The Central Intelligence Agency

Not long after the World Trade Center bombing, questions began to surface about how we could let this happen. The Central Intelligence Agency was already prepared with excuses. Funding cuts and policies that limited they type of actions they could take were at the top of the list. Beyond that, information that existed in Immigration and Naturalization Services, the INS, was not available to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or to airport security.

President Bush's new director of the Office of Homeland Security is Tom Ridge. The cabinet level position was created to co-ordinate information and to direct actions necessary to protect America. "Today, dozens of federal departments and agencies, as well as state and local governments, have responsibilities affecting homeland security. These efforts must be coordinated at the highest level," the president said to a joint session of congress and the nation.

As this war progresses I’ve been watching CNN, CNN Headline News, FOXNews and MSNBC. On my local cable provider they are grouped together. I would press the up and down buttons on the remote control, flipping through the channels, settling in on any one that wasn’t running a commercial. Most of the information was the same. There isn’t much you can do with facts. They are self evident and verifiable. There were the "opinions" of self-professed experts. Some have better credentials than others, but none of them are responsible for making policy, they just use their experience to guess what the next or best course of action should be in this case.

Comments were made by Usama Bin Laden and the Taliban. First denial from Bin Laden, then he was taking credit for the bombing. The Taliban said they didn’t know where Bin Laden was, then they did. They said they had no control over him, then announced they did have control. The day the bombing began, they even offered to put him of trial in an Islamic court of law, if the United States would provide them with evidence.

Then there was the death of a US citizen with anthrax. First reports said it was not terrorism. Then on October 9^th, I copied this from MSNBC.com; "Barbara Reynolds, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said federal investigators have eliminated the obvious environmental sources of anthrax at the offices of AMI, the publisher of tabloid newspapers The Sun and The National Enquirer and The Globe." The obvious environmental sources were eliminated. The headline of the story went like this.

Quote from MSNBC.com

FLORIDA SEN. BOB Graham, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, met with CDC Director Jeffrey Koplan on Monday night and said afterward, "I asked Dr. Koplan what would be the likelihood that such a disease could have occurred without human intervention. His words were, ‘Nil to none."’

Graham, a Democrat, told the Miami Herald that he is "worried" by the anthrax cases, but added that there is "no reason to suspect" they were linked to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks or the hijackers who carried them out — some of whom had lived near the newspaper offices.

A state health official added to the growing conviction that the two anthrax cases at American Media Inc., which left one man dead and another hospitalized, were the result of foul play.

"The chances are one in a billion" that two such cases would occur naturally, said Dr. Landis Crockett, director of disease control for the Florida Department of Health.

End quote

Every analyst warned about new and deadly forms of terrorism, yet Sen. Bob Graham says there was no reason to suspect this was linked to the act of September 11^th. If the chances are one in a billion that they occurred naturally, what do you think the chances are they were terrorist attacks? Did the Senator miss The Globes headline issue with Usama Bin Laden’s picture as a Wanted Dead or Alive poster with the "or Alive" crossed out? That fact didn’t escape me, nor do I put these terrorists beyond spiteful revenge, not after what happened in New York City.

Before I go too far afield on this issue, I’d like to return focus to Usama Bin Laden. Former President Clinton ordered a missile strike against Afghanistan after the embassy bombing in Africa. Was his intelligence wrong? Probably not. Was it timely? Probably not. We now know that Bin Laden is moving daily. Whenever he is at risk of being attacked, he keeps moving.

Another piece of information I noticed during this time is an interview with Bin Laden. The reporter’s camera was taken from him and he was forced to use a Panasonic hand held home video camera provided by the terrorists. On September 9^th Afghan commander Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of the Northern Alliance, was killed by a bomb disguised at a video camera. Bin Laden didn’t trust the western reporter’s camera because he had already planned to kill his opposition that very same way.

I could go on and on with hundreds if not thousands of examples of information, or as the CIA calls it, intel, that could overwhelm your mind and lead you to wonder, "Where is Perry going with all this?"

Knowledge in and of itself is powerless to affect change, to protected us, to set things right. As we are overwhelmed by information we soon get lost in the swirl and we loose sense of direction. We see the mistakes of the past affect the future, we receive conflicting information, and the experts can’t agree. The enemy is constantly bombarding us with lies and making more and more threats and no matter how outlandish they are, considering what we have seen of late, the possibility of the insane coming true is less doubtful.

In the face of all this, what can we expect of the future?

Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans that I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope."

Look to what President Bush said in my opening quote: "These efforts must be coordinated at the highest level." Now look what God said in Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans that I have for you," Planning at the highest level.

What is God’s plan for our welfare, our future, our hope, and how do we know it?

Ephesians 5:15-17 See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.

How do we understand God’s will?

Romans 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

1. Acceptable will, think of it as free will, if you want. Having a clear conscience, not having any predominate sins in your life, the chastening of the Lord is not upon you, so you live your life rather trouble free. I like to think of it as fat, dumb and happy.

2. Good will, is a better will than acceptable will. Being a better will, you would be required to give up or forego acceptable will in order to obtain it. You will have to give up is some of your time. Knowing the will of the Lord takes a new mind set, what Romans 12:2 calls renewing. You will have to do some studying of the Word, the Bible.

Quote from A. W. Pink’s book, Profiting from the Word of God:

"The Spirit never works apart from the Word. By that Word He quickens. By that Word He produces conviction of sin. By that Word He sanctifies. By that Word He gives assurance. By that Word He makes the saint to grow. Thus each one of us may ascertain the extent to which we are profiting from our reading and studying of the Scriptures by the effects which they are, through the Spirit’s application of them, producing in us."

Essentially the Word produces change in the believer. Pink’s sentence is broken up with a prepositional phrase, so it might be easy to loose sight of the import of the statement. Removing it leaves you with the essence of what the Holy Spirit does via the scriptures…[we are profiting from our reading and studying of the Scriptures by the effects which they are producing in us.]

3. God’s Perfect Will moves a believer in the Power of the Holy Spirit. Think of it as a gun. A powerful force to be feared and respected, the gun would not be safe in the hands of a baby. It might be used in training but when it came down to warfare, an expert, someone with experience and maturity would use the gun. As with good will over acceptable will, something will need to be sacrificed. More than time, more than materialism, perhaps even more than relationship, a believer moving in God’s perfect will must trust and believe God in the face of everything that opposes him.

Luke 12:11-12 And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates, and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say: For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say.

Here in Luke 12 are three distinct areas of influence which a believer might be called to do battle for the Lord. They are organized religion, justice and Satan himself. In these last days we are at war. You can be a victim of this war or a warrior. You can stay in God’s good will if you choose, but couch potatoes never won a war.

"But the war is nearly over and Bin Laden’s days are numbered." You might say.

This war isn’t about Bin Laden or al-Qaida.

Ephesians 6

10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.

11 Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Here is where the real battle lies.

 

13 Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

Putting on the whole armour of God is going to be required to be able to stand in these last days. The enemy has shown that his warriors are willing to lay down their lives for a lie. If we are to become warriors, we are going to have to give up more than a half hour of television, and some of us right now aren’t willing to do even that.

I end this article with a word of prophecy I delivered to a friend and brother in Christ.

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