Why Jesus folded the linen cloth after His resurrection

The Gospel of John (20:7) tells us that the napkin, which was placed over the face of Jesus, was not just thrown aside like the grave clothes.

The Bible takes an entire verse to tell us that the napkin was neatly folded, and was placed at the head of that stony coffin. Is that important? You'd better believe it! Is that significant? Absolutely!

In order to understand the significance of the folded napkin, you have to understand a little bit about Hebrew tradition of that day. The folded napkin had to do with the Master and Servant, and every Jewish boy knew this tradition. When the servant set the dinner table for the master, he made sure that it was exactly the way the master wanted it. The table was furnished perfectly, and then the servant would wait, just out of sight, until the master had finished eating, and the servant would not dare touch that table, until the master was finished.

Now if the master was done eating, he would rise from the table, wipe his fingers, his mouth, and clean his beard, and would wad up that napkin and toss it onto the table. The servant would then know to clear the table.

For in those days, the wadded napkin meant, "I'm done". But if the master got up from the table, folded his napkin, and laid it beside his plate, the servant would not dare touch the table, because the servant knew that the folded napkin meant, "I'm not finished yet." The folded napkin meant, "I'm coming back!"

He is Coming Back!

My mom sent this to me. I don't know the original source. - Ron

Vichy America

From The Omega Letter, posted on The Hal Lindsey Report:

Jack Kinsella - Commentary - 06/14
The Omega Letter

Vichy America

In July, 1940, following France's military defeat at the hands of the Nazis, Marshal Phillippe Petain, a hero of the 1st World War, dissolved the existing "L`etat Republique" (the French Republic) and announced its replacement with "L`etat Francais" (the French State). "L`etat Francais" was better known by its nickname, "Vichy France" named for Vichy, the city in central France where Petain headquartered his government.

The French government itself refused to surrender to the Nazis, so Petain sought a separate armistice with Hitler on France's behalf. Hitler, fearing the French would fight on through its colonies in North Africa, agreed to the armistice.

Petain pledged to cooperate with the Germans, relieving Hitler of the burden of maintaining an occupation force to administer French territory. This allowed Hitler to take the war to Great Britain while tying up a minimum of troops.

Petain agreed to make 'tribute' payments to Germany in the amount of 20 million Reichmarks per day, reduce his military to an "Armistice Army" of 100,000 troops, close the borders and surrender anyone over to the Germans that they demanded, particularly French Jews.

The Vichy government agreed to allow Germany to classify the remaining 1.2 million French military as POW's who were promptly imprisoned in Nazi POW camps.

France was then divided into two zones; "Occupied France" and collaborationist Vichy France. In Vichy France, Democratic liberties and guarantees were immediately suspended, as was freedom of speech and opinion.

As soon as it had been established, Pétain's government took measures against the so-called "undesirables": Jews, métèques (immigrants), Freemasons, Communists, gypsies, homosexuals, and anybody else the Germans declared to be anti-Nazi activists.

Jews were registered at local police stations, and officially excluded from government jobs, the armed forces, entertainment, arts, media, and certain professional roles (teachers, lawyers, doctors of medicine, etc.)

The Vichy government collaborated in rounding up and deporting 76,000 Jews, of whom only 2,500 survived the war. In total, more than 90,000 Jews died under the Vichy regime.

During the Cold War, a number of European states, faced with nuclear annihilation by the Soviets, chose, as did the Vichy French, collaboration over defeat. One of the most prominent was Finland, whose large Communist party membership resulted in the establishment of a "Communist Vichy."

Finland's regime made Soviet occupation unnecessary, preserving, like Vichy France, the illusion of national independence. Finland's relationship with the Soviets became known as "Finlandization" and became the model for Soviet domination efforts world-wide.

During the Cold War, the big fear was that eventually, facing nuclear annihilation, American 'peaceniks' would become the majority, preaching a new era of peace and friendship instead of the belligerent and dangerous Cold War policy of 'containment.'

A Finlandization of America could have been accomplished by using the media to advance the careers of politicians dedicated to socialism instead of the evil capitalist system that created such disparity between the rich and the poor.

This process was well underway by the mid 1970's following the resignation of Richard Nixon and the subsequent abandonment of South Vietnam to the Communist north.

Oddly enough, we have Jimmy Carter to thank for putting an end to US Finlandization. His inept economic policies, coupled with his cowardly reaction to the seizure of the US Embassy in Iran, handed the White House to Ronald Reagan.

Reagan, who understood that 'might makes right' reversed the trend, and in the process, defeated the Soviet Union.

In the 1990's, Bill Clinton revived and re-legitimized the 'peacenik' movement of the 1970's. It took the full decade of the 1990's to squander Reagan's 'peace dividend', but by the time he left office in 2001, America had come full circle.

The administration, weakened and divided by Election 2000, was too preoccupied with domestic infighting to adequately respond to the 9/11 attacks.

Constant and unrelenting attacks domestic attacks against the Bush administration by the 'peaceniks' on the Left left little time to unite the nation against the threat posed by radical Islam.

The socialist mantra equating national security issues with anti-Islamic racism found resonance among those who felt they had been robbed of an electoral victory in 2000.

The net result has been America's metamorphosis from Finlandization to Islamization.

Most of the Bush presidency has been focused on appeasing the peacenik element, with the net result being a mirror image of the political situation of the 1970's.

The administration, trying to balance the threat from without against the threat from within, adopted a policy of appeasing Islam by pronouncing it a 'religion of peace and love hijacked by a few terrorists'.

It embarked on a policy of appeasing the Left by diluting elements of the Patriot Act, refusing to crack down on domestic radical Islam to stave off charges of 'racism' and 'racial profiling' and conducting a half-hearted war aimed at maintaining the status quo rather than victory in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The half-hearted efforts convinced many Americans that the Clinton years were indeed the 'good old days' and handed the 'peaceniks' one political victory after another.

With the loss of the Congress to the peaceniks in 2006, and the probable loss of the White House to 1970's radicals like Hillary Clinton in '08, America is poised for an American Vichy solution to the war with the Islamic world.

According to a new book by former CIA Director George Tenet, in 2002, Russian president Vladimir Putin confirmed that rumor that Russia could not account for all its nuclear weapons after the collapse of the Soviets in 1991.

He also confirmed that from late 2002 to spring 2003, Ayman al Zawahiri had been negotiating with Chechen rebels for the purchase of at least three Russian nuclear suitcases.

In his book, "Brotherhood of Terror" in 2002, author Paul Williams claimed that al-Qaeda had purchased as many as twenty Russian suitcase nukes from members of the Chechen mafia.

"After the devices were obtained, they were placed in the hands of Arab nuclear scientists who, federal sources say, 'were probably trained at American universities,'" says Williams. al-Qaeda came up with a way of hot-wiring the bombs to the bodies of would-be martyrs, according to the book.

Williams also says al-Qaeda obtained chemical weapons from North Korea and Iraq.

Williams says the FBI confirmed to him that Saddam Hussein provided bin Laden with a "gift" of anthrax spores.

The FBI has picked up 'chatter' that suggests that al-Qaeda's nuclear arsenal could be much larger than even Williams or Tenet suggest.

One intelligence source told me yesterday that it could also include battlefield tactical nukes purchased in the early 90's from renegade Russian officers -- tactical warheads large enough to level a city the size of Los Angeles.

This new information is given added crediblity, when one recalls that, in the early 1990's many Russian generals had taken to selling their medals at Russian flea markets in order to buy food.

In the years prior to 9/11, al-Qaeda had a war chest of more that $300 million and the freedom to spend it without interference.

The problem for al-Qaeda until now, has been finding a way to get these warheads into the United States.

Thanks to the Venezuela/Damascus/Tehran air corridor, al-Qaeda now has the ability to bring them to the Western hemisphere. The recent decision to open the US to the Mexican trucking industry also provides them with the means to deliver them.

A lead-lined tanker truck could easily smuggle a nuclear warhead across the Mexican border and drive it to any city in America.

Islam's goal is not to kill every American. It is to force America to submit to Islam. A nuclear attack against selected American cities would give America one of two choices.

Fight on, or negotiate a Vichy-style 'armistice'.

Much of the American Left is already advocating a Vichy solution to the Iraq war -- the same 'peace with honor' solution that ended the Vietnam War -- by abandoning South Vietnam to the Communist North.

Thanks to the popular imposition of 'political correctness' Vichy-like suspension of democratic liberties, free speech and freedom of opinion are already well-entrenched in the American psyche.

Try expressing the 'wrong' opinions on topics like gay rights, global warming, Islam, or advancing pro-Christian, pro-life, or pro-American opinions and watch the reaction from the Left.

Opinions are one step away from being criminalized now -- and in some cases, are already grounds for arrest and prosecution.

America is at a crossroads. It is but one more attack away from adopting one of two courses. Either Vichy America, or Occupied America.

It depends on whether America chooses the preferred course of the 'peaceniks' or the 'neo-cons'. Sadly, I can only conclude that neither choice bodes well for America's future.

(This helps to explain my ongoing insomnia).

But it does suggest an answer to the question, "Where is America in Bible prophecy?"

(Frankly, I would prefer to leave that question unanswered. I would sleep better at night if I did.)

Sometimes, ignorance truly is bliss.

(Emphasis added)

We must defeat the radical, anti-war left in the 2008 elections, or we may indeed find out why America doesn't seem to be mentioned in the End Times prophecies.