by Jim Fletcher
I had the pleasure of speaking to a group of Bible-believers this weekend, not in a church, but in a community center. Small in number, we had a great time. I leave it to church-growth hobbyists to obsess over numbers. My experience the past two days reinforces my view that the Church is doing just fine.
It’s just not very large.
(This all relates to Israel, by the way, as I’ll attempt to demonstrate.)
One of the things I shared with the group this week was the bomb that Andy Stanley dropped recently at his church in Atlanta. I won’t go into detail here, but you can read the entire saga.
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by Ryan Mauro
The Iranian regime believes what it says and can achieve its stated objectives. That’s the blunt truth that few can accept.
To determine Iran’s strategy, we must determine its goals and ideology. President Ahmadinejad consistently states that he acts in order to "hasten the arrival" of the Mahdi, also called the Hidden Imam, who is to appear during the End Times to bring victory over the enemies of Islam. Since at least July 2010, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has been telling his inner circle that he has met the Mahdi, who promised him an imminent return.
A number of voices opposed to a potential Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities reassure us that the regime is a rational actor and we should not take this rhetoric seriously. Former Mossad director Meir Dagan went so far as to say Iran is "very rational." The statement made headlines but their simplicity is misleading. Dagan actually said that Iran is "not exactly our rational." What Dagan likely meant is that the regime weighs costs and benefits. It rationally pursues goals that we’d consider irrational.
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by Vance Havner
There failed not ought of any good thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass. Joshua 21:45
In recounting the goodness of God to Israel, Joshua tells us that the Lord gave them the Promised Land Just as He had said He would. Joshua repeats it in an address to the people (23:14). Solomon said it in like fashion years later (I Kings. 8:56).
If you will survey the path already trod you will say so too. “There hath failed not ought of any good thing God has spoken…all came to pass.” If it hasn’t, it will. He which hath begun a good work in us will finish it. He will perfect that which concerneth us.
It ought to fill our hearts with thanksgiving, our eyes with tears and our lips with praise, for “the goodness of God leadeth to repentance.”
“There failed not ought…” But how we have failed Him!
by Vance Havner
by Caroline Glick
One of the achievements of his government that Prime Minister Netanyahu took pride in during a recent speech was the tall fence we’re building along the 220KM border with Egypt. Only problem is that from the video below, it is pretty clear that we might want to have a clear path to the Sinai so that we can preempt the millions of Egyptians that are planning on marching to Jerusalem.
I have said for years that our defensive strategy has got to stop being based on defensive military systems.
Our enemies are on the march. We must embrace the only military doctrine that has ever really worked — preempt them by initiating the war on their territory.
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by Chris Schang
A recent report by a Jordanian news site indicates that Syria is currently in the process of moving hundreds of SCUD missiles to the border with Turkey and Israel. Turkey has been a sore point for Syrian President Bashar Assad as the Turks have insisted that the nearly 14 month old civil war stop immediately. Turkey has in the past moved military assets to their own border with Syria to help fleeing refugees from Assad’s reign of death. The Israel National News website is reporting:
Jordanian news site Ahbar Baladna reports that western spy satellites have recently spotted movements of Syrian heavy missile launchers northward and southward, toward Syria’s borders with Turkey and Israel. The site says hundreds of high-caliber launchers are being moved, and that these could only be long range Scud missile launchers.
Syria has threatened in the past that in the event of foreign military intervention on its soil, it will not hesitate to fire missiles at Israel and Turkey in order to ignite a large scale regional war.
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by Jim Fletcher
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dis·in·for·ma·tion [dis-in-fer-mey-shuhn, dis-in-] noun
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false information, as about a country’s military strength or plans, publicly announced or planted in the news media, especially of other countries.
If I can say it this way, the Iranian threat is almost becoming comical.
Long-time readers of “Israel Watch” know that I don’t mind saying my worldview is informed by the presupposition that the Bible is true.
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by Terry James
It’s like the proverbial broken record–or, I guess that would be “broken CD” in today’s jargon. This summer will be the time of that explosion in the Middle East that will set the world aflame, with petroleum the accelerant that ignites the conflict. We have heard the same dire predictions for at least the past five years. Still, the explosion hasn’t come.
I’ve received numerous copies of Joel Rosenberg’s blog article with the title “War this Summer?" and I’ve heard him talking about all-out war in the Middle East since before he spoke to the Pre-Trib Research Center group in Dallas a number of years ago. Rosenberg is not the only one who has declared early in every year recently past that war will erupt during the summer. Many have predicted that something would happen to spark war so violent that that prophetic region will not be able to contain the devastation. The likely results, it has been said by some, will be the “presumed” Psalms 83 war, or even the Gog-Magog war of Ezekiel 38-39.
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by Jim Fletcher
