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Where we left off, I was recounting some of my experiences with the John Birch Society (JBS). Just a little bit more of my personal history as I lead up to the main point of all this: As I was saying, my responsibilities were manifold. I helped and oversaw the members organize ad hoc committees (such as Support Your LOCAL Police Committees, TRIM Committees, i.e., Tax Reform IMmediately; Get US Out of the United Nations); helped them organize, publicize and sponsor nationally-known speakers for larger audiences.
Most weekday evenings I was making presentations to local member prospects somewhere in the western half of Ohio. In the daylight hours I was calling on businessmen, large and small, to explain to them the Society’s goals and to solicit their help in reaching other businessmen. This kept me on the road four weeks out of six for three solid years, and you can imagine how difficult that was for my wife with our young family.
But I was awake to the truth and I felt that I had to sacrifice a normal family life so that my children and ultimately my grandchildren would have a free America in which to live and grow up. I was not only very idealistic, but as young people almost always are, I was also quite naive. More on that later.
I called on many businessmen, from doctors and other professionals, to mom and pop proprietorships, to the presidents and chairmen of the board of some Fortune 500 corporations. By the way, not all of those Fortune 500 CEOs were members of the CFR, you know. (CFR: Council on Foreign Relations) Many were very concerned about the direction they saw America headed. I will not be mentioning any of their names publicly.
One particular business sector which I especially enjoyed calling on were the general contractors. They were among the quickest to see the threats to our liberties. Moreover, it was during that period of my life that I read a novel called The Fountainhead, by the Russian-Jewish-born American immigrant named Ayn Rand. (Her first name is pronounced “Ine” as in “line.”)
Have you heard of The Fountainhead ? The protagonist is an architect and obviously the story concerns the building trades. Reading that book was one of the inspirations for me to later become a general contractor myself. I remember in particular calling on one fairly large road-building contractor in Ohio, and on the first visit, I gave my typical presentation tailored for businessmen.
As I came to closing the sale, I asked that corporation president-owner to buy some advertising in our magazines as well as to become a member of the JBS. He replied that he would do so if I could answer just one question. I thought, “Well, that’s unusual.” And I wondered what I had left out of my presentation that he still had a question about. So I said, “Sure, fire away.”
He leaned over his desk on his elbows and with the utmost seriousness, he looked me square in the eye and said, “Who is John Galt?” I could see by his countenance that he was sure that he had stumped me, because I detected a little grin, which confirmed his self-confidence that he was off the hook.
But it just so happened, that after I had finished reading The Fountainhead, I was so impressed with Ayn Rand’s philosophy of freedom and free enterprise, that I then tackled her magnum opus, her great work called Atlas Shrugged. It is 1,200 pages long. Not only has the book become one of the best-selling and most influential books of the 20th century, but even the first line of the book has become famous.
The first line is: “Who is John Galt?” I “re-read” Atlas Shrugged in 2009 by means of listening to it on about 44 compact discs while I was on my trip to Minnesota. Like George Orwell, Ayn Rand had not only the vision to see where our country was headed, but the skill to weave it into a very compelling story. She was writing in the mid-1950s but re-reading it recently was as though she was describing what is happening now in terms of government encroachment and destruction of our liberties under the Bush and Obama administrations.
Atlas Shrugged is the story of freedom-loving entrepreneurs whose creative minds bring forth innovations, inventions and productivity to oil the wheels of commerce and make life better for everyone.
But as government regulations increasingly stifle all of those innovations and inventions, the entrepreneurs one by one walk away from their companies and vanish into thin air. In a very real sense, they were stopping the motor of the world, which would ultimately lead to the collapse of civilization.
And so as the road-builder/CEO sat back in his chair and folded his arms with a look of broad satisfaction, it was my turn to grin, and then smile at him as I told him that John Galt was the man who stopped the motor of the world.
Well, his jaw dropped, and I could see that he was impressed that this 20-something young man in front of him was familiar with Ayn Rand. So he pulled out his checkbook and it was a good day for the JBS and this Birch Society Field Coordinator. Now, one quick caveat before I begin to bring this introductory lecture to a close.
The first time I read Atlas Shrugged I was at best only a baby Christian and had no biblical understanding to be able to think critically about Ayn Rand’s philosophy. Although she was a champion of freedom and free enterprise and the rights of a man to keep the fruits of his labor and not have it stolen by government through confiscatory taxation and inflation, Ayn Rand was also an atheist.
Consequently, her highest moral good goes only as far as the best qualities that can be found in men, which as we Christians know only too well, is far below the perfect standard of God’s righteousness and which is why we need the Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ.
I was naive in thinking that I could fight the beast. Turn now to Revelation 12. But then came another turning point in my life. That happened not too long after I had become a “born-again” believer, as I understood that term then.
That second great turning point was when God put in my path information about how America is the gathering place of the so-called “lost tribes of Israel,” that we are those Israel people of the Bible. Again, after months of in-depth study, I became and have remained totally convinced of our Israelite heritage. Along the way, I realized that although we cannot fight and defeat the beast by the arm of flesh because as it says in
Ephesians 6:12 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.
That we are assured that the beast can be overcome. How? Look in…
Revelation 12:11 And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.
Now to Revelation 17. I also realized that what the John Birch Society had called the “Insiders,” referring to those often-unknown men who rule the world behind the scenes, was precisely what the Bible calls Mystery Babylon.
Revelation 17:5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.
So once again, God had placed some information in my path which was another life-changer, because just as I was beginning to despair that there was any hope to prevent our nation from sliding into a thousand years of Dark Ages under a brutal and tyrannical dictatorship, along came the answers from the Bible and it made more sense than anything I had ever heard! Utterly astonishing revelations to me.
And that is what I will proceed to share with you in the blogs to come. So after exactly three years of working for the John Birch Society—and I had worked my tail off—and apparently it was recognized, because my boss was being promoted and I was then offered his position as a Major Coordinator. I would have been in charge of five states.
But I turned it down. I left the John Birch Society and moved my family to Palm Beach County, Florida and co-founded Bruggeman Construction company. To this day, I have no hard feelings for anyone in the JBS. They were wonderful people! But it was a training ground for me, as I came to realize that the only way liberty is going to be preserved in America and the world is through our Lord Jesus Christ.
And I do not mean that all we have to do is sit back and wait for Jesus to return and take care of the evildoers. Did not Jesus say, “Occupy until I come?” Notice this in Isaiah 52:
Isaiah 52:1 Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean.
Would you repeat the first two words of that verse, please? Awake, awake! That indicates that whoever is being spoken to has been asleep, doesn’t it? Can anyone tell me where this prophecy has been fulfilled in history? It hasn’t. The “Jerusalem” it is referring to is the one called New Jerusalem in the book of Revelation. It is (partially) still future, but I believe the fulfillment of these verses is very near. Zion is a prophetic name for end-time Israel, and I am telling you, that is us: Christianized Israel. Verse 2 says:
2 Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.
This shows that end-time Israel will be in captivity. It also indicates that Israel has been asleep, unaware that she even is in captivity, hence the world-ruling empire is a Mystery to almost everyone, Mystery Babylon.
Finally, you will notice this also indicates that we are not to sit on our backsides and do nothing while we wait for deliverance. It commands end time Israel to loose thyself from the bands of our captivity. It shows that we are to play an active role in shaking off this captivity!
And so if you want to give hope to America, one of the best ways would be to show them that God has foreordained our deliverance because we are those Israel people! It is written in His Word! But it is also veiled and hidden to some degree. Just as the wicked ruling over us have been hidden for a century (Mystery, Babylon), so also the Stone Kingdom has been a mystery to almost all Christians!
Let me just state this in closing Chapter 1. I believe that on God’s timetable…
It is time to understand the mystery of Babylon.
It is time to understand that your Father has this all planned out, there is a good ending and it is this:
It is time to understand that the current Mystery Babylonian system, under which we now live, is going to give way and be replaced by your Father’s Stone Kingdom. Hallelujah!
Watch soon for the commencement of Chapter 2, wherein we will set forth a chart with a true political spectrum. It will make understanding the political world and spotting the phonies much easier.
