The truth is, our nation is in shambles, in anarchy. The area in which I live is supposed to be a great and glorious place to be. It is filled with murder, drugs, lawlessness. People are living in the street but the city is building a huge new sports arena. It is all image and money.

Nebuchadnezzar made a huge statue of solid gold. I think the image the False Prophet will provide for Antichrist will have a lot to do with money money that can create a brave new world of social assistance for every person, advanced educational technology, all major cities linked together by telecommunications, space travel into the heavens.

But like Las Vegas, when you look past the golden glow into what actually is taking place it is nothing I would ever want. How about you? Hell is Hell even with neon lights and psychedelic colors.

Disneyland, which is the same as Heaven to some of the people from the third world countries, may look like Paradise but it is not a paradise that I want anything to do with. Like Hollywood it is all image, image, image.

One time Audrey and I went on a tour of the movie studios in Hollywood. Never again! You could feel the spirit of death. And the workers there were unpleasant and irritable.

The golden world of Hollywood will never be a suburb of Heaven. I'll guarantee it.

Promoters cannot build an image in your mind unless you let them. Jesus is the Truth. He is not an image, He is reality. There is no disappointment in Jesus. He alone is the rainbow bridge to the real Utopia.

Dorothy was looking for Oz. There is an Oz. Never lose your dream of the golden city. There is one.

But Jesus of Nazareth is the only door. Don't let them kid you.

The secular government is happy when things are upbeat and the citizens are prospering. It may not be too long before the secular society begins to frown on the deeper message of Christ.

How would today's society and churches react to Christ when He says, "I did not come to bring peace but a sword. I came to set the daughter-in-law against her mother-in- law"?

Did Jesus actually say that? I think so!

Thousands followed Christ when He created food. But when He began to talk about eternal food, His body and blood, the people left grumbling.

Jesus didn't come to make us happy. He came to do the will of God and to reconcile us to God, not God to us.

But would religious people enable the Antichrist to kill those who did not worship this wonderful world where the rights of people were held up as the supreme good? Religious people enabled Pilate to kill Christ!

Let me tell you there is no creature more vicious than the religious person who is envious of someone to whom the Lord has spoken.

I have often marveled, and still marvel when I read the Book of Acts, at how the Jews chased Paul from one city to another. As soon as they heard that God was blessing Paul, over they would come and try to kill Paul.

One of the truly abominable events of history was the incident of the Pharisees seeking to kill Lazarus because Christ had raised him from the dead. Religion does this to people. It justifies the worst forms of perversity.

This blindness, this poison, this devilish envy, this pride, this arrogance, murdered the Lord Jesus. Don't blame the Jewish people. It was not the race of Jews that killed Jesus. The common people heard Him gladly.

To be continued.