Jewish Settlers Homes Destroyed

By Nathan Jones

A culture clash exists within Israel. On one side are secular Jews who are deluded by the false notion that giving away what little land they have will bring about peace with their hostile Arab neighbors who want them destroyed. They are set against Torah-believing Jews who understand God keeps His promises that the Jews have been given a land promise. The end result is that settlers in areas such as the West Bank, Golan Heights, Jerusalem, and Gaza merely a few years ago are being forcefully removed from their homes. The perpetrators are not Arab militants, but the Israeli Defense Forces under the government's orders.

The following video interviews two Jewish settling families who have had their homes destroyed, been beaten by Israeli troops, and arrested.

Of note is the racial tensions spilling over in the YouTube comments to this video.

Whose Land is It?

God gave the land of Israel to Abraham (Genesis 17:8) and to his descendants through Isaac (Genesis 26:2-5) and Jacob (Genesis 28:1-4,13-14).

That means the land belongs to the descendants of Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel. In other words, the land belongs to the children of Israel, referred to in the New Testament as the Jews (Romans 1:16).

Some immediately protest this claim by arguing that the Abrahamic Covenant has been abrogated either by the Cross or by the disobedience of the Jews. But the Bible clearly teaches that the Abrahamic Covenant is an everlasting one that is still in effect (Genesis 17:7; 1 Chronicles 16:17-18; Psalm 105:8-11; and Romans 9:4).

As to the effect of the Jew's rejection of Jesus, Paul specifically addresses this question in Romans 3. He asks a rhetorical question: "What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it?" For almost two thousand years the Church has answered this question with a resounding, Yes! But Paul answers it differently. He says, "May it never be! Rather, let God be found true, though every man be found a liar..." (Romans 3:1-4).

Further, Paul states in Romans 11 that the disobedience of the Jews has not nullified the promises of God to them, "for the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable" (Romans 11:29). God's promises are going to be fulfilled to a believing remnant (Romans 9: 27). In fact, in Romans 9:4, Paul specifically states that God's promises to the Jews are still valid.

Read more about God's land covenant!

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Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Has Called On The World To Stop Iran From Getting A Nuclear Weapon Of Mass Destruction

By Jimmy DeYoung

At a recent conference of Jewish leaders from around the world held in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told those attendees that the Islamic Republic of Iran has not terminated its pursuit of a nuclear weapon of mass destruction and that the free world must do whatever it can to prevent a nuclear Iran. Olmert told the Jewish leaders that Iran cannot become nuclear - Israel cannot afford that to happen - and that the free world must not accept a nuclear Iran.

Prime Minister Olmert did not give specific warnings about a possible Israeli action against Iran, but he did say that together the world can meet the challenge to stop Iran from attaining a nuclear weapon of mass destruction.

Jimmy's Prophetic Prospective On The News

The call by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for the world to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power comes even as the rumors increase of an Israeli preemptive strike on Iran, a scenario that could well lead to the fulfillment of Bible prophecy.

There has been much speculation over the last several months that after the United States presidential elections, Israel might mount a preemptive strike against Iran's nuclear program. These rumors of such a strike have been fueled recently by the public remarks of many leaders in Israel. Prime Minister Olmert's most recent warning to the world that Iran must be stopped from developing a nuclear weapon of mass destruction only enforces what many believe will happen sooner rather than later.

Even the talk of a military action by Israel on Iran fits the scenario that can be found in Bible prophecy for these two nations. Psalm 83 and Ezekiel 38 mention Iran as an enemy of the Jewish state of Israel. Psalm 83:4 sounds exactly like what Iranian president Ahmadinejad called for - Israel to be destroyed and her name forgotten forever.

The warning from Israeli Prime Minister Olmert to the world to prevent a nuclear Iran is indeed setting the stage for Bible prophecy to be fulfilled.

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War With Iran?

By Joel C. Rosenberg

(Jerusalem, Israel) — Israel is unlikely to launch massive airstrikes to neutralize Iran’s nuclear weapons program before the U.S. inauguration on January 20, 2009, barring dramatic new intelligence that points to an imminent Iranian attack.

That’s my sense of things here after spending nearly a week on the ground.

There is scant evidence of a country preparing for imminent hostilities. The Israeli political system is engaged in gearing up for elections next February 10th. What’s more, senior Israeli officials are still urging the U.S. to take the lead on stopping Iran. “We must unite our forces, led by the international community, led by the United States of America,” said outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in an address to some 4,000 Jewish leaders from around the world. He called for bilateral and international sanctions on the Islamic Republic of Iran and told American Jewish leaders: ”Each and every one of us needs to play a role - lobby your government, lead your organization or identify a project that can exert additional pressure on Iran….It must become more costly to Iran to pursue nuclear weapons than to give [them] up.”

Last Thursday, I had the honor of addressing the World Likud Congress (pro-Israel political activists from the U.S., Africa and Europe) here in the holy city. I was on a panel of Israeli and Iranian experts on the threat posed to the Jewish State by the Ayatollah Khamenei, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the current regime in Tehran. While I agreed with much that my fellow panelists said, I was struck by their lack of urgency for Israel to take action. One said that Israel shouldn’t strike unless its leaders can be absolutely certain that by doing so Iran will not be able to build the Bomb for at least another ten years. Another suggested Israel should not infuriate the incoming Obama administration by launching attacks on Iran without a clear green light from the new President.

I respectfully disagreed. First, let’s be clear: there is almost no scenario by which the Bush administration is going to launch attacks on Iran in the next sixty days or so and thus hand an on-going war to a new American President. Second, the Obama administration has made it crystal clear that it is not going to make neutralizing Iran’s nuclear threat via military means a priority, much less a top priority. Just the opposite: Obama intends to launch “unconditional” negotiations with Tehran. So waiting for the U.S. to “take the lead” is a non-starter at this point. Third, Israel faces an existential threat from Iranian nuclear weapons and it cannot afford to wait much longer. Once Iran has the Bomb, six million Jews here will be in supreme peril. There will never be a “perfect” time to strike Iran, and Israeli leaders will never be able to be certain ahead of time just how long their attacks will push Iran back from getting the Bomb. But is not buying five more years of security — if ten are not possible — still worth it? Fourth, Israel should never surrender its national security decision-making process to Washington. Did Jerusalem wait for the U.S. to act against the enemies of the Jewish people in 1967? Did Jerusalem wait for the U.S. to bomb Iraq’s nuclear facilities in 1981? Fifth, more than ever, Israel like “the sons of Issachar” described in I Chronicles 12, “men who understood the times and knew what Israel should do.”

[UPDATE: President-elect Obama now says he supports the Saudi "peace" initiative. This would require Israel to go back to its 1967 border, re-divide Jerusalem, give up the strategically vital Golan Heights, and give away all of the Biblical lands of Judea and Samaria and the strategically vital Jordan Valley.]

As I’ve written previously, war with Iran will be horrific at many levels. I do not wish for it. Indeed, I am praying passionately for the peace of Jerusalem, as the Bible teaches me to do. But the notion of Iran’s genocidal, apocalyptic leaders getting weapons of mass destruction in their hands is completely unacceptable. I am, therefore, resigned to the possibility that there may now be no other option but for Israel to launch preemptive strikes, since it is increasingly clear Washington won’t.

As I have no influence on such decisions, I am focusing on helping Israelis prepare for the next war. For much of the past week I have been with my Joshua Fund team here in Israel, working with local Jewish and Christian leaders to stockpile emergency relief supplies. I have also had the privilege of preaching at two Israeli congregations to encourage local believers here to continue walking with the Lord, loving their neighbors, praying without ceasing, and girding themselves for the dark days that very well may lie ahead. More on that in my next dispatch.

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Drowning In A Sea Of Red Ink

By Todd Strandberg

I’m sure most of you are familiar with the U.S. Government's ongoing plan to save the financial system by pumping trillions of dollars into the banking and credit markets. So much money is being created out of thin air by the Federal Reserve, I believe we are at risk of seeing the dollar suddenly collapse.

This year has seen mind-boggling movements in financial markets. Who would have thought that oil would rise to nearly $150 per barrel and then fall to $54, all in the space of four months? My fear is that we may soon find ourselves marveling over oil prices that are over $1,000, $10,000, or $100,000 per barrel. Hyperinflation is what may cause oil and all other commodities to rise so dramatically in price.

The Federal Reserve traditionally has been very diligent about controlling inflation. In the past, the Fed would risk dragging the economy into a recession to control inflation. The reason for the diligence is the understanding that when inflation gets out of control, little can be done to stop it. Prices rise and people increase what they charge for goods and services in order to keep up with the dwindling value of currency. Of course, this creates a vicious cycle.

Over the past several decades, the amount of money injected into the economy has been increasing at relatively steady rate. In reaction to the financial crisis, the Fed is dumping record amounts of money into the momentary system. It is a very big unknown what will happen with the money supply increase by the scale we see today.

The amount of red ink flowing out of Washington is truly staggering. According to CreditSights, a research firm in New York and London, the U.S. government has already put itself on the hook for some $5 trillion, so far, in an attempt to arrest a collapse of the financial system. The Fed has been guaranteeing trillions of short and long-term bank debt.

This mountain of financial obligation is only from September and October. One can only wonder how large our monetary commitment will be if the crisis continues for a few more months. It’s like the $10 million bridge that ends up costing $100 million. The government has a habit of low-balling the cost of everything. I would think the system would collapse before we reached a $10 trillion tab.

The insurance giant AIG is a perfect example of how this problem is mushrooming. In September, the Fed first provided AIG with an $85 billion loan, then in October it authorized another $37.8 billion. And just a few days ago, the company got an expanded $152.5 billion bailout from the government. The insurer also got access to as much as $20.9 billion from the commercial paper program.

The handing out of billions of dollars to financial firms has other business and labor groups lining up for their share of the bailout package. The auto makers Ford, GM, and Chrysler have warned that they could face bankruptcy before year's end without new government help. The mayors of three major cities have also asked the federal government for assistance.

The Federal Reserve has done its best to hide this huge increase in money supply. The Fed recently said it would no longer publish figures for M3, which had been the best description of how quickly the Fed is creating new money and credit.

The folks in Washington have yet to figure out a way to prevent the shortfall from eventually showing up on our federal budget. The Treasury Department said last week it began the new budget year with a record deficit of $237.2 billion. This is over four times larger than the October 2007 deficit of $56.8 billion.

One can only hope that the economy quickly turns around and this orgy of deficit spending slows. If it continues, we’re eventually going to reach a breaking point where the value of the dollar plunges.

A lot people have asked me what we should do if the U.S. goes into a period of hyperinflation. There is the option of buying commodities like gold and oil. One can acquire them through indexes that trade just like stocks. Two examples are GLD for gold and OIL for oil.

I really think that little action would be required on the part of Christians. There is so much activity related to prophecy, an economic meltdown would cause me to be more concerned about the rapture’s nearness than any monetary fallout. My gut feeling tells me that we as the Church are not going to witness such an obvious warning sign.

Because the day of our Lord’s return is described as being relatively calm, I would not be surprised if men managed to put one Band-Aid after another on this financial mess. Of course, when the rapture finally occurs, there will be nothing to stop total calamity.

"But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be" (Mat 24:37-39).

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G20 Framework For Global Economy Written Over A Year Ago By US And EU Economic Merger Agreement

By Bill Wilson

Headlines across the country tried to assure Americans that the November 15th G20 Summit meeting was not an attempt at global governance, but usually if the spin doctors are working overtime to convince people what something is not, then there must be indicators that lead to a different conclusion. Global governance surely was not the immediate result of the G20 Summit of world leaders trying to right a global economy in tempestuous seas. The groundwork for a world economic order, however, was forged by a November 2007 economic merger agreement between the US and the European Union, and the world's most powerful economic nations are well on their way to establishing an economic new world order.

Merging economies into global unity takes time. And the economic crisis worldwide caused by the artificial run up in oil prices, bad decisions by banks and crooked politicians was just the shot in the arm needed by the one world order crowd to accelerate their plans. In April 2007, President Bush signed an agreement to create the Transatlantic Economic Council. The expressed purpose of the council is to integrate the economies of the United States and the European Union. The TEC provided the example and the framework for much of what was discussed at the G20 Summit with regard to coordinating regulations, transparency, and ensuring secure trade.

Sensing a backlash by the American people leading up to the G20 Summit, President Bush began stressing that he still is a capitalist and that democracy and capitalism would be the underpinnings of the discussions at the summit. However, the leaders of Great Britain, France, and the European Union said they were eager to use the momentum created by the US Congress and the Bush Administration providing for government ownership of banks and mortgages to create a "global financial system" and a "new world." Bush even framed the summit when he said, "Once we made the decision that there is a role for the federal government to move to stabilize the markets, we want to make sure that all of us move in the best coordinated way as possible."

Bottom line is that the summit created the framework for a coordinated global economy. Not a lot of details have been reported to what leaders actually agreed. But rest assured that the action items that came from this summit were in the works for more than a year, as the US and Europe provide some 70 percent of the worldwide economic capital. And their agreement to merge economies was already in place. The G20 meeting results mirrored the Transatlantic Economic Council's progress on regulations, transparency, financial market reform and tax-funded capitalization. No matter how they apply the lipstick, this pig is in the one world order pen. Jesus said in Matthew 24:4, "Take heed that no man deceive you."

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Addressing Fears About Coming Years

By Terry James

While much of the rest of the world heaps praise on the American electorate for putting Barak Obama into the most powerful political position on the planet, the United States seems politically split nearly right down the middle. This, though the media almost totally ignores the fact of the split, choosing to try to make us believe it is an almost total majority that is ebullient over the prospects for a new, exciting reincarnation of the Camelot-like years of the John F. Kennedy administration.

Gun sales are up 70 percent from before it became almost certain the way the presidential election would go November 4. Anxiety at every level is as thick as Smoky Mountain fog in these post-election days. My email verifies that there is visceral fear among many Christians, as well as the American public at large.

There is good reason for the angst. However, the emails I’m receiving are increasingly trending toward the “Christians are going to be a part of the very wrath of God because of the election result” model. It is a model to which Rapture Ready does not hold, not because America’s Christians are somehow automatically exempt from bad times, but because God’s prophetic Word plainly teaches that no child of God living during the Age of Grace (Church Age) will ever taste the wrath of their Heavenly Father: “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Thess. 5:9). Jesus himself instructed that Church Age believers won’t taste God’s judgment and wrath. The Lord said, however, something quite interesting: “And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Lk. 21:28).

Jesus had just given the Olivet Discourse, during which He described at considerable length the things that would be taking place during the tribulation–the last seven years of history immediately preceding His Second Advent (Rev. 19:11). He said believers would see those horrendous things “begin” to take place.

That’s what Rapture Ready and other prophecy ministries of the Pre-Trib view have been pointing out for some time. We try to alert believers to the coming apocalyptic storm. We aren’t in that storm, but, we can certainly see it approaching. Jesus said that at such time we are to “look up, and lift up our heads, because our redemption draweth nigh.” The rapture will break in on an unsuspecting world of rebellious earth-dwellers like a “thief in the night.”

Certainly we are seeing in this present hour many indicators that we are in that time when we should be “looking up.” But, it seems, so many of our emails are saying we should be “looking out” for the development of global depression and dictatorships. The fearful emails instruct that Christians are expected–the notes imply—to endure, to prove our super-duper saintliness. I’ve excerpted part of a dark, ominous email that constitutes a warning that is in tone as if the writer is rendering prophecy straight from a vision given by the Lord.

The emailer disagreed with a previous Nearing Midnight commentary of mine, in which I said I believed there might yet return a degree of peace and prosperity as part of a move by Satan to delude many. The writer is sincere, and my intention is not to make light of his prophecy-like predictions. I simply want to use his words to frame the kind of fears that are bubbling to the surface of discourse while people look at the change of presidential administration.

The writer first expresses, as if it is as good as a done deal, that the Obama administration plans a national security force made up of draftees who will begin making slaves of U.S. citizens. This plan, according to some who have studied the idea of a "civilian national security force" mentioned by Barak Obama in July 2008, is the brainchild of Obama and his soon-to-be chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel.

Such a force, completely separate from the military, which is substantially limited in interacting with American civilian populations in matters of law enforcement by The Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act, would indeed be troubling. Adolf Hitler used a national police force to subdue and rule over Germany’s civilian population.

I in no way say we should let down our guard. Any moves in that direction certainly warrant watchfulness. It is, however, the conspiracy tone of the email--the tone that reflects so much of the sort I’ve received lately--that I sense needs addressing. The fears go beyond the bounds of Bible prophecy, especially for God’s people, who should be looking up for the blessed hope, Jesus Christ--not looking out for Antichrist to enslave them in this pre-wrath era of the Age of Grace.

The emailer then says, "You're going to see a depression here, while China and many other countries prosper after the brief slowdown resulting from our collapse. With the collapse of the dollar, these evil people (like Rockefeller and Rothschild) will buy many companies and assets on the cheap but will then concoct a war that they can finance through that corrupt instrument we call the federal reserve and other central banks. Their companies will provide oil and supplies for the war that we fight and we pay for as slaves, as we've done for years… These people are worshipers of Lucifer and have been behind food shortages and genetically modified vegetables among other things…”.

Many facts in the email writer’s words are fuel for the fear we see developing. But, while it is prudent to be aware of the gathering prophetic storm, it is wise to look to Bible prophecy--not to the soul-depressing news that surrounds us--as the final Word in considering things to come.

Again, we look to what God has given us, I believe, for this very generation: “For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with him. Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do” (1 Thess. 5: 9-11)

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