Even the Qur'an admits that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jews

It's true!

 I've checked in two different translations of that tendentious book.  The seventh Sura(h), also called 'Al Araf', in verse137 promises the land to the East and West of the River to Israel. The Surah is mostly a précis of Exodus with other bits. From the context, the river must be Jordan. This is also confirmed in Surah 5:21/23 depending on the translation. This much I have checked and verified for myself.

I understand that there are other Surahs on similar lines.

Israel Today has published an article on the subject.

The Koran promises the Land to the children of Israel because they suffered in Egypt, according to Nissim Dana, an Israeli expert on Islam who spoke with Israel Today reporter Olga Zenkova.

It is behind a subscription wall but I have read the article in the printed magazine. Some Muslims try to wriggle out of these verses but others are more open. Sadly, the article does not list all the verses.

Many Muslims are completely unaware of these verses as they do not read the Qur'an. They are told that translations are not accurate and that they need to learn Arabic. Even the Arab Muslims do not read the Qur'an.

All of which begs the question, "What are they fighting Israel for?" The answer is that they want to keep what they have conquered in the past and that they want the world for Islam.

Arab sheik receiving a Jewish visitor.

 

The Tabernacle - Part One - God's rescue plan for Israel and the Church - the best place in Heaven and Earth.

We are still preaching our way through Exodus at the church I attend. This is a very visual presentation on the Tabernacle - lots of pictures, few words and I hope no copyright infringements.

It is how God brings us from sin to the mercy-seat. The is the throne of Christ. The same throne upon which the Bride is seated with Christ in heavenly places. 

Some people say that the gospel is not about bums on seats (In the UK 'bum' is OK). In fact, it is. It's about getting those bums out there on that seat up there! (This quip is mine.)

Enjoy a walk through the Tabernacle to the Mercy-Seat.; a journey to the best place in Heaven and Earth.

Every blessing,

Ian G.

When did you last hear a sermon on Helpers and Administrators?

Thought so. Me neither.

At church we are currently working our way through Exodus in the evening service. It fell to me to preach on Exodus 17: 8 - 18:27. I have preached on the Exodus 17 verses before and you can find that here. It's all about prayer triplets (also here). But the Word of God is a never-ending well-spring of blessing and riches. This time, I was shown the seeds of what would become a nation of priests, a royal priesthood.

There is a direct parallel to Exodus 18 in  Acts 6. Factor in what constitutes priesthood and kingship, examine the ministries of the Holy Spirit (see here) and a sermon on Helpers and Administrators was born.

The overall theme of the series is "The God who rescues." Here we see Israel beginning to grow into maturity. The lessons are key to Christian maturity as well.

I forgot to record the sound, but the PowerPoint is fairly comprehensive.

I'm sick and tired of being lied to - a call to prayer. Part One.

I'm not claiming to be perfect. I've lied to myself more times than I care to admit, but generally speaking, I try to avoid lying. I've never liked it and when, on the handful of times I have consciously lied, it has been to spare someone else's feelings - usually female.  I dare say it works the other way as well. I hate it and I regret the times when I have felt that it was necessary.  All this is to demonstrate that I find lying inimical to whom I think I am, let alone whom I think God is.

Consequently, deliberate lying really winds me up. Unsurprisingly, I find today's media a source of increasing displeasure. We are being lied to. Sometimes for reasons of policy, sometimes because they want to sell papers and and why let facts get in the way of a good story?

It's August, it's the silly season, but this August there's very little silliness - of the harmless sort - about.

We have been lied to over MH17 and possibly MH370. We have been lied to over the Ukraine. We have been lied to over Assad. In the UK, we are regularly lied to over the UK Independence Party and over the European Union. We are lied to about fracking and climate change. We are lied to about same-sex 'marriage' and the 'protections' afforded to the Church of England - but only the C of E. We have been lied to so many times that it is difficult to decide who is telling the truth.

And most of all, we have been lied to over Israel and Gaza. The reputation of the BBC as a purveyor of accurate reporting is now in tatters, but so strong is the lie that they still haven't understood this.

What follows will be a selection of lies, truths and possibilities, along with a call to prayer. The call? Simply, that God will restore honesty, objectivity and truth to the media and that He will raise up honest and God-fearing politicians and clergy.

Faith moves mountains, so start praying.

 

Exposing the lies - A heart-warming story that has come out of Israel

This video is about how God's prophecies about the Land are being fulfilled in Israeli Agriculture. It is heart-warming and encouraging. It also exposes some of the lies that have been told about Israel and shows the good that is being done for all the region by Israel.

It really is worth watching. It cheered me up no end, as we say in the North of England.

Enjoy!

Where your charity money goes... you won't like it!

While Christians are massacred in Baghdad and are being driven out of the Middle East, others who call themselves Christian see fit to demonize Israel and fund terrorism. They do this with your money. Find out the charities to avoid. 

I make no apologies for all the links. This is part of my contribution towards raising awareness of what is really happening.

The massacre in Baghdad as reported by the BBC here and Google for more information.

The excellent Danny Ayalon on the decline of Christians in 'Palestine' and a potted history of the name of Palestine, see below.

Blogger Edgar Davidson has a jaw-dropping report on the Charity 'War on Want', see here . Read it all, especially if you are British.

Robin Shepherd of 'thecommentator' has an article in his online journal about the same subject. He names a range of charities and their funding sources. Perhaps non-European readers should look at their charities more closely.

There is also an excellent article by Steve Apfel on 'Borrowing Jesus' - like this: -

It makes an interesting contrast to what Danny Ayalon has to say. I know whom I believe.

According to Daphne Anson, this temporary wall in London cost several thousand pounds.

You can read more about this expensive obscenity in another excellent piece by Robin Shepherd. He gives links to a video publicising the stunt and to a letter protesting it.

 I wonder how much good could have been achieved if the money spent on this stunt had gone elsewhere?

Hadas Fogel, three months old, was killed by terrorists on March 11, 2011. The terrorists confessed that they left the Fogel home after murdering Hadas’ parents and two sleeping brothers but returned to murder Hadas when they heard her start crying.

I finish with a quote from Robin Shepherd.

To abuse that most admirable of Christian traditions, and turn Christmas into a message of hate, is not just anti-Semitic; it is the grossest of insults to Christians as well.

Jews, Israel, Zionism...Cause or Cure?

Daphne Anson has posted here about a terrible article available here. Said article accuses the Jews of gassing the Syrians to provoke war. Daphne recalls what happened when the Black Death ravaged Europe.

Her linked article on the Black Death suggests that Jews were singled out because they were not suffering to the same extent. The reason being the benign effect of the Levitical hygiene laws. According to the book 'None of these Diseases' by S.I. McMillen M.D. (and since updated), it was the application of the Levitical principle of quarantine that brought the disease under control. The mob blamed the Jews, but there were cooler heads in the Church (only they had the power and the knowledge) who reasoned it out and enforced the Levitical rules. Grimly ironic that the Jews were blamed for being the cause when, in fact, they had the cure.

It behooves Christians to remember what St. Paul had to say about the Jews. 

Romans 9:
1I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— 2that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers,^a my kinsmen according to the flesh. 4They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises. 5To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.

For Christ read Anointed or Messiah. It all means the same.

In other words, Paul is saying that without the Jews we Gentile Christians would have nothing.

Whenever rogue clerics and others tell us that Israel, the Jews or Zionism is the cause of all evils, we need to remember the Word of God, which we would not have were it not for the Jews.

Paul again: http://biblehub.com/1_timothy/6-10.htm
For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

The Jews are no more or less responsible for the evils of this sinful world than anyone else. They are not the Cause...

But they still have the Cure .

 

Stop the Silence! Christian Persecution in the Middle East.

For technical reasons, Daphne Anson was unable to post this video on her blog and has asked if I would. Having seen it, I didn't need asking twice.This has to go viral across the West. Other governments need to be challenged.

The facts of Christian persecution are shocking. The solidarity of Israel with Christians is humbling. 

You can sign the petition here.

 After viewing this video you can also see what Israel is doing with wounded Syrians by following this link:

http://news.yahoo.com/ignoring-taboos-syria-war-wounded-treated-israel-143212700.html

Lots of lies in the Middle East

But there are some people who are telling the truth and asking the right questions.

Our good friend of this blog, Daphne Anson has this recent post: A former muslim on intolerance of Israel It includes a video.

There are two excellent articles over at Cranmer. The one is asking the right questions about Assad's alleged gassing of a suburb of Damascus. William Hague believes it was Assad, but if you read the article linked to carefully he has no real evidence. The Telegraph also links to an article about Syrian refugees but does not distinguish who these refugees might be except to mention the Kurds. What about the Assyrian Orthodox Christians who are not part of the rebel movement so beloved of Obama and Hague? They are refugees from their own country.

We might also consider previous experience in Egypt. At Israel Today there is an open letter from Dr Ashraf Rameleh, director of Voice of the Copts. He states that Obama is, effectively, supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.

WND has a possible explanation for Obama's apparent support of terrorism. His half-brother is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood!  Read it here and judge for yourself.

There is another excellent article in Cranmer about Anti-Israel propaganda at what used to be the evangelical flagship festival, Greenbelt. Cranmer's post includes a superb summary of the history and legitimacy of Israel which is well worth studying. It is by Fran Waddams of Anglican Friends of Israel.

It includes this telling picture.

In the interests of fairness and balance this is the official Greenbelt position on the debate here. 

Buried in the comments on the second Cranmer article is this analysis by one Carl Jacobs

The actual logic in play is this:

1. The root of the problem is oppression caused by Israeli power.

2. To achieve peace the Israelis must make themselves vulnerable.

3. Eventually the Arabs will stop feeling threatened and everyone will live in peace and harmony.

4. The Israelis as the stronger power (and unstated) because their oppressive behavior is the proximate cause of the problem, should endure the residual death inflicted upon them until the Palestinians come around.

The Middle East conflict is a lab experiment for Left wing non-violent conflict resolution. Their world view is tied into the success of their efforts. They want it to succeed because their world view tells them it must succeed. That's why they would be shocked at the slaughter attendant to Arab victory. Their world view won't allow them to predict it.

carl

23 August 2013 13:14

I think he's right about the general mass of Left-wing/Liberal opinion. I'm not so sure about some of the leaders.

We need to ask some simple questions.

1. Who is killing Christians and other dissidents from Islamism?

2. Who is protecting Christians and other dissidents from Islamism?

3. Who has a history of faking massacres for Western consumption? See here or search for 'Pallywood'.

4. What happened after our other efforts to liberate Islamic countries? 

Then there is Goodson's Law.

And finally, the acid test as proposed by the Lord Jesus, 'By their fruits...

It isn't really that difficult to work out who the liars are.

Jonathan Pollard - spy turned prophet?

The Jerusalem Post has an opinion piece by Jonathan Pollard, yes, that Jonathan Pollard. See here.

It's called 'Restoring Israel to Greatness' and to this Christian some of it has clear resonances from the prophets. In particular, these paragraphs are a salient reminder that right to the Land is predicated on its behaviour.

The Land of Israel is eternal and the State of Israel has temporal stewardship over the land. The corrosive moral ambiguity that has brought us to this dreadful day is relentlessly eating away at the legitimacy of the state’s continued role as legal guardian of the land. The prognosis is dire.
Only a reawakening of national resolve and a rebirth of ethical politics rooted in national self-respect, moral rectitude and courage of conviction can guarantee the future. No political process devoid of these fundamental values will ever end the agony or the fear for the State of Israel.
It is clearly time for an historic restoration.

I don't think that Israel will be expelled again, it could bring a great deal of suffering upon itself by way of judgement, and apart from the suffering that others might seek to inflict. 

One thing that I have learned from teaching RE in multi-faith situations is never to compromise on my faith.  Muslims respect a strong faith and are full of questions - and arguments. They have no respect for the wishy-washy liberal 'we are all the same' approach.

Polite, firm, fair and committed gets much better results.

P.S. The name Pollard comes from the days when almost every Englishman was trained in archery. It's how we won at Agincourt. A deliberately cut tree-stump produces new shoots. The resultant staves can be used for all manner of things including bows and arrows. There many archery related names in England and Pollard is probably one of them. 

He hits the mark in the linked article. 

For more about growth from tree stumps see here and here.

Is this Pollard an accidental prophet cutting out cant, recalling Israel to morality and preparing the way for the  Messiah? God speaks through whomever He chooses. 

Gossip - not such a little sin.

 First the bad news.

Why write about gossip? On Saturday two churchwardens known to me had just come away from their church, when they stopped to greet a member of the congregation. One saw it as an opportunity to get to know a brother in Christ a little better. He did get to know him a little better, but he didn't like what he learned. The brother was a gossip. The brother spent, what felt like an hour but was probably about twenty minutes, bad mouthing their vicar. Their vicar is on holiday. A good opportunity to spread a little malice with no-one to gainsay it with facts.

According to the gossip, the vicar is driving everyone away, the young people in the community hate the sight of him etc. etc.  The gossip attends church and is checking everything the vicar teaches watching for false teaching! Not much chance of success there, I can promise you. It's poison and it's false witness. That's the sound of a commandment being broken and it most certainly is not loving your neighbour as yourself.  This isn't just a little peccadillo.  We're into serious sin here.

I have seen idle and ill-informed gossip destroy a business which would have benefited the poor of Zimbabwe. It still grieves me when I see artefacts similar to the ones we were hoping to sell on their behalf.

I have seen malicious gossip seek to destroy someone's livelihood. It failed, but the target later resigned and the community centre he was running then went from profit to loss and, eventually, was taken out of the community's control.

I have seen malicious gossip by a sick woman destroy two friendships and a ministerial team because the lie was believed and they failed to abide by biblical principles.  1Timothy 5:19; Deuteronomy 19:15 and Matthew 18:16.That church never thrived as it should have done and has since fallen into the hands of  a 'word of faith' style ministry. Most of the original members have left and gone elsewhere, including the original ministry team.

I have seen malicious gossip destroy another church that was close to revival and being the sort of church that would have been a model for everyone. It was evangelical, charismatic, socially active and multinational. It saw miracles, deliverances, conversions, sound gospel and bible preaching, it made a difference in the community but lies destroyed it. It is now a shadow of its former self.

False witness isn't just lying in court. It is any kind of slander or libel and it is also gossip. 

We live in a society full of gossip. It fills our newspapers, there are magazines devoted to it, there are whole websites and so-called 'social' media that are nothing but havens for idle and malicious gossip. These websites destroy lives and reputations.Other websites have to be set-up to counter the lies.

Then there all those lies about Israel occupying Palestine. This also destroys lives and not just Jewish ones. 

There's the atheist lie, there's the lie about Jesus not being the Messiah, there's the lie that another saviour is coming who is not Jesus, there are the lies of false religion and on and on. Lies destroy lives and send people to hell.

I nearly forgot, Satan accuses the brethren. Gossip does the Devil's work.

Now for the good news.

There is a God, Jesus is the Messiah. Because of His atoning death even gossips and liars can be forgiven if, like the rest of us sinners, they repent, believe in Jesus, are baptised and seek the Holy Spirit's help to cease from sin. 

God is still building His Church, He is still keeping Israel even though neither institution deserves such gracious mercy. He will vindicate His Name and His servants which brings me full circle to our little bit of local gossip.

On the Sunday morning a new family arrived in that church,  they will possibly stay and they know the vicar. In the evening, two teenage girls enquired about confirmation and they also know the vicar. 

As I have just written, God will vindicate His Name and His servants. One day, He will do it permanently and forever, but in the meantime, if we pay attention, He does it more often that most people realise.

Just because you're paranoid...

...doesn't mean they're not out to get you. Or assorted variations thereof.

They said it wouldn't happen. They said there was a quadruple lock (whatever that means) on the legislation. The Church rightly said, " Really?" or variations... etc. It didn't take long. The Gay persecution of Bible-believing Christians has started and is extremely well funded.

And if anyone is thinking, "It won't happen here", well it happened here. In Israel, they'll target the Messianics and the Orthodox.

It's about the Bible and its authority.

A gay alliance is set to sue the Church to allow them to 'marry' with all the trimmings in Church and with a religious service.

These gays are millionaires. This will go all the way to the European Court of Human Rights. Anyone who thinks that it won't is a fool.

At some point, either when they win or the gays scent victory, we will see church invasions, we will see vicars and church officials arrested and possibly imprisoned, we will see increasingly violent demonstrations and the victims will be arrested (It's already happened). The link leads to a letter documenting a great many instances.

Something horrible will happen before the Church and the country wake up. The link leads to a previous post about what God is doing.

My advice to all pastors and congregations is to be as subtle as the serpent. Record everything, video services, record phone calls , see gay  couples with a witness or two. Be paranoid, because they really are out to get you.

Why is this happening? Because the Church failed to stand up for Biblical morality or discipline deviant clergy; and because our current bunch of Christian leaders are not prepared to resist even unto the shedding of blood.

And on that last point, I risk being tested, pray for me.

Untamed Animal

I am not going to pinch Daphne Anson's thunder, but Eric Burdon of  'The Animals' has been involved in an on-off-on situation regarding a forthcoming performance in Israel. You can read about it here and here.

I have posted a video of the classic,'House of the Rising Sun' here .

I recently used the arrangement with 'There is a Green Hill far away' .

SO pleased that Eric is playing in Israel.

i24news - some said it would never happen.

At last, news from Israel in English, French (QUE? Spanish, Chinese, Russian...) and Arabic.
Something to look forward to, I hope -  and pray.

i24News

i24news debuts TOMORROW at 8pm,
Israeli time (5pm GMT)

Stay tuned for updates

Agricultural Jihad. The ongoing war against Israel.

Daphne Anson sent me an interesting link. It led to the video below. You can find more from Erick Stakelbeck here and here. There's a stack of interesting subjects to peruse and all of them relevant to Christians and Jews.

Deuteronomy 20: 19 - 20 ESV

19When you shall besiege a city a long time, in making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy the trees thereof by forcing an ax against them: for you may eat of them, and you shall not cut them down (for the tree of the field is man's life) to employ them in the siege: 20Only the trees which you know that they be not trees for meat, you shall destroy and cut them down; and you shall build bulwarks against the city that makes war with you, until it be subdued.

Part 4. Developing Christian Zionism, my next steps. Between the wars, '67 - '73.

In 1967, I was a young Christian who had much to learn about the scriptures and even more to learn about Israel and Zionism. I would not have used that term then, but as I have already indicated here , the basics were already in place. I still had to survive school, a gap-year, discover what I really wanted to do and get into college. It would be misleading to say that Israel was at the forefront of my thinking.

For me, as for many, it is only when those years were looked at in retrospect that we realised what had been happening. What seemed like an intensely personal journey, which it was, turned out to be road on which many others were also travelling. Sometimes called 'The Jesus Movement' what had happened was actually a unique form of revival. In the past, Christian revivals have always been associated with places and spread from there. This time it took place across a generation. Roughly between the Israeli wars, a generation came to faith in Jesus Christ in a radical (proper sense - not political), evangelical and charismatic way. Denominational barriers came crashing down, and were viewed by many as irrelevant. 

In 1967 a great many Christians were looking at their Bibles and wondering what is was they were witnessing. For me, as for many, these words of Jesus were taking on a new significance: “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. 

Now there are many who argue that is nothing to do with current day Israel and some of them are conservative evangelical Christians. But there were and are a great many Christians who looked at the state of the world and began to wonder if these were truly the end-times.

(Before anyone posts saying the last days started with Pentecost, I know that. The question is are we reaching the end of the last days?)

We had only just begun to emerge from the shadow of WW2, the Korean War had ground to a halt, the Vietnam war was rumbling on and we had survived the Cuba crisis. Most people of my age were too young to understand the Cuba crisis, but everyone a few years older and paying attention was scared witless.

The vast armies and massive devastation of the apocalyptic books of the Bible began to look a lot less symbolic.

We were beginning to realise that we were looking at a series of 'firsts'. For the first time in history we had the capability of destroying not only ourselves but everything else as well. The end of the world was suddenly nigher than we wanted it to be. For the first time we had the ability to translate the scriptures into every language on the planet and for the first time the gospel could be preached to every nation even without going there by Radio and TV.  (The internet was in its infancy so very few knew about it and the Web was decades away.) 

And of course, the big first, the clincher for many bible-believing Christians, was the emergence of the Nation of Israel in the Land and it kept on surviving wars where human reason expected that it would be destroyed. Not only that, Israel was gaining territory!

Then, we began to hear of Jews coming to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. I know that Jewish readers will have their own opinions about this last one and I will have to examine it another time.  Suffice it to say, for the moment, that the Early Christians (all Jews) decided that Gentiles did not have to become Jews in order to join the Church. Similarly, there is no reason why a Jew should magically cease to be a Jew when joining the Church. After all, Jesus is a Jewish Messiah.

Of course, it didn't work out like that historically and there are knotty issues even today. I will explore these in other posts.  

Finally, those Christians who take an interest in such matters began to realise that devout Jews were beginning to look for the coming of the Messiah. We were beginning to see some sort of understanding, a lessening of hostility and a common hope. The only difference was over one word. Christians are also looking for the (second) coming of the Messiah. 

Unpacking that one word should be interesting.

Post Script 

Shortly after the '67 conflict, I read Obadiah as part of my daily devotions. As a result, I concluded that some sort of conflict in Lebanon was to be expected. That one is still working itself out! I still think that Israel will have to create some sort of protected zone for the Lebanese people who want to live in peace and are also in danger from Israel's enemies, rather like the Kurds were given in Saddam's Iraq.


Part 1; Part 2, Part 3,
 

Giving hasbara another boost - more on i24news

This looks to be very interesting. More as soon as they tell me more.

What matters is not the truth but the tug on the heart.

As I wrote in my piece 'The Big Lie, Madness and the Famous Eccles':

What matters is not the truth but the tug on the heart. 

Over at Honest Reporting, +Simon Plosker has written a piece on the results of an inquiry into the Al-Dura(Durrah) affair. 

Surprise! Surprise!  Al-Dura did not die in the 2000 shooting.

[Since my original post, the Daily Mail has picked up on the report . Don't read the comments unless you want to wallow in ignorance and antisemitism. A few brave souls have posted the truth and they are getting red arrows of disapproval.]

Below is HR's video about the shooting and the Committtee's report:

The France 2 Al-Durrah Report Its Consequences and Implications

 

The Fall of the American Empire.

As I look at prophecy and seek to understand and interpret the signs of the times, I have been bothered by something which has bothered many who study the prophetic scriptures. Where is the USA in all this? The answer is 'nowhere' and the implications of that are overwhelming.

Recently, I have begun to be very concerned about the signals that are coming out of the USA. Quite frankly, I fear for the future of the American Empire. It is an empire, anything else with 50 states would be called an empire.

A recent poll revealed that some 29% of Americans think that some kind of armed revolution may be needed to get back rights. You read that correctly. 

The financial situation of some US states is so dire that if they were not part of the USA they would be like Greece or Italy.

It has now been legally established that voter fraud was used in 2008 to put the then Senator Barack Obama on the state ballot of Indiana. There are many other claims of voter fraud most of which have been denied by the mainstream media. This is the first one to be be proven in a court of law. Many others simply have not been investigated. Google it.

The US IRS (Tax Office) has admitted targeting opponents of President Obama and has recently been shown to have tried to force a Pro-Life charity to promote abortion!

The Obama administration is now alienating friendly mainstream press by spying on them (see here)

Over at Daphne Anson is a post of a video interview with former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton. He speaks about what is being called Benghazi-gate and on Israel's strikes on Syria. He also use the word 'impeachment'.

The lies over what happened at Benghazi are beginning to unravel. See here in a thoroughly researched article by Jerome Corsi and here which documents testimony under oath.

The Pentagon is persecuting Christians in the military including military chaplains.

Homeschoolers are being demonised as terrorists even though there is absolutely no evidence for that assumption.

Abortion clinics have been exposed as slaughterhouses. Finally an abortionist has been found guilty of murder. Innocent blood pollutes the land.

The mess in Syria gets worse (and the UK's Prime Minister David (call me Dave) Cameron isn't helping matters). If Walid and Theodore Shoebat are to be believed we should leave it alone ( this one is stomach-churning).

The calls for the impeachment of Obama grow ever louder. I think it will happen when the Democrats realise that he is an electoral liability. It will be the only way that they can 'clean' house.

Then there is the possible effect of various putative terrorist acts, as well as the devastating effect of a major earthquake caused by the San Andreas fault.

All of this could cause the USA to turn in on itself. Obama is not like Richard Nixon and his default position is to bow to Islam. 

Which brings me to 1973 and the Yom Kippur War. The Israelis were 50 miles from Cairo when President Brezhnev warned the embattled Nixon, in the middle of Watergate, that they were going to sort things out. A warship armed with nuclear warheads had docked in Alexandria, Egypt and Soviet paratroops were being mobilised. Nixon called a worldwide Stage Three alert which put 2,300,000 troops on standby for the first time since Cuba in 1962.The Russian had calculated that Nixon would delay just long enough for the Final Solution.

Lance Lambert in his book on the '73 War (Battle for Israel) documents the burden of prayer for Israel at that time in places he knew. I can attest to a similar burden of prayer for Richard Nixon at that time at the Bible College I attended. Some of us were puzzled by this and it wasn't until much later that I learned the reason which I have outlined above.

America's woes look like increasing; possibly even with a revival of Christianity. The British Empire, on which the sun never set, vanished at lightning speed. There is no law or covenant guaranteeing America's survival. Only Israel and the Church have such promises.

The niggle at the back of my mind, until now, is that a Fortress America turned isolationist by disaster or insurrection, or an embattled President facing impeachment, could cause Israel's enemies to think that they stand a chance of destroying Israel. A re-run, if you will, of 1973. It would be foolish, but they have rarely proved themselves wise.

Netanyahu's destruction of  WMDs in Syria makes perfect sense in the light of the above.

America can and will fall, in due course. Israel will survive, but suffering is far from ruled out.

I am minded of Christ's advice to the Church, "Watch and Pray" and of His ancestor David's advice, " Pray for the peace of Jerusalem".

Archbishop Cranmer savages Church of Scotland report

The ever excellent Archbishop Cranmer has posted a scathing rebuttal of the 'theology' underlying a Church of Scotland report. The report recommends a theological position that states,

"Promises about the land of Israel were never intended to be taken literally, or as applying to a defined geographical territory. They are a way of speaking about how to live under God so that justice and peace reign, the weak and poor are protected, the stranger is included, and all have a share in the  community and a contribution to make to it. The ‘promised land’in the Bible is not a place, so much as a metaphor of how things ought to be among the people of God. This ‘promised land’ can be found – or built – anywhere."

  Cranmer clearly understands what I am trying to do here at The Almond Rod. To wit: demonstrate that a living faith in Jesus the Christ must accept that God's promises to Israel are essential to our understanding of Jesus as Messiah.

He cites an article in the Jewish Chronicle and also lists an extensive range of facts about the history of the Land. Cranmer's final paragraph reads as follows:

God promised Abraham that his descendants would have a land, and would be a blessing to all the nations of the earth. Israel is a fulfilment of that promise. We thank the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for the restoration of the Jewish people to their land, because it was a promise that He would so. And if that was not a promise, then Jesus is not the long-promised Messiah, and our promised salvation is nullified in a myriad of meaningless metaphors.

Amen to that Your Grace, amen to that.

I nearly forgot. He precedes his report with a superbly ironic image from the days when the Church of Scotland was doctrinally sound and fervently Zionist.

It is the the motto of the Church of Scotland. The image is instantly recognisable as a representation of the Burning Bush and the Latin 'Nec tamen consumebatur' translates as 'Yet it was not consumed'.  If Moses hadn't believed God literally, the Israelites would still be in Egypt!