British parliament plunged into chaos over Gaza cease-fire vote

Politico, February 21, 2024

Event

Angry MPs staged a walkout in the House of Commons Wednesday night and vented their fury at Speaker Lindsay Hoyle, as a symbolic vote on a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas descended into chaos. MPs had been set to vote on a motion from the Scottish National Party calling for an “immediate” cease-fire in Gaza. The SNP used its dedicated “opposition day” in the Commons to push the motion. But Hoyle intervened to allow the opposition Labour Party — which feared a rebellion from its own MPs amid pressure over its response to the conflict — to put forward its own amendment to the motion, which also backed an  “immediate humanitarian cease-fire” but included softer language on Israel’s conduct in the war.

The Prime Minister gave his own views on the Gaza votes controversy in a short broadcast interview on Thursday afternoon.

“I think the important point here is that we should never let extremists intimidate us into changing the way in which Parliament works. Parliament is an important place for us to have these debates. Some people may want to stifle that with intimidation or aggressive behaviour.”

Comment

The chaos seen in Britain’s parliament was down to one thing – fear. MP’s are fearful of the violent consequences if they are not seen to be backing Gaza and the Palestinians. It has come to light that many MP’s are receiving threats if they don’t vote ”the right way” and condemn Israel.

A staff member for an MP said it was “only a matter of time” until “the worst happens”. This is why the UK prime minister said that some want to stifle debate though intimidation and aggression.

The Bible says that Jerusalem would become a burdensome stone for all people and those who try to move it will be cut to pieces. In other words Jerusalem will become an insolvable issue that brings destruction.

Bible quote

And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it. (Zechariah 12:3)

Don’t forget the Hamas war is about Jerusalem. They call this conflict The Al Aqsa Flood – Al Aqsa is the Muslim name for the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Weekly World Watch, Andy Walton

Russia takes issue with Israel’s sovereignty over Golan Heights and Jerusalem

Moscow took issue with Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and Jerusalem just prior to its attack on Ukraine.

“Russia doesn’t recognize Israel’s sovereignty over Golan Heights that are part of Syria,”

Central Israel and Area C (blue), the part of the West Bank under full Israeli control, 2011

its deputy ambassador, Dmitry Polyanskiy, told the UN Security Council, which held a debate on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the end of last month. The monthly Security Council meeting took place as the General Assembly debated the Russian-Ukrainian crisis. Polyanskiy spoke just hours after Israel broke its neutrality on the conflict, as it gave a nod in support of Ukraine.

Moscow has presented itself in its conflict with Ukraine as the supporter of the Russian-speaking population in the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. At the Security Council, Russia reminded Israel that it stands with Syria, where it is militarily entrenched, regarding Damascus’ demand that Israel returns the Golan, which the IDF captured during the defensive Six-Day War in 1967.

Israel has said it

“supports the territorial integrity and the sovereignty of Ukraine,”

and once again expressed concern for Israeli citizens and the Jewish community in the affected regions. Israel’s Foreign Ministry expressed “concern” over the “serious escalation.” Israel has very close relations with Ukraine and also with the United States so it has to side with Ukraine. But this in turn drives a wedge between Israel and Russia. Incredibly on the day Russia invaded Ukraine they made a statement at the UN that Russia does not recognize Israel’s sovereignty over Golan Heights. Also in the statement they mentioned Tel Aviv not Jerusalem in relation to the government of Israel.

Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces Jerusalem will become the centre of the conflict – this happens before Russia invades. (Zech 12:2)

Andy Walton

> Weekly World Watch

 

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Additional reading

1. Palestine, Israel, God’s people and democracy
2. Signs of the times – “Gaza – once more a flashpoint”
3. Signs of the times – “Israel’s security and the Golan Heights”
4. Signs of the times – “Israel’s security”
5. Signs of the times – “The US, Israel and the Golan Heights”
6. WWW on our position 50 years after Israel captured Jerusalem during the Six Day War.

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Related

1. Israel plans to double settlement in occupied Golan Heights
2. Nd: Golan Heights plan
3. Israel’s leftist Meretz party is on board– for flagrant colonialist war crimes in the Golan
4. naftali bennett: Israelis will double in the Golan Heights; New project approved – Israel vows to double occupants in golan heights says prime minister naftali bennett
5. The Jordan Times: Another nail in the coffin of the ‘peace deal’
6. The Hindu: Far from over: On Israel missile strike on Syria
7. Prophecy Foreshadowed on the Golan Heights
8. A Picture of Bible Prophecy from the Golan Heights
9. Now Russia Sets Its Sights On Israel, And Tells Them That They No Longer Recognize Jewish Sovereignty Over The Golan Heights In Northern Syria
10. Russia Rejects Israel’s Claim to Golan Heights

EU and Germany launch the East Jerusalem Tourism Development Programme

The European Union and Germany launched the East Jerusalem Tourism Development Programme and inaugurated the Tourism Development Hub in East Jerusalem. The East Jerusalem Tourism Development Programme is the first joint project between the EU and Germany in the framework of the East Jerusalem programme. It aims at maintaining the Palestinian identity of the city and supporting the tourism sector in East Jerusalem, against the backdrop of a worrying trend of increasing hardship for Palestinian life and economic activity in this part of the city.

“This new programme is full of innovative and creative concepts to revive the sector,’’

said the European Union Representative, Sven Kühn Von Burgsdorff.

’Our joint work as Europeans reflects once again the clear and united position of the EU and its member states with regard to East Jerusalem. For us, East Jerusalem is part of the occupied Palestinian territory and the status of Jerusalem as the future capital for the two states should always be respected and protected.’’

As one commentator put it

“The decision by the European Union (EU) and Germany to launch the East Jerusalem Tourism Development Programme is in reality a blatant attempt by them to see Jerusalem divided by creating political facts on the ground under the guise of helping promote tourism in East Jerusalem.”

Notice how the EU representative says

“For us, East Jerusalem is part of the occupied Palestinian territory.”

They want it to be part of a future Palestinian State.

The Bible says that all nations will be gathered to Jerusalem to battle. Jerusalem is going to become like an intoxicating drink that drives the surrounding people mad. The EU is fermenting this drink….

“2 behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of reeling unto all the peoples round about, and upon Judah also shall it be in the siege against Jerusalem. 3 And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all the peoples; all that burden themselves with it shall be sore wounded; and all the nations of the earth shall be gathered together against it.” (Zec 12:2-3 ASV)

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> Please do find Andy Walton’s Weekly World Watch of October 17 – 23, 2021

Month of freedom and liberty with Independence Day or Deceived day

Udo Ndah of Purple Rays thinks that July is the month of freedom and liberty!

I would love to be able to say “amen” to that, but I am afraid there are some figures in our present day who are bringing that freedom into a great danger and have made Independence Day July the 4th more into their own Donald Trump Day.

In one of our national languages we have the word “tromper” and “tromp”, to “deceive” and “deceived”.
I cannot resist the fact that several Americans must nevertheless come to the realization that they have made a serious mistake in the election of the current president. They also should have to come to know that anything that cost their peace would not only be too expensive but also something to avoid. And the present leader of the United States of America has had his finger already too many times on the “Red Button”.

 

Udo Ndah writes

July has one of the longest lists of Independence Day anniversaries; more than twenty days of the month are Independence celebration days for various countries including good old Uncle Sam (USA)! {Happy New Month of July!}

But where is that good popular old symbol for the United States Uncle Sam gone to?

Fox speaks about a “Great Awokening” (sic)

comparable in some ways to the enormous religious foment in the white North in the years before the American Civil War.

And tells us

It began roughly with the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Missouri, when activists took advantage of ubiquitous digital video and routine use of social media to expose a national audience in a visceral way to what otherwise might have been a routine local news story. It’s as if a special July energy triggers the ‘freedom hormones’ in humans urging them to break both individual and collective fetters! {The Great Awokening}

About Ferguson Trump showed his real face at several occasions or confrontations with the press. Nearly five years later, Fox does not seem to see that Mr. Trumps has made July the 4th in a Trump Day and has used  it for political election action work. Though they note that Trump has made white racial resentment more visible than it was before and remark

but at the same time, white liberals have become much more attuned to racism — seeing more of it not necessarily because the world has changed but because their own attitudes toward longstanding features of it have changed. {The Great Awokening}

Fox agrees that Trump’s presidency itself is probably a driver of the shift on LGBTQ issues, weapon matters, and racial thinking. Donald Trump and his allies’ support may for the world outside look like he is for the Jews. But they should see he is more for Israel’s right-wing government, which itself has made common cause with some European anti-Semitic nationalist movements. Others such as the historian David Henkin claim that many of Trump’s Orthodox supporters

“are the descendants (literally, in many cases) of Jews to whom the white nationalism of the post-1965 Republican Party was already resonating 30 or 40 years ago in debates about affirmative action, segregation, colonialism, and law enforcement.” Both theories, however, overlook Orthodoxy’s own position on anti-Semitism and the crucible in which it was formed.

Even Trump having a Jewish son in law, did not hinder him to more than once to give anti-Semitic remarks. Trump his strong support for Israel, the spiritual and religious centre of Judaism, does not make of him a saint.
The seeming contradiction between an American president who never misses an opportunity to boast about a largely symbolic embassy move and conversely misses every opportunity to denounce white nationalism, is according to some no contradiction at all. It comes as little surprise that the two American pastors that Trump delegated to bless the opening of the Jerusalem embassy respectively claimed that Hitler was a messenger sent by God and that Jews who do not embrace Christ are damned. Many Trump adepts by interviews from our Flemish television stations were or are convinced Trump is also a messenger of God.
Pastor Robert Jeffress responded,

“I have never said anything derogatory about the Jewish people. I talked about the oneness we share in worshiping the same God in the Scriptures.”

Though he and Trump worship a tri-une god whilst Jews, like me and other real Christians worship the Only One True God of Israel, the Elohim Hashem Jehovah, Who is an invisible God of love. In other interviews that pastor further explained,

“Jerusalem has been the object of the affection of both Jews and Christians down through history and the touchstone of prophecy.”

And Jews, Jeshuaists and real Christians do know that Jerusalem is going to be the capital of the Kingdom of God, But that does not mean that it is up to an American president to decide when it would be time to have Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Jeffress’ focus on Judaism and disinterest in the global socio-economic well-being of Jews is borne out from recent polling data gauging American evangelical attitudes toward Jews and Israel. A 2017 LifeWay Research Poll revealed that upwards of 80 percent of American evangelical Christians believe that events surrounding the establishment of the State of Israel were the fulfilment of Bible prophecies that show we are getting closer to the return of Jesus Christ. On the other hand, only 20 percent of those polled understood these events in strictly geopolitical terms.

For many Americans Trump looks like the one preceding Jesus Christ bringing total liberation for the world they want to live in, without coloured people, without Hispanics, without Mexicans or any South American.
Those Americans do forget that lots of people had a marvellous idea of the nation they would have loved to live in. Many laid down their lives so that one day their progeny could feel proud of what the pioneers did and proud of that free country they could live in

Those ancestors had hopes that they and their offspring could exercise their treasures of traditions and values without fears of oppression and shadows of injustice in a nation where all the religions could reside with common opinions and behaviours and there not being to much difference of being on the top and those at the bottom.

Yesterday on the 5th of July 2019 Donald Trump used independence day to have hit his day, wanting to show to France, North Korea, Russia, that he too could govern a nation where there is place for military show and people parading for him as the masterful director of a great nation.

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Preceding

Prince of Wales warning that the world is in danger of “forgetting the lessons of the past”

Apocalyptic Extremism: No Longer a Laughing Matter

Russian involvement in US elections

Americans their stars, pretension, God, Allah and end of times signs #1 Abrahamic religions

Americans their stars, pretension, God, Allah and end of times signs #2 War on God’s Plan, Name and title

Trump’s rhetoric is infusing a culture of Anti-Semitism

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Find also to read

1. 2014 Human Rights
2. Does he really not know #1 Lies and money laundering
3. Does he really not know #2 Casinos and inner circles
4. Time to get out of the gridlock
5. Donald Trump his America

Zacharie 9:9-17

Le roi attendu établira la paix

9 Danse de toutes tes forces, ville de Sion!

Oui, pousse des cris de joie, Jérusalem!

Regarde! Ton roi vient vers toi.

Il est juste, victorieux et humble.

Il est monté sur un âne,

sur un ânon, le petit d’une ânesse.

10 À Éfraïm, il supprimera les chars de guerre,

et à Jérusalem, il supprimera les chevaux.

Il cassera les arcs de combat.

Il établira la paix parmi les peuples.

Il sera le maître

de la mer Morte à la mer Méditerranée,

et du fleuve Euphrate à l’autre bout du pays.

Le serviteur libérera les prisonniers

11 Le SEIGNEUR dit:

« À cause de l’alliance

que j’ai faite avec vous,

confirmée par le sang versé,

je vais libérer ceux qui sont prisonniers

au fond d’une citerne sans eau.

12 Prisonniers pleins d’espoir,

revenez dans votre ville bien protégée!

Aujourd’hui même, je vous l’annonce,

je vous donnerai le double de ce que vous avez.

13 Je prendrai le pays de Juda

comme un arc de guerre.

Éfraïm sera la flèche.

Jérusalem, j’enverrai tes fils

attaquer ceux de Grèce.

Je me servirai d’eux

comme de l’épée d’un combattant. »

14 Alors le SEIGNEUR apparaîtra au-dessus d’eux,

et sa flèche partira comme l’éclair.

Le Seigneur DIEU sonnera de la trompette,

il avancera avec les orages venant du sud.

15 Le SEIGNEUR de l’univers protégera

les gens de son peuple.

Ils détruiront et écraseront

les pierres des frondes.

Ils répandront le sang de leurs ennemis

comme si c’était du vin.

Ils le feront couler

comme le sang des sacrifices

dans les coupes d’offrande,

ou comme le sang versé

sur les coins relevés de l’autel.

16 Et ce jour-là,

le SEIGNEUR leur Dieu les sauvera,

comme un berger sauve son troupeau.

Comme les pierres précieuses d’une couronne,

ils brilleront dans son pays.

17 Ils seront vraiment heureux!

Ils seront vraiment beaux!

Le blé donnera de la force aux jeunes gens,

et le vin nouveau en donnera aux jeunes filles.

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Réflexion

Un Messie inattendu

En cette vieille du dimanche « des rameaux », cet texte du prophète Zacharie nous raconte l’entrée d’un roi à Jérusalem, assis non pas sur un cheval, comme le ferait un héros guerrier et victorieux mais sur un ânon (Math 21.5).  Le petit d’une ânesse est le symbole de l’humilité de ce roi, qui vient non pour faire la guerre mais pour établir la paix à Jérusalem et briser le cercle de la violence jusqu’au bout du monde. 

Que de promesses

A cause de son alliance confirmée par son  sang versé (v11), le Seigneur annonce 3 merveilleuses promesses à son peuple. D’abord la libération des prisonniers (v11-12), ensuite la victoire d’Israël (v13-15) et enfin la prospérité assurée (v16-17). 

Ce Roi des rois est venu sur terre dans la plus grande simplicité, il est né dans une crèche et non dans un palais. Il a guéri, il a consolé, il a ressuscité des morts mais les hommes l’ont crucifié.

« Il a donné sa vie pour nous, afin de nous libérer de tout mal. Il a voulu faire de nous un peuple pur, un peuple qui soit à lui, toujours prêt à faire le bien. »Tite 2.4. 

Nas Daily his experience in Jerusalem

Nas Daily finds we need to get more Jewish content in front of Arab Facebook newsfeed. It’s just as necessary.

TheLegoCraftGuy999  finds also that

There are no multiple races. There is only the Human Race. If we only realized this, there will be no wars.

Marcus Ampe writes

More people should show there is a big difference between the lesser group of extremists and fundamentalists and those who are willing to live in a multicultural society where there is place for each other to live in peace and brotherly love.

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Americans their stars, pretension, God, Allah and end of times signs #2 War on God’s Plan, Name and title

There are Americans who think when God/Allah the Elohim Hashem Jehovah said He would provide a great nation an make its name grate that it is all about the United States of America. They often quote than Genesis 12:2-3 and at the saying

 And I Will Bless them that Bless thee

add

( Israel and USA ), {like e.g. Kristi Ann does in {Muslims bow and worship allah / satan Everyday!!}

The 45th president of the U.S.A. considers it his right to decide which city is going to be the capital of Israel. He thinks he can play for god and like several others can think he can hasten God’s Plan. Real lovers of God do know that Jerusalem shall become the capital not only of Israel but of the Kingdom of God here on earth. By his actions and the shouting of Neo-Nazis, Alt-Right people, Tea-party people against the use of “Allah” and against Muslims, several Muslims came to consider a country which is against them and started to hate it.

“We tend to see more negative sentiment among Muslims in the Middle East, such as those from Egypt and Jordan,” noted Bruce Stokes, director of global economic attitudes at Pew, as reported by the BBC. Read the rest of the article about what Muslims think about America.

Already in June 2015 Trump announced that he would be a candidate in the U.S. presidential election of 2016 and ban immigration by Muslims. Trump wrote about those and other issues in Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again (2015). Already on the campaign trail, the true nature of Donald Trump could be seen. Strangely enough his attitude towards women did not get him into jail. With his big mouth he managed to quickly established himself as a political outsider, a stance that proved popular with many voters — especially those in the Tea Party movement — and he frequently topped opinion polls, besting established Republican politicians. After his election people could see even more controversy than in the times of his campaign. He saying that others brought fake news seemed to be the champion on bringing nep news and many lies in speeches and via his preferred social medium  Twitter. Trump continuously made and makes inflammatory remarks, some of which were deemed offensive, especially to Mexicans, Muslims, and women.
Trumps also made it known he loves the poorly educated. and could count on them for their votes, them also believing everything he was promising. Several thought wrongly that he would loose the election by loving and accepting money from the Alt right and by himself not being afraid to show off his

mode of complete egomaniacal self-indulgence. { veteran GOP strategist Mike Murphy} {When so desperate to hold onto power}

He even was not afraid to have his family connection with the Russians to be used to attack Hilary Clinton and to have a strong weapon in his hand, which in the end made him win the election whilst he got not imprisoned for high treason.

In the daily Bible readings of January 22 we could read about the stars, the moon, the sun, and signs which should be something to get us think about a time coming. Though we are told not to turn one’s head from what is going on, but also that we should not rack our brains over when Jesus would return and the end-times start. Though let us be convinced that Jesus warned that we should be ready at every moment and that we can see signs of it coming our way.

Trump me make others afraid that he shall not hesitate to start a war, but that does not mean he shall be able to start a war which is going to destroy the world.

“4  And Jesus answered and said unto them,

“Take heed that no man deceive you; 5 for many shall come in My name, saying, ‘I am Christ,’ and shall deceive many. 6 And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that ye be not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.” (Mt 24:4-6 KJ21)

Jesus warned his disciples that everybody should be prepared for the return of the authorised one from God, who shall return to judge the living and the dead. The world has to know that it shall have to undergo the beginning of the misery when people shall start to hate each-other so much that they shall try to set up eachother against those who think differently and against those who have a different religion than they.

“7 For nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there shall be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in divers places. 8 All these are the beginning of sorrows. 9 Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted and shall kill you, and ye shall be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.” (Mt 24:7-9 KJ21)

Jesus was also aware that many would not want to have something to do with him or would not believe that he is the sent one from God, the son of man and son of God, who is authorised by God to speak in His Name. The ones which would have made him into their god shall come to roar and bellow with anger. At the different Facebook Groups and in several blog postings we can see how so called “Christians” oppose those who accept Jesus his ransom offer but do not want to make him into their god but keep loving the God of Jesus and the God of Abraham, Who is an eternal Spirit no man can see.

We are also warned that many shall try to bring the true believers of the One God Who is One, to worship false and even plural gods.

“And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” (Mt 24:12 KJ21)

Instead of showing the love for their neighbour they shall try to bring hate against those which they start considering a ‘taker of their place’ and ‘an intruder’ or an ‘unwanted refugee‘. Those who love Jesus Christ shall be able to see how many who call themselves Christian shall not keep to the teachings of Christ and shall not keep to the Golden rule or Royal commandment of Christ. Many of those false teachers shall try to have the others to believe they should not do anything any more and that Jesus saved them and as such all shall come into heaven. Many of those false teachers shall like to convince the others no ‘Works of faith‘ shall have to be done and that one can enjoy all the Works of the flesh.

The world shall come to see that lots of people who call themselves Christian make a mockery of god by telling He knows everything but having Jesus as their god who did not know a lot of things, even not the very important matter of his return. Their teachings shall bring a lot away form the one who is the way to God. Those false teachers also wanting to take away the title of God (like Allah in certain languages) and taking away the Name of God, replacing it with “Lord” are making it that it even becomes more difficult for others to come to recognise the Only One true God, Jehovah, and the sent one from God, Jesus Christ the Messiah.

Many english speaking ones are wanting that others use their word for the title ‘god’ and by pressing others to take away the word ‘Allah’ (The God) and to replace Jehovah the Name of God with Lord, they should know they make it even more difficult for non believers to come to see Who the Real and Only One God is. Today we already find lots of Christians who are confused between Jesus and God.

The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) recognised already the problem of certain translations in other languages than English and wrote:

“that there is significant potential for misunderstanding of the words for ‘father‘ and ‘son‘ when applied to God, and that in languages shaped by Islamic cultures, the potential is especially acute and the misunderstandings likely to prove especially harmful to the reader’s comprehension of the gospel.” {5 Reasons “Muslim Friendly” Bible Translations are Counterproductive}

Though several English speaking people seem to be very cross with the common title “Allah” for what we consider “The God” and therefore attack such bible translations like what they call the “Muslim friendly” bible translations or “Muslim Idiom Translations” (MITs), though in those regions those books are spread, already for many centuries “Allah” has been the common title to talk about The God, by non-believers, believers, be them Christians or Muslims or even Hindu.

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Preceding

Americans their stars, pretension, God, Allah and end of times signs #1 Abrahamic religions

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Additional reading

1. Looking for answers on the question Is there a God #2 Pantheon of gods and celebrations
2. Another way looking at a language #5 Aramic, Hebrew and Greek
3. Another way looking at a language #6 Set apart
4. The Bible and names in it
5. The Almighty Lord God of gods King above all gods
6. Jehovah God Almighty greater than all gods
7. Hashem השם, Hebrew for “the Name”
8. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #13 Prayer #11 Name to be set apart
9. Written to recognise the Promissed One
10. Lord or Yahuwah, Yeshua or Yahushua
11. Lord in place of the divine name
12. Lord and owner
13. Names, Titles, and Characters of Jesus Christ
14. Old and newer King James Versions and other translations #11 Muslim Idiom Translations
15. Kingdom of God what will it be like
16. When so desperate to hold onto power
17. Gates to different belief systems in this world
18. A Royal Rule given to followers of Christ
19. Thought for those who think it is not necessary to do any works any more
20. When having found faith through the study of the Bible we do need to do works of faith
21. Faith, storms and actions to be taken
22. We Are The Children Of God
23. Worthy partakers of the body of Christ
24. God loving people justified
25. God’s wrath and sanctification
26. Religious people and painful absence of spring of living water
27. Christian clergyman defiling book which did not belong to him
28. Matthew 6:1-34 – The Nazarene’s Commentary on Leviticus 19:18 Continued 2 Prayer and neighbour love

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Related

1. Limited Atonement and the Divine Command to Believe Falsehood
2. I was wrong – but I am right – Calvinists preach a false gospel.
3. Ashamed to be muslim
4. How Not to Be Muslim..
5. Obama “Muslims must be cherished and nurtured…”
6. The Racists Are Complaining About Muslim Indoctrination In Their Schools — Reblog
7. Love, Hate and Other Filters – A Muslim girl faces Islamophobia, love and her Dreams
8. Book Review: What would a Muslim say?
9. Muslim writer wants his “Allahu akbar” back
10. Muslim Tells Aussie Christians The Truth!
11. Why do so many Muslims hate America?
12. Muslim Vikings and Abuses of History
13. Hidden History: When Muslims Ruled in Europe
14. The ‘I’ and ‘We’ in Independent Sri Lanka
15. #WATWB: Muslim Man Who Saved Christians from ISIS
16. Mosul’s Muslims to its Christians: Come Back To Your Home
17. Sign of Hypocrites
18. Debate: Is the cross necessary for salvation? (Adnan Rashid vs. James White) (and interaction with a Roman Catholic Response)
19. The Week So far – With Yvonne Ridley – Impressed with Turkey, perturbed by Trump, concerned with UK Mosques, Khans boycott Israel and the helpless SAS
20. Jews join forces with Muslims to help Invaders in Europe
21. Social Media and Democracy
22. Are We Questioning The News?
23. The (almost) complete history of ‘fake news’ – BBC News
24. Submitted: Mercer County Mafia Uses “fake news” Outlets
25. Did “fake news” drag down journalism? No, it just exploited a vulnerable industry: journalism’s collapse cannot be blamed on fake news.
26. HuffPost’s Blogger Platform: A Brief History of Fake News
27. Twitter will email 677,775 users who engaged with Russian election trolls
28. Plato, Trump and the Wall
29. What is The Trust Project?
30. America’s Future at Risk
31. The Rise and Fall of CNN: The Most Busted Name in News
32. Fake News is Less Manipulative Than Thought
33. To avoid fake news on Facebook, just avoid all news on Facebook?

Apocalyptic Extremism: No Longer a Laughing Matter

Rabbi Brant Rosen wrote about: Anti-Semitism, Great Britain, Holocaust, Israel, Nakba, Palestine, Politics, and Zionism in two articles which I can recommend to read.

The American rabbi is convinced that many have been scratching their heads trying to figure out why on earth the government of Israel and writes in “Zionism’s Marriage of Convenience to Anti-Semitism” that so many staunch Zionists are just fine with the election of Donald Trump

– the darling of the anti-Semitic alt-right.

Zionism not being new he does find it having a

cozy, if somewhat Faustian relationship with anti-Semitism since its very origins.

He argues that

Theodor Herzl (born Benjamin Ze’ev Herzl) also known in Hebrew as חוֹזֵה הַמְדִינָה‎, Chozeh HaMedinah (lit. “Visionary of the State”) an Austro-Hungarian journalist, playwright, political activist, and writer who was one of the fathers of modern political Zionism. – in Basel, 1897

The founder of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl never made a secret of his belief that his new movement would have to depend upon anti-Semitism and anti-Semites in order to create a Jewish state. In his pamphlet, “The Jewish State,” he suggested raising money for the effort by means of a “direct subscription,” adding that “not only poor Jews but also Christians who wanted to get rid of them would subscribe a small amount to this fund.”

Scholars such as Yehuda Bibas, Zvi Hirsch Kalischer and Judah Alkalai were already promoting Zionist ideas before him.

Herzl grew to believe that anti-semitism could not be defeated or cured, only avoided, and that the only way to avoid it was the establishment of a Jewish state where there would be place to co-operate with those anti-Semites he even thought could become their most dependable friends and allies. {his diary}

Russian imperial statesman Vyacheslav von Plehve, whose efforts to uphold autocratic principle, a police-bureaucratic government, minister of the interior and an infamous anti-Semite who encouraged the Kishinev pogroms on April 19 and 20, 1903, and a second, smaller riot that erupted in October 1905.

Herman S. Shapiro. “Kishinever shekhita, elegie” [Kishinev Massacre Elegy]. New York: Asna Goldberg, 1904. Irene Heskes Collection. The illustration in the center of this elegy depicts the April 1903 Kishinev massacre.

The most popular newspaper in Kishinev, the Russian-language anti-Semitic newspaper Бессарабец (Bessarabetz, meaning “Bessarabian“), published by Pavel Krushevan, regularly published articles with headlines such as “Death to the Jews!” and “Crusade against the Hated Race!” (referring to the Jews).

The Times published a forged dispatch by Vyacheslav von Plehve, the Minister of Interior, to the governor of Bessarabia, which supposedly gave orders not to stop the rioters.

Today it is again that same region in eastern Europe where again such hate against the Jews is growing and infecting the West of Europe, by mouth of the right wing neo fascist groups. As in the previous century Plehve’s would not have worried

as long as the Zionists encouraged emigration of Jews from Russia, the Russian authorities would not disturb them.

perhaps several living in the Balkan, East and West Europe would not mind giving them time to leave.

Rabbi Brant Rosen looks at British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour who is perhaps best remembered for his World War I statement (the Balfour Declaration) expressing official British approval of Zionism. Though he may be long been lionized as a Zionist hero, he wasn’t particularly well-known for his love for Jews or the Jewish people.

(see: 1917 Balfour Declaration, 1905 Aliens Act)

The rabbi writes:

Balfour spoke of the “undoubted evils which had fallen on the country from an alien immigration which was largely Jewish.” Balfour, like many Christians of his class, “did not believe that Jews could be assimilated into Gentile British society.”

In this regard, it is worth noting that the sole Jewish member of British government, Edwin Montagu, strongly objected to the Balfour Declaration, submitting a memorandum to the British cabinet in August 1917 that resonates with haunting prescience today:

I wish to place on record my view that the policy of His Majesty’s Government is anti-Semitic and in result will prove a rallying ground for Anti-Semites in every country in the world…When the Jews are told that Palestine is their national home, every country will immediately desire to get rid of its Jewish citizens, and you will find a population in Palestine driving out its present inhabitants…

When the Jew has a national home, surely it follows that the impetus to deprive us of the rights of British citizenship must be enormously increased. Palestine will become the world’s Ghetto. Why should the Russian give the Jew equal rights? His national home is Palestine. Why does Lord Rothschild attach so much importance to the difference between British and foreign Jews? All Jews will be foreign Jews, inhabitants of the great country of Palestine.

He also looks at the most troubling example of Zionist association with anti-Semitism which occurred in 1933, when the Jewish Agency struck a deal with the Nazis’ Economic Ministry known as the Ha’avrah (Transfer) agreement.

Today we may wonder how it could come so far that the Zionist movement came to negotiate with Nazi Germany in order to facilitate the transfer of German Jews and their property to Palestine.

(see also an essay for Yad Vashem’s Shoah Resource Center, Israeli historian Y’faat Weiss pointing out that the Nazi regime’s participation in the agreement was motivated both by a fear of the boycott and its desire to rid Germany of its Jews.)

For the rabbi

it is not difficult to understand why, on a practical level, the Zionist movement would find a perverse kind of common cause with anti-Semitic regimes. As a form of ethnic nationalism, Zionism has always been dependent upon the maintenance of a demographic majority of Jews in the land. It makes sense that Zionists have been willing to deal with nations that were more than happy to rid themselves of their Jews in order that they maintain their own national ethnic homogeneity.

Would there be a big problem that there was taken a “Faustian bargain” like Brant Rosen calls it?

I would not think that Zionism from its origin has

necessarily fed off the existence of anti-Semites to justify the need for a Jewish state.

because normally every Jews and sincere Christian would know that God had promised a Holy Land to the descendants of Abraham. What I well can see is that several secular Jews saw a good opportunity to enlarge their power and to get some own state where they would be really their own boss.

Even more tragically, as Edwin Montagu predicted, Jewish ethnic nationalism did indeed result in a “population in Palestine driving out its inhabitants.”

I think one big problem is that Israel has too many secular politicians who allow the extremist fundamentalist Jews to take in the land of others and are not worrying about the respect human beings have to show to other creations of the Most High Elohim.

Our Christian believe that Jerusalem shall have to become the capital of the Holy Land and God’s Kingdom should be known to all lovers of God and to be a reality the world has to cope with. In the end God His Kingdom shall anyway establish.

Like rabbi Brant Rosen writes Millenarianism has taken on many forms, most of which were rooted in the belief that the physical restoration of the Jews to the land would be a necessary precursor to the apocalypse and the eventual second coming of the Messiah. This religious dogma, brought by a.o. English Puritan colonists but also by very liberal non-trinitarian Christians to North America, could evolve into previous century and present-day Christian and Jewish Zionism.

John Charles Hagee, the 5th of 6 pastors in his family, all of whom were named John Hagee, dating back to the colonial era.

In his second article he looks a.o. at Pastor John Hagee, founder and senior pastor of Cornerstone Church, a charismatic megachurch in San Antonio, Texas. He also is the the CEO of his non-profit corporation, Global Evangelism Television (GETV) and founder and National Chairman of the Christian-Zionist organization Christians United for Israel (CUFI), incorporated on February 7, 2006, the largest coalition of Evangelical Zionists in the world.

Hagee, who believes the Bible commands Christians to support the State of Israel and the Jewish people, is one of those American ‘prophets’ and doom preachers who makes his apocalyptic religious views clear.

The rabbi also looks at Hagee’s 2005 book (and not 2007) Jerusalem Countdown: A Warning to the World, where Hagee interprets the Bible to predict that Russia and the Islamic states will invade Israel and will be destroyed by God. This will cause the antichrist, (for Hagee) the head of the European Union, to create a confrontation over Israel between China and the West, getting Israel to be covered in “a sea of human blood.” .

Hagee’s attack against Christian antisemitism in his book Jerusalem Countdown claimed that Adolf Hitler’s antisemitism derived especially from his Catholic background (calling Hitler “a spiritual leader in the Catholic Church”), and that the Catholic Church under Pope Pius XII encouraged Nazism instead of denouncing it (pp. 79–81)

[The book echoes predictions made in The Late, Great Planet Earth, the best-selling 1970 book co-authored by Hal Lindsey and Carole C. Carlson.]

Rabbi Rosen also looks at Hagee’s more recent book, “Four Blood Moons,” in which Hagee promotes the Blood moon prophecy, and states that a tetrad (a series of four consecutive lunar eclipses —coinciding on Jewish holidays — with six full moons in between, and no intervening partial lunar eclipses) which began with the April 2014 lunar eclipse is a sign of the end times as described in the Bible in the Book of Joel, Acts 2:20 and Revelation 6:12. The tetrad ended with the lunar eclipse on September 27-28, 2015. (see what Haggee wrote).

[In January 2014, Mike Moore, the then General Secretary of Christian Witness to Israel, wrote a lengthy article dismissing the claims of Biltz and Hagee. Moore’s view was that no significance can be drawn from the eclipses]

David Brog, Executive Director of Christians United For Israel (CUFI), an American pro-Israel Christian organization

Further the rabbi looks at CUFI’s Jewish Executive Director, David Brog, who clearly serves to give cover to Christian Zionists, painting them as “mainstream” and not nearly as scary as their beliefs would indicate.

Bannon at the 2017 CPAC

Next former naval officer, banker, radio host, research director, film producer and media executive, Breitbart editor Stephen Bannon, currently serving as assistant to the President and White House chief strategist in the Trump administration comes under the attention. His documentary “Destroying the Great Satan: The Rise of Islamic Facism (sic) in America” can give us an idea how his mind may be tormented by the fundamentalist evangelist teachings.

While most of the Jewish concern toward Bannon has primarily focused on his alt-right leanings and his personal comments about Jews, less attention has been given to his apocalyptic world view. Strongly influenced by generational theorists William Strauss and Neil Howe’s book “The Fourth Turning: What Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny”  Bannon ascribes to the theory that American history has operated in four-stage cycles, moving from major crisis to awakening to major crisis.

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Preceding article

What to do in the Face of Global Anti-semitism

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Further reading

1. Zionism in Palestine
2. The relationship between Ariel Sharon and the Rebbe (Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson)
3. Israel loves wars.
4. Six Years Ago: The US-NATO-Israel Sponsored Al Qaeda Insurgency in Syria. Who Was Behind The 2011 “Protest Movement”?
5. Abby Martin and Eran Efrati on Institutionalized Israeli War Crimes and Oppression of Palestinians
6. From Washington to the Middle East, Should the World Brace for March 15?
7. Steve Cohen’s ‘That’s Funny, You Don’t Look Anti-Semitic’
8. Does Feminism Have Room for Zionists? – The New York Times
9. Emily Shire’s Zionist Feminism
10. From Washington to the Middle East, Should the World Brace for March 15? | James Perloff
11. The false teachings of Zionism & dispensationalism
12. How did the Talmudic “Noahide Laws” Become Part of American Law?
13. A Liberal Zionism for the Trump Era
14. The control-freakism of the CIA, UK and other western supposed “intelligence” organizations!
15. Origin Of The Oppression Of Palestine By israel
16. Canada offers tax deduction for promoting ethnic nationalism, war
17. Will the Royal Family Celebrate 100 Years of Shame by Endorsing Israel?
18. Pro-Palestinian activist: Zionism and feminism don’t go together
19. What Linda Sarsour Said
20. Zionism vs Islam – Which is More Dangerous?
21. The Millet System & Minorities in Israel/Palestine
22. The Charge of Replacement Theology is a Cover for Fuzzy Theology
23. Alliel – A Window Into Tribal Arrogance
24. “Many American left-liberal Jews believe that Israel only deserves to exist…if Israel serves as a ‘light unto the nations…’ and is ethically perfect”
25. The Rise of Anti-Seminism
26. What Type of Utopia Will Israel Be?
27. Italian rabbis accuse biblical conference of fueling anti-Judaism
28. On anti-Semitism, anti-Islam and fictitious alliances in U.S.
29. US 2018 Budget Guarantees Foreign Assistance Only for Israel, State Dept. Says
30. German newspaper backtracks after listing Netanyahu as a ‘crazy world leader’

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Related articles

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• Student politician who called for Zionists to be punched escapes sanction from his peers
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Shalom Rav

photo credit: Getty Images

In my previous post, I explored how Zionism has historically fed off of anti-Semites and anti-Semitic regimes to justify the need for a Jewish state. In this post, I’d like to discuss a phenomenon that has even more ominous resonance for the current political moment: the willingness of political Zionists, Israeli politicians and right wing Israel advocates to court the support of Christian millenarians and apocalyptic extremists.

Some history: In the century after the Protestant reformation, the religious ideology of millenarianism began to spread throughout Europe. Millenarianism took many forms, most of which were rooted in the belief that the physical restoration of the Jews to the land would be a necessary precursor to the apocalypse and the eventual second coming of the Messiah. This religious dogma was eventually brought by English Puritan colonists to North America, where it evolved into present-day Christian Zionism.

It is safe to…

View original post 1,326 more words

Coming together in dark days

A few hours before I shall light the first candle at nightfall I shall look at the 1st day of Chanukah but also shall see how many come to celebrate a feast, they also call the feast of light, but has its main day on the birthday of the goddess of light, December 25. Lots of heathen but also lots of Christians shall have little candles in their decorated trees.

In my home the coming days there’ll also be some light, spiritual and literal, to have me thinking of the wonders of the Most High. The Eternal Being have been for ever, having made us in His image, has always been prepared to be there for those who want to be with Him. These present times there may be lots of darkness, violence and hate against each other. The heavenly Creator never created the human beings to go fighting against each other. Those people who claim to be lovers of God, be it Jews, Christians or Muslims, should all feel united under the same umbrella of their Divine Creator. Especially in these darker and colder days of the year we should make more time to come in each others warm houses to feel the generous warmth of solidarity.

It is in those darker days when we do not have to go to work, but can enjoy some free time, that we should bring up remembrances of how we and our ancestors grew up. We must become aware of how our minds get filled with lots of stuff as we grow from baby to adult, and how we are modelled by it. Growing up we come to certain believes and want to follow certain ideas. The beliefs we create are part of what forms our being, but they are also based on our genetic heritage, what other’s tell us, and what we accept as fact based on our experiences.  (Which explains why siblings can be alike or different and also why some twins raised in separate home turn out to have similar tastes and beliefs.)

English: The Byzantine army under Nikephoros Phokas captures Halep (Berrhoea), Syria, in February 963. Ελληνικά: Κατάληψη του Χαλεπίου (αρχαία Βέρροια) της Συρίας από τον βυζαντινό στρατό του Νικηφόρου Φωκά, Φεβρουάριος 963. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The day that Byzantine troops led by Nicephorus Phocas, who had lead an expedition against the Saracen Emirate of Crete, and stormed Chandax and wrested control of the entire island from the Muslims, in 961 defeated Moslem forces and seized Aleppo, we once more have a picture of a destroyed Aleppo and a ruined city of Mosul.

As the 10th century temporary turn of events could not have been good for the Jews who had been living in Aleppo since Biblical times because it was the Moslem conquest of the city in 636 that removed the disabilities placed on the Jews by the Byzantines. Lots of times the Jews had to face difficulties and many generations had to suffer under persecution, like the ones who found themselves squeezed out of the major cities and ports into the area known as White Russia on  this day in 1791 when Great empress of Russia Russian Yekaterina Velikaya, also known as Catherine II (the Great) created the Pale of Settlement.

When tonight I, like the Jewish troops with General Sherman, who kindle the first light of Chanukah in Savannah, GA. in 1864 (24^th of Kislev, 5625) I’ll try to remember the good thing which happened to the Jewish community and the many signs which proof that they are a special blessed people. The world shall have to know that the Jews are the Chosen people who have been promised to reside in a Holy Land. This Holy Land may perhaps be something lots of people will not like to see realised, but the world must know that the Plan of the Most High Maker shall become a reality.

In the ancient books is being told of that Great Plan. Not only Jews know of it; Christians and Muslims are also told about the prospects believers in God may expect. In the Torah the Most High calls people to share the news of a Messiah, a liberator for all. Generally lots of Jews look perhaps at a different Messiah than the Messianic Jews and Christians. Though perhaps because many of the Hebrew people forgot about their Creator, it can well be that This Holy Creator made His call also clear to the goy or goyim. For that reason Christians and Jews should look at each other, know their roots, know their common writings, and should learn from each other how to prepare themselves for the day that Messiah may come or return to this earth for finally bringing to Jerusalem full glory, as the capital of the Kingdom of God here on earth.

Jewish wedding in Aleppo, Syria, 1914. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Though thick-skinned the Jews always tried to find a way to survive, never loosing their faith in their Maker and the hope in the promise made to him by their patriarch Abraham. Christians and Muslims today should also know that the Most High spoke about a terrible time, when more natural disasters would come over man, but also where children would come to stand up against their parents, and religions would come to fight against each other. We may well see lots of signs described in the Holy Scriptures as being the sings of the Endtimes.

Not having the pretension to be a spiritual leader or rabbi, but looking at the Torah, I can only come to the impression we have arrived in times that those who really love God should come together, unite and should come to spread the Good News. Lovers of God should spread the love and message of peace. Together they should become strong to help each other in the coming difficult times. By helping each other to come to understand each their way of life and come to see the religious teachings having to grow to a point where they shall be in line with God His teaching and not keeping any more to human dogmatic teachings.

Perhaps not regularly writing here, nor on my own site, I am honoured that I am allowed to share some thoughts from the Holy Scriptures and that I hopefully may show some ways Jews see the world and hold their religion high. By bringing also some news from the Jewish site I do hope this shall shed some light on present and future events and shall bring some more mutual understanding between the different religious groups our world has created .

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Please do find my introductions to my site

• About Immanuel Verbondskind – עמנואל קאָווענאַנט קינד
• First blog post
• A beginning by the 2016 Chanukah celebrations

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Additional reading

1. Roman, Aztec and other rites still influencing us today
2. Holidays, holy days and traditions
3. Germanic mythological influences up to today’s Christmas celebrations
4. Solstice, Saturnalia and Christmas-stress
5. Pagan Holidays
6. The imaginational war against Christmas
7. Objects around the birth and death of Jesus
8. With child and righteousness greater than the law
9. Continues Syrian conflict needing not only dialogue
10. To freeze the fighting in Aleppo
11. Old texts saved behind a wall at the Mar Behnam monastery

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Further related articles

1. Living Beyond Our World
2. Chankkah
3. Chanukah/Hanukkah/Chanukkah?
4. Hanukkah the Feast of Dedication. Is it Biblical?
5. Frum or Krum: Using the Shamash on Chanukah
6. Toldos – Generations
7. Happy Chanukah, Y’all!
8. Holiday Traditions – Chanukah
9. Our Style: Happy Chanukah!
10. Good News Friday
11. Gut Shabbes and Freilichen Chanukah!
12. Wrapup 2016
13. Kislev and Chanuka
14. Menorah graces front of Jewish Institute for Chanukah
15. Celebrating Chanukah 2016
16. The Reform Movement’s Rick Jacobs Has no Understanding of Tolerance
17. A Jewish Buddhist at Christmas/ Chanukah/ Solstice Time
18. Heading Home for the Holidays
19. The “holidays”
20. Of Grandchildren, Chanukah, and Christmas
21. This Chanukah: New Dedication
22. Kitschy Chanukiahs? Yassss
23. The Heart Knows More Than the Mind Can Tell
24. The Sort-Of True Meaning of Hanukkah

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• White nationalists target Jews in small Montana town
• Some of Britain’s top universities are becoming no-go zones for Jews, Baroness Deech claims
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• Twas the night before….
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• I awoke to my lawn covered in ornaments, and I don’t even celebrate Christmas
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An American Embassy to the Eternal Capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem

A dark moment in the year 2016 might be the election of the man of whom most people thought he would not even make it to the selection of president candidates. Though very cleverly playing on the fearing minds of radical and right wing Americans blackening all other candidates he managed to blackguard Hillary Clinton many started to cry to put her in jail and would not vote for her.

Donald Trump often turned with the wind and at one moment he was on the blacks and Jews calling them names and at other moments he said he respected Judaism but found all Jews have to live in their own country.

In some of the ads leading up to the campaign Trump clearly stated his position:

Trump Campaign Statement on Israel

I love Israel, and honour and respect the Jewish faith and tradition. It is important that we have a president who feels the same way. For me, respect and reverence for Judaism is personal. My daughter Ivanka, and my son-in-law Jerad are raising their children in the Jewish faith, always reminding me of the important values and lesson we learn about leadership, resolve, and families in Jewish tradition. My administration will stand side by side with the Jewish people and Israel’s leaders to continue strengthening the bridges that connect, not only Jewish Americans and Israelis, but also all Americans an Israelis. Together we will stand up to the enemies like Iran, bent on destroying Israel and her people. Together we will make America and Israel safe again.

During his a speech at AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Donald Trump waxed bold and direct regarding his position on Israel:

I speak to you today as a life-long support and true friend of Israel.

I am a newcomer to politics, but not to backing the Jewish state.

I came here to speak to you about where I stand on the future of American relations with our strategic ally, our unbreakable friendship, and our cultural brother, the only democracy in the Middle East, the State of Israel.

He laid out several of his policies with regard the Nation of Israel. He was very politically incorrect, as his usual style normally is. He addressed the issue of Iran, but also the problematic relationship between Israel, the United States and the United Nations:

“The United States can be useful as a facilitator of negotiations, but no one should be telling Israel that it should be, and really that it must abide by some agreement made by others, thousands of miles away, that don’t even really know what is happening to Israel, to anything in the area. It is so preposterous; we are not going to let that happen…. When I am president, believe me, I will veto any attempt by the UN to impose its will on the Jewish state.  It will be vetoed 100%.

During this speech Trump pointed out the track record of agreements that were imposed upon Israel in the past and his feelings on the reason for failure:

President Clinton with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat at Camp David peace talks, July 2000.

To make a great deal you need two willing participants. We know Israel is willing to deal. Israel has been trying to sit down at the negotiating table without preconditions for years. You had Camp David in 2000, where Prime Minister Barak an incredible offer, maybe even too generous, Arafat rejected it. In 2008 Prime Minister Olmert made an equally generous offer, the Palestinians Authority rejected it also. Then John Kerry tried to come up with a framework, and Abbas didn’t even respond. Not even to the Secretary of State of the United States of America. They didn’t even respond. When I become President, the days of treating Israel like a second class citizen will end on day one!

Now many have treated his speech as simply electioneering and grandstanding. But as Donald Trump has been building his cabinet, and announcing the key roles, he has been building a team that is capable of realizing his campaign promises.

What has been most interesting this week has been the appointment by President Elect Trump of the American bankruptcy lawyer David Friedman, a 57 year old Orthodox Jew from New York, as the future Ambassador to Israel, which shall receive its residency not any more in Tel Aviv, but moves to Jerusalem.

Friedman helped advise Trump during the campaign and has assisted him in bankruptcy proceedings in the past. He is a supporter of Israeli settlement construction, has downplayed the need for a Palestinian state, and is considered a key force behind the incoming president’s relatively hard-line pro-Israel positions, including supporting moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Though in 1980 the Knesset had already declared Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel this law was declared null by the U.N., which called for the removal of the remaining embassies in the city. A statement from Israel’s Foreign Ministry called the resolution “unjust” and

“additional proof that the U.N. organization has been converted into an instrument in the hands of Israel’s enemies in their war against her existence and independence.”

With moving the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to a plot of land in Jerusalem which would be leased from Israel to the US for 99 years, for $1 per year since January 18, 1989, of the last days of the Reagan presidency, according to the agreement singed by US ambassador to Israel William Brown and Israel Lands Authority deputy director Moshe Gatt.

David Friedman was a major contributor to the Trump policy on Israel as he stated in a meeting with an Israeli delegation when meeting for dinner with them:

… anything where there is jobs or national security, the economy, immigration, everything is vetted through a policy committee. With regard to Israel there really isn’t a policy committee. Our relationship is so strong, that on matters of Israel, he’s really given Jason and I full authority to speak on his behalf.

The one thing that I’m proudest about, to date, is the Republican platform as relates to the state of Israel. The Republican platform on Israel is the strongest platform with regard to Israel that either party has ever developed in the history of this country. The way this was developed was a partnership between the Orthodox, within the Jewish community, the Israel lovers within the Jewish community and the evangelical community.

So from this platform, I would invite people to compare 2016 to 2012, there is no longer any reference to a two-state solution, there is an affirmative statement that Israel is not an occupier with respect to Judea and Samaria. There is a commitment to recognize Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the Jewish people, undivided capital of the Jewish people, to move the embassy there.

When this platform was passed by the Republican platform committee, the Evangelical community, got up, not only did they get up and clap, but people were actually crying. That is how motivated, that is how happy they were. They for this was a day they would never see. 

This man is noted for his conservative political views, his belief that the “Jewish left” is a danger to the State of Israel, and that Jews who supported the nonprofit liberal advocacy group J Street, are

“just smug advocates of Israel’s destruction”

But it are just those advocates who try to bring peace in the region promoting American leadership to end the Arab–Israeli and Israel–Palestinian conflicts peacefully and diplomatically.
J Street’s stated aim is to provide a political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans who believe that a

“two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is essential to Israel’s survival as the national home of the Jewish people and as a vibrant democracy”.

J Street has a two-fold mission: first, to advocate for urgent American diplomatic leadership to achieve a two-state solution and a broader regional, comprehensive peace and, second, to ensure a broad debate on Israel and the Middle East in national politics and the American Jewish community.

The appointment of Friedman, who once compared a Jewish lobby group to concentration camp prisoner-guards, is a controversial one and some liberal Jewish groups in the U.S. as well as a senior Palestinian cleric have openly denounced the decision.

As believers in the Bible we followed the Iraq-Iran War, the present religious wars and terrorist acts, the Brexit and the American elections suspiciously, very intrigued and  now with appointment of David Friedman to the post of America’s Ambassador to Israel seeing how zigzaw puzzle pieces fitting the details given in the Bible.

We are fascinated to see the finger of God at work in the nations, as the prophet Daniel clearly stated:

“…the most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men.” (Daniel 4:17)

God allows people to reign matters and to choose their own governments. God also allows events to take place in His time schedule. He may look at the United States and see how Donald Trump may take his position of power in America and the world. Bible students can become quite excited by this prospect, not because of the man, but because of his stated policies with regard to the State of Israel and with the events Donald Trump may bring into this world, where he is perhaps going to make it easier for the Jewish state to develop.

The president elect moving the American Embassy is one thing, but also calling it

“to the Eternal Capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem“

is giving the voice to what Jews and real Christians are looking forwards to for already many years. We do know that Jerusalem has to become the eternal capital of the world, but now a politician has called it with a clear voice “the Eternal Capital”. That is what more people shall have to come to recognise.

The movement of America’s embassy to Jerusalem is one step closer to becoming a reality.  It is the issue of Jerusalem that will cause the nations to come down to the land in the latter day, and bring God’s judgement upon them:

“For, behold, in those days, and in that time, When I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations, And will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, And will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, Whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.” (Joel 3:1–2)

Zechariah also identifies Jerusalem as being the flashpoint:

“And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: All that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, Though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.” (Zechariah 12:3)

All nations who come against it will be destroyed. So when we see America, the most powerful nation in the world talking about legitimizing the Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, it brings the issue to the forefront.

You may read more about this in the Christadelphian News-site: Bible in the News

Protesters outside of AIPAC conference at Washington DC Convention center. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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• Many Jewish Groups Are Staying Quiet on Stephen Bannon
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Sukkoth, Gog, Magog, Armageddon, a covenant and Jerusalem

Moadim L’Simcha (Appointed Times for Joy) and Shabbat Shalom dear readers!

The joyous holiday of Sukkoth (Sukkot or Feast or Tabernacles or Feast of Booths), one of the three Pilgrim Festivals of the Hebrew Bible, is observed on the Jewish calendar dates of 15-21 Tishrei and is immediately followed by the holiday of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah. The final day of Sukkot is known as Hoshana Rabba (“Great Hosanna”) (In 2016 coming Monday and Tuesday) and with the eighth day should for Christians also be important, being it a day of Solemn Assembly, commemorating the completion of the annual cycle of readings from the Torah (the first five books of the Bible) and being called Simḥat Torah (“Rejoicing of the Law”). .

The seventh day of the festival of Sukkot, considered to be the final day of the New Year’s Divine “judgment” in which the year’s fate is determined; in addition to the Four Kinds taken on the preceding days of Sukkot, an additional willow is taken on this day; it is customary to stay up all night on the eve of Hoshanah Rabbah and study Torah.

During the week long festival of Sukkot (Tabernacles), the regular Parasha (Torah portion) for Shabbat is suspended, and a special Parasha pertaining to the holiday is read in synagogues around the world.

Readings for Shabbat Chol Hamoed Sukkot
Exodus 33:12–34:26; Ezekiel 38:18–39:16; Revelation 21:1–22:21

For lovers of God the Jewish reading for today is one which should concern all, being aware of the importance of the covenant made by the Most High.

“Behold, I make a covenant: before all your people I will do marvels, such as have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation: and all the people among whom you are shall see the work of the Lord: for it is an awesome thing that I will do with you.”  (Exodus 34:10)

In this special Sukkot reading, Moses asks that God’s presence would go with Israel, and God agrees. The marvellous thing about God the Divine Creator is that He loves His creation so much, that when people ask Him to be with them and to go with them, God will do that. He is there for all who want Him nearby.

Encouraged by this positive response, Moses also asks to see God’s glory.  Once again, God graciously complies with his request and invites Moses to ascend Mount Sinai with two newly hewn stone tablets so that He can re-carve the Ten Commandments. Those mitzvah or commandments were given to be a guide for mankind, so that they could build up a good relationship with their Most High Maker.

It was there on that mountain that God revealed His glory to Moses in such a fearsome spectacle of power that God had to protect Moses from being destroyed by it.

“There is a place near Me where you can stand on a rock.  When My glory passes by, I will put you in an opening in the rock.  I will cover you with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove My hand.  You will see My back.  But My face must not be seen.”  (Exodus 33:21–23)

It’s clear that Moses, having experienced the power of the presence of God, understands that His presence is more than sufficient against any threat Israel might encounter inside or outside of the Promised Land.

This is a great prospect for God’s nation. We also know now that God promised Abraham that his seed and sons by faith, would come to live in the Holy Land. In the end all Jews, the children of Abraham, will find their Holy Nation there and find Jerusalem to be the capital of the nation of God’s people. They would be sent in exile and have to endure lots of problems throughout history, but there shall come a time when they shall be all united under God’s Kingdom. God will gather His People to their own land and the whole world shall come to know it.

The world shall have to come to hear that Israel shall be restored and that also others came to know the Law of God and shall be willing to live according the covenant also brought to them by the sent one from God, rabbi Jeshua, the son of man and son of God, who gave his life as a ransom payment for all sinners, so that all people could come back to God to be His children. He provided a new covenant, one of reconciliation.

But we should take heed, God has given a warning that terrible times shall come  over the world. The Restoration of Israel shall be challenged.

“This is what will happen in that day: When Gog attacks the land of Israel, My hot anger will be aroused.”  (Ezekiel 38:18)

In the Haftarah (prophetic portion) for this Shabbat Chol Hamoed (intermediate day of the festival) of Sukkot, the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel describes an end-time scenario in which formidable armies from the north, under the leadership of Gog, will challenge the restoration of Israel.

Gog (left) and Magog, wooden effigies in the Guildhall, London – Courtesy of the British Tourist Authority

Gog is a chief prince living in the land of Magog (Ezekiel 38:2).  Many scholars believe Magog refers to Russia.  The invading land of Gomer is often believed to be Germany.

Several lands in the coalition army are easily identifiable: Iran (Persia), Northern Sudan (ancient Ethiopia or Cush), Libya (Put), and Turkey (Togarmah).

Last year at this time, Russia made significant moves into the Middle East, reportedly to fight against ISIS.  Last week, however, it negotiated its first “permanent” air base in the region at Khmeimim, Syria and its naval base in Tartus, Syria will soon become “permanent” as well.

Russia also recently installed its S-300 surface-to-air missile defence system in Syria and completed the transfer of the system to Iran last month.

In effect, Russia has become a major military broker in the region.  It is right now on the doorstep of Israel, and it plans to stay.

The nations mentioned in Ezekiel 38 will unite and come upon Israel “like a cloud that covers the land” for the purpose of looting the wealth that she has amassed in what was a desolate land only seventy years ago.

Yet, God will not abandon His People.  He will utterly destroy the coalition forces of Gog so that all nations will come to know the holiness of the Lord (Ezekiel 38:18–23).

The forces that come against Israel will be so large in their day of defeat that Gog’s weaponry will provide fuel for Israel for seven years (Ezekiel 39:9).

“They will not need to gather wood from the fields or cut it from the forests, because they will use the weapons for fuel.  And they will plunder those who plundered them and loot those who looted them, declares the Sovereign LORD.”  (Ezekiel 39:10)

Moreover, so many soldiers will die in this battle that it will take seven months for Israel to bury them all and cleanse their land (Ezekiel 39:12).

A man carries a Torah scroll that is protected by a silver Torah tik (case) during Sukkot at the Western Wall.

The Jews read about this end-time battle during Sukkot, because according to Rabbinic tradition, this war will be waged during the month of Tishri, the month in which the holiday of Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles) falls.

Interestingly enough, the war that is described in Ezekiel is similar to the war described in the 14th chapter of Zechariah, the Haftarah reading on the first day of Sukkot.  And in Zechariah we learn that the Gentiles who survive the war against Israel will be required to keep Sukkot annually by coming up to the Holy City of Jerusalem to worship the Lord.

“Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles [Sukkot].  If any of the peoples of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, they will have no rain.”  (Zechariah 14:16–17)

This should give us food to think about the matter of feasts and holidays we do have to partake.

Sukkot at the Western (Wailing) Wall.

 

 

Psalm 27 presents a clear connection between Sukkot and God’s protection of Israel and those who trust in Him:

“For in the day of trouble He will conceal me in His tabernacle [sukkah]; In the secret place of His tent He will hide me; He will lift me up on a rock.”  (Psalm 27:5)

The word translated here as tabernacle is the Hebrew word sukkah (סכה).  When evil threatens God’s people, He will hide them in His sukkah, inaccessible from the enemy on the rock of His presence.

Now that is a promise we can trust in during these last days!

 

The Battle of Armageddon

“When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison, and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth — Gog and Magog — to gather them for battle.”  (Revelation 20:7–8)

Gog and Magog are also mentioned in the Brit Chadashah (New Testament) in connection with Armageddon and the final battle between the forces of good and evil.

This war with Gog and Magog is not the same war described in Ezekiel 38 but a final end-time battle after the thousand-year reign of Jeshua HaMashiach (Jesus the Messiah).

The Son of David, Jeshua, will come again — this time as our conquering Messiah to defeat the invading forces forever.  All who have believed in their Saviour, Jeshua, will inherit eternity in God’s Kingdom of which the New Jerusalem shall be the capital of a revived Garden of Eden complete with trees of life and pure living water that will be good to eat and drink forever.

Ancient ruins atop Har Meggido in Israel

Armageddon is mentioned only once in the Brit Chadashah (New Testament) in chapter 16 of the Book of Revelation.

“They are spirits of demons performing miraculous signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty….  Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.”  (Revelation 16:14, 16)

The word Armageddon is derived from Har Magedon (meaning mountain of Megiddo) and is mentioned many times in the Tanakh (Old Testament).

Megiddo is derived from the Hebrew word gadad, meaning to penetrate, muster troops together, perhaps even invade.

In this end-time invasion, we once again see Israel’s enemies mounting a war against Jerusalem.  This time, however, we see the spiritual forces behind the rebellion against God:

“They had as king over them the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon.”  (Revelation 9:11)

The words Abaddon and Apollyon mean Destroyer.

And this time, God pours out on the Destroyer and all rebels the full extent of His judgment, including everlasting torment for Satan, the beast and the false prophet.

“They marched across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of God’s people, the city He loves.  But fire came down from heaven and devoured them.  And Satan, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown.  They will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” (Revelation 20:9–10)

With an Outstretched Arm

As we read how God will hurl His fury against Gog with pestilence and with blood, floods, giant hailstones, fire and brimstone, it’s easy to see from this Haftarah portion that God is furious with those who come against the Land of Israel(Ezekiel 38:22).

In fact, there are several parallels between God’s deliverance of Israel from Egypt long ago and His future deliverance of Israel from Gog in the end times.  In both, we see that God saves and rescues Israel with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm.

The phrase with a strong hand and an outstretched arm (בְּיָ֣ד חֲ֭זָקָה וּבִזְר֣וֹעַ נְטוּיָ֑ה) has special meaning in Jewish tradition.  It represents God using His power on behalf of His people.  The “arm of the Lord” also represents His salvation, which in Hebrew is Jeshua.

“You brought your people Israel out of Egypt with signs and wonders, by a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with great terror.”  (Jeremiah 32:21, see also Deuteronomy 4:34; 26:8; Exodus 6:6)

As Russia expands its influence in the region and neighboring nations plot to annihilate Israel, there is certainly evidence that Ezekiel 38 is on the horizon.  Yet, this Sukkot Parasha reveals that God’s Divine Sheltering Presence over Israel has not ended but will continue past the end of this age.

God is not finished with the Jewish People and Israel.  This is plainly evident when we consider how Bible Prophecy concerning Israel is being fulfilled during these end times before our very eyes.

The Brit Chadashah (New Covenant) also tells us that God’s plan to reach out to the nations through Israel did not end with the death and resurrection of Messiah, but continues to this day and will in the world to come:

“For if their casting Yeshua [Jesus] aside means reconciliation for the world, what will their accepting Him mean?  It will be life from the dead!”  (Romans 11:15)

The Book of Romans promises that when the Jewish People come to know Jeshua, it will be like life from the dead for the world.

Before this can happen, however, they must first hear the Good News of Jeshua!

“How can they call on Him unless they believe in Him?  How can they believe in Him unless they hear about Him?  How can they hear about Him unless someone preaches to them?”  (Romans 10:14)

It is up to the followers of Jeshua to follow up the task given by this master, rabbi Jeshua. Therefore Christians, being aware that the times are coming closer, should make work of it, spreading the Good News of the coming Kingdom of God.

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With thanks to the Messianic Bible

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Additional reading

1. Ninth of Av
2. Festival of Freedom and persecutions
3. Jerusalem God’s City for ever
4. Glory of only One God Who gives His Word
5. Vayikra after its opening word וַיִּקְרָא, which means and He called
6. Holy land Christian exodus
7. How do we know the coming of Jesus is very near?
8. Armageddon, har and megiddo, an action or a place
9. Ember and light the ransomed of Jehovah
10. Ransom for all
11. Jerusalem and a son’s kingdom
12. Bringing into safety from Irak and Iran
13. 2015 the year of ISIS
14. This Week’s Developments in Weekly World Watch 15-21 July
15. The promise a guarantee of something and the heir that is going to have
16. Chemical warsite and Pushing king of the South

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Further reading

1. Understanding the Battle of Gog and Magog
2. Trend Update: Burden of Damascus/Russian Embassy Takes Fire, October 2016
3. Zork Nemesis – The Forbidden Lands
4. War is upon us!
5. Russia, Iran, and The War with Israel
6. The Coming War
7. Ezekiel blog: My version of the end of the world, part I
8. Ezekiel blog: My version of the end of the world Part II
9. Who are the real Gog and Magog in prophecy?
10. Less of Me
11. “My Relationship with Jesus Christ”
12. Trend Update: Ezekiel 38-39/Magog (Russia)/Golan Heights, Passover 2016
13. Alliance Formation

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When believing in God’s existence and His son, possessing a divine legislation

When you believe today and now it is one step in the right direction. Once you have the right faith that can move mountains, you also need to act according to that faith.

The Numbering of the Israelites, as in Numbers 1, engraving by Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux (1815–1884) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It means you are convinced that there is an Existent complete in all the senses of the word ‘existence.’ It means you do not doubt any more that He is the cause of all existence. You not only know that in Him all else subsists and from Him derives everything, but you want to share this knowledge with others. It is like when you are in love, you feel bright and full of fire with butterflies in the stomach. You do not want to be quiet about it any more. You want to tell everybody.

The existing Supreme Being making you to exist makes you longing for Him and out of thankfulness for your being you want to share your life with other creations of this Most High. You know

“for should He not exist the existence of all else would he extinguished, and nothing could persist.”

Like the Israelites possess a divine legislation — laws, commandments, ordinances, rules of life, instruction in the Will of God as to how they should conduct themselves in order to attain temporal and eternal felicity, we as Christians also are willing to accept those ordinances of the Most High Divine Creator as the only just solution for mankind. therefore we do know it is necessary that more people get to know those rules and regulations.

Foster Bible Pictures 0067-1 Moses Is Holding Up His Rod (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Moses revealed to the Israelites propositions and prescriptions of this kind in a miraculous and supernatural manner, but no doctrinal opinions, no saving truths, no universal propositions of reason. Moses wrote everything down so that next generations could also get to know what to do and how to arrange their life.

We have to come to see that we are obliged to believe in God and to follow His Given Word by which his only begotten son came to declare his heavenly Father and to make it clear what we have to do. This Nazarene Jew asked his disciples to go out in the world and to preach the Good News of the coming Kingdom of God. In case we call ourselves Christian we should be followers of Christ. As followers of this son of God we should listen to his words and accept what he says. We should follow his teachings and follow up the tasks he has given his disciples.

Belief in God does not require us to comprehend the incomprehensible. It is impossible to know everything or to understand everything. But we should help each other. We should help each person around us to come to see more clear and to receive more wisdom in the works of God. The only way to do is when we are willing to share our knowledge and to accept more knowledge from others. Together we should exchange ideas.

From Guestwriters is one of those places where more than one writer, more than one believer can share his or her thoughts with others and give others the opportunity to think about certain matters.

When we truly believe in God and in His only begotten son to be the Messiah, it requires that we have a faithful life, living and behaving by our best understanding of God and the laws He has given us. It requires that we act honourably, with love and justice, with due respect for God’s creation, with humility before the Divine mysteries we cannot understand, and with loyalty to the God’s People, the Jewish people and to those who have chosen to follow Christ, the cornerstone of the new generation children of God.

Jeshua, Jesus Christ, opened the gates to the Kingdom of God for the gentiles, the non-Jews who are willing to come close to God and to accept Him as their Most High Supreme Master of everything.

Together we all should come united, embarking on a pathway away from the societal and cultural forces that lead us to such vile behaviour. For far too long American Jews and Israeli Jews have been wittingly and unwittingly nurturing the forces that encourage extremism and fanaticism to flourish and wreak havoc. As well as in the Jewish culture as in the Christian culture we have seen the right wing groups or very conservative groups bringing more fundamentalist groups in the foreground and protecting. Though those fundamentalists, Jews and Christians do much more damage to the Jewish religion and Christian religion, than good.

We have to show the world that Israel, God’s Chosen people shall have to get its nation, but this in respect to other people living in the surroundings of the future capital of the Kingdom of God (Jerusalem). We do have to let others come to understand that it are not the religious and the faithful to God who are misusing the Word of God to get their own agenda of having more power.

We must be glad that we see changes in Israel itself. The marching and speaking out against the terror of “price tagging” and religious fanaticism in Israel is a good thing we should applaud. We should also let others know this. As lovers of God we also have to show the world that Israel is God’s nation and that we all should work to it that we can come to a peaceful region where the lovers of God shall be able to live in unity. That unity is important. It is a matter of spirit and openness to the differences between each believer. Often it is misunderstood that we all should think and act exactly the same or should all follow exactly the same and only one worldly organisation. But we should follow a heavenly organisation, the one of God. For us Christians Jeshua (Jesus Christ) is that cornerstone of that ‘Church‘. He is the one we should follow.

With our different opinions we should not be afraid to let those different opinions exist one next to the other. We also should know there are lots of things we do not yet understand, so we may have different ideas about it. But when we trust God we shall come to see that in the end He will give guidance and insight and everything shall become clear. We only now, need patience, and that we should bring up, in the love for each other.

When we are prepared to share our knowledge and bring forth some interesting ideas, others can become stimulated and also get inspired. We should give one light to the other so that every next one can start a chain of lights which shall become brighter in the darkness of this world.

Therefore do not hesitate to become a preacher in the name of Christ. Let your voice be heard. Share your thought with us and others.

You too can become a co-author on this platform. You too can become a voice bringing support for the faith in Christ and in God. You too can show others ways of life. You too can open others their eyes so that it would be easier for them to make choices. Only when we understand what is going around us, we shall be able to place ourselves in the whole picture and be able to make the right choices.

We should help each other to see better and to go together on the path prepared by the Messiah, the sent one from God.

Lets unite and put the hands together, helping each other to move forward.

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Preceding:

God’s wisdom for the believer brings peace

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Background reading:

1. Genesis Among the Creation Myths
2. Believing in God the Rewarder
3. Jehovah steep rock and fortress, source of insight
4. Creation of the earth and man #3 Of the Sabbath day #1 the Seventh day
5. High Holidays not only for Israel
6. Days of Nisan, Pesach, Pasach, Pascha and Easter
7. On the Edge of Believing
8. Counterfeit Gospels
9. Bible in the first place #3/3
10. About a man who changed history of humankind
11. Entrance of a king to question our position #1 Coming in the Name of the Lord
12. Marriage of Jesus 5 Papyrus fragment in Egyptian Coptic
13. Marriage of Jesus 8 Wife of Yahweh
14. Marriage of Jesus 9 Reason for a new marriage
15. Marriage of Jesus 10 Old and New Covenant
16. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #10 Prayer #8 Condition
17. Like grasshoppers
18. Illuminating our minds and watching out
19. The Best Bedtime Stories
20. People are turning their back on Christianity
21. Race, Skin colour and differences
22. More looking for similarities
23. Preparation for unity
24. Wrong choices made to get rid of Assad
25. Depression, Anxiety, Pressure and megachurches
26. Stepping Toes 2014 in review
27. Separation of church and state
28. The sin of partiality
29. Moving forward
30. Remember there’s a light in the next day
31. Structuur -structure
32. A visible organisation on earth
33. Looking for something or for the Truth and what it might be and self-awareness
34. Not words of any organisation should bind you, but the Word of God
35. To whom do we want to be enslaved Be enslaved to Christ
36. Disciple of Christ counting lives and friends dear to them
37. New Preaching Ideas website
38. Bringing Good News into the world
39. United people under Christ

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Further related articles:

1. From Whom Should We Seek Counsel?
2. The Messiah went to Many Places Teaching
3. What will make us ready to preach the gospel
4. How To Get Started In Sharing Your Faith As a Christian
5. Preaching the Cross of Christ
6. Quick Quotes: 25 Quotes from “Preaching” by Tim Keller
7. Speech
8. Why Being A Christian Isn’t Cool
9. Stuff My Church Does I: Preaching
10. Is Preaching Passé?
11. The Art of Preaching
12. What is preaching to me… and what it is for others.
13. Preach the Word by Alistair Begg
14. Preaching to the Reader
15. 10 Years of Preaching, 10 Lessons: Lesson 1
16. 10 Years of Preaching, 10 Lessons: Lesson 2
17. Lessons Learned from 25 Years of Preaching (3)
18. Life at the Church is Kinda Laid Back: How our Preaching Sounds to Newcomers
19. The earnestness of preaching
20. Tim Keller on the case for (usually) doing expository preaching
21. Bulldozer spirituality
22. Wisdom of Men or the Power of God – By Laurence Torr
23. The Word of God – Christ, Scripture, Preaching
24. The Gospel
25. Transformation through God’s word!
26. Bread of Life: Gospel according to Jesus, Martin Luther and Brene Brown
27. Expository Preaching / Haddon Robinson 1.
28. The purpose of preaching
29. Preach Christ to sinners
30. The Whole Counsel of God #563
31. “Imitating other Believers in Judea” – 1 Thess 2:13-16 [Sermons on 1 Thessalonians, Week 8]
32. 7 Ways for Men to help Women in Ministry
33. The Hope of Leaving 1 Peter 1:13
34. Eat Me, Speak Me
35. Sermon Verses Motivational Talk
37. Ending a Sermon on Time
38. How to listen to sermons when it is the last thing I feel like doing
39. More Than You Can Handle
40. Confessions of an Idolatrous Preacher
41. 
42. Topical Sermon vs Topical Series
43. Preaching (Book Review)
44. Catherine Booth Writes About Preaching
45. Frank Pollard on Preaching
46. Thunder Or Lightning?Preaching
47. Street Preaching & Something the Devil Doesn’t Want You to Know
48. Advice for Preachers
49. Called Not to Preach
50. Detroit Pastor Is Trying To Launch A “So You Think You Can Preach?” TV Show
51. Ever had a sermon which totally flopped?
52. Do you just sprinkle the Bible onto your sermons?
53. For Preachers and Bible Teachers: Make Sure The Work Of The Scripture Is Completed In Your Own Hearts
54. Are You Serving Slop In The Pulpit?
55. Consider When Witnessing
56. Preaching As The Plane Crashed
57. Is This What You Face Whenever You Preach? You Should!
58. Tim Keller’s Book on Preaching
59. How to listen to character study sermons
60. Sermon Post: For the Life of the World
61. Winning Converts?
62. Sow The Word
63. Religion of Man; Is this the greatest lie that was ever told?
64. The Great Duty of Family Religion – George Whitefield
65. 
66. Devotion: Your Word, not my words
67. Don’t Talk the Talk If You Don’t Walk the Walk
68. Preaching As Expository Exultation
69. Sermons That Do Not Just Settle For General Inspiration And Moralising (via Tim Keller)
70. “Let’s Go Throw Rocks At The Campbellite Preacher!”
71. Is Your Church–Or Are Your Sermons–A Waste Of Time?
72. Still Nervous When You Speak In Front Of Others?
73. Why do we Preach to People With Really Bad Memories?
74. Why Should I Not Continue To Preach?
75. Live that they might see
76. Street Evangelism
77. Is Evangelism for Everyone?
78. Are You Afraid To Witness?
79. Revolutionary Christianty
80. As We Go Through the World
81. Can You Help Me Become A Christian?
82. Struggling with the Spiritual but not Religious.
83. We are Agents for Expanding God’s Kingdom on Earth
84. Teach children about God’s blessings
85. Outreach On The Street Again
86. Preaching Christ Is Not Enough
87. Three Gifts God Gives Us to Conquer the Fear of Evangelism
88. Would You Speak?
89. God uses our work to put others in right relationship with Him. Makes sense!

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Related articles

• Off the Hook? (wsforchrist.com)
• What Must We Believe? (the-1000-year-view.com)
• Shooting Your Arrow By Faith (10kreasons.wordpress.com)
• “Where are you?” N:o 18 Faith is an ability to see the truth of God (docgreenlife.com)
• ‘I’m Insecure’ (jamaica-gleaner.com)
• Parshat Va’etchanan: The oneness of Israel and God’s love (blogs.timesofisrael.com)
• Only one person who has the power to cast the deciding vote that will kill your dream (christadelphianworld.blogspot.com)
• Psst! Spread The Good Word! (fromguestwriters.wordpress.com)
• Engagement in an actual two-way conversation with your deities (fromguestwriters.wordpress.com)
• God, Justice, and Genocide (godsbreath.net)

Stabbed victim parent’s hope for less hatred and more tolerance

On Sunday night hundreds gathered in in Zion Square, Jerusalem for a memorial to the 16 years old high school student from Jerusalem, Shira Banki, who died from injuries suffered in a knife attack at the city’s gay pride parade.

Shira Banki, 16, one of six stabbing victims at the Jerusalem gay pride parade, died from her wounds at a Jerusalem hospital. (Facebook)

 

Banki had died hours earlier at Hadassah Medical Center in Ein Kerem, where she had been fighting for her life after being stabbed in the chest and stomach on Thursday. She was one of six stabbing victims. She was marching to support her gay friends, her family said in a statement. The family agreed to donate her organs, Hadassah hospital announced.

 

“Our magical Shira was murdered because she was a happy 16-year-old – full of life and love – who came to express her support for her friends’ rights to live as they choose,”

 

the family statement said.

 

“For no good reason and because of evil, stupidity and negligence, the life of our beautiful flower was cut short. Bad things happen to good people, and a very bad thing happened to our amazing girl.”

 

The statement also expressed

 

“hope for less hatred and more tolerance.”

 

Israeli politicians from across the spectrum expressed sorrow about the teen’s death.

 

Tel Aviv gay pride parade 2007. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Related articles

• Teen stabbed at gay pride parade still fighting for her life – Israel Hayom
• Gay pride parade stabbing victim, 16, dies
• Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade Stabbing Victim Dies of Wounds
• Girl wounded in attack on Jerusalem gay pride parade dies
• Girl, 16, who was stabbed at Jerusalem Gay Pride march ‘by ultra-Orthdox Jew’ dies from her wounds
• Teen Girl Dies After Being Stabbed at Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade
• Update: Four Pride Parade Stab Victims Brought to Hospital
• Funeral Held for 16-Year-Old Stabbed to Death at Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade
• Girl wounded in attack on Jerusalem gay pride parade dies
• Girl Wounded in Attack on Jerusalem Gay Pride Parade Dies

Opinons on Ultra-Orthodox Hatred Behind the Stabbing at Jerusalem Gay Pride

Jay Michaelson discusses the stabbing on Thursday of six people, by an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man who had recently been released from prison after serving 10 years for stabbing participants at the Jerusalem annual Gay Pride Parade in 2005. The same criminal did the same thing again, with the encouragement of some of the same rabbis.

Security forces moved to arrest Yishai Schlissel, who carried out a similar attack 10 years ago. Credit Sebastian Scheiner/Associated Press

 

Gay Pride Parade, Jerusalem, 2010 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In this world we have several religions with fundamentalist groups which can be a danger for others in society.

According to Chaim Levinson (Haaretz) is the stabbing attack at Jerusalem’s gay pride parade on Thursday the result of a failure by police intelligence. Jerusalem police admit that they knew Yishai Schlissel was released from prison in June after serving 10 years in Ma’asiyahu prison for a similar stabbing attack at the 2005 Jerusalem Gay Pride parade, where he wounded three people.

Since being released from prison, Jerusalem District Intelligence flagged Schlissel as someone who was liable to act against members of the gay community. However, these intelligence assessments did not specifically refer to Schlissel targeting this year’s parade.

 

You may wonder how it is possible that when people do seem to have an unstable mind they are not followed up or demanded to have medical treatment. Strange that no one is assigned to analyse their data and ask the important questions:

Did they undergo a process of rehabilitation? Did they express regret over their crimes? Are there signs that point to the likelihood that they will resume criminal activity?

Schlissel appears to have announced his intentions in leaflets distributed in his hometown of Modiin Illit shortly before the event, residents said.

“For our many sins, the evil ones want to have a parade of abomination in the king’s city once again…,”

“God is testing us to see if we’re faithful to him and if we care about the desecration of his great name or that everyone just care about themselves, about their own body, so it appears that it’s the duty of every Jew to expose himself to beatings and imprisonment and in my opinion to danger too, and join together to stop and abort this sacrilege.” {How Israel Police Allowed Gay Pride Stabber To Strike Again}

The Judea and Samaria Police District said after the attack that it was not up to them to keep track of Schlissel after his release, even though he resides in their jurisdiction, because his crime was perpetrated in the Jerusalem district.

Now the police will be asked why Schlissel was not required to report to a police station during the parade. Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan has already issued a condemnation of the attack and instructed police to establish a panel to examine the failures that led to the attack.

The police arrested a man identified as Yishai Schlissel after an attack on a gay pride parade in Jerusalem on Thursday. Credit Sebastian Scheiner/Associated Press

 

Jay Michaelson was ten years ago, marching with his boyfriend about 50 feet behind the people who were stabbed. They didn’t go anywhere near the Ultra-Orthodox neighbourhoods, or the Old City.

Religious Jews classify the gay people as impure, whore, fornicator, idolater, abomination, enemy of Israel, animal, beast and as criminals under Jewish law, and thus enemies of Israel who will bring divine collective punishment. Gays have even been blamed for Hurricane Katrina, tsunamis, and earthquakes. Killing them is an act of self-defense.

It’s not just the same would-be murderer who brandished a knife at the parade. It’s also some of the same rabbis, making the same comments. It’s the same posters plastered on the walls of Ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods. It’s the same newspapers – including The Jewish Press, Hamodia, Yated Neeman, and Yeshiva World Publications – the last of which, even today, described the parade as the “Abomination Parade.” “Abomination,” by the way, is actually a poor, hateful translation of the Hebrew word Toevah, which is used in the Bible to describe not only male anal sex but idolatry, the eating of shellfish, and Israelites and Egyptians having a meal together. A better translation is “taboo.”

But then, we know that this murderer wasn’t going after shrimp-eaters.

Michaelson blames the leaders of those communities, in Jerusalem and in Israel, for an unremitting chorus of hate speech, hateful actions, and, at best, standing by idly while their neighbours’ blood is spilled.

It is one thing to have an expansive view of the halachic prohibition on male anal sex, or even to believe that the secular legitimation of same-sex relationships will impact public morality for the worse. It is quite another to tolerate (or promote) the kinds of statements routinely made about LGBT people in the Haredi (and sometimes, Modern Orthodox) press and public square.

Just as a torrent of anti-semitic exhortations will inevitably lead to violence – an article leads to a chant leads to a swastika leads to an attack – so too a torrent of anti-gay exhortations.

Erez Harari, a psychologist who works with gay Orthodox Jews, agreed, saying he sees the effects of communal anti-gay animus every day.

“The entire Orthodox community is responsible for this attack when it cultivates a culture of hatred toward fellow Jews rather than acceptance and tolerance,”

he told the Forward.

“Major changes need to happen and the leaders of the Orthodox community need to step up and do more to put a stop to these atrocities. Silence is complacency.” {The Ultra-Orthodox Hatred Behind the Stabbing at Jerusalem Gay Pride}

A writer who says he is “Harei ani k’ben shivim shana…” behold, he is like a 70 year old, uttered by the young Rabbi Elazar Ben Azarya, newly appointed at age 18 to the position of Nasi (leader of his people) writes

So even though you may not hate gay people per se, or even give it that much thought, if you’re not confronting the bigotry they experience every time you see it, you’re contributing to the problem. You’re not causing it directly, but you’re letting it happen. You’re fostering an environment in which gay people feel unsafe, and people who hate gay people feel safe. You should never want to be a part of something like that.{How Casual Bigotry Causes Violence}

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Continue reading:

The Ultra-Orthodox Hatred Behind the Stabbing at Jerusalem Gay Pride

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Read also:

• Ultra-Orthodox Israeli Stabs 6 at a Gay Pride Parade for Second Time, Police Say
• Homosexuality and Judaism
• Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism
• How Casual Bigotry Causes Violence
• Let’s talk about sex, baby
• Shana’s Story
• A Different Perspective: Hasidic Judaism
• A sleepless night could be the key to Jewish unity
• Lapid’s Ultra-Orthodox Government
• Re-Trial Of Alleged Haredi Pedophile Todros Grynhaus Begins.

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Find additional reading:

• Haredi Male Bodies in the Public Sphere: Negotiating with the Religious Text and Secular Israeli Men
• Judaic Cinecorporeality: Fleshing out the Haredi Male Body in Avishai Sivan’s the Wanderer
• Haredi Women, Haredi Men, Stress and Distress / Commentary: Haredi Women, Haredi Men: From London to Jerusalem?
• “I Want to Serve, But.”: Fear of Ostracism-Not Lack of Conviction-Prevents Some Haredi Men from Enlisting
• Reflections from the Field: Deconversion, Irreligion and Practical Nonreligion The Case of Leaving Ultra Orthodox Judaism
• Ultra-Orthodox Women in Israel Launch Their Own Political Party
• What does your offering look like to God?
• Meet the One-Man Homophobia Machine
• Meshuggeneh
• Touché! After Jewish Newspaper Photoshopped Women Out of Paris March, Feminist Website Deletes Men
• JFNA Israel mission: Providing job training for the haredi community
• Is this any way to treat your friends?
• Not a Farmer or a Gardener in Ten Generations
• How Not to Help the Ultra-Orthodox
• The key to success is to stay low key
• I didn’t dare
• Thousands of Israeli Druze and Jews grieve at funeral for policeman slain in terror attack
• Exposed: Heter mechira produce or worse sold as “nochri” produce
• People are… human: Dinner in the Sukkah
• Flying, Afterthought

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Judaism and bloodshed mutually exclusive

Revelers dancing and singing through the streets of Jerusalem during the holy city’s annual gay pride parade were left shrieking in pain and panic Thursday night, as an anti-gay extremist lunged into a group leading the march and stabbed six people, Israeli police and witnesses said.

Six people were wounded in the attack, two of them seriously, Eli Bin of Israel’s emergency service said.

Police said the attacker, Yishai Schlissel, who was arrested at the scene for Thursday’s attack, had been released from prison just three weeks ago, after serving a sentence for stabbing several people at the parade in 2005.

Itzik Shmuli, a member of Knesset (MK) for the Israeli Labour Party declared on the Hebrew-language daily Yedioth Ahronoth that

“it is no longer possible to remain silent because the knife is raised against the neck of the entire LGBT community, my community”.

“It will not stop there. This is the time to fight the great darkness,”

he wrote.

“This terrible criminal act that once again happened in ‘the city of God’, is an attack on all of us,”

he continued.

“It attacks the right of all of us to be different, make our choices, accept differences and include the other.”

The Gay Pride Parade was proceeding as planned with party music, Israeli flags and rainbow-clad marchers wending their way through central Jerusalem’s barricaded streets, under a heavy police presence.

A few hours before Shabbat in Israel, Jerusalem’s Chief Rabbi Aryeh Stern posted an arresting photograph on his Hebrew Facebook page. In it, the ultra-Orthodox cleric, in his full rabbinic regalia, is holding the hand of a victim of July the 30th’s Jerusalem pride parade attack. Six people were initially reported as wounded, including a sixteen-year-old girl who was reported to be in critical condition. She died over the weekend. The alleged assailant, Yishai Schlissel, was an ultra-Orthodox man who had previously served 10 years in prison for a similar crime in 2005.

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הרב אריה שטרן

רבה של ירושלים מבקר את אחד מהפצועים מהמצעד אתמול. הפצוע בא לתמוך בקהילה אמש בהפגנה. הרב הודיע לו בנחרצות שיהדות ושפיכות דמים אינם הולכים ביחד.
הרב התפלל להחלמתו ולהחלמת כל הפצועים.

Continue reading > Jerusalem’s Chief Rabbi Visits Victim of Gay Pride Parade Stabbing

‘The person that committed this sinful act is a criminal in every way, and his intention to kill Jews is something which is terrifying’

By Yair Rosenberg

Edited by Jonathan Zalman

The Scroll

Teen Stabbed at Jerusalem’s Gay Pride Parade Dies

Parents and three siblings mourn the loss their ‘beautiful flower…full of life and love’

By Jas Chana · August 3, 2015

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Reflections on the Great War #1 100 years on

Today 11 November it is remembrance day for the worst tragedy that came over the world, war bringing many countries in agony.

In the 2014 August and November issues of the Christadelphian is spent some time to think about those awful years.
In the august issue brother Roger Long looked also at the “Signs of the times” Nearer the exit?

Today in several countries there is an annual holiday honouring military veterans. At Veterans Day, also celebrated as Armistice Day, Remembrance Day or Poppy Day, the world remembers the anniversary of the signing of the Armistice that ended World War I.  At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 the guns of the Western Front fell silent after more than four years of continuous warfare, with the German signing of the Armistice. It is marked by parades and church services and in many places the flags of the country and of the union (Europe, Common Wealth, America or United States) are hung at half mast. A period of silence lasting one or two minutes may be held at 11am.

The British do have Remembrance Sunday on the second Sunday in November, the Sunday nearest to 11 November. Remembrance Sunday also sees special events and services relating to remembrance and was this year (2014) on the 9th of November.

The Christadelphian August 2014 issue with Reflections and Lessons from the Great War 1914-1918

 

100 years on

Reflections on the Great War

The First World War was one of the most important events of the twentieth century, shattering the international settlement of the previous century and leading almost inevitably to the Second World War.

The War brought serious challenges to the Christadelphian community, challenges reflected in the pages of The Christadelphian and Fraternal Visitor magazines. In this brief series, these will be considered from time to time.

“A bolt from the blue”

“The murder of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his Consort on June 28th, at Sarajevo, has proved to be the match the dropping of which has converted Europe into a ‘lake of fire’. It has come like a bolt from the blue …” (“Signs of the Times” – September 1914, The Christadelphian, page 451)

Franz Joseph I of Austria 1855 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When the first news was received of the murder by Gavrilo Princip of Franz Ferdinand and his wife, it was not front page news. The Times newspaper reported it on page 7 very much as just another assassination in a Europe accustomed to periodic murders of kings and politicians. After all Tsar Alexander II of Russia had been killed by a bomb thrown by a Polish student in March 1881; the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph’s wife, Elizabeth, had been stabbed to death boarding a lakeside steamer in Geneva by an anarchist in 1898 and the Russian Prime Minister Stolypin assassinated in a Kiev theatre in 1911, to name but a few. The main comment in the newspapers was about the extraordinary ill fortune of the House of Hapsburg: Franz Joseph’s brother Maximilian had died in an ill-fated attempt to become emperor of Mexico in 1867, his son Rudolf committed suicide at Mayerling in 1889, his wife had been murdered and now his nephew and heir and his wife had been shot dead in Sarajevo in yet another episode in the troubled history of the Balkans.

It is doubtful if many of the British public had ever heard of Sarajevo before and many people, including politicians, saw it as an unfortunate episode which might raise temperatures in a troubled area which had experienced two wars within the previous three years. However, those wars had been prevented from spreading by the intervention of the great powers, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Britain, France and Russia, and expectations in the initial days after the murders were that this new mini-crisis could also be resolved. No one in those first days and weeks thought that it would lead to a world war. Other crises involving the Powers had come and gone without leading to conflagration, so why should this one be any different?

Militarism and alliances

Of course, the Powers were all armed to the teeth and had been for some years; in January 1914 The Christadelphian noted the huge rise in the number of Dreadnought battleships across the Powers – up from 1 in 1905 to 125 in 1912 and 150 in 1913. The “Signs of the Times” column noted the “steady drift towards Armageddon” and that the nations were “angrier than ever”. But it also noted the general concern that money devoted to growing armies and navies was being wasted at a time of great social need. In those early months of 1914 there was no great sense of urgency, even amongst eagle-eyed surveyors of the world stage in the Christadelphian Office. Indeed an interesting observation from the Daily Chronicle quoted in February 1914’s magazine was that, “Never has Europe been more militarist or less warlike”. This comment reflected the widespread feeling that the very level of military preparedness made war less likely. The two great alliances, of Austria-Hungary and Germany on one hand and Britain, France and Russia on the other, seemed to cancel one another out and peace of a sort had prevailed ever since 1871 – a period of just over forty years. Whilst there were signs of troubled times ahead, in the spring of 1914 there was little awareness of the imminence of the disaster about to unfold or the millions of lives it would consume. People had become lulled into a false sense of security.

Watching world events

The Christadelphian magazines of those early months have a recognisable mixture of exposition, exhortation and other articles of general interest. There was much concern for the fledgling Jewish settlements in Palestine, then still under Turkish rule; Brother Frank Jannaway sent regular reports of his travels there and in neighbouring Bible lands. There was great concern for Jews being persistently mistreated in Russia, comments on events and matters of interest in other churches and the regular reports of ecclesial activities. Until September, after the war had started, the lecture titles recorded were a cross-section of issues, with few if any indicating an imminent world crisis.

So there is an interesting mix of news. In February 1914 aeroplanes were seen over Jerusalem for the first time; in March it was reported that the European Unity League was advocating an alliance of the states of Europe on an economic basis and that suggestions had been made that Jerusalem should be declared a neutral city. In April there was a report of some Suffragettes setting up their own women-only church; in May the visit of the King and Queen to Paris to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Entente Cordiale alliance with France; in June an article bewailed the failure of clergymen in the established Church to uphold the authority of the scriptures, especially with regard to miracles.

The magazine reports were not entirely ignorant of the threats posed by the Powers’ large armies and navies. In April the “Signs of the Times” reported that there were rumours that some of the Powers might consider that a “preventative” war would be better than allowing their enemies to grow stronger and stronger; it also listed the huge armies of the time – Russia 1,700,000 men, Germany 870,000, France 714,000, Austria 360,000 and Italy 290,000. Relying on its navy, Britain mustered a mere 256,000. In June a letter raised the question of whether it would be wise to send a fresh petition to the British Parliament again to request exemption if conscription was introduced: the rather cautious response was that the time was not right for such an action, although the Lincoln Ecclesia had petitioned on the subject in 1913 and received responses from senior politicians including Asquith, Lloyd George and Winston Churchill.

The July “Signs of the Times”, probably written before the news of the assassination in Sarajevo broke, covered a diverse range of events – the crisis in Ireland over Home Rule; the Suffragette campaign which included planting a bomb behind the Coronation Chair in Westminster Abbey; oil exploration in Southern Persia; a suggestion from an Admiral Scott that air power and submarines would eventually make warships obsolete; references to a revolution in Albania and to collisions at sea. Even in August, the assassination only made an appearance as the third item in “Signs of the Times”, although the publication of the magazine at the beginning of the month and early requirements for copy may account for this.

The crisis everyone in Britain feared concerned Ireland, which was then entirely within the United Kingdom. A Home Rule Bill passed through the House of Commons in June 1914, but the Protestant northern counties of Ulster had been preparing for some years to resist if any attempt were made to force them into a united independent Ireland. Ulster Defence Volunteers openly marched and prepared to fight, with large numbers of guns being smuggled into the country. British Army officers stationed at the Curragh threatened to resign rather than be ordered to take action against the Protestant counties. Had the war not intervened, a civil war in Ireland would almost certainly have broken out.

The low priority given to the assassination in Sarajevo reflected the initial lack of alarm amongst the leaders of the Great Powers. The German Foreign Minister went off on July 5th on his honeymoon; the Kaiser set out the next day for his usual twenty-day summer cruise to Scandinavia; other leaders looked forward to time on holiday away from the troubles of the world. The British public planned whatever time they could get at the seaside or other holiday destinations, looking forward to August Bank Holiday, then on the first Monday in August.

A rapid escalation

All things continued much as before until July 24, when Austria-Hungary’s fierce ultimatum to Serbia, who it blamed for the assassination, set in train a rapid escalation. The Austrians had first secured the support of the Germans for this move, which made the involvement of Russia and France more likely. Within a week the mobilisation of the rival armies of Europe, unable to stand and watch their allies attacked or threatened, had brought Austria-Hungary and Germany into war with Russia and France. The invasion of Belgium as part of the German plan to defeat France quickly brought Britain into the war on August 4 and the last summer of the old order was overwhelmed by the earthquake which was the Great War.

There are lessons in all this for us. We too live in days when we have become accustomed to living with crises in different parts of the world. They form a constant backdrop to our lives. Scarcely a day goes by without a fresh report of trouble in the Middle East, whilst the Great Powers of our day posture and threaten much as they did a hundred years ago. So it is easy to be lulled into a false sense of security and to push beyond the horizon our expectation of the Second Coming and the final crises of this world which will precede it. The Lord warned us that his return would come suddenly “as a thief in the night”. In 1914, the world which then was disintegrated in the space of little more than a month from the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, serving as a warning of how quickly things change in God’s purpose. The lesson is clear and uncompromising:

“Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming … therefore you also must be ready; for the Son of man is coming at an hour you do not expect … Lest he come suddenly and find you asleep.” (Matthew 24:42,44; Mark 13:36)

John Botten

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Continue reading: Reflections on the Great War #2

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Please find additional reading:

1. All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting… George Orwell
2. August 4, 1914 to be remembered
3. 11 November, a day to remember #1 Until Industrialisation
4. 11 November, a day to remember #2 From the Industrialisation
5. 100° birthday of war and war tourism
6. 1914 – 2014 preparations
7. Liège 2014 remembering the Great War
8. Mons 2014 remembering the Great War
9. Friendship and Offer for the cause of democracy
10. Juncker warns for possible new war

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  This weekend – Armistice weekend in the 1914 centenary year – London will have three rivers: water, people and poppies.
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  For the first time on any war memorial anywhere in the world, the names of former comrades, former allies and former enemies will be listed together, alphabetically, with no distinction of rank or country. President François Hollande will open the memorial. Both the Prime Minister David Cameron and the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, were invited. Neither, sadly, will attend.
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  The last recorded death in the conflict from Greater Manchester was James Isherwood Bolton, of Belmont Road, Astley Bridge.He sadly lost his life on Armistice Day, November 11, 1918.James Arthur Parkes, of Meadow Bank, Chorlton, was the oldest casualty when he was killed on March 29, 1917, aged 67.

  And the youngest to die was 15-year-old Frederick Thorley Finucane, the son of Theatre and Emily Finucane, when he died on November 27 1914.

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• Opinion: Echoes of Great War reverberate to this day (ww1.canada.com)
  If you had been in one of those cold, wet trenches on the Western Front, bracing yourself to go “over the top” into the face of machine-gun fire, how would you want future generations to honour your potential death?Well, having spent a lot of time between attacks listening to cries for help from No Man’s Land, you’d probably not be satisfied with occasional remembrances of your sacrifice.Rather, you’d want future generations to figure out what happened, with a view to making sure the Armageddon you were living through at least became the War To Make Wars a Lot Less Likely. And today – just three days shy of the 100th anniversary of Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia, starting the First World War – it’s fair to say this is a debt posterity hasn’t properly paid.
• Arrivals: This week, Remembrance Day (thestar.com)
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• Today in History, Oct. 28 (rep-am.com)
  On Oct. 28, 1914, Yugoslav nationalist Gavrilo Princip, whose assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, sparked World War I, was sentenced in Sarajevo to 20 years’ imprisonment (he died in 1918); four conspirators were sentenced to death. (Princip escaped the death penalty because he was underage.)
• Time Machine: Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria (1875-1914) (rosiepowell2000.typepad.com)
  The assassinations produced widespread shock across Europe. There was a great deal of initial sympathy toward Austria. Within two days, Austria-Hungary and its ally, Germany, advised Serbia that it should open an investigation on the assassination, but the Serbian government responded that the incident did not concern them. After conducting its own criminal investigation, Austro-Hungary issued what became known as the July Ultimatum, which listed demands made to Serbia regarding the assassinations within 48 hours. After receiving support from Russia, Serbia agreed to at least two out of ten demands. The government mobilized its troops and transported them by tramp steamers across the Danube River to the Austro-Hungarian at Temes-Kubin. Austro-Hungarian soldiers fired into the air to warn them off. On July 28, 1914; Austria-Hungary and its ally, Germany, declared war on Serbia. Under the Secret Treaty of 1892, Russia and France were obliged to mobilize their armies if any of the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austo-Hungary and Italy) mobilized. Russia’s mobilization completed full Austro-Hungarian and German mobilizations. Soon all the Great Powers, except Italy, had chosen sides. World War I had begun.
• Speech: Remembrance Day (gov.uk)
  Ladies and gentlemen, we come here, of course, to pay our respects to all of the fallen and of the wounded in all conflicts over the last 100 years. 2014 also marked the 75th anniversary of the outbreak of WW2 and the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings, commemorated by World Leaders, including HM the Queen, in Normandy this summer. This spirit of courage, bravery and sacrifice continues to the present day. As we welcome home our returning troops from Afghanistan, we grieve for the 453 of them who were lost to that conflict. We also pay tribute to the Cambodian troops currently serving overseas in UN Peacekeeping operations in countries as far afield as Mali and Lebanon. We wish them success in their missions and a safe return home upon their completion.Today, as every day, we remember those who volunteered, served, fought, and died, all for the cause of freedom. We have with us today several veterans of these conflicts. We are grateful for your service. We thank you, and we salute you as we salute those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom. We will remember them.