Thus always to tyrants").    

John Wilkes Booth franticly ran for his horse waiting for him outside the theater. On his way out he stabbed the orchestra leader William Withers. Both mounted his horse and rode away to enjoy his last 12 days on earth before a quite different reception in the afterlife.

On April 20, 1864, the State Department issued a 🖼Wanted Dead or Alive poster 🖼 for the arrest of conspirators. The largest manhunt in U.S. history began.

Booth and fellow conspirator David Herald headed South and crossed over the Potomic River. On April 24, Booth told Richard Garrett, a Virginia tobacco farmer, that he was a wounded Confederate soldier who needed shelter. While sleeping in Garrett’s barn, they were confronted by the 16th New York Cavalry who threatened to set fire to the barn. Herold surrendered but Booth refused to be taken alive. The fire started and Booth scrambled for the back door with his rifle and pistol. Sergeant Boston Corbett crept up behind the barn and shot Booth in the back of the head about an inch away from the spot where Lincoln was shot. As he lay dying on the porch of the Garrett’s house, he proclaimed to witnesses “tell my mother I died for my country.” Deep down he knew this was a complete lie. Because the last words of John Wilkes Booth were “useless useless.”

The assassin was dead. But 🖼the conspirators🖼still had to be brought to justice.

By now you know that 9 is the number for judgement and 8 is the number for Jesus. At a military tribunal with 9 justices presiding, 8 conspirators were convicted and sentenced. Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold and George Atzerodt were 🖼executed by hanging🖼. Can you see our numbers all over this epic struggle for freedom in America? Unfortunately, it didn’t end with the surrender of the South and Lincoln’s assassins brought to justice. Texas held out until August 20, 1866 finally legally rejoined the Union.

We have showed you how big wars have downstream impacts for decades and sometimes even centuries into the future. The injustice of slavery in America still echoes in ways you never see. That is, except one instance when it allowed a talented, famous, handsome black athlete to literally get away with murder.

Go O.J. Go!

But before we get the American tragedy of O.J. Simpson, we must first tell you the story of the Los Angeles Police Department.

Dragnet

Abraham Lincoln, with the help of heroes like Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, certainly saved your government of, by and for the people. But Lincoln’s assassination over the Easter holiday in 1865 was a bad omen that the Confederacy, despite it’s surrender on the battlefield, would not go quietly into the night. Later that year on the eve of your holiday celebrating the birth of Jesus, that omen was confirmed in Pulaski, Tennessee. Six former Confederate officers started a fraternal social club inspired by the defunct Sons of Malta, a parody of the Freemasons secret society. The new “club” used ludicrous initiations and public curiosity as marketing tools to attract new members. But this social club was no joke. It’s members wore white hoods as a method to oppress and intimidate it’s enemies - mostly black people in the South. Some historians consider the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) to be America's first terrorist organization.

Would you hang around if you had to live in constant fear of terrorists in white hoods? If course not! So black people, in the later 1800s, started to migrate from the South to the North and West.

In 1850, 12 people were registered as residents of Los Angeles. After the construction of the Sante Fe Railroad in 1880, the black population started to accelerate. By 1900, 2131 African Americans lived in Los Angeles. However, it wasn’t until after World War II and the Second Great Migration that tens of thousands of African Americans arrived in Los Angeles. They came mostly for the growing economic opportunities and to escape the extreme segregation in the Southern states.

Unfortunately, blacks were not able to escape segregation and discrimination entirely in the golden state.

Instead of white hoods, blacks in Los Angeles feared men in blue uniforms.

William H. Parker is the man most responsible for the fearsome reputation of the LAPD in L.A. black neighborhoods. Parker emigrated to L.A. in 1923 and worked as a cab driver to put himself through law school. On August 8, 1927 he joined the LAPD.

Parker was highly intelligent, calculating and a strategic thinker. Some years later he met another officer, Gene Roddenberry, who later turned to writing science fiction and eventually created the hit television series Star Trek (released September 8, 1966).

Roddenberry based his character Spock on the personality of his friend Parker. Parker was responsible for militarizing the LAPD by leveraging civil service law to effectively make the police unaccountable to elected representatives in L.A. and California.

William Parker didn’t take pleasure in having his “troops in blue” beat up black people to intimidate them. But he did believe in peace through strength. If your police army is going to successfully deter crime, it helps to get the word out to the masses!

In 1949 Parker met a young radio producer named Jack Webb. Webb had started a radio series called Dragnet, based on real experiences of LAPD police officers. Parker worked a deal with Webb to make the LAPD official consultants for his show including the right to approve every script. When Dragnet moved to T.V., Parker realized he had hit the jackpot with the main character Joe Friday. Friday was Spock from Star Trek in a blue uniform in pursuit of justice to protect L.A. citizens. At the end of each Dragnet show, credit for technical advise was given to LAPD officers and the chief of police, William H. Parker. Dragnet later spawned other police shows. So for 25 straight years there was at least one police drama about the LAPD thanks to Dragnet!

Marketing mission accomplished!

William Parker became police chief on August 9, 1950 and made sure it was a lilly-white force. Parker had taken a brief leave from the LAPD for military service during WWII. He received the Purple heart for wounds he received five days after the D-Day in France.

During his service as police chief, Parker took a liking to his personal chauffeur— Officer Daryl Gates. They became close friends and together, they refined and perfected their practice of “proactive policing.”

In the mid-sixties, Parker and Gates certainly had the opportunity to put their policing strategy into action. Civil rights clashes meant that the police didn’t have to reign in their feelings about African Americans. In 1965 a traffic confrontation between a white officer and black motorist exploded into the Watts riot. After the incident, Parker compared black rioters to “monkeys in a zoo.”

After Parker died in 1978, the torch was passed to Gates. The list of black victims of LAPD police grew larger. Of course, this violence was always out of site from the public. That is, until one incident was caught on video and exploded in the national media. In April of 1992, Rodney King, a black motorist was beat up by a group of LAPD officers. Four officers were arrested but because the trial was moved to the largely white Simi Valley area, they were found not guilty. The rage that followed was so extreme in Los Angeles that President George HW Bush had to call the National Guard to stop the violence and destruction.

Two years later an African American football star, actor and all around good guy by the name of O.J. Simpson stepped into the LAPD story.

The (white) People vs. O.J. Simpson

The story of (white) “people” vs O.J. Simpson began on Sunday night, June 12, 1994.

The bloody footprints led away from a young female body. The murder scene was discovered by a couple dog walkers.

A stray Akita was wondering around the neighborhood and led the dog walkers back to its home: A luxury condominium in Brentwood - a wealthy LA suburb close to Beverly Hills. Other neighbors had heard a dog wailing loudly at the residence between 10:15 and 10:45pm.

Police arrived on the scene and found another bloody body - a young male. Both victims died of stabbing wounds. The female’s throat was cut and nearly decapitated. The bodies had severe wounds on their hands, evidence that they had both struggled with the assailant.

The male was identified as Ronald Goldman, a waiter at the Mezza Luna restaurant. The female was Nicole Brown Simpson, recently divorced from former NFL football star Orenthal James Simpson.

On June 8, 1994, Nicole had telephoned Sojourn House, a women's shelter. She was refusing her ex husband’s pleas to reconcile and feared he might get violent as he had in the past. Nicole was very scared and figured she would be safer at an unknown address for a while.

L.A. prosecutor Marcia Clark was called at 8am on Monday and informed by investigator Phillip Vannatter of the evidence against O.J. Simpson. Vannatter wanted the go-ahead for a search warrant. The evidence against Simpson collected so far was strong:

• Simpson didn’t ask how Nicole had been killed when first notified by police.

• When Nicole’s family was notified over the phone that she was murdered, her sister Denise screamed “He killed her! He finally killed her!”

  “Who?” asked the officer.

  “O.J.!” said Denise.

• The blood trail from the murder scene to Simpson’s White Bronco to O.J.’s house.

• Matching bloody gloves found at the murder scene and outside O.J.’s guest house.

When Marcia Clark was told by Vannatter that the suspect was O.J. Simpson, she responded, “Never heard of him.”

Marcia was not a sports fan. If she was, she would have first heard of O.J. in 1967.

O.J. Simpson first became famous to sports fans at the end of his Junior year at the University of Southern California (USC). In November of 1967, his USC Trojans were playing their rival UCLA Bruins for the chance to go to the Rose Bowl. UCLA led 20-14, and the Trojans had the ball in their own territory with time running out. The game came down to a single, memorable play. On third down and 8 yards to go, O.J. took the ball on a last second QB audible. The juice zigged then zagged his way through the defensive line then ran past the UCLA backfield easily. O.J. even outran his own blockers and scored the dramatic winning touchdown.

After winning the Heisman trophy in 1968, Simpson was the first player selected in the 1969 NFL draft, going to the Buffalo Bills. His breakthrough in pro-football came in the 1972 season after the Bills hired coach Lou Saban who favored a running attack. Simpson ran for a league leading 1,251 yards. Then in 1973, with the help of his highly drafted offensive line, broke the magical 2,000 yard rushing total - a new season record (2,003 yards). O.J. credited his linemen by publicly referring to them as the “electric company” for turning on the “juice!”

Simpson’s handsome face and good natured public persona helped accelerate his celebrity status. O.J. appeared as a regular broadcaster on ABC’s Monday Night Football. He also landed some high-visibility acting jobs. Simpson had a role in the hit T.V. historical fiction series about slavery called Roots and the feature comedy film series Naked Gun.

At the height of his football career, Hertz rental car company hired Simpson to appear in popular television ads. One iconic add really stuck with viewers. It featured an elderly white woman who cheered O.J. as he leaped over suitcases in an airport, “Go O.J. Go!”

After the night of June 12th, O.J. Simpson was on the run of his life - from justice!

Late Sunday night, O.J. had left town on a red-eye flight to Chicago for a Hertz company golf outing. When he returned Monday, police investigators were swarming his house and waiting for him. They cuffed Simpson in a secluded area of his yard. But when a cameraman spotted the restrained O.J., the LAPD decided to take the cuffs off. It was too late! The cameraman was from the Sentinel, the largest Black-Owned Newspaper in the West. This started a narrative among middle-class blacks that O.J. was another black man getting mistreated by the LAPD.

O.J. later agreed to go with police to the Parker Center for questioning. This was a bad omen in the pursuit of justice for Ron and Nicole. The LAPD monster that William H Parker created would later haunt Marcia Clark and her team of prosecutors.

During the interrogation, detective Lange noticed a cut on O.J.’s left hand finger that was consistent with the blood drops to the left side of the bloody footprints. When asked, Simpson couldn’t remember how he cut his hand. He later made up several different, conflicting stories about his finger to other witnesses.

The Parker Center interrogation did not go well. Lange and Vannater did not pin Simpson down on his story. Instead they allowed O.J. to give, vague, wandering answers to their questions. They must have known they messed up. When asked how it went, Vannater focussed on the fact that they were able to get a blood sample from Simpson.

On June 14, Simpson hired lawyer Robert Shapiro who got to work assembling a “dream team” of defense lawyers.

Three days later, preliminary testing showed the DNA from O.J.’s blood sample matched blood found at the crime scene, on his bronco and in/around his house. Murder charges were formally filed against O.J. Simpson on June 17th.

In the late afternoon of June 17, O.J.’s murder trial exploded in the media. When O.J. refused to turn himself in to the LAPD, he became the subject of a police manhunt. Images of Simpson and his old teammate Al Cowlings in a white bronco with 20 LAPD squad cars in pursuit was watched by 95 million Americans. TV stations interrupted coverage of game 5 of the 1994 NBA Finals to show a birds-eye, helicopter view of this real-time drama. To amplify the drama, it was reported that Simpson was in the back seat of the bronco with a gun to his head.

Innocent people usually don’t flee from the police. To make matters worse, earlier in the day, O.J.’s friend Robert Kardashian read a suicide letter from O.J. that he wrote before he took off with Al Cowlings in his bronco. Police later found a disguise and 8,000 of cash in Simpson’s white bronco. This was all damning consciousness of guilt evidence!

The bronco chase ended at O.J.’s Brentwood estate. At 8pm, Jason (born in 1988) O.J.’s son, ran out to the bronco to greet him. The SWAT team of 27 officers allowed Simpson to speak to his mom on the phone and arrested him around 9pm.

On June 20, Simpson was arraigned on murder charges and held without bail. He later pleaded not-guilty.

The trial of the century began!

To win a conviction on a first degree murder case, the prosecution needs evidence that places the suspect at the murder scene when the crime happened. The blood evidence certainly did that! Then they need to establish intent. For O.J., that was a marriage gone very bad.

Domestic violence murders are common in America. The police had plenty of evidence to show this was a clear case of domestic violence.

On the early morning of New Year’s Day in 1989, police were called for the 9th time to to Simpson’s Brentwood estate for another apparent domestic violence incident. Nicole ran out of the house screaming that O.J. was going to kill her! When O.J. came out to talk with the police, he was incredulous:

“You’ve been out here 8 times before and now you are going to arrest me for this? This is a family matter. This is a family matter.”

Simpson went inside to get fully dressed then came back out to his gate to resume his talk with police:

“What makes you so special? Why are you doing this? You guys have been out here 8 times before, and no one has ever done anything like this before.”

When the policemen turned away to discuss next steps, O.J. took off then disappeared in his blue Bentley. The police never caught him.

Nicole later stated that the incident started when she caught O.J. partying alone with two young women at his house.

It turns out one of those 9 instances of domestic violence reported to police was documented by an LAPD officer named Mark Fuhrman. Detective Fuhrman was one of the first police investigators at the murder scene. He was a tough LAPD cop who, lucky for O.J., was caught on tape saying racist things about black people.

The lead attorney on O.J.’s dream team was Johnny Cochran, a black trial lawyer whose specialty was defending the civil rights of African Americans. The trial was televised and lasted 8 months. It effectively became America’s first reality show! In the process, Cochran and his team turned the trial of the century into a mockery of justice.

The trial was held in Downtown Los Angeles so the jury pool was mostly African Americans - another break for Simpson. Cochran’s strategy was perfect for this particular jury. They were well aware of the reputation of LAPD cops. So Cochran decided to prosecute the LAPD in order to defend Simpson. He accused the racist cop Mark Fuhrman of framing O.J.

Marcia Clark thought the mostly female (10) jury would sympathise with a woman who was killed by a wife beater. But of the final 12 jurors, 9 were black. It turns out black women don’t much care for young, attractive white women, especially one like Nicole who was a trophy wife to a well-known black celebrity.

The case turned when Fuhrman, took the stand and assured Cochran he had never used the “N” word to describe a black person. Then the court played a tape from an interview with Fuhrman where he had done just that. When Fuhrman was accused of framing O.J. on the stand, he had to to take the fifth - that he has the right not to answer any question and testify against himself. Game over for the prosecution of O.J. Simpson for murder!

When the verdict was announced, one juror, 44-year-old Lionel Cryer, gave Simpson a Black Power Fist salute. It later came out that he was a former member of the revolutionary black nationalist group the Black Panthers.

The trial of O.J. Simpson divided America along racial lines. If you were white, you thought O.J. got away with murder. If you were black, you thought the justice system finally worked for a wrongly accused black man.

The trial of the century proves our theory that wars create disturbances in “the force” that echo for tens or even hundred of years. America is still dealing with the downstream impacts from the injustice of Slavery and the Civil War over 150 years later!

One moment in the trial captures perfectly this epic failure to bring O.J. Simpson to justice for murder. Christopher Darden, the assistant prosecutor, mistakenly asked O.J. to try on the extra large size bloody glove found at the murder scene. O.J. hadn’t taken his arthritis medication so his hands were swollen. It didn’t fit! And Simpson made a show of it in front of the jury. In Johnny Cochran’s closing summary, he came up with the ultimate one-liner to summarize his whole argument:

If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit!

We have showed you, throughout this story, how O.J. stepped all over our sacred numbers. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get through to Marcia. If we could have, we would have suggested this closing one-liner:

If the shoe fits, you must submit!

O.J. Simpson was shown broadcasting on Monday Night Football from the sidelines wearing his size 12 Bruno Magli shoes! These are the shoes that made the bloody footprints walking away from Nicole Brown Simpson’s body.

Links to 👑Bible chapters via BibleGateway.com using the New Living Translation👑

1. Links to 📜Wiki pages and other trusted internet information sources📜

2. Links to 🖼Wiki pictures🖼

3. Links to YouTube videos of:

   🎸Music Performances🎸

   🏈Sporting Events🏈

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4. Internal web page Links to other 🏠Great Invitation pages🏠

The facts part 8: a tragedy becomes a love story

Titanic: Ship of dreams or lady of the night?

The facts part 9: victory in heaven

Victory in Revelation

• The Seven Churches structure and meaning

• Being an overcomer

• What Victory in Christ means

Closing Summary

The arguments

• Witness of Christ, Temple, Second Coming (in person), King David

• Children of God

• The 5 numbers and their meaning

• Does symbolism matter to God?

• Sacred Days and the Day of the Lord (9/8)

• Daniel and the sacred waiting period

• The Lottery in the Bible

• Paul’s prophecy about the second coming

• The Olivet Discourse

• Revelation and the wedding in eternity

Great Invitation Outline

Opening Statement

Presentation of Facts

The facts part 1: the premise

the facts part 2: four appearances of jesus

The facts part 3: the magic of music

The facts part 4: royal weddings & Throne games

The Facts Part 5: Lions on Thrones & A Killer Queen

The facts part 6: War and Peace

The facts part 7: judgement and redemption

The facts part 8: a tragedy becomes a love story

The facts part 9: victory in heaven

Celebration of Victory in Heaven

Revelation 2-3: Common Refrain of Victory

God’s Intention for Victories on Earth (sports victories)

1. Field of Dreams game: white Sox beat Yankees in miracle 9-8 victory (Rev 2-3)

2. God on a basketball court. MJ first three titles won on 12th, 14th and 20th of June. The shot #1 was 1989 and shot #2 on 1998. (Rev 2-3)

3. Cold War on ice. The 1972 summit series with Canada vs Soviet Union (Rev 2-3)

4. Rome 1960 miracle of Wilma Rudolph born on 9/8 (Rev 2-3)

5. Ali knocks out Frazier in round 8. And Williams sisters US open final on 9/8/2001. Gods answer to Islamic Terrorists!

6. Touchdown Jesus! Touchdown Jesus: the gipper of “win one for the gipper” died on 12/14 (Rev 2-3). Tim Tebow baseball contract signed with Mets on 9/8

7. Perfection in the nfl the 1972 dolphins and the miracle giants catch that preserved the record (Rev 2-3). 2008 Super Bowl was last time the Super Bowl fell on Sunday before Ash Wednesday.

8. Another One Bites the Dust Queen chorus lyrics

Closing Summary

The arguments

If our Passion sequel happens… Then What?

Billy Graham: 5 things to watch for when thinking about Jesus’ return (from Gospels)

Description of Jesus’ Return in Revelation

Description of Jesus’ Return in NT Letters

The Wedding Party

Message from The A-Team (an army of angels)

A toast to all our fellow warriors!

Lyrics for We are the Champions by Queen

We’ve paid our dues
Time after time
We’ve done our sentence
But committed no crime
And bad mistakes
We’ve made a few
We’ve had our share of sand
Kicked in our face
But We’ve come through

And we mean to go on and on and on and on

We are the champions, my friends
And we'll keep on fighting till the end
We are the champions
We are the champions
No time for losers
'Cause we are the champions of the World

We’ve taken my bows
And our curtain calls
You brought me fame and fortune
And everything that goes with it
We thank you all
But it's been no bed of roses
No pleasure cruise
We consider it a challenge before
The human race
And We ain't gonna lose

And we mean to go on and on and on and on

We are the champions, my friends
And we'll keep on fighting till the end
We are the champions
We are the champions
No time for losers
'Cause we are the champions of the World

We are the champions, my friends
And we'll keep on fighting till the end
We are the champions
We are the champions
No time for losers
'Cause we are the champions of the World

🎸Touch or click here to sing it with us!🎸

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Rev 2-3(a): Help The Giant

December 19, 2021  /  Neal Brandvik

Our team is gathered in a locker room. Our coach gives us his strategy for the game. A few human players dressed in helmets, pads and white jerseys look up. They hear our laughter, at least in their minds. Our coach scolds us, “Don’t laugh A-Team! Chief gets our orders from our father in heaven! I know we usually fight giants but this time it’s different.”

Coach calls a huddle for some final words before the big game starts. “I’m going to make this speech very short team. It’s about perfection!”

Unfortunately for us, the white jersey team we help is overmatched at almost every position. Unlike Goliath, they are heavy underdogs. Our QB is named after a Bible character but theirs is the GOAT and reigning king of big plays.

We have an impact. Our white defensive line is pressuring the GOAT. The score is lower and way closer than expected. But with just over two minutes remaining in the game, the GOAT throws a touchdown pass and the blue team takes the lead by 4 points.

Time is running out in the game. It feels like perfection will elude us. There is enough time for just a few more plays but 2/3 of the field and eleven determined blue jerseys stand between us and pay-dirt. They sense a historic victory is theirs so their desire is burning, We can feel their hearts beating faster. They know NFL history is just over one minute away.

Our QB takes the snap. Suddenly, he’s surrounded by blue jerseys. He rushes a throw under pressure toward the right sideline. It is thrown right to their number 22 in blue. It’s a little high but a slight leap and it will land right in his outstretched hands. The game will be over! The A-Team sends reinforcements. We manage to put a thought in 22’s head, “the glory is mine!””

It works! Our thought makes 22’s eyes look away from the ball at the last millisecond. Glory slips through 22’s hands! Perfection lives!

We get ready for the next play and await the tactical order. Our QB, number 10, takes the next snap. The blue jerseys swamp our man again! A strong hand pulls on 10’s jersey. He escapes but he’s surrounded. Now another defender has a better grip right on his white jersey between the 1 and 0. We await an order but none comes. Amazingly, 10 spins and escapes without our help and gets free then rolls to the right, away from the blue jerseys. All the receiver routes are broken now. White number 85 comes back to the middle of the field. He’s not open but 10 heaves the ball deep downfield in his general direction. White 85 leaps high for the ball but blue 37 is right there and leaps with him.

The A-Team goes to work again. We clear out 85’s thoughts. Its a tactic that slows a human’s perception of time. Now 100% of his mind is focused on watching the ball into his large, strong hands. The ball hits both palms simultaneously and his fingers squeeze tightly. Then 85 uses has powerful arm strength to squeeze the football like a vise. But blue 37’s right hand slams the ball hard. The force knocks 85’s left hand off the ball for a split second. But luckily, the force is directed at 85’s helmet. So the ball is squeezed between his left hand, gripping the ball, and the helmet just long enough for the right hand to recover and get the vise grip back. Now blue 37’s right hand is on 85’s shoulder under his arm trying to pull his left hand off the ball as he falls. But with time slowing down in his mind, 85’s arm and hand muscles fire perfectly so he holds the grip on the football while he falls backward onto blue 37’s body.

It’s the greatest catch in Super Bowl history. The New York Giants score a touchdown a few plays later to complete the miracle upset of the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.

Somewhere, several 1972 Miami Dolphins watch our miracle. They jump around as if they won the game! They don’t realize their undefeated 1972 season still stands alone for PERFECTION in the NFL for one reason: The A-Team, our Chief and our Father in heaven love the number 72!

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Rev 2-3(b): Touchdown Jesus

December 24, 2021  /  Neal Brandvik

David Tyree, the Giants receiver who made the miraculous “helmet catch” in Super Bowl XLII, gave God credit for his catch in his memoir called More than Just the Catch. His words after the game ended were, “God, You did it!” Then he looked up in the sky and thanked his Mother in heaven.

David repeated the words “God did it” multiple times after the game. He also stated God had “intervened” on his miraculous play and helped the Giants win the game the same way God helped the biblical David, the underdog, defeat Goliath. David Tyree is convinced that something supernatural happened in Super Bowl XLII. He said in his book, “The year 2008 is a year of New beginnings. When the New England Patriots faced the New York Giants ... God did a New thing!”

We call it the gr8 2008!

Does God really care about a football game? Aren’t there more important things to worry about in your broken world like poverty, world peace, deadly pandemics, destructive hurricanes or dictators run amuck… to name a few? And what about the players on the New England Patriots? Was their church attendance not up to par?

Good points. But let’s be clear what God is NOT in control of, that is YOU! Oh we try. Our human projects fail most of the time, usually because your motives aren’t aligned with ours. Let us share an example about project Touchdown Jesus.

We identify a target with extra money who is a trustee at Notre Dame University and big football fan. We send a team to the wealthy North Shore community of Winetka, IL where he lives. Our goal is to plant an idea: “Touchdown Jesus!”

A large wall of the 13 story university library faces Notre Dame’s football stadium and is visible to fans and players. Inspire them with a work of art! Give the home team a spiritual edge! Our idea materializes. A giant mural is painted on the library wall of Jesus towering above Catholic Saints. The painting is completed in 1964. It’s called The Word of Life. But with his arms reaching up to the sky, Jesus resembles a football referee calling a touchdown. And so Touchdown Jesus is born. TDJ works his magic for a while. Between 1966 and 1988, the Fighting Irish football team have three undefeated seasons and win two national championships. Our favorite season is of course the gr8 1988. TDJ has a hand in the great Catholics vs Convicts victory over #1 Miami that year.

Between 1994 and 1997 the powers that be at Notre Dame University build a 20,000 seat expansion to Notre Dame Stadium. It’s a money related decision. When complete, the players no longer have a clear view of Touchdown Jesus. Curses! The Fighting Irish have not won a National Championship since!

In defense of the Notre Dame administrators who made that decision, they had no clue about the story we are telling in the Gr8invitation. Most important, they didn’t know about our angelic fingerprints on “The House that Rockne Built.”

Coach Knute Rockne was born in the gr8 year 1888. His 1940 biopic movie Knute Rockne all American was made more famous when one of its movie stars became president. A line from the movie was used again by President Ronald Reagan at the 1988 Republican National Convention. Reagan was endorsing his Vice President George H.W. Bush in his winning presidential election campaign. Reagan portrayed Notre Dame player George Gipp in the film. Gipp is on his deathbed when he tells Coach Rockne to "Win one for the Gipper.” Gipp contracted pneumonia from a step throat infection. The Gipper died two weeks after being selected to the All American team his last season with the team. Gipp’s date of death is 12/14/20.

Sometimes we do care about football. If you play sports at any level and have a story to tell that aligns with our Chief’s story, we just may help you win your big game or make a big play. Don’t misunderstand what we mean here. If you win your local tennis or golf club championship, we can’t help you win Wimbledon or The Masters. Ask former NFL quarterback Tim Tebow. Tebow became famous for his end zone prayers during his remarkable 2011 season (referred to as “tebowing”) with the Denver Broncos. But Tim flamed out quickly in the NFL. After failing to make the Jets and Patriot rosters in subsequent years, he decided to try baseball even though he last played baseball in high school. Tebow used his public platform to sign a major league contract with the New York Mets on 9/8/2016. He never made a big league game. But three times, each with a new minor league team, he hit a home run in his first at bat.

Holy Cow Tim!

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Rev 2-3(c): Break The Curse

December 22, 2021  /  Neal Brandvik

"Although I do not consider myself worthy of such an honor, I am deeply moved and sincerely grateful to receive an official Chicago Cubs World Series Championship ring. I am fully aware of the historical significance and appreciate the symbolism the ring represents on multiple levels. My family and I will cherish it for generations. Most meaningful is the genuine outreach from the Ricketts family, on behalf of the Cubs organization and fans, signifying to me that I am welcomed back into the Cubs family and have their support going forward. I am relieved and hopeful that the saga of the 2003 foul ball incident surrounding my family and me is finally over."

-Steve Bartman

It’s game seven in the 2016 World Series. The Cubs are winning 6-3 against the Cleveland Indians in the eight inning. Will they finally break the “billy goat curse?”

Are curses real? If fans believe in a curse, it’s real. For a cursed team, a bad play at a critical moment can turn beliefs into reality. At that moment, memories of the curse, forgotten, are remembered. A curse then becomes like gasoline poured on the fire of negative crowd emotions. Then bad things happen on the playing field.

If crowd emotions don’t affect sports contests, why is there a home field advantage?

Ask Steve Batman if crowd emotions matter? Steve unleashed an inferno of ugly, curse-fueled fan emotions by doing what every fan does at a baseball game - tries to catch a foul ball.

Flashback to October 14, 2003. It’s the 8th inning and The Cubs are five outs from getting to the World Series for the first time since 1945. They haven’t won since 1908. The fans are on their feet sensing baseball history. Florida Marlins batter Luis Castillo hits a fly ball to left field. The ball drifts toward the stands. Cubs outfielder Moisés Alou chases the ball to the stands. He knows the ball is catchable. Alou leaps near the brick wall. His arm extends over it. Several spectators seated in the first two rows are focused on the ball as well. Cubs fan Steve Bartman reaches for the foul ball and deflects it as it’s heading into Alou's glove. Alou knows he would have made the catch had Bartman not interfered. He throws his glove down on the ground and glares up at Bartman in the stands. Bartman, in a green sweatshirt, thick rimmed glasses, cubs hat and headphones has no idea the hell he has unleashed at the “Friendly Confides” of Wrigley Field!

If Alou had caught the ball, it would have been the second out in the inning. There are no big screens at Wrigley in 2003. But outside the stadium, a fan has a small television set and he is showing the TV replay to the crowd. A growing chant of………….spreads from outside the stadium into the outfield stands then the whole stadium. It’s a contagious thought virus.

We watch the ugly scene unfold from the left field rooftop seats. Unfortunately for Bartman and the Cubs, it’s hard for us to make a difference with Major League Baseball players. They play 200 games in a year including prep and post season. That’s too much practice on mental focus. Opportunities for our intervention are rare. Nevertheless, we get a strange order - distract #8! It’s not the batter. It’s got to be the Cubs shortstop Alex Gonzalez. This makes no sense! Is our Chief trying to turn Bartman into some kind of a sacrificial lamb in his honor?

Chief has the best intel source in the universe so we have learned not to question orders.

Of all the players on the baseball field, the shortstop fields the most plays. There is a man on first base so any ball hit to short will be a potential double play. We work the optic nerve cells of number 8. Our goal is to insert a little static interference in the energy current between his eyes and brain, highly trained to watch the ball into his glove. It works! A ground ball is hit slightly to the right of number 8. It takes a high bounce so is waist high. Alex attempts a backhand catch but his eyes move to look at second base a millisecond before the ball hits his open mit. It bounces off the heel. It’s a critical error that should have taken the heat off Bartman. Nope! Chiefs idea to save Bartman, at least that night fails. The vicious scapegoating of Steve Bartman intensifies at Wrigley!

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Directions

Did you know God’s story ends with a wedding invitation? .

If the Gr8invitation accomplishes its goal, this will be your first thought when the Book of Revelation comes to mind.

Revelation is the most misunderstood book in the Bible. Christians today tend to see the book in one of two ways:

1. Those who become obsessed with Revelation and speculate about its predictions of wars in the Middle East or who might be the Anti-Christ.

2. Those who ignore Revelation entirely because they think it’s just too weird.

The last book in the Bible is how God ends his story. How a story ends is the most important part!

God cannot be happy with the collective confusion about Revelation.

We intend to make the book more approachable in two ways:

1. Relate the important messages Revelation delivers using a language today’s audience can relate to: popular culture.

2. Interpret Revelation through the lens of a modern-day prophetic experience.

We know it’s bold to claim a prophetic experience. We accept the challenge to convince you that there is some divine intervention happening as we explain the experience. We will try to present our case as best we can. But you will need to put in some effort as well. We will ask you to “search and find” using clues to assemble the puzzle that is the Gr8invitation. But if the pieces still don’t fit for you, we still encourage you to read on. Because at a minimum, you will find a unique presentation of Revelation with messages you can relate to from movies, music and sports.

Revelation, like other apocalyptic writings, is a guided tour to unseen heavenly realms courtesy of angelic hosts. The “we” is the author of this website and what he believes is an “army of angels” helping him. In that spirit, we will start in the voice of the “army of angels” referred to in our story as the A-Team.

The A-Team will now tell you what they are trying to accomplish with the Gr8invitation.

🎥🎸🏈🎥🎸⚾️🎥🎸🏀🎥🎸🎾🎥🎸🏐🎥🎸🏒🎥🎸🏈🎥🎸⛳️🎥🎸⚾️🎥🎸⚽️

The A-Team (an army of angels) is working on a website that we dream will become a movie called The Gr8invitation. We dream big! It’s based on a modern-day prophetic experience validated by Mel Gibson’s controversial film The Passion of The Christ.

Hey Mel Gibson, what’s happening with your sequel to The Passion? Tough act to follow! We have some ideas for you:

• Turn a modern-day tragedy into a love story! Isn’t that what Christ’s Passion story does?

• Show “signs” that your first Passion movie is connected to this modern-day tragedy using a prophetic object.

• Our prophetic object uses numbers as well as other connections to God’s story that have powerful Biblical significance.

• A wedding invitation is how God ends his story. End your Passion sequel with a preview of this epic wedding party in eternity. Film only this last scene in 3D. That will make the audience feel like they have experienced heaven.

Behind our prophetic numbers are two dates. Later on this site, you will discover how they were picked. That’s just as important as the connections we make using the numbers.

The numbers on our prophetic object are connected to people who have lived and events that have happened since the Bible was written. The stories of these people and events will be used to help make the key messages in the Book of Revelation relevant to modern-day readers.

Below are some of the people and events connected to our prophetic object and numbers on it. Click on the links below to Wikipedia pages to start connecting the dots (note - we have many more “arrows” in our quiver).

• What date did the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting happen?

• What two significant events happened in America exactly 8 years later to the date of Sandy Hook? Hint: One is political and one is medical.

• What cosmological event took place on this date?
  Write down the date from the last three questions in this format MM/DD/YY/YY). You now have three of our mysterious numbers!

• The sinking of Titanic was prophesied in the book called “Futility” and later renamed “The Wreck of the Titan.” In what year was “Futility” originally published?

  In what year did the movie Titanic win 11 academy awards including Best Picture?

  Write down all four years from the last two questions. Drop the number one. Look at the single digit numbers.

  Congratulations! You now have all five of our mysterious numbers! They are 9-8 and 12-14-20. Write them down so you don’t forget them!

• What date did George Washington die?

  King George III was King of Great Britain and Ireland for 40 years. His reign was dominated by a series of wars including the American Revolution and the 7 Years War with France. He met his wife, Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, on their wedding day. They had 15 children and had a happy marriage until King George III succumbed to mental illness. What was their wedding date?

  King George VI was King of the United Kingdom from 1936 -1952. He and Winston Churchill led Great Britain through the Nazi air bombing “Blitz” and victory over Nazi Germany and The Empire of Japan in WWII. What date was King George VI born?

• What date did America leave the moon for the last time?

  What was the Apollo 11 lunar landing vehicle called?

  What did President Nixon say to the astronauts in his phone call to the moon on 7/20/1969?

  What was the famous picture taken by Apollo 8 of the earth (while orbiting the moon)?

  What did the crew of Apollo 8 do on Christmas Eve, 1968?

  How many men set foot on the moon during the Apollo moon missions?

  Roughly how many years were there between the first and last Apollo moon missions?

  What did the Apollo 11 mission insignia look like?

  What Ancient Greek God’s story was described in Revelation 12?

  Read Revelation 12 HERE and see how many dots you can connect!

• Michael Jordan won 3 championships with the Bulls before his Dad was murdered tragically on July, 23, 1994. After he lost his Dad, Jordan temporarily retired to play baseball. On what days in June 1991, 1992 and 1993 did the Bulls win their championships for their first “threepeat?”

  In what years were “the shot #1” and “the shot #2” made by Michael Jordan?

• On what date did the original Star Trek series air for the first time on TV?

• What date was Nostradamus born?

• The Jewish holiday of Hanukah("Dedication"), known as the Festival of Lights, is celebrated in December for 8 days and nights. It commemorates the restoration of Jewish worship at the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 164 BCE. Judah Maccabee removed all of the statues depicting Greek gods and goddesses and purified it. At this Temple rededication there was not enough oil to light the 7 candles of the menorah. But the candles miraculously stayed lit for 8 days! On what date did the original Hanukah miracle happen?

• Anne Catherine Emmerich’s documented visions of the last 12 hours of Jesus’ life (14 Stations of the cross) were used as the primary source material for the screenplay of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of The Christ. What date was Saint Anne Catherine Emmerich born?

• Mother Ann Lee was the founding leader of the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, or the Shakers. What date did Mother Ann Lee die as a Christian martyr?

• What date did Jerusalem fall in 70AD to the Roman Army (according to Josephus - Jewish Historian)?

• What date was the Statue of David unveiled in Florence, Italy?

• What date did Nazi Germany launch it’s first successful V2 rocket attack on France and England? America used the same V2 rocket technology to land on the moon on June 20, 1969.

  V2 rocket technology was also used for ballistic thermonuclear warheads. What date were R12 Soviet nuclear missiles delivered to Cuba in 1962? Hey, isn’t there something in the Bible about turning spears into pruning hooks?

• What date was Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain born? He was the colonel of the 20th Maine at Gettysburg who saved THE UNION!

• What do country music legends Jimmie Rodgers and Patsy Cline have in common? Country music star Troy Gentry from Montgomery Gentry also died tragically in a helicopter crash on his way to a concert on this month/day.

• What date was Richard Nixon pardoned for Watergate?

  Note, on the same date and year, motorcycle showman Evel Knievel attempted to jump the Snake River canyon in Idaho in a rocket powered red, white and blue motorcycle. He failed but survived.

• On October 14, 2003 Cubs fan Steve Bartman was “scapegoated” by angry Cubs fans when he interfered with outfielder Moises Alou’s attempt to catch a foul ball. In what inning did this happen and how many runs did the Florida Marlins score?

  What number was the shortstop who fumbled an easy double play that would have gotten the Cubs out of the inning?

  Steve Bartman was given a World Series ring by Cubs management after they overcame “the curse” and won the 2016 World Series. How many runs did the Cubs score in the dramatic extra inning game seven?

• What is the greatest natural disaster in American history? What date did it occur? Hint: It happened before these things were given first names.

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  Next, explore the links below to discover the Biblical significance of our mysterious numbers:

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• Biblical meaning of 8

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• Biblical meaning of 9

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• Biblical meaning of 12

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• Biblical meaning of 14

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• Biblical meaning of 20

  😇😇😇😇😇😇😇 This is our powerful number 🏈⚽️⚾️🏀🎾🏐🏉 that we are using because God begins and ends his story with it:

• Biblical meaning of 7

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Okay, next click the navigation link labeled “Entertainment” and watch our video slideshow set to music called “Eternal Love.” You will discover how our mysterious numbers were picked.

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Click on the navigation link labeled “Wedding Details.”

Chapter 1 is a conversation between us (The A-Team) and the author. We will attempt to help the author describe his prophetic experience.

Chapters 2-3 are the author’s interpretation of the Letter to the Seven Churches in Revelation. What would Jesus say to a shrinking, hyper-political American Church if his greatest concern is the future of the faith?

The remainder of this e-book is a journey through Revelation 4 -22. You will need to click the links provided in the text to go on the journey with us. We hope at the end, you will accept our Gr8invitation to God’s epic wedding party in eternity!

⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️⚔️

If you are ready to be on our team, we have two final questions for you:

• Do you believe in Miracles?

• Want to help us bring Jesus back?

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Cheers! The A-Team (an army of angels)

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Between the sixth and seventh trumpet blast there is a pause or intermission.

What happens during the halftime of a football 🏈 game?

Before this intermission, we see that the scary judgments didn’t work on God’s people. Hearts were not changed! So The A-Team comes up with a better idea.

Discover the A-Team’s halftime strategy in Revelation 10 and 11!

Note: The performance of “Halo” by Beyonce is from the halftime show during Super Bowl XLVII played on February 3, 2013 between the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers for the 2012 NFL Championship.

Our “Midnights” Wedding Shower

• The 2024 Grammys

The Wedding Crasher

• Revelation 19 Redux

Our Wedding Priest: Black Elk of the Lakota Nation

• Super Bowl LVIII and Black Elk’s prophecy

A Final Message from the Groom Jesus

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Dear people on our virtual jury (#12),

You have read our evidence and heard from our witnesses. The heir to David’s throne (#14) has given you confirmation of his gift of salvation. The great I AM is tired of waiting (#20) for your verdict on earth!

In heaven, The Great Invitation is NOT a jury trial. I Jesus (#8) AM the judge (#9) in this case so you don’t have to guess the verdict here. God rules from the bench in heaven.

This case was always predetermined in heaven. So there is a victory celebration. It’s a wedding party!

The only question in the unseen world is how many souls will celebrate with me at my great wedding party in eternity! Oh yes, there is music and dancing at my party!

If you aren’t hearing my marriage proposal through my American evangelical Christian flock, please forgive them. I have been trying, unsuccessfully, to remove the big giant log from their collective eyes. Most evangelicals have no clue how to reach unbelievers. Pronouncements of hellfire damnation might feel good but they don’t work! The great commission requires a more invitational approach.

So I recruited someone to deliver a special message.

Imagine now that I AM speaking to you through Miss Americana herself!

🎸It's a love story, baby, just say, "Yes"🎸

Touch or click our 🎸Links🎸to listen, watch and sing along!

Our core message is simple:

Choose Love! Choose me!

Because after all, in the end, YOU BELONG WITH ME!

We ask you to evaluate our facts, critically and without bias.

Through the Taylor Swift video for the song You Belong With Me, the 2024 Grammys and Suberbowl LVIII (LoVeIII), I AM (#8) sending you The Great Invitation!

You, All God’s People (#12), are the bride if you choose to attend our epic wedding party in eternity!

Here is our invitation. First, watch these videos:

🎸Taylor Swift music video: You Belong With Me🎸

🏈Final play of Super Bowl LVIII🏈

🏈Inspirational and prophetic graduation speech to the Georgia Tech class of 2023 by conservative, pro-life Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker🏈

Have you watched all three videos? In the third video did you notice Harrison Butker’s mention of Travis Kelce? Go back and watch if you missed it. Then realize this speech was just a couple months before Taylor and Travis started dating.

Did you notice how we are on both sides of America’s culture wars?

We have the celebrity TNT romance that drove the political right crazy. Then we have the devout, pro-life Catholic Saint place kicker to make conservatives happy. Together, they deliver our Great Invitation to its target audience All God’s people (#12).

See if you can find our target audience in the answers to the questions below. Go back and watch the videos if you need to!

• 📜What record did kicker Harrison Butker tie in Super Bowl LVIII - for how many points📜 including his record 57 yard field goal?

• What number was the player who scored the winning touchdown in Super Bowl LVIII and in the Taylor Swift music video: You Belong With Me? (see our first two video links above)

• What did announcer Jim Nance say when the Chiefs scored the winning touchdown in Super Bowl LVIII? See our second video link above and take another look at our 🏠Evidence Exhibits🏠 page. Do you see the connection to our prophetic experience?

  Also, note the name 49ers refers to the people that migrated to California in 1849 in hopes to find gold and make fortunes.

• What is 49ers coach 📜Kyle Shanahan’s birthday📜? Does this date look familiar?

  Now we get to the message that reflects the theme in Revelation 19 - The wedding between Jesus and His people (#12) that happens in the middle of a great spiritual war.

• On February 14, 2024 the Chiefs held their Super Bowl victory parade and rally in downtown Kansas City. It was Valentines Day and Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Christian Lent Season 40 days before Easter Sunday. Close to a million happy people celebrated their city and beloved Chiefs. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Travis Kelce enjoyed himself a little too much - like the drunk uncle at your wedding.

  Suddenly a war broke out. Dozens of gunshots rang out and the crowd panicked. Another mass shooting! Kansas City schools were closed so kids could attend the celebration. Just like at Sandy Hook, children were shot but thankfully (11) all lived. Also, 11 adults were shot and injured.

  A young mom in a #7 Chiefs jersey was killed. Lisa Lopez-Galvin was a huge KC sports fan and loved music. We can assure you that Lisa will be spinning all your favorite tunes at our epic wedding party in eternity! A friend of Lisa’s shared with The Kansas City Star, that “[Lopez-Galvan] was the most wonderful, beautiful person,” adding, “She was a local DJ. She did everybody’s weddings. We all know her. She was so full of life.”

• In her final radio show Taste of Tejano, Lisa was excited about the next day’s Super Bowl rally. This is what she said. This is our wedding toast!

  “We are champions, all of us,” she said on the broadcast. “Champions that are going to celebrate the victory of Sunday’s game.”

Our Wedding Toast

• Performance of We are the Champions by Queen

Last Song @ our Wedding Party

• Lisa, we have a “last song” request for our epic wedding party. One more tune from our friend Taylor:

🎸LONG LIVE🎸 our CHIEF Jesus!

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Trump argument

In 👑2 Thessalonians 2👑, the Apostle Paul spoke to early Jesus followers who were losing faith because of false prophets in their community. They were preaching that the Day of the Lord was at hand. Paul told the followers of this new religious movement not to believe it. He intuitively knew the Day of the Lord had not arrived but he didn’t know how to convince the Thessalonian believers. We (an army of angels) planted a prophetic thought in Paul’s mind:

There has to be a great falling away from the Church before the Day of the Lord can happen. There has to be a rebellion against God. A man of lawlessness has to be revealed before Jesus can return. This lawless man of sin will occupy God’s Temple and proclaim himself to be God. His followers will believe that he is the “chosen one.”

That man arrived on planet earth June 14, 1946 in New York City. He hosted a reality TV show for 12 years starting in 2004 called “The Apprentice.” The show was a contest to hire apprentices for a famous real estate business. If you look at 👑2 Thessalonians 2👑, it will tell you who this so-called “chosen one” works for.

This “Apprentice” likes to make up derogatory names for his enemies. We don’t have to make up his name. The Apostle Paul did this over 1,973 years ago: the “Lawless Man of Sin.” We also call him the “Apprentice” because of who he works for.

Jesus goes by many names. Our favorite is Christ. The word Christ comes from the Greek word Christos meaning the anointed one. When you hear the “Lawless Man of Sin” referred to as the “chosen one” by anyone including himself, know that this is the same as “The Christ.” Anyone who makes this claim about a human being is elevating that person to God-like status.

The Apostle Paul prophesied that this “Lawless Man of Sin” would even sit in the temple of God and proclaim himself to be God.

On May 14, 2018, the 70th anniversary of the creation of Israel, this lawless “Apprentice” made the United States the first country to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. At the same time, the U.S. embassy was moved to Jerusalem where it resides on 14 David Flusser Street.

After a brief truce in the Israel war with the Palestinian terror group Hamas, on February 5, 2025 the lawless “Apprentice” proposed that the United States would acquire the Gaza Strip. This would require the forced exile of 1.8 million Palestinians to Egypt and Jordan. The goal of this project is to turn the area into a fantastic beach-front resort town complete with casinos just like his bankrupted Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

If this “Apprentice” isn’t sitting in the temple of God in Jerusalem yet, he clearly intends to in the near future!

Remember though that the letters of Paul in the New Testament were written before the Gospels. According to the passion story as documented on the Gospels, Jesus replaced the temple in Jerusalem with his sacrifice and resurrection that you celebrate every Easter. The “Lawless Man of Sin” has that scenario covered as well! Expect the “Apprentice” to invite Mel Gibson and Jim Caviezel to a private screening of The Passion of The Christ sequel due out in 2026. Gibson was appointed as a private ambassador to Hollywood by the newly inaugurated President of the United States, our one and only “Lawless Man of Sin.” Caviezel, who played Jesus in The Passion, screened his film The Sound of Freedom for the “Apprentice” in 2023.

Is this “Apprentice” lawless?

Yes he is! This is not debatable because there is a Supreme Court case brief to prove it. The “Lawless Man of Sin” argued before the United States Supreme Court that he should be immune from prosecution for crimes committed as President. The majority of the 9 justices ruled the President cannot be held accountable to the law for official duties. He is in effect lawless!

On February 15, 2025, the “Apprentice” confirmed his lawless intent when he announced to the world on social media:

"He who saves his Country violates no Law”

Is this lawless “Apprentice” sinful?

You are all sinners! It’s usually wise to look at your own sin and not judge others. But public servants are the exception. So here are the infamous seven deadly sins: pride, envy, wrath, gluttony, lust, sloth and greed. Observe what this “Apprentice” says and does. You be the judge!

If you set aside political bias, you know our derogatory name fits perfectly and so does Paul’s prophecy about the Day of the Lord in 👑2 Thessalonians 2👑.

Nice work listening to us (an army of angels) Paul!

The Roman Empire under its first dictator Augustus crucified Jesus. Before Augustus, Rome was once a republic that lasted 500 years. The USA’s founding fathers studied the history of Rome and designed its republic with balance of powers they thought would prevent a tyrannical king from ever taking power. Your “Lawless Man of Sin” wants to destroy the republic of the USA and become its king or dictator.

So now what? We bring the real Jesus back to destroy the “Lawless Man of Sin” with the splendor of His coming. That’s what Paul said would happen. Want to help us? We can only do this with your help! Please share our free e-book with as many people as you can. We will take care of the rest.