There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
A screenshot of a video on X (first posted on YouTube) shows Khaled Mashal, the former leader and founding member of Hamas, who allegedly called on Muslims earlier this week to unleash a ‘Day of Rage’ on Friday.
X user “Brother Rachid,” a former Muslim, now a follower of Christ, has been the first to share the contents of Mashal’s speech. He outlined the key points:
To show anger, especially next Friday, in Muslim countries and Also among Muslim diaspora around the world; he called it “the Friday of Al-Aqsa flood”, he said this will send a message of rage to Zionists and to Americ
He asked for financial help from all Muslims around the world; to help with their money, he called it “Financial Jihad”. He asked Muslims to give to the fighters of Gaza in order to compensate them for the destruction
He asked political pressure, from Muslim leaders and Muslim nations, to stop Israel’s military invasion of Gaza
The most important thing: He asked all Muslims around the world to carry Jihad by their souls; to fight and be martyrs for Al-Aqsa. He wants Muslims to fight against the Jews, starting with Muslims who live in the countries surrounding Israel: Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt (but also other countries), to go to the borders and try to enter, each by his own means. He said: This is the time for Jihad to be applied on the ground rather than just in theory. He asked the Mujahedeen to go in long caravans to spell their blood on the land of Palestine.
The ‘final words’ of Mashal’s speech included, “Funds are important but today we are asking for your blood and souls [to be sacrificed for Palestine,” according to Brother Rachid.
Khalid Mashal the leader and founding member of Hamas gave a speech today asking Muslims all around the world to do the following:⁰⁰1. To show anger, especially next Friday, in Muslim countries and Also among Muslim diaspora around the world; he called it “the Friday of Al-Aqsa… pic.twitter.com/koJ42DRFMy
In a separate post, Brother Rachid provided his analysis based on Mashal’s speech:
Predict possible terrorist attacks next Friday (or even before), in European countries and the U.S. against Jewish targets, and also American targets
I predict protests, in Muslim countries and in western countries, led by Islamists showing rage by acts of violence and destruction
I predict possible attacks against Americans and Jews in some of the Muslim countries
I predict no one will show up at the borders of Israel to carry Jihad
My own analysis based on Mashal’s speech:
1. I predict possible terrorist attacks next Friday (or even before), in European countries and the U.S. against Jewish targets, and also American targets
2. I predict protests, in Muslim countries and in western countries, led by…
The possibility that Khaled Mashal’s threat is real should concern Western countries.
Maybe the threat is real: New York City was placed on “high alert” Tuesday by New York Mayor Eric Adams, who urged citizens not to “underestimate” the threat from lone-wolf terrorists whom Hamas has radicalized.
The FBI has released this message…
Meanwhile, Illinois Republican Congresswoman Mary Miller told X users:
“Americans must remain vigilant and prepared to defend ourselves and our families since Joe Biden has opened our southern border and we have no idea who has crossed into our country.
“The Second Amendment is the great safeguard of liberty & security. Never give up your 2A rights.”
Americans must remain vigilant and prepared to defend ourselves and our families since Joe Biden has opened our southern border and we have no idea who has crossed into our country.
The Second Amendment is the great safeguard of liberty & security. Never give up your 2A rights. pic.twitter.com/xzjnkfTMrx
All of this comes as President Biden and Democrats have attempted to strip away the Second Amendment from law-abiding citizens while flooding the nation with millions of illegals from around the world.
Gun Owners of America noted earlier this week, “Politicians who push gun control should realize that their actions will only empower criminals and terrorists.”
You can thank our Founding Fathers we have the Second Amendment to protect ourselves now. https://t.co/EibtZ7wDnM
Former leader of the Palestinian organization Hamas, Khaled Mashal
Khaled Mashal, the former leader and founding member of Hamas, has called for a global Muslim uprising in support of Palestine. During a recent address on Youtube, Mashal emphasized the need for Muslims to sacrifice and carry Jihad, including the willingness to offer their blood and souls to advance the Palestinian cause.
Mashal has proclaimed the coming Friday the 13th as “the Friday of Al-Aqsa flood,” urging Muslims worldwide to display their anger not just in Muslim countries but also in diaspora communities around the world.
The name Al-Aqsa means “the farthest mosque” or “the farthest sanctuary.” The mosque is located within the Haram al-Sharif, also known as the Temple Mount, in Jerusalem, Israel.
This is nothing short of an undisguised call for international unrest. Given the volatility of the situation in Gaza and the broader Middle East, these words should not be taken lightly. The intention is to send a “message of rage” to Israel and the United States, but what might actually be unleashed is a wave of violence and discord that could engulf multiple nations.
The most harrowing part of Mashal’s speech was his direct appeal for Muslims to engage in Jihad by laying down their lives for the cause. While terrorism is nothing new, this clear and explicit call for people to become martyrs in a holy war against Israel is bone-chilling.
Even more terrifying is Mashal’s focus on Muslims residing in countries that border Israel: Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. He is effectively attempting to mobilize a massive, uncontrolled force right on Israel’s doorstep. The potential for an incendiary, uncontainable conflict here is both real and immediate.
A former Muslim, now a follower of Christ, Brother Rachid was the first to report on this chilling threat. Brother Rachid wrote on X (formerly Twitter):
Khaled Mashal the leader and founding member of Hamas gave a speech today asking Muslims all around the world to do the following:
1. To show anger, especially next Friday, in Muslim countries and Also among Muslim diaspora around the world; he called it “the Friday of Al-Aqsa flood”, he said this will send a message of rage to Zionists and to America
2. He asked for financial help from all Muslims around the world; to help with their money, he called it “Financial Jihad”. He asked Muslims to give to the fighters of Gaza in order to compensate them for the destruction
3.He asked political pressure, from Muslim leaders and Muslim nations, to stop Israel’s military invasion of Gaza
4.The most important thing: He asked all Muslims around the world to carry Jihad by their souls; to fight and be martyrs for Al-Aqsa. He wants Muslims to fight against the Jews, starting with Muslims who live in the countries surrounding Israel: Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt (but also other countries), to go to the borders and try to enter, each by his own means. He said: This is the time for Jihad to be applied on the ground rather than just in theory. He asked the Mujahedeen to go in long caravans to spell their blood on the land of Palestine.
These are his final words:
Funds are important but today we are asking for your blood and souls [to be sacrificed for Palestine]
Mashal’s open call for global jihad, financial backing, and political pressure makes it incredibly difficult to downplay the level of threat being posed here. This is not merely a leader rallying his immediate followers; this is an individual with considerable influence attempting to galvanize a global religious community into actions that could result in bloodshed and geopolitical upheaval of an unimaginable scale.
On the same day, the terrorist organization Hamas also released an alarming declaration, echoing Mashal’s statement. Singling out the forthcoming Friday, October 13, 2023, as a day of widespread mobilization for what they are dubbing the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operations.
The statement ominously calls on Palestinians residing in the West Bank and even within Israel’s borders to engage in large-scale demonstrations and to confront Israeli military personnel at every possible juncture.
“First: We declare next Friday, ‘The Friday of the Al-Aqsa Flood,’ as a day of general mobilization in our Arab and Islamic world and among the free people of the world. It is a day to rally support, offer aid, and participate actively. It is a day to expose the crimes of the occupation, isolate it, and foil all its aggressive schemes. It is a day to demonstrate our love for Palestine, Jerusalem, and Al-Aqsa. It is a day for sacrifice, heroism, and dedication, and to earn the honor of defending the first Qibla of Muslims, the third holiest mosque, and the ascension of the trusted Messenger.
“Second: We call upon our rebellious youth throughout the West Bank, in its cities, villages, and uprising camps, in the streets and neighborhoods of Jerusalem, and at the squares of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, to rise up, join massive demonstrations, and shake the ground beneath the feet of the Zionist invaders and their settler gangs. Engage with their soldiers and cowardly army in every place, affirming the unity of destiny and the path towards Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, liberating them from the defilement of the Zionist occupation.
“Third: Our people within the occupied territories of 1948, people of honor and courage, who have borne much to preserve their Palestinian-Arab identity. This day is your day to mobilize, assemble, and stand united in guarding the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque. Preserve it, its Islamic heritage, its divine message, and prevent settler gangs from desecrating it. Thwart the fascist occupation’s plans to divide it, Judaize it, and build their alleged temple. Unite with your people in Gaza and the West Bank.
“Fourth: We call upon the masses of our Arab and Islamic nation and our Palestinian people in all places, including refugee camps and the diaspora, to march towards the borders of our beloved Palestine in massive gatherings. On this day, we declare our solidarity with Palestine, Jerusalem, and Al-Aqsa. For those geographically distant, let them gather at the nearest point leading to Jerusalem.
“Fifth: We call upon the free people of the world to mobilize in solidarity with our Palestinian people and in support of their just cause and legitimate rights to freedom, independence, return, and self-determination.
The international community cannot afford to ignore this rallying cry. There must be a concerted, unified response to counter the radicalization and extremist ideology that Mashal and the Hamas are propagating.
Hamas issued a “Declaration of General Mobilization” Tuesday in what an expert warned was an “unambiguous call to arms” after Israel declared war following the Hamas’ terrorist incursion Saturday that killed more than 900 Israelis, including beheading babies.
“A call to our Palestinian people, the masses of the Arab and Islamic world, and free people worldwide,” the statement reads, as translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute. “We declare next Friday, ‘The Friday of the Al-Aqsa Flood,’ as a day of general mobilization in our Arab and Islamic world and among the free people of the world.”
The statement refers to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem near the Western Wall of the Second Jewish Temple, a site of regular tensions between Jews and Muslims. (Read the full statement below.)
“We call upon our rebellious youth throughout the West Bank, in its cities, villages, and uprising camps, in the streets and neighborhoods of Jerusalem, and at the squares of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, to rise up, join massive demonstrations, and shake the ground beneath the feet of the Zionist invaders and their settler gangs,” the statement adds. “Engage with their soldiers and cowardly army in every place, affirming the unity of destiny and the path towards Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, liberating them from the defilement of the Zionist occupation.”
Hamas urges “the masses of our Arab and Islamic nation and our Palestinian people in all places” to march toward “the borders of our beloved Palestine in massive gatherings.” It also urges “the free people of the world to mobilize in solidarity with our Palestinian people and in support of their just cause and legitimate rights to freedom, independence, return, and self-determination.”
Robert Greenway, director of the Center for National Defense at The Heritage Foundation, told The Daily Signal that the statement will result in bloodshed. (The Daily Signal is the news outlet of The Heritage Foundation.)
“It is an unambiguous global call to arms,” Greenway said. “It will be heeded. There will be blood.”
Earlier Tuesday, theIsrael Defense Forces reported having regained control over the border with the Gaza Strip, roughly 72 hours after Hamas terrorists blew through sections of the barrier and launched the invasion early Saturday morning, The Times of Israel reported.
Hamas militants attacked Israel on the last day of the Jewish festival of Sukkot, as well as the Sabbath day of rest and the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War. The terrorists slaughtered more than 1,200 Israelis, including about 250 at a music festival, and kidnapped more than 100. The State Department confirmed Wednesday that 22 Americans had died in the attack.
“This morning, on Shabbat and a holiday, Hamas invaded Israeli territory and murdered innocent citizens, including children and the elderly,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement posted on X (formerly Twitter) Saturday. “Hamas has started a brutal and evil war.”
“They didn’t go for military targets. They went for civilians. They went for grandmothers, children, babies,” Israel Defense Forces’ international spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said in a video message Sunday. “The numbers are unprecedented.”
“The style of attack is barbaric,” Hecht added. “In a way, this is our 9/11.”
Hamas militants shot civilians at bus stops, on roads, and in their cars, photos show, according to Israeli experts who spoke to the Times of Israel. Videos reportedly show Israeli civilians, including women and children, getting abducted and taken to Gaza. Two videos raise concerns of sexual assault or rape.
An Israel Defense Forces commander told journalists that soldiers found beheaded babies in the carnage of Hamas terrorists.
Israeli forces have launched airstrikes into Gaza, preparing for an assault to root out Hamas in response to the horrific terrorist incursion.
President Joe Biden has unequivocally stood with Israel in the attack’s aftermath, though critics have claimed that Biden’s negotiations with Iran—including a $6 billion prisoner swap—emboldened Tehran, which supports and finances Hamas.
Rabbi Tuly Weisz, an Orthodox Jewish rabbi who left Ohio for Israel and who founded the news outlet Israel365, told The Daily Signal that Hamas’ call to arms represented an act of desperation.
“They’re posturing,” Weisz wrote in a WhatsApp message Wednesday. “There won’t be Hamas by Friday.”
He said Hamas aims to mobilize people outside Gaza “because they’re getting destroyed.”
Yet Hamas’ reach extends far beyond Gaza. Protesters have expressed support for Palestine—and in some cases, clear support for the Hamas attacks—in cities across the West. Some chapters of the American group Black Lives Matter have expressed support for Hamas after the attacks.
Students for Justice in Palestine, a U.S. pro-Palestinian group that has reportedly harassed Jews on college campuses, has organized a national “day of resistance”for Thursday.
Even if no Hamas exists in Gaza on Friday, the terrorist group’s supporters worldwide may pose a threat on that day—especially inside Israel.
Khaled Mashal, a former leader and founding member of Hamas, delivered a speech broadcast on the Yemeni TV channel Ah Mahriah, apparently echoing the key points of the Hamas statement.
Rachid Hammami, a Moroccan former Muslim convert to Christianity, drew attention to Mashal’s speech on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
“Go out into places, squares, in the Arab and Islamic streets, and throughout the communities everywhere,” Mashal said, according to Hammami’s translation. “There is a call on Friday, the Friday of the Al-Aqsa flood. But we do it before Friday, after Friday, and on Friday.”
He called for financial support to Gaza and Hamas: “This is a jihad with money, just as [Hamas members] are fighting with their souls.”
“He asked political pressure, from Muslim leaders and Muslim nations, to stop Israel’s military invasion of Gaza,” Hammami wrote of Mashal’s remarks. “The most important thing: He asked all Muslims around the world to carry Jihad by their souls; to fight and be martyrs for Al-Aqsa. He wants Muslims to fight against the Jews, starting with Muslims who live in the countries surrounding Israel: Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt (but also other countries), to go to the borders and try to enter, each by his own means.”
Hammami told The Daily Signal that Mashal “used terminology we all know in Jihad. He used a very special term. It’s like a code.”
“We call ‘Al-Nnafir Al-A’M,’” the former Muslim said. “This is used in extreme cases where everybody should carry an arm and do what he can.”
Hammami predicted “possible terrorist attacks next Friday (or even before), in European countries and the U.S. against Jewish targets, and also American targets.” He also predicted “possible attacks against Americans and Jews in some of the Muslim countries.”
“I predict no one will show up at the borders of Israel to carry Jihad,” Hammami added.
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.
“Go forth, whether light or heavy, and strive with your wealth and your lives in the cause of Allah. That is better for you, if you only knew.”
A call to our Palestinian people, the masses of the Arab and Islamic world, and free people worldwide.
Declaration of General Mobilization
Next Friday: ‘Al-Aqsa Flood Friday’ in support of Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa, and the jihad-waging Gaza.
Palestine and its steadfast people, standing their ground, call upon you from the heart of the Al-Aqsa Flood battle. Answer the call, muster all your energies, and mobilize in numbers, both light and heavy, to support Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa, and the jihad-waging Gaza.
From Palestine, the land of Al-Isra and Al-Mi’raj, from the heart of Jerusalem and its surroundings, we extend this call to the living conscience within the hearts of the masses of our Arab and Islamic nation.
The Palestinian resistance, led by the Al-Qassam Brigades, stands at the forefront, illustrating the most magnificent images of heroism and sacrifice against the Zionist occupation. They defend the land, Jerusalem, and the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque. They protect the dignity of Palestinian women and defend our male and female prisoners on behalf of our entire nation.
From the fortress of resistance and pride in the Gaza Strip, from its steadfast people, men, women, children, and elders, who defy the occupation, and from its minarets, chambers, and mosques, which are subjected to the heinous aggression of the Zionist war machine, we send this call to the free sons and daughters of our Arab and Islamic nation across the world.
Given this historic achievement of our people and their courageous resistance, and to bolster the steadfastness of the Palestinian people in the face of the open aggression of the occupation, thwart its schemes and dreams of Judaizing Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, and achieve victory for the just cause of our Palestinian people and our struggle for the liberation of our land, prisoners, and sanctities, we, in the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), affirm the following:
First: We declare next Friday, ‘The Friday of the Al-Aqsa Flood,’ as a day of general mobilization in our Arab and Islamic world and among the free people of the world. It is a day to rally support, offer aid, and participate actively. It is a day to expose the crimes of the occupation, isolate it, and foil all its aggressive schemes. It is a day to demonstrate our love for Palestine, Jerusalem, and Al-Aqsa. It is a day for sacrifice, heroism, and dedication, and to earn the honor of defending the first Qibla of Muslims, the third holiest mosque, and the ascension of the trusted Messenger.
Second: We call upon our rebellious youth throughout the West Bank, in its cities, villages, and uprising camps, in the streets and neighborhoods of Jerusalem, and at the squares of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, to rise up, join massive demonstrations, and shake the ground beneath the feet of the Zionist invaders and their settler gangs. Engage with their soldiers and cowardly army in every place, affirming the unity of destiny and the path towards Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa, liberating them from the defilement of the Zionist occupation.
Third: Our people within the occupied territories of 1948, people of honor and courage, who have borne much to preserve their Palestinian-Arab identity. This day is your day to mobilize, assemble, and stand united in guarding the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque. Preserve it, its Islamic heritage, its divine message, and prevent settler gangs from desecrating it. Thwart the fascist occupation’s plans to divide it, Judaize it, and build their alleged temple. Unite with your people in Gaza and the West Bank.
Fourth: We call upon the masses of our Arab and Islamic nation and our Palestinian people in all places, including refugee camps and the diaspora, to march towards the borders of our beloved Palestine in massive gatherings. On this day, we declare our solidarity with Palestine, Jerusalem, and Al-Aqsa. For those geographically distant, let them gather at the nearest point leading to Jerusalem.
“Fifth: We call upon the free people of the world to mobilize in solidarity with our Palestinian people and in support of their just cause and legitimate rights to freedom, independence, return, and self-determination.
Oh, sons of our people, the masses of our Arab and Islamic nation, and all free individuals,
Here is Palestine calling out to you, and Al-Aqsa Mosque calling out to you. It awaits your response to fulfill the duty of brotherhood and dignity, to stand with our people and their resistance, and to honorably defend the blessed land of Palestine and protect the dignity of our nation in its Jerusalem and ascension.
“And Allah will surely support those who support Him. Indeed, Allah is Powerful and Exalted in Might.”
The crisis between Israel and the terrorist group Hamas based in the southern region of Israel called Gaza is now in its fifth day. News media includes startling reports of horrific atrocities by Hamas. The Israeli government and military are mobilizing for a strong and significant response. Innocent people and children on all sides are caught in the middle. Countries around the world are on heightened alert as more violence is feared. Blame is being randomly assigned.
How should Christians understand this conflict from a biblical perspective?
How can people be so cruel and brutal to each other?
Where can we find hope as we watch and pray and seek to help?
Dr. Mark Turman is the Executive Director of Denison Forum and Vice President of Denison Ministries. Among his many duties, Turman is most notably the host of The Denison Forum Podcast. He is also the chief strategist for DF Pastors, which equips pastors and church leaders to understand and transform today’s culture.
‘It only took 19 al-Qaida operatives to kill nearly 3,000 Americans on September 11’
Joe Biden’s “open border,” the result of his decision on taking office to trash the southern border security programs instituted by President Donald Trump, is the “gravest terrorist threat” to the United States, according to a senator.
Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said in a report at the Washington Examiner that there have been thousands of illegal aliens from “special interest” nations, those with ties to terrorist groups, arrested at that border since Biden took office.
Cotton said that means undoubtedly terrorists already have arrived in the U.S.
“It only took 19 al-Qaida operatives to kill nearly 3,000 Americans on September 11, 2001,” said Cotton, of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Criminal Justice and Counterterrorism. “Many, many times that number of known terrorists have surely crossed our southern border since Joe Biden took office. His open border is the gravest terrorist threat to the U.S. homeland.”
Fears over terror attacks have multiplied in recent days after the terrorists in Hamas launched a brutal, bloody and “depraved” attack on Israel. More than 1,000 people are dead, mostly innocent civilians, including more than a dozen Americans.
The report explained since fiscal 2023 started last October, U.S. Border Patrol agents on the southern U.S. border have caught 151 non-U.S. citizens who, after being processed, “were determined to be on the FBI’s terror watch list for being a terrorist or affiliated with someone who was.”
That’s the highest number documented by the Border Patrol ever.
And CBP records confirm that more than 10,000 illegal immigrants from special interest countries Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, and Syria had been arrested at the border between October 2021 and October 2023.
The Border Patrol said it analyzes fingerprints and facial scans as well as other factors to identify any illegal alien who may be on the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Data Set.
The report cited a difference between a “special interest alien” and a “known or suspected terrorist.”
The agency explains, “Generally, an SIA is a non-U.S. person who, based on an analysis of travel patterns, potentially poses a national security risk to the United States or its interests. Often such individuals or groups are employing travel patterns known or evaluated to possibly have a nexus to terrorism. … This does not mean that all SIAs are ‘terrorists,’ but rather that the travel and behavior of such individuals indicates a possible nexus to nefarious activity (including terrorism) and, at a minimum, provides indicators that necessitate heightened screening and further investigation.”
The House Judiciary Committee’s Republicans released a report that 1.7 million illegal aliens had been observed by Border Patrol entering the country without permission since Biden took office but were not tracked and arrested.
A separate report from Fox News noted the aliens have arrived from Afghanistan, Egypt, Iran, Syria, Uzbekistan, Turkey, Pakistan, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Mauritania.
And of course, those home countries do not include the hundreds of thousands who arrived, but are classified as “got-aways” for having escaped scrutiny.
The Department of Homeland Security newest threat assessment, from just weeks ago, said agents are seeing a growing number from the watch list, and warned, “terrorists and criminal actors may exploit the elevated flow and increasingly complex security environment to enter the United States.”
As soon as Israel sends troops into Gaza, a chain of events will begin which nobody is going to be able to control. I believe that one of those events will be Hezbollah entering the conflict from the north. As I discussed yesterday, there is no way that Hezbollah is just going to sit there and watch Hamas get systematically wiped out by the IDF. Hezbollah is already mobilizing their forces and making preparations to join the fight. But if that happens, Israel is going to hit back extremely hard. In fact, there are reports that Israel has already warned Hezbollah that if it enters the war the Israelis will “destroy Damascus”…
Ynet News :
“IDF will destroy Damascus, target Syrian President Assad if Hezbollah joins war; US warships will support Israel in war.” – Message relayed via France
Unfortunately, this threat has not caused Hezbollah to back down.
In fact, Fox News is reporting that the Israelis are now “actively fighting a secondary front along Israel’s northern border with Hezbollah in Lebanon”…
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus said Wednesday that the Israeli army shelled the Lebanese border town of Duhaira and the surrounding area where the missile attack came from. He also said Israel was actively fighting a secondary front along Israel’s northern border with Hezbollah in Lebanon, in addition to the counteroffensive the IDF is launching in the Gaza Strip.
“We have deployed tens of thousands of additional units along the northern border,” Conricus said, including infantry, special forces, armored forces, artillery, air forces, and “additional assets including intelligence and logistics.”
Hezbollah has not formally entered the war yet.
But I think that will likely happen very quickly once Israel invades Gaza.
So could Israel actually turn Damascus into a pile or rubble?
Well, just consider what the IDF is already doing to Gaza.
We are being told that Gaza was hit by an astounding 250 airstrikes in a single hour…
Pictures show neighbourhoods in Gaza almost destroyed after Israel launched 250 airstrikes in just one hour.
It comes after an Israeli defense official promise the strip will become a ‘tent city’ with every building to be demolished.
The IDF is not messing around.
One Israeli military official admitted that they are attacking “on an unprecedented scale”, and nobody can really argue with that fact…
Brig. Gen. Omer Tishler, the Israel Air Force’s chief of staff, says fighter jets are striking the Gaza Strip on an “unprecedented scale.”
“We are attacking the Gaza Strip on an unprecedented scale, because what happened here is something that has never happened before. There is an enemy here firing rockets, raiding a civilian population,” Tishler says in a call with reporters.
“We are never going back to that,” he says.
So far, a whopping 2,687 targets inside Gaza have been hit…
The Israel Defense Forces has carried out strikes against 2,687 targets across the Gaza Strip since Saturday, according to fresh military data.
According to the data, 1,329 of the targets are multi-story buildings containing Hamas assets, including war rooms where the terror group manages the fighting against Israel.
One of those targets was the Islamic University of Gaza.
We are being told that it was a “central training center”, and now it has been completely destroyed…
The Israel Defense Forces says it has bombed the Islamic University of Gaza, “which serves as a central training center for Hamas engineers.”
The military says fighter jets targeted the campus, located in Gaza City.
According to the IDF, the university was “an important center of political and military power” for Hamas and a “training institution for the development and production of weapons.”
Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defense minister, said ‘all restraints on fighters have been released’ and promised an intensification of fighting.
‘Hamas wanted a change and it will get one. What was in Gaza will no longer be,’ he said.
‘We started the offensive from the air, later on we will also come from the ground. We’ve been controlling the area since Day Two and we are on the offensive. It will only intensify.
‘Whoever comes to decapitate, murder women, Holocaust survivors — we will eliminate him at the height of our power and without compromise.’
If the IDF were to apply the same treatment to Damascus, it would draw Syria into the war.
Once Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria have all entered the war, it is probably just a matter of time before Iran joins the conflict too.
And once Iran enters the war, there is no telling how far things could escalate.
“Jericho Missile! Jericho Missile! Strategic alert. before considering the introduction of forces. Doomsday weapon! This is my opinion. May God preserve all our strength,” Gotliv wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday, according to a translation.
Another post says: “I urge you to do everything and use Doomsday weapons fearlessly against our enemies,” adding that Israel “must use everything in its arsenal.”
On Tuesday, she continued with her calls of urgency.
“Only an explosion that shakes the Middle East will restore this country’s dignity, strength and security!” Gotliv posted. “It’s time to kiss doomsday. Shooting powerful missiles without limit. Not flattening a neighbourhood. Crushing and flattening Gaza. … without mercy! without mercy!”
Everyone knows that Israel has nukes, and let us hope that they will not be used any time soon.
But we should all be able to understand why she is so furious.
There is evidence in Kibbutz Be’eri that children were slain in front of their parents, Maj. Doron Spielman says. Knives were found left in some of the children.
Bodies are still being taken out of the kibbutz, which Spielman says will be remembered as a symbol of Hamas’s massacre, like Auschwitz is the symbol of the Holocaust.
Some 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered by the terror group, including over 100 at Be’eri alone.
When Hamas decided to rape women, murder children and kidnap the elderly, they awakened the full fury of the Jewish people.
And when Israel sends troops into Gaza, the Great Middle East War will be unleashed.
There is going to be so much death and destruction in the days ahead, and there will be many more cities that will be transformed into piles of rubble before this is all over.
Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.
About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com. In addition to my new book I have written six other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned) When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends. Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible. I have also started a brand new Substack newsletter, and I encourage you to subscribe so that you won’t miss any of my articles. I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help. These are such troubled times, and people need hope. John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.
We are on the precipice of a major regional war in the Middle East, and the U.S. military is going to be involved. Of course if this war was just limited to a fight between Israel and Hamas, there would be no need for the U.S. military to intervene, because the IDF can handle Hamas quite easily. But Hezbollah is another matter entirely. Hezbollah possesses an extremely powerful military, and they have an arsenal of approximately 130,000 missiles ready to be fired at Israel. If Hezbollah enters the war and starts firing thousands upon thousands of missiles at Israel, the United States will take action.
Unfortunately, we are already dangerously close to that point. Hezbollah has not formally entered the war yet, but clashes along Israel’s northern border have been happening for four consecutive days…
Cross-border violence between Lebanon and Israel has escalated into a fourth day, pushing many Lebanese in southern towns to leave as Hezbollah and the Israeli military continue to trade fire.
Hezbollah said it fired precision missiles on an Israeli position across from the Lebanese town of Dharya on Wednesday, drawing retaliatory Israeli shelling that has left a number of houses damaged.
Once Israel launches a ground operation inside Gaza, I believe that Hezbollah will formally enter the war shortly thereafter.
But it appears that Hezbollah is not just gearing up to fight Israel. In fact, they have issued a statement declaring the U.S. to be a “full partner” in the conflict with Hamas…
Hezbollah issues a statement saying the United States is a ‘full partner’ of Israeli ‘aggression’ on the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah also says that it holds the United States fully responsible for the airstrikes that are killing civilians in Gaza.
The leader of a prominent Iranian-backed militia in Iraq threatens to attack American bases in retaliation if the United States intervenes in the war between Hamas and Israel in Gaza.
“Our missiles, drones, and special forces are ready to direct qualitative strikes at the American enemy in its bases and disrupt its interests if it intervenes in this battle,” Ahmad “Abu Hussein” al-Hamidawi, head of the Kataib Hezbollah militia, says in a statement. He also threatened to launch missiles at Israeli targets.
Of course the U.S. has been delivering some very strong warnings to Hezbollah as well…
The United States and Allied Countries through Back-Channels have reportedly been issuing Direct Warnings to Hezbollah against them Escalating and possibly Joining the Israel-Hamas War; however so far Senior Biden Administration Officials do not believe that Hezbollah is planning to Join the War, but that could always change.
I am sure that the Biden administration is desperately hoping that Hezbollah stays on the sidelines, but they are also preparing for the worst.
US National Security Council Coordinator John Kirby confirmed that the United States will be sending the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier to the Eastern Mediterranean, after it was already announced that the USS Gerald R. Ford would be deployed as part of “support” operations related to the Israel-Gaza conflict.
However, Kirby said that the Eisenhower will not be directly joining or escorting. Instead, the carrier will be in the region for availability if called upon. While in a press briefing Kirby tried to downplay the dual carrier deployment as somewhat routine or expected, they will certainly be on standby to potentially intervene if all hell continues breaking loose in the Middle East.
Hopefully those carriers will be smart and will stay a long way from shore.
Because Hezbollah possesses missiles that are capable of sinking a carrier.
Needless to say, images of a sinking carrier would cause great fury here in the United States.
The U.S. is also deploying special forces to the region in case they are needed to locate American hostages…
The United States is readying its special forces to help Israel locate American hostages, as waves of Israeli Defense Force reservists arrived at JFK airport in New York to join the fight against Hamas.
Two senior U.S. military officials told The Messenger that ‘door kickers’ have been put on alert in a nearby European country, ready to assist Israel if necessary in their battle against Hamas. The Israeli death toll rose to 1,200 on Tuesday.
This is just the beginning.
As this war escalates, more U.S. forces will inevitably be deployed.
Sadly, there can never be lasting peace with these Islamic terrorists. Franklin Graham recently shared a video of a prominent Hamas leader declaring what their real long-term plan is…
On social media, Franklin cited a video of Hamas’ Mahmoud al-Zahar, and wrote, “We just saw Hamas brutally murder 900+ Israelis, most all civilians. If you want to know what else they’re after, a Hamas commander made it clear. He said they want to kill every Jew and every Christian – and take control of the ‘entire 510 million sq. kilometers of Planet Earth.’ If you think what is happening in Israel is limited to Israel, think again.”
They will never stop until they rule the entire world.
There is no negotiating with people like that.
On Friday, there is supposed to be a “global Day of Rage” for those that support Hamas…
Khaled Mashal, a leader and founding member of the Islamic terror group Hamas, has called for a global Day of Rage this Friday, saying “this is the time for Jihad.”
Hamas, an Islamic political and military organization that governs the Gaza Strip, carried out a brutal, highly coordinated terror attack on Israel over the weekend, slaughtering more than 1,200 people—including fourteen Americans—and wounding more than 2,100, according to the latest reports. The Palestinian terrorists also took more than 130 civilians hostage and have threatened to execute them on live broadcasts.
Mashal reportedly gave a speech on Tuesday exhorting Muslim across the world to “show anger” and be “martyrs for Al-Aqsa” in what he called “the Friday of Al-Aqsa flood.” Hamas has dubbed their murderous rampage in Israel Saturday “operation Al-Aqsa Flood,” saying the assault was “in defense of the Aqsa Mosque,” the main congregational mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem.
Hopefully there will not be too much violence.
But I can’t say that I am too optimistic about that.
So many people are going to die, and that should deeply sadden all of us.
More Americans are likely to die too, because it is just a matter of time before the U.S. military becomes a direct part of this conflict.
Michael’s new book entitled “End Times” is now available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can check out his new Substack newsletter right here.
About the Author: My name is Michael and my brand new book entitled “End Times” is now available on Amazon.com. In addition to my new book I have written six other books that are available on Amazon.com including “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”. (#CommissionsEarned) When you purchase any of these books you help to support the work that I am doing, and one way that you can really help is by sending copies as gifts to family and friends. Time is short, and I need help getting these warnings into the hands of as many people as possible. I have also started a brand new Substack newsletter, and I encourage you to subscribe so that you won’t miss any of the latest updates. I have published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and the articles that I publish on those sites are republished on dozens of other prominent websites all over the globe. I always freely and happily allow others to republish my articles on their own websites, but I also ask that they include this “About the Author” section with each article. The material contained in this article is for general information purposes only, and readers should consult licensed professionals before making any legal, business, financial or health decisions. I encourage you to follow me on social media on Facebook and Twitter, and any way that you can share these articles with others is definitely a great help. These are such troubled times, and people need hope. John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” If you have not already done so, I strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.
Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is none else.Isaiah 45:22
This is a promise of promises. It lies at the foundation of our spiritual I life. Salvation comes through a look at Him who is “a just God and a Saviour.” How simple is the direction! “Look unto me.” How reasonable is the requirement! Surely the creature should look to the Creator. We have looked elsewhere long enough; it is time that we look alone to Him who invites our expectation and promises to give us His salvation.
Only a look! Will we not look at once? We are to bring nothing in ourselves but to look outward and upward to our Lord on His throne, whither He has gone up from the cross. A look requires no preparation, no violent effort: it needs neither wit nor wisdom, wealth nor strength. All that we need is in the Lord our God, and if we look to Him for everything, that everything shall be ours, and we shall be saved.
Come, far-off ones, look hither! Ye ends of the earth, turn your eyes this way! As from the furthest regions men may see the sun and enjoy his light, so you who lie in death’s borders at the very gates of hell may by a look receive the light of God, the life of heaven, the salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is God and therefore able to save.
These are words that almost every Christian has said at one time or another. But faith is like a muscle, which must be exercised in order to become strong; just wishing cannot make it happen.
Christians are to believe God, not only for salvation but for everything. Rather than a spiritual “plateau,” faith is actually a process that involves increasing degrees of trust throughout life. Little faith hopes that God will do what He says; strong faith knows that He will; and great faith believes that He has already done it.
Elijah was a man of great faith. He saw increased challenges as opportunities for God to do His work–and the prophet believed Him for the supernatural. So can you. The Lord may not do every miraculous thing you ask of Him, but He does some extraordinary work in and through each person who is obedient and willing to trust in Him.
You may be thinking, I am not good enough for the Father to use me. The Scriptures are filled with examples of weak and flawed people whom the Lord used to achieve His purposes. He is looking, not for perfection, but for individuals willing to believe Him. He not only works through people of faith; He transforms them.
Start by reading God’s Word to learn what He wants you to do. Each day’s situations and needs are opportunities to trust Him. Ask the Lord to bring to mind verses that apply to your circumstances. Trust Him and do what He says–your faith “muscles” will grow, and He will be glorified.
“Your words were found, and I ate them, And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart; For I am called by Your name, O Lord God of hosts..” Jeremiah 15:16
When I first became aware of these precious words through a Bible memory program, I devoured them immediately. As Matthew Henry says, “[I] received them entirely, conversed with them intimately; they were welcome to me, as food to one that is hungry; I entertained them, digested them. God’s Word truly was the joy and rejoicing of my heart. What could bring more joy than to know that ‘I am called by thy name, O LORD God of hosts.”
In looking at the context around this verse, however, I was almost shocked to see it from an entirely different perspective. Judah was in a bad way, having repeatedly turned her back on God and His prophet, Jeremiah. They were suffering a drought which should have been a warning to them to turn from their sin. Instead of heeding the warning, however, they listened to the smooth, ear tickling words of false prophets while persecuting and tormenting Jeremiah. Poor Jeremiah “sat alone.” (verse 17) and fretted about the people’s stubbornness and his own lack of success among them. I can almost hear him saying, “But Lord, after I have been so faithful to You, how can You allow them to treat me so harshly?” And yet, when he did turn again to God’s Word, he found the “joy and rejoicing” of his heart. God needed to correct some of his wrong thinking and expression before he would be fit to utter His “precious words.” again (verse 19).
How thankful we should be for God’s long suffering toward us and for the deep comfort and joy His Word brings, no matter what our situation may be. Warren Wiersbe has written: “but God encouraged him [Jeremiah] as he fed on the Word. God may not take away the pain in your heart, but He is there with His comfort.”
New Study: Big Jet Stream Waves Have Doubled Since The 1960s… A new study has joined the growing mountain of evidence linking atmospheric shifts to prolonged spells of extreme winter conditions, particularly in North America and Europe, with these extreme patterns doubling since the 1960s. These patterns often synchronize across the two continents, continues the paper, causing significant disruptions.
Biden: Hamas stands for murdering Jews, not Palestinian dignity or self-determination Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris spoke on Tuesday afternoon with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. About an hour later, he addressed the nation for about 10 minutes, addressing the “unadulterated evil” of Hamas’s attack on Israel. “The people of Israel lived through one such moment this weekend,” Biden said. “The brutality of Hamas, the blood-thirstiness brings to mind the worst rampages of ISIS. This is terrorism, but sadly for the Jewish people, it’s not new.”
Chinese Container Ship Completes First Round Trip Voyage Across Arctic A Chinese container ship has completed a three-months round trip voyage from the Baltic Sea to China and back. It is the first step in establishing regular, albeit small-scale, container liner service utilizing Russia’s Northern Sea Route.
In 1st since Hamas attack, shelling from Syria lands in Israel Third front? Troops respond with artillery fire and mortar shells, targeting site from which first attack originated; Syrian war monitor claims shelling carried out by Hezbollah-affiliated Palestinian groups
Iran-backed terror groups threatening to join war against Israel, expert says According to Joe Truzman, a research expert on Palestinian armed groups in the Middle East, other terrorist organizations that are allegedly funded by Iran have threatened to join the war against Israel, presenting the possibility of increased danger for one of America’s closest allies.
Black Lives Matter groups post pro-Hamas terrorist messages Black Lives Matter Grassroots issued a statement in “solidarity with the Palestinian people” on Monday after Hamas terrorists attacked Israel, killing hundreds of civilians and wounding thousands more.
Six Ways From Sunday? Ex-CIA Director ‘Jokes’ About Assassinating US Senator The reactions to the ex-head of an agency that’s been known to ‘reach out and touch’ their enemies, suggesting Tuberville’s assassination, are about what one would expect: Them: The media and the deep state are not out to get Republicans, that’s a conspiracy theory CNN National Security Analyst And Former Head Of The CIA Michael Hayden: Tommy Tuberville should be assassinated pic.twitter.com/mig8jma8Lg
Syria Launches Missiles On Golan Heights As US Begins ‘Surging’ Defense Aid To Israel The Syrian Army has fired missiles toward the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights Tuesday evening (local), breaking reports indicate. The Israeli Defense Force have confirmed the attack: This came within an hour of President Biden in a speech confirming that the US will begin ‘surging’ defense aid to Israel. …Boeing accelerated delivery of 1,000 smart bombs to Israel as the country steps up retaliation against Hamas … Meanwhile, various countries have begun evacuation efforts of their citizens from Tel Aviv:
Nord Stream 2.0? Finland-Estonia Undersea Pipeline In Baltic “Has Been Deliberately Damaged” Months after famed journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Seymour Hersh revealed the US blew up the Russia-to-Germany natural gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea in September 2022 during a covert operation under the guise of the BALTOPS 22 NATO exercise, yet another undersea gas pipeline, this time, connecting Finland and Estonia has allegedly come under attack.
Hamas, a reincarnation of Nazis and all others targeting Jews must pay We must strike Gaza and if necessary, Lebanon and Iran, for this tragedy, in a manner that would resonate in their families for generations. October 2023 must be remembered by all nations of the world as the month when Jews finally declared, we will not allow you to take us on, ever again.
Hezbollah claims responsibility for anti-tank missile as northern front risks exploding The Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon took responsibility on Tuesday evening for firing anti-tank missiles across the border with Israel, raising fears of the war with Hamas broadening to the northern front, Arab media reported. An IDF combat helicopter responded by attacking a Hezbollah post.
IDF: 1,500 Hamas terrorists killed inside Israel Some 1,500 Palestinian terrorists have been killed in Israeli territory since Hamas launched its cross-border assault on Oct. 7, the Israel Defense Forces revealed on Tuesday morning. IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht added that security forces had “more or less” regained control over the Gaza border.
‘It’s a Massacre’: Babies Reportedly Slaughtered by Hamas Terrorists in Kibbutz Scenes of indescribable horror in which infants and babies were slaughtered — with some beheaded — in the kibbutz of Kfar Aza in southern Israel by Hamas terrorists were reported by international media on Tuesday morning. A reporter with i24 News said that one witness recalled seeing the mutilated bodies of babies. Up to 40 babies, she said, had been murdered by Hamas terrorists.
Ayatollah writes veiled threat in X post about “heads of Zionist regime” Ayatollah Khamenei wrote a veiled threat to Israel in a post on X, … on Tuesday afternoon. It read “Heads of the Zionist regime and their backers should know that the massacre and mass murder of the people of #Gaza will cause a larger calamity to come upon them.”
Heavy fire reported as Hamas terrorist infiltrates Israel’s South Heavy gunfire was reported near Sderot in southern Israel after the IDF located a Hamas terrorist who infiltrated into Israeli territory, Israeli media said Tuesday.The Palestinian terrorist reportedly entered Mefalsim before escaping to an open field toward Sderot.
This is alarming! Tree rings predict the most dangerous radiation storm to hit us soon In September 1859, astronomers Richard C. Carrington and Richard Hodgson observed the most intense geomagnetic storm ever recorded in human history. It is called the Carrington Event. However, the Carrington Event is nothing compared to what we are gonna tell you next. Many astronomers believed that in about every thousand years, a solar storm, nearly 12 times more intense, disastrous, and powerful than the Carrington Event takes place in the cosmos. It is referred to as the Miyake Event. “The leading theory is that they are huge solar flares.
Israeli survivors recount terror at music festival, where Hamas militants killed at least 260 Maya Alper was standing toward the back of the bar with teams of environmentally conscious volunteers, picking up trash and passing out free vodka shots to party-goers who reused their cups. Just after 6.a.m., as a light-blue dawn broke and the headliner D.J. took the stage, air raid sirens cut through the ethereal trap music. Rockets streaked overhead. Alper, 25, jumped into her car and raced to the main road. But at the intersection she encountered crowds of stricken festival attendees, shouting at drivers to turn around. Then, a noise. Firecrackers? Panicked men and women staggering down the road just in front of her fell to the ground in pools of blood. Gunshots. … at least 260 dead and a still undetermined number taken hostage.
When Hamas Decided To Kill And Abuse Women, Children And The Elderly, They Made Peace Impossible Hamas has crossed lines that can never be uncrossed, and they have nobody to blame but themselves for what is about to happen. Throughout human history, it has always been acceptable for soldiers to attack other soldiers. But when they launched their surprise attack against Israel, Hamas showed no restraint whatsoever.
Schools Are Normalizing Intrusive Surveillance …As the authors detail, among the technologies are surveillance cameras. These are often linked to software for facial recognition, access control, behavior analysis, and weapon detection. That is, cameras scan student faces and then algorithms identify them, allow or deny them entry based on that ID, decide if their activities are threatening, and determine if objects they carry may be dangerous or forbidden.
REPORT: New York City Hospitals and Medical Centers Are Being Overwhelmed by Illegal Immigrants The medical system in New York City is straining under the weight of the constant flow of illegals. Hospitals and medical centers are being overwhelmed by the sheer number of people seeking treatment and it’s not surprising. When you suddenly add tens of thousands more people than a system was designed for, this is what you get.
The Big Distraction: Global War Is Good For Joe Biden While all eyes have been drawn to what is happening now with the terrorist group Hamas attacking Israel, and Israel officially declaring war for the first time in 50 years, the “benefit” for the Biden regime is that all of those same eyes are not quite as focused on what is happening right here in America.
Was “Unfavourable” Deal Intentionally Designed to Aid Plan to go to War With Iran? An agreement negotiated between the Biden administration and Iran to secure the release of five American citizens in exchange for five Iranian prisoners and $6 billion was deemed “unfavourable” by Donald Trump. However, it looks as if the deal has benefitted Trump in more ways than one, he is using the barbaric attack to bolster potential votes in his election campaign and worse, the U.S. has been given reason to point the finger at Iran for the barbaric attack in Israel and therefore an excuse to go to war with them.
Are Revenues Evaporating As Globalists Wake Up To The Myth Of US Green Science? Electricity has real value, but the concept that the EPA invented a valuable electrical commodity known as “certified” energy efficiency is a total myth. The specific charade has played a critical role in the Global Warming myth for over three decades. This began with a US Dept of Energy program initiated by President George H. W. Bush, who created the ENERGY STAR program in 1992.
New report: The internet has never been less free and AI is making it worse Globally, internet freedom has never been lower, and the number of countries that have blocked websites for political, social, and religious speech has never been higher. Also, the number of countries that arrested people for online expression reached a record high, according to a report released last week by human rights advocacy group Freedom House.
“There is a rank due to the United States, among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.” —George Washington (1793)
On this day in Patriot history in 1986, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev began a nuclear arms summit in Reykjavik, Iceland. Reagan abruptly ended it two days later when Gorbachev demanded we dismantle the Strategic Defense Initiative. It wasn’t long before the Soviets came around, and then lost the Cold War altogether. —Mark Alexander
The attack on Israel by Hamas is merely another salvo in the Islamic holy war of eradication in the region.
Emmy Griffin
What is Hamas?
Well, for those who aren’t familiar with the intricate and twisted interplay of animosity in the Middle East, Hamas is an Iranian-backed jihadist terror group based in the Gaza Strip. This is important to understand because Iran is the primary instigator of unrest in the Middle East. Iran also explicitly backs the anti-Semitic stance that Israel and the Jews who inhabit it should be wiped off the map.
Hamas is made up of some Palestinians, the Arab people who also claim Israel as their ancestral land. It is important to note here that Jews have inhabited the land of Israel for millennia, well before Islamic Arabs like the Palestinians even existed in the region. It is also important to distinguish that Hamas does not represent all Palestinians. Hamas treats its people like human shields, and non-Hamas Palestinians live in squalid conditions. Hamas has occupied the Gaza Strip and “governed” over its people since 2007 and apparently had ample funds and resources to improve the lives of its people. Instead, it has committed to funding terrorism and the mass murder of the Israeli people.
Israel has a high-tech border wall, including fencing, radar and sensors, and the famed Iron Dome that protects it from missile strikes. Israel had relied heavily on these as the first line of defense against any enemy action. However, on Saturday, October 7, the wall was breached with the help of a massive cyberattack on the wall’s systems. The Israeli military was entirely unprepared to spring into action, and the bases closest to the invasion were short-staffed due to some of the troops being moved to the West Bank to help protect Israel from violence that had been happening there in recent days. Hamas also jammed Israel’s communications. It was a sophisticated attack.
Israel did not see this attack coming. It was a massive intelligence failure. How could this invasion happen?
It starts with the West, Israel included, underestimating its enemies. Hamas is made up of jihadists, Islamofascist fanatics who are highly motivated to eradicate all who oppose them and their holy war goals. As Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor involved in the case against the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, explains:
The Quran and hadiths (collections of the sayings and doings of Mohammed, Islam’s prophet), command jihadists to strike “terror” into the hearts of their enemies — to wage war ferociously and mercilessly. This includes regarding as their enemies all non-Muslims who decline to submit to the dominion of sharia. The distinction between combatants and noncombatants, so central to Western laws of warfare and human rights, is eviscerated in sharia. Those we regard as “civilians” the jihadist sees as loyalists of their non-Muslim enemies who pay taxes that stand up the armed forces arrayed against them. They are fair game for forcible attacks.
They don’t play by the West’s rules and see this battle against Israel (and the West more broadly) as a holy war that they must win. Negotiation is out of the question.
The specific attack on Saturday was chosen particularly because it was the Sabbath, and because it marked the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the Yom Kippur War. The Hamas jihadists want to strike terror in the hearts of their enemies.
Hamas has also been planning this attack for over a year. The jihadists have been biding their time using all their cunning to deceive Israel into believing that they were uninterested in a fight. Arguably, Israel had been lulled into a false sense of security. In the meantime, Hamas terrorists built mock Israeli villages to practice raids on. They didn’t tell certain of their leadership the attack plans for fear that Israeli intelligence might get wind. They also didn’t tell the soldiers what they were training for. It was a masterstroke, and the results were horrors and atrocities carried out on civilian targets, all of which is dictated by the jihadists’ religious beliefs. The Religion of Peace™, indeed.
Hamas’s actions are horrific and the organization should be broken and made powerless. Otherwise, it will do whatever it takes to win.
Unfortunately, Hamas is not the only threat in the region. Israel’s northern border shared with Lebanon is infested with another Iranian-backed terror group called Hezbollah. This group has targeted the U.S. in the past and has the same goals as Hamas. As numerous and vicious as Hamas is, Hezbollah is worse, and bigger. The hope and prayer is that it doesn’t also enter the fray.
Each day that passes is a day that Israel is strengthening its defenses. More than 300,000 reservists have answered the call to war and are preparing to defend their homeland. Hopefully Hezbollah has missed its opportunity and Israel can focus its justified wrath on the monstrous terrorists of Hamas who murdered, raped, and kidnapped elderly, men, women, and children.
The president’s 1,300-word speech yesterday was most notable for a single word that was missing: Iran.
Douglas Andrews
Once again, Joe Biden has lived down to our expectations.
Before the president finally took to the lectern at 2:24 ET yesterday afternoon — a full 84 minutes after we were told that he’d address the nation about the terrorist attacks on Israel, and a full two days after which he’d essentially disappeared from public view — we predicted that he’d give a perfectly appropriate speech for the moment.
After all, his speechwriters had more than three full days to absorb and process the horror, the barbarity, and the implications of the assault by the murderous Islamist cutthroats of Hamas.
Sure enough, Joe Biden began: “You know, there are moments in this life — and I mean this literally — when the pure, unadulterated evil is unleashed on this world. The people of Israel lived through one such moment this weekend. The bloody hands of the terrorist organization Hamas — a group whose stated purpose for being is to kill Jews. This was an act of sheer evil.”
Most of the people of Israel “lived through it.” More than 1,000 did not. But his point is well taken; there is evil in this world, and it is embodied by the dogs who beheaded babies on Saturday, who shot pregnant women in the stomach, who murdered the elderly in front of their grandchildren, who mowed down young concertgoers at a musical celebration of peace.
“It’s abhorrent,” Biden said. “The brutality of Hamas — this bloodthirstiness — brings to mind the worst — the worst rampages of ISIS. This is terrorism. But sadly, for the Jewish people, it’s not new. This attack has brought to the surface painful memories and the scars left by a millennia of anti-Semitism and genocide of the Jewish people.”
It does remind us of ISIS, but the president didn’t dwell on that depraved organization, nor what ultimately happened to it. He didn’t mention that his more serious and more capable predecessor in the White House made it a priority to destroy ISIS, and he employed the full and lethal power of the American military do so.
Donald Trump happened to ISIS. But what of Hamas? Here, Biden should’ve acknowledged the gravely misguided calls coming from his side about a cessation of the violence. And then he should’ve said, “The violence will cease when Israel decides that the violence should cease — when it has destroyed its mortal enemies, and not a moment sooner.”
This president should also have spent more time on the subject of anti-Semitism. He mentioned it just once, quoted above, in his entire speech. But the reason he didn’t dwell on it was obvious: because doing so would necessarily shed light on the anti-Semitism, the Jew hatred, within his own political party and on the Left more broadly. The president should have denounced, for example, the sickening demonstration in New York City, home to the largest population of Jews outside the Middle East. And he should’ve denounced the depravity at Harvard University, where an eye-popping 31 campus organizations affixed their names to a statement that held “the apartheid regime” of Israel “entirely responsible” for the violence.
But the president’s most palpable failure was his refusal to call out the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism, and the entity that everyone knows was behind Hamas’s bloody assault: Iran.
Biden spoke for 10 minutes. He spoke some 1,300 words. But not one of those words was “Iran.” This was a glaring and shocking omission, and it was where this appeaser of a president most lived down to our low expectations.
Said Washington Post columnist Mark Thiessen to Fox News: “I can’t believe we waited two days for that. … Let’s be clear: Hamas is a wholly owned subsidiary of Iran.”
Thiessen, a former George W. Bush speechwriter, then invoked Donald Trump, of whom he’s often been critical, noting that Trump put the Iranian regime on notice that if any of its terrorist proxies so much as harmed a hair on an American’s head anywhere in the world, he would hold the Iranian regime severely accountable, and he would not draw a distinction between the mullahs and their terrorist proxies. And then, on December 27, 2019, when an Iranian rocket attack killed a single American contractor at an airbase in Iraq, we responded by liquidating Qasem Suleimani, the leader of Iran’s Quds Force and the second-most powerful man in Iran.
That’s strong leadership. And that’s deterrence.
During a press conference after Biden’s remarks, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was asked about the $6 billion in ransom that his boss gifted to the Iranian regime on the 22nd anniversary of 9/11. All he could say was that none of that money had been spent. When he was pressed about refreezing that money, he replied: “Let me just reiterate what I said because it’s unequivocal: Not a dollar of that money has been spent, and I will leave it at that.”
It might’ve been unequivocal, but he completely avoided the question. Pressed further about Iranian involvement in the attack, Sullivan said, “We don’t have specific information that ties Iran to this attack.”
How about the terrorists themselves thanking Iran? Does that count as specific information? How about the following specific information conveyed by the Washington Post on Monday: “The Palestinian militants [sic; they’re jihadists] behind the surprise weekend attack on Israel,” reported the Post, “began planning the assault at least a year ago, with key support from Iranian allies who provided military training and logistical help as well as tens of millions of dollars for weapons.”
How about that? Does that count as specific information? Not to Joe Biden and the rest of his administration, it doesn’t.
Then there’s that little matter of the $6 billion we disgracefully gifted to Iran on 9/11 as ransom for some American hostages being held there. Asked about it yesterday, Biden administration spokesman John Kirby said: “It can be refrozen at any time. … So it’s all still sitting in a Qatari bank, and that is an option that’s still available to us.”
“An option that is still available to us”? What on God’s green earth is Joe Biden waiting for, another Iranian-inspired massacre?
Here, we might contrast the energy and rhetoric of our 80-year-old commander-in-chief with that of 73-year-old Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Granted, the two men are in entirely different situations, but the Israeli PM has been fully visible throughout, and his full-throated moral clarity has been striking.
He told the Israeli people what lay ahead, telling them that they’re in a fight “for our home, a war to ensure our existence — a war that we will win.” He also issued a pointed warning: “What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations.”
He continued: “We have always known who Hamas is. Now, the entire world knows who Hamas is, and we will defeat it just like the enlightened world defeated ISIS.”
“We all want results right here, right now, but it will take some time,” Netanyahu said, warning his people that “hard days are coming,” then adding, “But I promise you dear citizens: At the end of the war, all of our enemies will know it was a terrible mistake to attack Israel.”
“This vile enemy wanted war, and it will get war,” Netanyahu concluded, also telling Biden that this is no time for talking: “We have to go in,” he told the American president during a phone conversation. “We can’t negotiate now. … We need to restore deterrence.”
Deterrence is the key word here. Hamas must be made to regret its actions. It must be made to realize that the price it ultimately paid at the hands of the Israelis wasn’t worth it.
A commitment to deterrence, then, is what separates strong leaders from weak ones, fighters and protectors from appeasers, Trumps and Netanyahus from Bidens.
Hamas’s savagery, Tlaib’s distorted reality, Joe’s emails about Hunter’s business, and more.
Thomas Gallatin & Jordan Candler
Cross-Examination
Beheaded babies: Demonstrating the savagery of the Hamas jihadi terrorists who suddenly attacked Israel over the weekend, in the Israeli town of Kfar Aza near the border of Gaza, Hamas attacked an Israeli kibbutz, murdering families. Among the Israeli dead were 40 babies and young children, some of whom had been beheaded. As i24 News reporter Nicole Zedek described it: “Babies with their heads cut off, that’s what [the soldiers] said. Gunned down. Families gunned down, completely gunned down in their beds.” CNN reporter Nic Robertson said: “There were so many murdered members of this kibbutz. Men, women, children, hands bound, shot, executed, heads cut.” It’s utterly barbaric.
Tlaib’s distorted reality: Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), a Detroit native born of Palestinian immigrants, has a long history of making anti-Semitic remarks. She was questioned by a reporter regarding the beheading of babies by Hamas terrorists: “Do you condone what Hamas has done chopping off babies’ heads, burning children alive, raping women in the street?” Tlaib, who blames Israel for the deplorable state of the Gaza Strip and Palestinian suffering, refused to answer the reporter’s repeated questions. Her silence speaks volumes. Meanwhile, outside her congressional office, Tlaib has two incongruent flags hanging. One is the Palestinian flag, and the other is the rainbow “Pride” flag. Let’s just say that Arab Muslims don’t tend to view homosexuality with quite the same tolerance of the American Left. Regardless, if one cannot condemn the murdering of innocent civilians, including babies, then one’s claim of fighting for justice against a supposed oppressive state rings hollow.
Ex-Harvard president “sickened” by his former school: Hamas is a terrorist organization not only conducting murderous attacks against Israel but also terrorizing any Palestinians who would dare to stand against them. Yet thanks to an abysmal understanding of the decades-long conflict, many on the American Left have fallen for the Hamas narrative of the situation. This ignorance was on display at Harvard University, where more than 30 student groups hold Israel “entirely responsible” for Hamas’s mass murdering of innocent Israel civilians. These Harvard groups sent a letter titled “Joint Statement by Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups on the Situation in Palestine,” which condemned Israel and said “the apartheid regime is the only one to blame.” Former Harvard President Larry Summers said the letter “sickened” him, adding: “In nearly 50 years of @Harvard affiliation, I have never been as disillusioned and alienated as I am today. The silence from Harvard’s leadership, so far, coupled with a vocal and widely reported student groups’ statement blaming Israel solely, has allowed Harvard to appear at best neutral towards acts of terror against the Jewish state of Israel.”
The Some Human Rights Council: Speaking of expressing neutrality toward acts of terror, the UN’s Human Rights Council was only able to muster “a moment of silence for the loss of innocent lives in the occupied Palestinian territory and elsewhere.” Talk about moral equivalency. The UN wasn’t even willing to recognize the state of Israel, while regurgitating Hamas’s “occupation” messaging. In so doing, the UN has effectively condoned Hamas’s murderous attacks, while condemning Israel for responding to the gross injustice. Human rights, indeed.
Joe’s 20,000 emails about Hunter’s business: A Freedom of Information Act request revealed that while Joe Biden was vice president, nearly 20,000 emails were exchanged between his office and Hunter Biden’s investment firm Rosemont Seneca. This revelation, in addition to thousands of previously known emails, further exposes Joe Biden’s oft-repeated false claim that he never discussed business with his son. Republicans on the House Oversight Committee say that they have identified over $20 million in payments from foreign sources to the Bidens and their business partners. The Biden family effectively used several businesses as cutouts to funnel foreign money to family coffers.
Good news — NHL bans “pride” promotion: Last season, several National Hockey League (NHL) players refused to don “pride” warmup jerseys, citing their religious faith for refusing. Over the last several years, the vast majority of NHL teams have held “Pride Nights” wherein players put on speciality warmup jerseys with various rainbow color schemes. With an increasing number of players refusing to wear these “pride” warmup jerseys, it began generating unwanted headlines for the league. Well, NHL brass got wise and not only banned “pride”-themed jerseys but even rainbow-colored tape on players’ sticks. The reason for the change is that the issue has become distracting for the players and the sport itself. A memo from the NHL states, “Players shall not be put in the position of having to demonstrate (or where they may be appearing to demonstrate) personal support for any Special Initiatives.” In other words, hockey should be about hockey, nothing else. Well, and fist fights.
Headlines
Fourteen Americans killed in Hamas attacks, Biden says (Washington Examiner)
Black Lives Matter chapters express support for Hamas after terror attacks on Israel (Daily Wire)
Pro-Palestine student org calls for national “day of resistance” backing attacks on Israel (Daily Signal)
Jordan, Scalise battle to the wire for Speakership (The Hill)
Tuberville reports former CIA director Hayden to Capitol Police over tweet (The Hill)
George Santos charged with 10 new criminal counts in superseding indictment (The Hill)
Top two positions in women’s cycling tournament dominated by men (PJ Media)
Tim Ballard, who inspired “Sound of Freedom” movie, sued by five women alleging sexual assault (NBC News)
Number of illegal aliens who entered U.S. under Biden exceeds population of 22 states (Daily Signal)
Satire: White House claims $6 billion to Iran absolutely not related to the exactly $6 billion worth of rockets being fired into Israel (Babylon Bee)
Israel is indispensable. Its presence is a miracle, its strength a gift. Thank God for the State of Israel.
Ben Shapiro
I am a Jew.
Those have been the words of the Jewish people for three millennia.
Those were the words of the men, women and children of Masada.
Those were the words of the followers of Bar Kochba.
Those were the words of Jews in Granada in 1066 and the Rhineland in 1096 and Khmelnytsky from 1648-1657 and Kishinev in 1903, in Hebron in 1929.
Those were the words of Jews in Auschwitz and Treblinka.
Those were the words of Daniel Pearl.
Those are my words, too.
They are the words of my parents, my wife, my children.
Over the weekend, my people were attacked. Murdered. Mutilated. Our women raped. Our children kidnapped.
This has happened millions of times before, to millions of Jews. Jew-hatred exists because evil exists. Because there are people who have, for all of human history, hated the Jews and sought to strike at them while they are weak. Who have blamed the Jews for their own problems, who have crafted complex conspiracy theories about the supposed power of the Jews, who have sought to destroy the Jews.
From Pharoah to Haman. From Hitler to Hamas.
The words of the Nazis are indistinguishable from the words of the Hamas charter. The chain is unbroken. And for two millennia, since the destruction of the last Jewish dynasty in the holy land of Israel, those Jew-haters were ascendant.
No longer. That is the promise of the State of Israel.
Never again.
The Jews will not stand by and be murdered. They will not leave their Biblical homeland. They will not surrender. They will be strong and courageous, as Joshua said three thousand years ago.
Israel is indispensable. Its presence is a miracle, its strength a gift.
Thank God for the State of Israel.
There are those who say that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism. Tell that to the dead women and children in Sderot. Tell that to Hamas, who proclaim in their charter: “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
There are those who say that the Israeli-Arab conflict is a “cycle of violence.” Only the morally blind and obtuse could ever say such a thing.
Look at the videos. Look at the pictures.
That is what evil looks like.
LOOK.
Look, because this is what moral equivalence brings. Rape of women. Kidnapping of children. Murder of hundreds of innocents, including full families.
For decades, we’ve been told that to look evil in its face was somehow unsophisticated. That to pretend evil away was an act of intellectual virtue. That to cater to evil, to concede to evil, was the pathway toward a better world. It was all a damned lie.
LOOK.
There are those who proclaim the complexity of it all. Those people are fools. What’s worse, they are enablers of evil, fellow travelers, justifiers of the worst human rights violations on the planet, from targeting civilians to hiding behind them.
Do not turn away.
LOOK.
This was the worst week for Jews since the Holocaust.
Do not turn away.
LOOK.
Look it in the face. I know that you will. I know you will because I am a Jew, and because I am an American.
Americans love justice. Americans love good. Americans resonate to the book of Psalms, that says, “Hate evil, those who love the Lord.”
Hate evil. And fight it. Americans always have, and they always will.
Marxist cultists pose a far greater menace to our nation than Biden’s bogeyman of climate change.
Nate Jackson
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, destabilizing Europe with the threat of nuclear war. China is poised to strike Taiwan, threatening stability in the Pacific as well as vital American supply chains. And Hamas just launched a horrific Iranian-backed assault against Israel that is reverberating throughout the Middle East.
Every one of those things has happened on the sleepy watch of Joe Biden.
Biden has, of course, shown weakness generally (think Afghanistan) and specifically enabled regimes like Iran, leading to inevitable conflict. But he’s also preoccupied with fighting what he considers the real global threat: climate change.
Last year, Biden warned that a warming globe is “literally an existential threat to our nation and to the world.” In January, he asserted that climate change poses the “single-most existential threat to humanity we’ve ever faced, including nuclear weapons.” Just last month in Vietnam, Biden opined, “The only existential threat humanity faces, even more frightening than a nuclear war, is global warming going above 1.5 degrees in the next 20 — 10 years.”
John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, confirmed that Islamofascist terror and war in the Middle East haven’t changed Biden’s mind. Asked by Fox News’s Martha McCallum if Biden stands by his climate remarks, Kirby responded: “Absolutely he does. Climate change is an existential threat. It could, you know, it actually threatens and is capable of wiping out all human life on earth, uh, over time. I mean, that’s, I don’t know how much more existential you can get.”
Challenged again, Kirby doubled down: “The president believes wholeheartedly that climate change is an existential threat to all human life on the planet. That’s just science.”
Kirby’s other point, which he reiterated twice, is that focusing on climate “doesn’t mean that we walk away from our obligations, our national security interests in very dangerous parts of the world.”
Fair enough — a presidential administration absolutely should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. But that assumes a president who can actually just walk in the first place.
In all seriousness, the United States is facing a series of serious crises around the world. Perhaps none of them is existential for the U.S., but the only reason Team Biden views climate as existential is because they’re true-believing members of the climate cult. With religious fervor not entirely unlike that of Hamas, they are devoted to … staving off a single degree rise in global temperatures.
Could a 1.5-degree increase wipe out humanity? We’re not convinced. In many ways, in fact, warmer temperatures are a benefit to humanity. Far more people die cold-related deaths than heat-related ones.
In any case, the leftists’ fight just happens to empower them to exercise extensive control over every aspect of our lives in the name of saving our lives. The light bulbs, stoves, HVAC units, and cars we use are just a few examples of the things subject to the dogmatic power-grabbing of this administration. Big Tech’s censorship regime doesn’t allow much debate about the science, either — as if the science on climate is “settled,” or as if it therefore necessitated exactly the Left’s agenda and nothing else or less.
It’s a matter of “existential crisis,” you see, which makes extreme measures necessary. America’s adversaries around the world must be delighted to see Biden so unwilling to deter them because he’d rather tilt at windmills.
Biden and crew are making America far weaker both at home and on the world stage, and it’s by design. Therefore, we must conclude that the real existential threat we face as a nation is the destruction of American Liberty at the hands of the Marxist cultists typified by the Biden administration. That Marxist cult involves not only climate but race and gender as well.
Climate fighting could destroy our economy. Race-baiting is meant to undermine our culture. Gender-bending is intended to destroy the family and thus society itself.
To borrow Kirby’s phrase, we “don’t know how much more existential you can get.”
As Iran readies its rollout of the “Islamic bomb,” Biden takes a nap.
Mark Alexander
Ahead of World War II, the United States and Britain were besieged with isolationists and appeasers — those who did not want to confront the rise of evil in Europe and asserted they could avoid the inevitable.
In Europe, UK Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain promoted his “peace for our time” appeasement of Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ (NAZI) Party. That did not end well because appeasement never does.
It took the courage of Sir Winston Churchill to correct the bloody error of Chamberlain’s ways. Amid the darkest of days in human history and against seemingly insurmountable odds against the NAZIs, Churchill declared: “Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never — in nothing, great or small, large or petty — never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”
In the U.S., the appeaser was a wealthy leftist, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who believed the U.S. could remain neutral. That is until December 7, 1941, when Hitler’s ally Japan decimated our Pacific Fleet at the remote island of Hawaii. It took that “date which will live in infamy” for Roosevelt to finally discard his isolationist appeasement.
All of the above occurred because power does not tolerate a vacuum or a vacuous appeaser like Biden.
So what does this have to do with a warning from a prominent Jew about a rising nuclear threat?
On this date, October 11, 1939, longtime friend and adviser to FDR Alexander Sachs met with Roosevelt to elevate the president’s attention to a letter about the rising nuclear threat. It was written by one of history’s most prominent scientists, a German-born Jew named Albert Einstein, who had immigrated to the U.S. in 1933. A longtime pacifist, Einstein expressed his concern that the NAZIs would develop an atomic bomb first, and he laid out the scientific feasibility of atomic weapons, urging FDR to initiate the development of a U.S. atomic program.
A week later, Roosevelt responded to Einstein, notifying him he had set up a committee of civilian and military principals to study the threat. It marked the beginning of the Manhattan Project, the product of which would end the war with Japan.
Fast-forward: Biden’s appeasement of Iran, and its rapidly approaching rollout of its nuclear “Islamic bomb,” is an existential threat to the U.S. and our allies that Biden can no longer avoid. But in his remarks about the attack on Israel this week, he made no mention of Iran.
It does not take an Einstein to connect the dots on this threat.
The Alarming Impact of Single-Parent Households — Declining marriage and birthrates frequently dominate discussions about the future of society, but what is the impact of separated parents on the kids who grow up in these homes?
“DSA is steadfast in expressing our solidarity with Palestine. [Saturday’s] events are a direct result of Israel’s apartheid regime. … This was not unprovoked. For over 60 years, Palestinians have faced ethnic cleansing, torture, bombings, and housing demolitions.” —Democratic Socialists of America (“Six Members of Congress are part of this organization: Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Shri Thanedar (D-MI), Cori Bush (D-MO), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), and Greg Casar (D-TX). Do they stand by this disgusting statement?” —RNC)
“When a people have been subject to decades of apartheid and unimaginable violence, their resistance must not be condemned, but understood as a desperate act of self-defense. Black Lives Matter Grassroots stands in solidarity with our Palestinian family who are currently resisting [75] years of settler colonialism and apartheid. As Black people continue the fight to end militarism and mass incarceration in our own communities, let us understand the resistance in Palestine as an attempt to tear down the gates of the world’s largest open air prison. As a radical Black organization grounded in abolitionist ideals, we see clear parallels between Black and Palestinian people. We, too, understand what it means to be surveilled, dehumanized, property seized, families separated, our people criminalized and slaughtered with impunity, locked up in droves, and when we resist they call us terrorists. We, too, dream of a world where our people may live freely on decolonized land.” —Black Lives Matter Grassroots
“We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” —Joint Statement by Harvard Palestine Solidarity Groups on the Situation in Palestine
For the Record
“This attack, this massacre, this horrific assault on Israel, was funded by Iran. Hamas and Hezbollah are Iranian proxies. They work for Iran. They work under the direction of Iran. They are funded by Iran. … These attacks were planned, were signed off on by the Iranian government. And in the last two and a half years, Joe Biden and this White House are responsible for $50 billion flowing to Iran.” —Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX)
“We have only started striking Hamas. What we will do to our enemies in the coming days will reverberate with them for generations.” —Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
“Hamas turned Gaza into a launching pad for more attacks against Israel. This experience is proof that ‘land for peace’ does not work. Radical Islamic supremacists are not interested in peace with Israel or even a piece of Israel.” —Gary Bauer
“There is an ideological successor to the Nazis. Just as the primary aim of Nazism was to kill every Jew in Europe, the primary aim of tens of millions of radical Muslims is to kill the seven million Jews in Israel and eradicate the one Jewish state.” —Dennis Prager
“The Nazis tried to hide their war crimes. Hamas is livestreaming theirs.” —Bari Weiss
“I keep hearing that this situation is ‘complicated’ but it doesn’t seem very complicated to me. If you massacre civilians at a music festival, you are the bad guy. There is no world where good guys do something like that. Pretty simple equation, really.” —Matt Walsh
“The Palestinians must be counted among the worst nationalists the world has ever known: They have repeatedly rejected opportunities to obtain a nation-state because they hate Israel’s legitimate national aspirations more than they love their own.” —Rich Lowry
Dumb & Dumber
“Climate change is an existential threat. It actually threatens and is capable of wiping out all human life on earth over time. I mean, I don’t know how more existential you can get than that.” —National Security Council spokesman John Kirby
“I can’t say that [the Steele dossier has] been discredited, it just hasn’t been proven.” —former Washington Post editor Marty Baron
Political Futures
“Every trip to the supermarket and gas station reminds voters of what inflation has done, yet the pain doesn’t vanish just because professional economists say the forecast is brightening. … Americans gave Biden a loan, in effect, both in 2020 and 2022. Now the payments are coming due — and those interest rates are up. After three years, Bidenomics means Bidenflation to most voters.” —Daniel McCarthy
“America is living in an era of fragmentation, and something has gone terribly wrong in our society on our way to that era. We celebrate vulgarity, lies, and anger, and more often than not prop up the people who perpetuate it. How did this happen? … It’s hard to say, but the best foot forward should begin by no longer rewarding people with our votes who are more interested in entertaining on social media than in governing.” —Salena Zito
Upright
“We must fight tooth and nail to preserve this nation. Not for ourselves, but for future generations of Americans who are depending on us to get it right today.” —Senator Tim Scott (R-SC)
.Today we’re talking about worldviews. Beatles singer John Lenin’s most popular song, “Imagine,” dreamily called for a world without religion, heaven, or hell. This reflected the vision of 19th century philosopher Karl Marx, who promoted an atheistic worldview, promising utopia for the world through man-centered, communist ideas.
So, what would such a world really look like? Well, history has given us plenty of examples of where atheism leads. Societies that have openly rejected God such as China, Venezuela, and the former Soviet Union, have all been extremely repressive. Not only have these nations oppressed religion, but they have also curbed nearly every other freedom of their people. You see, when God is removed from society, the worst of sinful human nature moves right on in. As 2 Corinthians 3:17 says, it is only “where the Spirit of the Lord is, [that] there is liberty.”
The atheistic worldview naturally leads to nihilism, but we’ll discuss why that’s true at another time. For more information, go to http://www.hopetools.net. Stay bold!
Carl Kerby is the founder of Reasons for Hope and co-creator of the DeBunkedapologetic video series. His radio feature, Fast Facts, is heard weekly on VCY America, Saturdays at 9:25 AM Central.
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning Beautiful Christian Life LLC may get a commission if you decide to make a purchase through its links, at no cost to you.
Have you ever had a song from childhood waft through your mind, surprising you with its evocative power? I recently heard an evangelist describe the profound influence his grandmother had on his life by singing hymns to him as a child. As an adult, when he was struggling with depression and alcohol abuse, he would phone her to sing those songs. This brought the music buried in his heart to the surface to set him upright. God used musical memory to deliver him. Through the words of Christ’s love sung by his grandmother, the Lord brought this man back to love and serve him in evangelistic music ministry.
A Distant Memory: Recovering the Language of Beauty
This story has its corollary in what has happened with the language of beauty in the West. We might say that there is a song from our distant past that wafts through our minds, evoking memories of a time when our civilization had the vocabulary of beauty. Today, we have trouble describing why something is beautiful with clarity. We struggle to describe beauty in terms other than our own subjective experience. We might say, “I like that music or painting,” but we can’t explain why. The song of beauty has become muted by relativism in our time. We may even struggle to explain why the Lord is beautiful. But there are notes from the past that we can recover to express an understanding of beauty in a deeper way and, therefore, increase our knowledge and love for the beauty of God.
Recovering the language of beauty is important because God is the source of beauty, just as he is the source of goodness and truth. In a prior post, I described some of the various notes within the song of beauty. That article followed harmony, which has been considered a norm of beauty since classical antiquity. In this series of articles, I will explore other dimensions of beauty in order to trace their origins in God and how they are manifested in his world, his church, and in the Christian life. Our goal is to find encouragement to imitate the pattern of God’s beauty in everything we say, think, and do.
The Vocabulary of Beauty: Diversity and Unity
Not surprisingly, there is an integrity to the norms of beauty because they are grounded in the nature of God, who is perfect in his integrity. In addition to harmony, another norm of beauty that has been recognized since ancient times is diversity and unity. Although all the dimensions overlap, it is helpful to examine each one carefully.
Harmony connotes symmetry and a fitting together of parts. In music, harmony is achieved when there is a “just proportion of sound or consonance.” The word harmony conveys “concord or agreement” as when different parts come together to form a whole that has “a kind of symmetry of style and character” (Webster Dictionary). Harmony is pleasant to hear in music, to see in the arts, and to read in literature and poetry. It is also pleasant when people live in harmony. It is good when “peace and friendship” are cultivated among us: “Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity!” (Ps. 133:1).
Diversity and unity also convey concord and agreement. These words, however, communicate an important emphasis on how elements varying in degree or likeness are one. Attending closely to diversity and unity in the Godhead, in nature, and in the church helps us stand in awe and wonder before our Triune God and his work in creation and redemption.
Diversity and Unity in the Godhead: The Beauty of the Trinity
The foundation for our understanding of how diversity and unity are standards of beauty lies in the beauty of the Trinity. The Bible clearly teaches that God is one in three. Every time we recite the Apostles’ Creed, we proclaim our belief in the Triune God.
Confessional statements that summarize what the Bible teaches about the Trinity are helpful for meditating on diversity and unity in the Godhead.
“In the unity of the Godhead there be three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.” (Westminster Confession of Faith, II.3)
“…we believe in one God, who is one single essence, in whom there are three persons, really, truly, and eternally distinct according to their incommunicable properties—namely, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” (Belgic Confession, Article 8)
The Holy Spirit “is the third person of the Trinity—of one and the same essence, and majesty, and glory, with the Father and the Son. He is true and eternal God, as the Holy Scriptures teach us.” (Belgic Confession, Article 11)
Note the words used to describe God: unity; single essence; one substance; three persons, really, truly, and eternally distinct. This is the lexicon of beauty because it is the lexicon of God in three persons, blessed Trinity.
Diversity and Unity in Creation: The Beauty of God’s World
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.
This prayer is profoundly helpful in grounding our minds and hearts in Trinitarian reality. It is so comprehensive in terms of time, that we rise from our knees to see diversity and unity in all of creation and in the new creation.
Scripture teaches that from the beginning God reveals himself to all men through creation. “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1). As the original artist, the Creator, who is invisible, reveals himself through the visible medium of the created order (Romans 1). With beauty grounded in the nature and character of the Triune God, we would expect to observe the facets of beauty in the natural world he created.
My home state of Oregon is diverse in its landscapes, but there is also a unity of scale or proportion that can be described as grand. The Columbia River Gorge is a natural wonder, full of diversity of light and atmospheric mystery while maintaining an integrated whole. In exploring the Columbia Gorge, one experiences seemingly infinite variety across the seasons. Even hourly, the cloud and light patterns can shift dramatically to cast shadow and color on the dense forests and waterfalls framing the great Columbia River. This is just one example of how creation evidences God’s beauty in its diversity and its unity—its harmony of the parts into a glorious entity.
The diversity and unity of creation reflect God’s Triune glory. In the hymn of doxology to the glory of Jesus Christ as Creator and Redeemer found in Colossians 1:15-20, Paul speaks of Christ’s supremacy in creation.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:15-17)
Christ is preeminent over his diverse creation. He is also the one who sustains creation, unifying it by his power.
Diversity and Unity in the New Creation: The Beauty of the Church
Having defeated sin and death at the cross, Christ is creating a new humanity, of which he is the head. (Colossians 1:18.) The church is to be both diverse and united to reflect the beauty of the Trinity.
God’s original design for humanity shows diversity and unity. In Genesis we learn that God created humanity to bear his image, uniting both male and female in the dignity of divine image-bearing.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Gen. 1:27)
In redeeming mankind, Christ is building his church to be his beautiful bride (see Psalm 45). The new humanity in Christ is called to reflect the image of the Divine in all his beauty as God conforms us to the image of his Son.
In his book The Beautiful Community, Irwyn L. Ince Jr. applies how we are to imitate the Trinity in the church:
As his people, when we are mutually glorifying, speaking, and acting in ways that enhance the reputations of one another, striving to bring praise and honor to others, exhibiting a mutual deference, a willingness to serve one another, and submit to one another—especially across lines of difference—we are imaging God’s beauty. (p. 55)
Another work on the topic of diversity and unity in the church is an address entitled “Membership” by C.S. Lewis. In this essay, Lewis counters both individualism and collective uniformity as standards for church membership. Instead, he advances the Pauline doctrine of the church. The New Testament teaches that “members” mean organs, not items or units in a homogenous class (Weight of Glory and Other Essays, p. 110.) Lewis distinguishes the definition of our membership in the church from membership in a club, or a military institution, or any group that consists of “members of a class.” As members of a church, the apostle Paul uses the term in the sense of organs, “things essentially different from, and complementary to, one another…” Lewis advances the thesis that “the Christian is called not to individualism but to membership in the mystical body” (p. 110), adding that “those who are members of one another become as diverse as the hand and the ear” (p. 113).
Diversity and Unity: Imitating the Beauty of God
Often in church cultures, there is a pressure to be conformed to one another instead of to Christ. We may ask ourselves, “Is it okay to be different in my church, either by disposition or station in life? For example, can an introvert thrive in our fellowship just as much as an extrovert? Can a single person fit in just as well as married couples?” Pondering God’s design for diversity and unity is helpful in answering these common questions. The goal of church membership is not conformity to one another but instead to the perfect divine image-bearer, Jesus Christ. C.S. Lewis notes that, “A row of identically dressed and identically trained soldiers set side by side…are not members of anything in a Pauline sense” (p. 110.)
Perhaps in applying the norms of beauty to our Christian lives, we might seek to support fellow church members in their unique gifts and dispositions. By deferring to others and helping them to serve, we can imitate God. We can mortify pride while also being confident that God has done a marvelous work in making and redeeming each one of us (see Psalm 139). Having been freed by Christ from sin and punishment, we can experience freedom to be ourselves to Christ’s glory. There is no need to adopt the “preferred personality type,” or to try to fit into the group for the sake of acceptance.
Holy living according to biblical standards takes a variety of expressions based on where God has placed us. Each of us passes through a variety of stations in life over the course of our earthly pilgrimage. Service in each stage may look quite different based on where God has ordained that we serve in his world and in his church. Again, the goal is not uniformity to one another. The goal is to glorify Christ through loving obedience.
By recovering the language of beauty, we can work to bring back the music that awakens our sensibilities to the beauty of God, his world, and his church. In reflecting on diversity and unity in the Godhead, ask yourself, “How can I magnify the beauty of God in my life by this standard?” In so doing, you may begin to hear the music of the new creation.
Alone, a basketball player is just someone throwing balls at a hoop. A game requires other players and teamwork. Similarly, while faith is personal, it’s not meant to be practiced in isolation. Learn why when you listen to Truth For Life with Alistair Begg.
“How can I know what’s true?” It seems like a simple question. But with the advent of social media, “fake news,” and a multitude of competing voices, it can be hard to discern the truth. But there is good news. The Bible tells us that we can and must know what’s true.
Looking to the Scriptures, theologians have discerned two different ways we can know what’s true. First, we know what’s true through general revelation. This term refers to what God has revealed in His world and in us (Gen. 1:1, 28; Ps. 19:1–6; Ps. 139:13–14; Rom. 1:18–21). Interestingly, this conviction about general revelation led to the scientific revolution. Biblical Christianity provided a worldview that encouraged mankind to investigate the world around us with the firm assurance that because the God who made it and upheld it is true, we could discover what’s true.
But we do not learn what’s true just from investigating the world around us. We also learn the truth by using our minds. This is another aspect of general revelation. Since man is made in God’s image, we can, as one theologian put it, think His thoughts after Him. So, we use the laws of logic, mathematical laws, laws of physics, and so on to discover truth.
Second, we know what’s true through special revelation (Ps. 19:7–11; Isa. 8:20; John 17:17; 2 Tim. 3:16). This refers to the way in which God has revealed Himself in His Word. Of course, God spoke other words to His prophets and Apostles that were not recorded in His Word. But the special revelation He wanted us to have, He has preserved for us in the Bible.
The Bible is not a textbook of science, math, physics, or art. However, it gives us the only worldview that ultimately makes all those things possible. In other words, the Bible not only teaches us ultimate truths about man, the world, salvation, the future, and a host of other subjects that make up a worldview, it also gives us the very principles by which we can know what’s true.
One more caveat. We will never believe the Bible is true unless we are born again. As Paul put it, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them” (1 Cor. 2:14). A natural person is a person who has not believed in Jesus and therefore is not indwelt by His Spirit. Unless and until we believe in Jesus, we’ll never believe the Bible and all that it claims.
What are the alternatives to the ways of knowing what’s true outlined above? Let’s mention just two. First, some have posited that we can know the truth only by using our five senses. This is called empiricism. A glaring difficulty with this proposal is that we cannot investigate with our five senses the claim, “Only what the five senses disclose is true.” In other words, we cannot know empiricism is true using the method of empiricism.
Second, others have proposed that we know what’s true only by using our reason. This is called rationalism. The issue with this method is that it is viciously circular. That is, if we ask a rationalist how he knows rationalism is the best or only way to know what’s true, he’ll tell you to follow his reasoning. But that’s just the question at hand. How do we know that human reasoning is the best way to know what’s true?
Of course, this analysis is, by necessity, pretty limited. The takeaway is this. If we try to find what’s ultimately true without grounding our thinking in the Bible, our efforts are doomed to fail. Why? Because any attempt to know what’s ultimately true apart from the living and true God is, in the end, intellectual idolatry. And all idolatry will eventually lead to spiritual death.
Finally, Jesus wants us to know what’s true because He wants us to knowHim, the truth (John 14:6). Our Lord’s promise about truth still holds true. “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).
45 Thus says the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped, to subdue nations before him and to loose the belts of kings, to open doors before him that gates may not be closed: 2 “I will go before you and level the exalted places,1 I will break in pieces the doors of bronze and cut through the bars of iron, 3 I will give you the treasures of darkness and the hoards in secret places, that you may know that it is I, the LORD, the God of Israel, who call you by your name. 4 For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by your name, I name you, though you do not know me. 5 I am the LORD, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, 6 that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the LORD, and there is no other. 7 I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the LORD, who does all these things. 8 “Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down righteousness; let the earth open, that salvation and righteousness may bear fruit; let the earth cause them both to sprout; I the LORD have created it. 9 “Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’? 10 Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you begetting?’ or to a woman, ‘With what are you in labor?’” 11 Thus says the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and the one who formed him: “Ask me of things to come; will you command me concerning my children and the work of my hands?2 12 I made the earth and created man on it; it was my hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host. 13 I have stirred him up in righteousness, and I will make all his ways level; he shall build my city and set my exiles free, not for price or reward,” says the LORD of hosts.
The Lord, the Only Savior
14 Thus says the LORD: “The wealth of Egypt and the merchandise of Cush, and the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over to you and be yours; they shall follow you; they shall come over in chains and bow down to you. They will plead with you, saying: ‘Surely God is in you, and there is no other, no god besides him.’” 15 Truly, you are a God who hides himself, O God of Israel, the Savior. 16 All of them are put to shame and confounded; the makers of idols go in confusion together. 17 But Israel is saved by the LORD with everlasting salvation; you shall not be put to shame or confounded to all eternity. 18 For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited!): “I am the LORD, and there is no other. 19 I did not speak in secret, in a land of darkness; I did not say to the offspring of Jacob, ‘Seek me in vain.’3 I the LORD speak the truth; I declare what is right. 20 “Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, you survivors of the nations! They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols, and keep on praying to a god that cannot save. 21 Declare and present your case; let them take counsel together! Who told this long ago? Who declared it of old? Was it not I, the LORD? And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me. 22 “Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. 23 By myself I have sworn; from my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: ‘To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance.’4 24 “Only in the LORD, it shall be said of me, are righteousness and strength; to him shall come and be ashamed all who were incensed against him. 25 In the LORD all the offspring of Israel shall be justified and shall glory.”
The Idols of Babylon and the One True God
46 Bel bows down; Nebo stoops; their idols are on beasts and livestock; these things you carry are borne as burdens on weary beasts. 2 They stoop; they bow down together; they cannot save the burden, but themselves go into captivity. 3 “Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; 4 even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save. 5 “To whom will you liken me and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be alike? 6 Those who lavish gold from the purse, and weigh out silver in the scales, hire a goldsmith, and he makes it into a god; then they fall down and worship! 7 They lift it to their shoulders, they carry it, they set it in its place, and it stands there; it cannot move from its place. If one cries to it, it does not answer or save him from his trouble. 8 “Remember this and stand firm, recall it to mind, you transgressors, 9 remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, 10 declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ 11 calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it. 12 “Listen to me, you stubborn of heart, you who are far from righteousness: 13 I bring near my righteousness; it is not far off, and my salvation will not delay; I will put salvation in Zion, for Israel my glory.”
The Humiliation of Babylon
47 Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans! For you shall no more be called tender and delicate. 2 Take the millstones and grind flour, put off your veil, strip off your robe, uncover your legs, pass through the rivers. 3 Your nakedness shall be uncovered, and your disgrace shall be seen. I will take vengeance, and I will spare no one. 4 Our Redeemer—the LORD of hosts is his name— is the Holy One of Israel. 5 Sit in silence, and go into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for you shall no more be called the mistress of kingdoms. 6 I was angry with my people; I profaned my heritage; I gave them into your hand; you showed them no mercy; on the aged you made your yoke exceedingly heavy. 7 You said, “I shall be mistress forever,” so that you did not lay these things to heart or remember their end. 8 Now therefore hear this, you lover of pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me; I shall not sit as a widow or know the loss of children”: 9 These two things shall come to you in a moment, in one day; the loss of children and widowhood shall come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and the great power of your enchantments. 10 You felt secure in your wickedness; you said, “No one sees me”; your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray, and you said in your heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me.” 11 But evil shall come upon you, which you will not know how to charm away; disaster shall fall upon you, for which you will not be able to atone; and ruin shall come upon you suddenly, of which you know nothing. 12 Stand fast in your enchantments and your many sorceries, with which you have labored from your youth; perhaps you may be able to succeed; perhaps you may inspire terror. 13 You are wearied with your many counsels; let them stand forth and save you, those who divide the heavens, who gaze at the stars, who at the new moons make known what shall come upon you. 14 Behold, they are like stubble; the fire consumes them; they cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame. No coal for warming oneself is this, no fire to sit before! 15 Such to you are those with whom you have labored, who have done business with you from your youth; they wander about, each in his own direction; there is no one to save you.
3 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. 2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is your1 life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you:2 sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming.37 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self4 with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave,5 free; but Christ is all, and in all.
12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. 17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Rules for Christian Households
18 Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. 19 Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them. 20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. 21 Fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. 22 Bondservants, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters,6 not by way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord. 23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. 25 For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.
8:48 Jesus’ addressing her as daughter probably reassures the woman, as does his statement that your faith has made you well (in the sense of both physical and spiritual healing, for the verb here is “saved” [Gk. sōzō]; see notes on v. 36 and Matt. 9:22; also, Jesus’ final words to her, go in peace, suggest that she has been saved).[1]
8:48your faith has made you well: Here Jesus commends the timid woman who has become bold in the knowledge that Jesus was aware of her desire to seek God’s help.[2]
8:48. Lest anyone misunderstand how she obtained the healing (and primarily to confirm and assure the woman), Jesus encouraged her, “be of good cheer your faith has made you well.” Then He tells her to “go in peace.” Thus the Savior’s words of reassurance replace her fear with peace.[3]
8:48 “your faith has made you well” Not her touch, but acting on her faith in Him was the key. Faith itself is not the issue, but the object of faith (i.e. Jesus). There was nothing magical here, nor was it the power of positive thinking, but the power of Jesus. This is another use of the Greek sōzō in both its OT and NT senses. It is a PERFECT ACTIVE INDICATIVE, which implied she was healed and remained healed of the physical problem and her spiritual problem.
“go in peace” This is a PRESENT MIDDLE (deponent) IMPERATIVE. She was not only physically healed, but spiritually healed[4]
48. He said to her, Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.
Lovingly Jesus calls her “Daughter,” even though she may not have been any younger than he was. But he speaks as a father to his child. Moreover, he praises her for her faith, even though that faith, as has been indicated, was by no means perfect; and even though, as Mark 5:27 (“after hearing about Jesus”) indicates, it was he himself who, through his earlier marvelous words and deeds, had brought about that faith. Her faith, though not the basic cause of her cure, had been the channel through which the cure had been accomplished. It had been the instrument used by Christ’s power and love to effect her recovery. Cf. Eph. 2:8. Is it not marvelous that Jesus, in speaking to this woman, says nothing about his own power and love, the root cause of her present state of well-being, but makes special mention of that which apart from him she would neither have possessed nor have been able to exercise? Moreover, by saying, “Your faith has made you well” (cf. 7:50), was he not also stressing the fact that it was his personal response to her personal faith in him that cured her, thereby removing from her mind any remnant, however small, of superstition, as if his clothes had contributed in any way to the cure?
As has already been indicated, by means of these cheering words Jesus also opened the way for the woman’s complete reinstatement in the social and religious life and fellowship of her people. Now she can go and continue to travel the rest of her life “in peace,” that is, with the smile of God upon her and the joyful inner knowledge of this smile. Cf. Isa. 26:3; 43:1, 2; Rom. 5:1.
Probably even more is included in this encouraging command, “Go in peace.” In view of the fact that in all probability Jesus spoke these words in the then current language of the Jews (Aramaic), have we not a right to conclude that nothing less than the full measure of the Hebrew Shalom, well-being for both soul and body, is here implied?[5]
48. Jesus addressed her tenderly as Daughter, the only woman he is recorded as having addressed in this way. He went on to point out that it had been her faith that had saved her and he told her to go in peace. With the exception of the prefixed address, Daughter, the words are identical with those addressed to the sinner in 7:50 (where see note; rsv has a slight difference in wording, but the Greek is the same).[6]
Ver. 48.—Daughter, be of good comfort. This is the only place in the Gospels where our Lord is reported to have used this loving word to any woman. Eusebius preserves a curious legend in connection with this act of healing. In his time (fourth century) the house of this happy one who met Jesus in her sad life-journey, was shown at Paneas, a town in the north of Palestine. At the entrance of the house, on a stone pedestal, stood two brazen statues—one represented a woman kneeling; the other, a man with his cloak over his shoulder and his hand stretched out toward the kneeling woman. Eusebius relates how he had seen the house and statues and heard the legend (‘Hist. Eccl.,’ vii. 18). In the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, a very early writing, though not one possessing much critical value, the name of the woman is stated to be Veronica. It was she, goes on the story to relate, who, on the Via Dolorosa, when the Lord, on his way to Calvary, stumbled and fell, gave the handkerchief to wipe the blessed face.[7]
8:48Daughter, your faith has healed you. This is the only time Jesus addresses someone as “daughter” (though cf. 13:16), a reassuringly intimate term for this distressed woman. “Healed” is literally “saved.” The primary reference here (as when the same formula is used in 17:19; 18:42) is to physical healing, but in view of this woman’s condition, there may also be a wider sense of “salvation” to include the restoration of the full normal life from which she had been excluded (cf. the same formula in a nonphysical sense in 7:50).[8]
8:48 / Daughter: “An affectionate term is used to reassure her that she is now to be recognized as part of Israel” (Fitzmyer, p. 747; Tiede, p. 176). Her “uncleanness” has been removed; she is no longer an outcast. See also Jesus’ statement to Zacchaeus in 19:9.
your faith has healed you: Lit. “Your faith has saved you.” For Luke faith is the basis and requirement for forgiveness of sins (see 5:20) and salvation (physical or otherwise, see 7:50; 17:19; 18:42).
Go in peace: An ot expression of farewell (from Hebrew šālôm); see 1 Sam. 1:17; cf. Luke 2:29. In the present context, in which a person has just been healed, it is particularly appropriate, for the šālôm also connotes the sense of wholeness. See note on 10:5 below.[9]
48 To address an older person as “daughter” reflects the practice of Jewish teachers, but it may also function to highlight the authority of Jesus as the Messiah (cf. Bovon, 1:339). In light of the discussion of Jesus’ true family in 8:19–21, this address may also point to the creation of the new family based on a person’s response of faith. The one who is not allowed to worship in the temple because of her physical “impurity” can now worship and praise the Son of God. As in 7:50, the concluding benediction points beyond physical healing when both “faith” and “peace” describe the experience of one who is now transformed by grace.[10]
[7] Spence-Jones, H. D. M., ed. (1909). St. Luke (Vol. 1, p. 210). Funk & Wagnalls Company.
[8] France, R. T. (2013). Luke (M. L. Strauss & J. H. Walton, Eds.; p. 154). Baker Books.
[9] Evans, C. A. (1990). Luke (p. 138). Baker Books.
[10] Liefeld, W. L., & Pao, D. W. (2007). Luke. In T. Longman III & D. E. Garland (Eds.), The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Luke–Acts (Revised Edition) (Vol. 10, p. 167). Zondervan.
Jeremiah 16:17 — God is watching! God is watching our ways, and He sees our actions. My wife is very observant, but I can hide stuff from her. The CIA may be tracing my laptop, but there are ways with torrents and proxies to hide my internet traffic. Nothing is hid from our God, however. “… neither is their iniquity hid from mine eyes.”
Jeremiah 17:5-8 — I just talked to the desk clerk at the hotel I’m staying tonight. He enjoys learning and philosophy, yet due to a tragedy in his family, he seems to think that if there was a loving God, then He would have prevented it. Instead of trusting in God, he trusts in the potential of mankind. Pray for him that God would reach him and heal his hurting heart (Jeremiah 17:14).
Sadly, God warns us against trusting in man. He gives a vivid contrast between trusting in man (like a heath in the desert) and trusting in God (a tree planted by the waters).
Jeremiah 17:19-20 — Jeremiah the street preacher! Yes, today we can speak on the sidewalks of America and warn the nation about the sin in our country.
Jeremiah 17:25 — God had offered to protect the city from invasion forever if they would obey. Seven hundred years later, the people would crucify the King who entered the city by the Eastern Gate (Luke 19:37).
Jeremiah 18:9-10 — During the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin said:
“I have lived, sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth – that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?”
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