On December 9, 2023, Michael Link will present the sermonette, titled, “Sweet Smelling Aroma,” and Norbert Link will present the sermon, titled, “Can You Forgive God?”
The live services are available, over video and audio, at http://eternalgod.org/live-services/ (12:30 pm Pacific Time; 1:30 pm Mountain Time; 2:30 pm Central Time; 3:30 pm Eastern Time; 8:30 pm Greenwich Mean Time; 9:30 pm Central European Time). Just click on Connect to Live Stream.
Israel Today wrote on December 1:
“Shortly after 7 am Israel time, the Israeli army resumed its military offensive against the Hamas terrorist infrastructure in Gaza. Hamas had until that time every morning to provide a list of at least 10 additional hostages it planned to release in order to buy one more day of ceasefire. It failed to provide a list by the specified time this morning… [Netanyahu said:] ‘The Government of Israel is committed to achieving the goals of the war: Releasing the hostages, eliminating Hamas, and ensuring that Gaza never again constitutes a threat to the residents of Israel.’…
“The Biden administration has stressed in recent days that it expects Israel to be ‘more careful’ to avoid civilian casualties in southern Gaza than it was in the north of the coastal enclave. The insinuation of the demand was seen by many Israelis as an insult, as though Israel had purposefully killed thousands of civilians in northern Gaza, or at best had coldly disregarded them.
“Israel goes to great lengths to avoid collateral damage in battle, much more so than American forces in recent Middle East wars, and this often comes at the cost of higher IDF casualties. That thousands of Gaza civilians are dying is entirely the fault of Hamas, which uses them as human shields. But Washington can’t complain to Hamas, so it instead blames Israel.”
Newsmax added on December 1:
“The United Nations said the fighting would worsen an extreme humanitarian emergency. ‘Hell on Earth has returned to Gaza,’ said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian office in Geneva… Hamas accused Washington of giving a green light for an Israeli ‘war of genocide and ethnic cleansing.’”
Deutsche Welle wrote on December 5:
“European Union member states are facing a ‘huge risk of terrorist attacks’ over the holiday season due to the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said on Tuesday… Johansson referred to a Saturday’s knife attack in Paris, where one German tourist was killed and two people were injured. The attacker reportedly pledged allegiance to the so-called ‘Islamic State’ (IS) and expressed anguish about Muslims dying, notably in the Palestinian territories…
“‘With the war between Israel and Hamas and the polarization it causes in our society, with the upcoming holiday season, there is a huge risk of terrorist attacks in the European Union,’ Johansson said. ‘We saw [it happening] recently in Paris, unfortunately, we have seen it earlier as well,’ Johansson added.”
If such attacks were to happen in Europe, there is no telling what Europe might do.
The New York Post wrote on December 3:
“A US warship and multiple commercial vessels were attacked in the Red Sea on Sunday, the Pentagon said — a frightening development ratcheting up maritime tensions in the Middle East during the Israel-Hamas war.
“The USS Carney — which previously shot down missiles and drones aimed at it as it escorted a commercial vessel through the war-torn region — was targeted along with at least two other commercial ships starting around 10 a.m. local time in an assault that lasted about five hours, the Pentagon and an unnamed US official said…
“Yemen’s Houthi rebels — who have proclaimed they would attack ships on the Red Sea over Israeli’s ground incursion into Gaza — later acknowledged that they had targeted two Israeli commercial ships Sunday but did not mention the US Navy vessel.”
The New York Times wrote on November 30:
“Israeli officials obtained Hamas’ battle plan for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened, documents, emails and interviews show. But Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out.
“The approximately 40-page document, which Israeli authorities code-named ‘Jericho Wall,’ outlined, point by point, exactly the kind of devastating invasion that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people.
“The translated document, which was reviewed by The New York Times, did not set a date for the attack, but described a methodical assault designed to overwhelm the fortifications around the Gaza Strip, take over Israeli cities and storm key military bases, including a division headquarters.”
Gatewaypundit added on December 1:
“… As Channel 11 reported on Tuesday, in May 2023, the Gaza Division’s intelligence officer created a slide presentation… setting out in detail how Hamas intended to bring down the security fence and invade Israel at up to 60 separate points, invade the division’s bases and enter civilian communities to commit mass murder and seize hostages. In a follow-up report from August, the intelligence officer even explained that Hamas intended to carry out its plan either on Shabbat or on a holiday when only a small cadre of soldiers would be on duty. His work was dismissed as unrealistic and out of line with Hamas’s true intentions by senior intelligence officers at Tel Aviv headquarters…”
The Huffington Post wrote on December 3:
“The National Security Council claimed on Sunday that United States intelligence had no prior knowledge of a document detailing Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack plan, after a bombshell report recently revealed that Israeli authorities obtained such information a year ago… The report adds to the already existing public outrage in Israel over Netanyahu and his government’s failure to prevent the attack despite several warnings.”
The Wall Street Journal wrote on December 1:
“Israel’s intelligence services are preparing to kill Hamas leaders around the world when the nation’s war in the Gaza strip winds down, setting the stage for a yearslong campaign to hunt down militants responsible for the Oct. 7 massacres, Israeli officials said.
“With orders from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s top spy agencies are working on plans to hunt down Hamas leaders living in Lebanon, Turkey and Qatar… For years, countries such as Qatar, Lebanon, Iran, Russia and Turkey have provided Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, with a measure of protection…
“Targeted killings abroad can violate international law and run the risk of blowback from nations in which assassins operate without their permission. In practice, however, Israel and others have pursued targeted killings and weathered the repercussions…
“Perhaps no other nation has Israel’s experience in carrying out worldwide assassination campaigns. Since World War II, Israel has conducted more than 2,700 such operations… Even before Israel was founded in 1948, Jewish militants killed European diplomats who were involved in the British administration of Mandatory Palestine. In the 1960s, Israeli spies used letter bombs to target former Nazi Germany scientists helping Egypt develop rockets…
“In 1997, Netanyahu, then serving his first term as prime minister, ordered Israeli spies to kill Meshaal, a Hamas founder who was then living in Jordan. The Israeli team entered Jordan posing as Canadian tourists and attacked Meshaal outside the Hamas political office in Amman. One Israeli assassin sprayed a toxin into Meshaal’s ear but he was captured along with another member of the team before they could escape. Meshaal fell into a coma, and Jordan threatened to terminate its peace treaty with Israel. Then-President Bill Clinton pressed Netanyahu to end the crisis by sending his Mossad chief to Amman with the antidote that saved Meshaal’s life. Israel then secured the freedom of its operatives in Jordan by agreeing to release Yassin, the Hamas spiritual leader, and 70 other Palestinian prisoners…
“It was the deadly Palestinian militant attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics that cemented the nation’s embrace of covert assassinations as a tool of government policy. Palestinian gunmen with a group known as Black September took a group of Israeli athletes and coaches hostage in the Olympic Village, leading to a two-day standoff that ended with a failed rescue attempt by West German police. All 11 Israeli hostages were killed. In response, then-Prime Minister Golda Meir ordered Israeli spies to hunt down and kill all Palestinian militants involved in the attack. The covert campaign was dubbed Operation Wrath of God and became the subject of an Oscar-nominated 2005 Steven Spielberg movie.
“Israeli assassins spent 20 years hunting those linked to the Munich attack. They killed Palestinians in France, Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Lebanon. They used a remote-controlled bomb hidden inside a phone in France and used guns with silencers to kill targets in the streets of Rome… But Operation Wrath of God also led to one of Israel’s most embarrassing covert failures in 1973, when a team of Israeli operatives killed a Moroccan waiter in Norway who they had mistakenly identified as a Palestinian militant involved in the Munich attack. Six of the 15 Israeli operatives were arrested and five were sentenced to short prison terms for their roles in the killing.”
Israeli attacks in countries such as Turkey would create incredible hostility.
Israel Today wrote on November 30:
“The Biden administration is frantically looking for a way to stop Israel from fulfilling its vow to its citizens to defeat Hamas and eliminate it as a military and terrorist threat. America has a history of stopping Israel just short of actually defeating its enemies. In 1967 and 1973, Israel’s most famous full-scale wars came to a sudden halt when Washington insisted on a truce just as the IDF was preparing its final assault. The First Lebanon War in the early 1980s concluded with Israel being pressed to accept a deal whereby Yasser Arafat and his PLO could escape to fight another day.
“And the same formula is now being discussed in regards to Hamas. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Biden administration wants Israel to consider a deal under which the Hamas leadership, along with thousands of Hamas gunmen and their families, will be allowed to leave Gaza to a third country… all of this ignores the lessons learned, or not learned, from the Lebanon War fiasco. After destroying Lebanon, Arafat and his men were allowed to leave and take shelter in Tunisia, from where they continued to conduct a global campaign of terror…
“Honestly, the biggest obstacle to peace in the Middle East at this point is the short-sighted incompetence of Western leaders.”
In a somewhat cryptic message, “in a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu [last Thursday], Blinken also reportedly said Israel may only have ‘weeks’ left to fight, rather than months” (JTA, dated December 1). Does this mean that America will again put pressure on Israel to stop fighting against Hamas? And not surpassingly, but quite expectedly, it seems that Europe might be blowing the same horn.
AA wrote on December 3:
“The EU’s foreign policy chief [Josep Borrell] on Saturday expressed ‘regret’ over the resumption of Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, emphasizing Tel Aviv’s obligation to respect international humanitarian law and the laws of war, which he described as ‘not only a moral obligation but also a legal one.’”
The Huffington Post wrote on December 1:
“Four men in Washington shape America’s policy in the Middle East. Three are obvious: President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan. The fourth is less well-known, despite his huge sway over the other three ― and despite his determination to keep championing policies that many see as fueling bloodshed in Gaza and beyond.
“His name is Brett McGurk. He’s the White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, and he’s one of the most powerful people in U.S. national security… He controls whether global affairs experts within the government ― including more experienced staff at the Pentagon and the State Department ― can have any impact, and he decides which outside voices have access to White House decision-making conversations…
“It’s a stunning degree of authority for a 50-year-old operative with a deeply controversial career… McGurk’s primary focus, a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, has come to dominate American diplomacy in the region… Saudi Arabia, the wealthy spiritual hub of the Muslim world, has long said it will only establish ties with Israel if a Palestinian state is established…
“A White House official told HuffPost that McGurk and the Biden administration prioritize Palestinian rights, including during talks about Saudi-Israel normalization… But skeptics fear McGurk’s focus on so-called Saudi-Israel ‘normalization’ will mean centering America’s Middle East strategy on a Saudi-Israel deal that lacks a settlement that satisfies Palestinians, sowing the seeds of future discord ― and that the deal would disregard U.S. values by, for instance, including huge arms sales and security commitments despite documented Saudi and Israeli misuse of American military assistance…”
Saudi Arabia will ultimately become one of Israel’s enemies.
Daily Mail wrote on December 6:
“President Joe Biden denied ‘interacting’ with Hunter Biden’s business partners and called allegations a ‘bunch of lies’ when asked about the Republican impeachment probe. He insisted there weren’t any communications with scandal-hit son’s associates, despite the GOP sharing evidence of at least 22 phone calls the then-vice president sat in on, dinners with Hunter’s associates at Washington, D.C., restaurants and participation in coffee meetings…
“He was asked about polling showing that nearly 70 percent of Americans think he did something unethical or illegal with family business interests and why he interacted with ‘so many’ of his son Hunter and brother James’ associates… Earlier this week, House Oversight chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) released bank records that Republicans say indicate he got at least three monthly payments [in the amount of $1,380 each] from a company owned by Hunter Biden that took in millions from China…
“The president has repeatedly denied being in business with his son, but former Hunter Biden business associates have testified he would briefly pop on conference calls or drop by meetings.”
Politicians lie. Joe Biden is no exception.
The New York Post wrote on December 7:
“Three times on Wednesday, Joe Biden denied that he has interacted with his son Hunter and brother Jim’s business associates, when it is an undeniable, documented fact that he has interacted with them dozens of times… But Joe Biden can’t stop lying. The hole he has dug for himself is too deep. The evidence already amassed by the three congressional committees working on the impeachment inquiry is overwhelming. It shows that when Joe Biden was vice president, he was intimately involved in the lucrative scheme his son and brother were running to extract millions of dollars from countries that were America’s adversaries or supplicants and in which he wielded enormous power as the point man for the Obama administration…
“But the cover-up of the Biden grift is even worse since it involves the corruption of institutions that are supposed to keep us safe: the FBI, DOJ and CIA. The only reason we know about the cover-up is because a handful of noble whistleblowers from those institutions have exposed the wrongdoing… But in the end, it will be up to the American people to cast judgment on Joe Biden’s lies.”
Euronews wrote on December 2:
“Support for the Ukraine war in Russia has hit rock bottom, according to a recent poll. The independent pollster Chronicle found that the number of Russians who fully support the invasion has almost halved since February 2023. Their survey revealed those who favour peace far outnumber pro-war voices, with more Russians supporting the departure of the country’s troops from Ukraine than not.”
However, Atlantic Council wrote on November 30:
“Despite some indications of war weariness, most Russians continue to support their country’s invasion of Ukraine, according to a comprehensive new report published this week. Based on polling and focus groups conducted by Russia’s only internationally recognized pollster, the Levada Center, and the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, the report found that the majority of Russians had ‘gotten used to’ living against the backdrop of a brutal armed conflict and had consolidated around the Kremlin…
“Debate has raged for the past twenty-one months over the true extent of Russian public support for the invasion of Ukraine. Many continue to question the validity of polls conducted in wartime Russia, with skeptics arguing that very few members of the public would be comfortable expressing anti-regime opinions to strangers. Indeed, given the draconian legislation adopted in Russia since February 2022 criminalizing criticism of the invasion, there is good reason to treat all research data coming out of the country with caution.
“While there are legitimate doubts over the credibility of polling data, the findings detailed in this new report and the Levada Center’s more regular monitoring both closely mirror the available anecdotal evidence, which indicates high levels of public acceptance for the ongoing invasion. Perhaps the most compelling evidence has come from personal interactions between Ukrainians and their Russian relatives. With family ties connecting millions on both sides of the border, there has been ample opportunity for Ukrainians to get a sense of how ordinary Russians feel about the war. This has led to countless painful conversations with Ukrainians frequently finding that people they have known all their lives now parrot Kremlin propaganda, blame Ukraine for the war, or deny core aspects of the invasion altogether.
“The almost complete absence of any meaningful anti-war activity in Russia is a further indication of public support, or at least acceptance, of the invasion. During the first weeks of hostilities, there were some attempts to hold anti-war rallies in a number of Russian cities, but these modest efforts soon ran out of steam. Some commentators have since argued that it is simply too dangerous to protest. However, wartime restrictions have not prevented Russians from freely voicing their opposition to various specific aspects of the invasion…
“The more than one million Russians who are believed to have fled the country following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine have also proven largely unwilling to voice their opposition to the war, despite not facing any of the restrictions in place inside Russia itself. While there are large Russian diasporas in multiple cities across Europe, there have been very few anti-war rallies since February 2022 or any other attempts by Russian citizens to protest against the invasion being carried out in their name…
“All this is very good news for Vladimir Putin. The Russian dictator had initially hoped to secure a rapid military victory in Ukraine, but he is now actively preparing his country for a long war. He has already moved much of the Russian economy onto a war footing, and seems to have succeeded in convincing the vast majority of his compatriots that they are engaged in a struggle with the West that is both existential and unavoidable. With his home front looking remarkably stable and no sign of any domestic challenges on the horizon, Putin can look ahead to 2024 with a degree of confidence.
“These latest indications of continued Russian public support for the war will further dampen any lingering hopes in Western capitals that internal opposition could yet derail the Russian invasion. The timing is particularly unfortunate, with talk of a battlefield stalemate in Ukraine already fueling doubts over the future of Western military aid. For now, Western leaders remain adamant that they will continue to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes. However, they are extremely unlikely to be aided by any kind of anti-war uprising inside Russia itself.”
Express wrote on December 2:
“Ukraine has been caught off-guard after it was revealed that Germany wants to cut the amount of money it gives to an EU fund for Kyiv’s war effort… European capitals were reportedly stunned by Olaf Scholz’s U-turn… Ukraine is also understood to be alarmed by the news, since Germany, the EU’s largest economy, contributes a quarter of the EPF’s total funds…
“The dramatic German reversal followed a recent shock constitutional court verdict that blew a €60billion (£51bn) hole in Berlin’s budget. The court ruled that Chancellor Scholz’s government had breached a debt brake, which places a limit on public spending…
“The news comes less than 24 hours after President Zelensky admitted that Ukraine’s counteroffensive against invading Russian forces did not achieve the success he had hoped for. The counteroffensive is widely viewed as having failed to quickly deliver the hoped-for gains, despite significant Western backing…”
Daily Mail wrote on December 6:
“President Joe Biden on Wednesday warned that American troops could have to fight Russian forces if Congress prevents further aid being sent to Ukraine. He demanded that lawmakers approve his request for tens of billions in military and economic assistance…
“His administration is warning of dire consequences for Kyiv if lawmakers don’t act to keep support flowing and European allies are increasingly alarmed at the consequences for democracy in their backyard.”
Deutsche Welle reported on December 5:
“The United States is running out of time and money to help Ukraine fight back against the Russian invasion unless Congress can approve a new spending package, the White House said on Monday. The Biden administration had asked Congress in October to approve a $106 billion (€98 billion) package to fund aid for Ukraine and Israel, as well as for border security, but it was voted down by the Republican-controlled House.
“In a letter to the speaker of the House of Representatives on Monday, President Joe Biden’s budget director Shalanda Young said time was running out to help Ukraine… ‘without congressional action, by the end of the year we will run out of resources to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to provide equipment from US military stock’ she wrote… ‘Cutting off the flow of US weapons and equipment will kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield, not only putting at risk the gains Ukraine has made, but increasing the likelihood of Russian military victories.’…
“House Speaker Mike Johnson gave the letter a cool response. ‘The Biden administration has failed to substantively address any of my conference’s legitimate concerns about the lack of a clear strategy in Ukraine, a path to resolving the conflict, or a plan for adequately ensuring accountability for aid provided by American taxpayers,’ Johnson said in a statement on social media. He also said that any national security supplemental package ‘must begin with our own border.’”
Fox News added on December 5:
“NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a recent interview that the Western military alliance should ‘be prepared for bad news’ in the Ukraine war ahead of the winter months… without elaborating.”
The New York Post wrote on December 5:
“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is becoming an autocrat who is reshaping Ukraine into an authoritarian state no different than Russia, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko has shockingly claimed. Klitschko, a former heavyweight boxing champion-turned-politician, took the unprecedented step of publicly attacking Zelensky, an ex-comedian and actor, so vehemently for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine 21 months ago.
“While the pair have been political foes, such a blistering public condemnation was still shocking to many, given the country’s war crisis. ‘At some point we will no longer be any different from Russia, where everything depends on the whim of one man,’ Klitschko said in a new interview with the German news outlet Der Spiegel.
“Klitschko, who has served as the mayor of Kyiv since 2014, praised his fellow mayors and regional governors for thwarting Ukraine’s descent into authoritarianism… Klitschko… claimed that the president has become isolated…
“In a separate sit-down with the Swiss news site 20Minutes, Klitschko accused Zelensky of lying to the public about Ukraine’s progress in the bloody conflict. Klitschko, 52, argued that Zelensky’s popularity has been declining since the start of the war in February 2022, when he emerged onto the world stage as the symbol of Ukraine’s struggle for survival — and the mayor predicted that the president will eventually find himself out of power as payback for his ‘mistakes’…
“But despite his litany of grievances, the mayor stopped short of calling for Zelensky’s immediate ouster. ‘The president has an important function today, and we have to support him until the end of the war,’ Klitschko said. ‘But at the end of this war, every politician will pay for his successes or failures.’”
Eventually, Ukraine and Russia will unite. Then, Ukraine will not be any different from Russia.
Sky News added on December 4:
“Volodymyr Zelenskyy is ‘paying for mistakes he has made’ and the Ukrainian people are wondering why the country was not better prepared, Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, has said in interviews with various news outlets. Mr Klitschko said Ukrainians were losing trust in the wartime leader’s handling of the crisis… ‘There was too much information that didn’t match reality…’
“The former boxing champion also claimed the Ukrainian leader had authoritarian tendencies… ‘At some point we will no longer be any different from Russia, where everything depends on the whim of one man.’”
Breitbart reported on December 6:
“Ilya Kiva, who was a Member of Parliament in Ukraine until the war started and dissenting lawmakers were purged, was shot in the head in an assassination claimed by the Ukrainian intelligence service. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) confirmed they were responsible for the killing of a former Member of Parliament of the nation who was found dead in Moscow, Russia… The report from the Ukrainian state news outlet described Ilya Kiva as a ‘top traitor, collaborator and propagandist… criminal’ and stated he was ‘liquidated’ with ‘small arms’, or gunfire.
“The BBC reports a spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence not only confirmed the state-sanctioned assassination but said more would follow…
“The former Presidential candidate had been a parliamentarian for the pro-Moscow ‘Opposition Platform — For Life’ party in Ukraine’s Parliament but was stripped of his seat in 2022 after he spoke out in favour of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Days after Kiva was kicked out of Parliament, his entire party— along with 11 other Ukrainian pro-Russia parties — was banned as part of the nation’s state of emergency martial law rules. Kiva fled Ukraine to Russia, and was convicted in absentia of high treason for his support of Russian military action.
“The killing came… amid a slew of other former Ukrainian opposition lawmakers — ‘traitors’ — apparently also eliminated. Kyiv claimed responsibility for the killing of another pro-Russian Ukrainian politician last month, with Mikhail Filiponenko of the Russian-occupied Luhansk region being killed by a car bomb…
“Another apparent car bomb killing took place just today, although in this case the Ukrainian state has not yet claimed responsibility. Oleg Popov, also a Ukrainian collaborating with the Russian occupation of Luhansk was killed after his car exploded, reports Le Monde. The New York Post states Popov had already survived one alleged assassination attempt last year and that sources claimed the SBU were responsible for his killing today, but that has not been confirmed.”
Is Ukraine copying the assassinations of dissidents for which Russia is famous?
Sky News wrote on December 4:
“Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has demanded that Ukraine’s membership in the EU and billions of euros in funding meant for the country be taken off the agenda at a summit of the bloc’s leaders next week… Mr Orban insisted that a ‘strategic discussion’ is needed first about Ukraine’s European future and warned that forcing a decision could destroy EU unity…”
Ukraine will never become a member of the EU.
The Telegraph wrote on December 1:
“The European Union should become a single megastate as it is not working in its current form, according to… Mario Draghi, who led the European Central Bank (ECB) and served as [Italy’s] prime minister during the pandemic… It made no sense, the former premier said, to have 27 separate national armed forces and 27 separate drug control agencies…
“Mr Draghi… has hopes of becoming the next president of the European Council, according to Italian media reports. ‘By expanding the European Union to 28 members [prior to Brexit] we made a colossal error: to think that it could work with the rules that were put in place when there were just 12 members,’ Mr Draghi said in a speech in Rome. For the EU to have a future in a multicentric world dominated by big powers such as the US and China, ‘it should become a state’, Mr Draghi said…
“The former prime minister compared the EU in its current state unfavourably with ancient Rome, lamenting that it had no common foreign policy or single army. He criticised the bloc for not being engaged enough in the Israel-Gaza crisis, saying ‘it needs to do more’… ‘The European market is too small,’ he said, adding that European companies often sell up or move to the US once they become successful.”
The comparison with ancient Rome is interesting; given the fact that the coming United States of Europe will be the tenth resurrection of the ancient Roman Empire.
The Record wrote on December 1:
“Charles Michel, the president of the European Council — the EU body that sets the bloc’s political direction — proposed on Thursday the creation of ‘a European cyber force … equipped with offensive capabilities’… Michel said: ‘I feel that the time has come to create a real union of defence, coupled with a true defence single market.’”
Up until now, Europe stated their forces should be used strictly for defensive purposes.
Die Welt wrote on December 6:
“Because the West is hesitating, time is working for Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. And that’s just the beginning… with consequences for Germany that no one can imagine…
“Among those who are still interested in the Ukraine war, there are two camps: those who believe in a victory for Kiev. And those who dream of negotiations with Russia. But on the front, Ukraine is at a dead end. And Putin has no reason to negotiate because time is working for him: support for Kiev is dwindling in the USA, and the prospect of a new Trump presidency is becoming more real on the horizon.
“Putin, for his part, has staying power – and allies. The Emirates and Saudi Arabia are among six states that will soon join the Brics alliance – which so far includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The alliance is united by one goal in terms of power politics: to end the supremacy of the West. With its imperialist drive, Russia is only the tip of the spear, but has the tacit approval of many states as long as it does not disturb their circles.
“For Putin, the military problems in Ukraine were just a setback on a path that he is continuing undeterred. His goal remains the conquest of the entire Ukraine. Secret services assume that Russia would need six years after the war to arm itself for an attack on NATO territory. If NATO still exists.
“…while Putin is investing huge sums of money in his army, the Federal Republic’s enthusiasm for armaments has already dried up.
“Germany is risking what hardly anyone in this country can or wants to think at the moment: that war will come to our country one day not far away.”
Please view our new StandingWatch program, titled, “War Between Russia and Germany?”
The Daily Mail wrote on December 1:
“When 1.1 million migrants arrived in Germany in 2015, Bild Zeitung launched a ‘welcome’ campaign, echoing the sentiments of then-Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had unilaterally opened the country’s borders to Syrians fleeing civil war in their homeland…
“Which makes the new campaign by Germany’s favourite paper, known to everyone simply as Bild, quite extraordinary. Under the front-page headline ‘Germany, we have a problem!’, it has published a highly controversial 50-point manifesto telling migrants how to behave as the country experiences a national culture clash.
“’Our world is in chaos, and we are in the middle of it,’ says the paper. ‘Since the terrorist attack of Hamas on Israel on October 7, we are experiencing a new dimension of hatred, against our values, our democracy and against Germany. In our country, there are many who oppose our way of life. People who celebrate the murder of innocent civilians. Those who teach their children to hate others because they are “infidels” (non-believers), those who forbid women from wearing trousers; those who listen to radical preachers because they want a different society. Germany must say no!’
“Though Bild calls its manifesto a ‘sort of house rules’ for everyone living in Germany, it is clearly aimed at migrants. And its significance cannot be overstated. With its racy pictures and eye-grabbing headlines, Bild — which sells one million print copies a day — has a massive impact on the German people’s mindset. Twenty regional editions serve every corner of the country and each month its website attracts 25 million visitors, almost a third of the nation’s adult population…
‘The move marked a sharp turning point for Germany and its increasingly uneasy relationship with mass migration. Since the beginning of 2015, three million asylum seekers and illegal arrivals have come with far-reaching economic consequences. This week, as Germany flirts with recession, the Federal Employment Agency announced that six out of ten welfare recipients are migrants who are fit and able to work. Many are aged between 16 and 25, and many are women who have been in the country for years…
“A report on Germany’s migrant population produced by Harvard University warns that, instead of adapting to the liberal way of life in their new host nation, many remain attached to the austere conservative Islamic customs of their countries of origin…
“At least 250,000 migrants have arrived in Germany this year. Some will be genuine asylum seekers but many are not. Berlin fears that Hamas terrorists fleeing Palestine and hoping to harm Europe are infiltrating the incomers. Police checks have been re-introduced at four German borders, but the flow continues. The atmosphere is growing tense. Berlin-based Iranian whistleblower Kazem Moussavi, who arrived as a refugee escaping Islamic persecution 30 years ago, has warned the German government for years that some mosques are fomenting hatred against Jews, Christians, women and the Western way of life…
“He may be right… Many ordinary Germans, who feel their past generosity has been hurled back in their faces, think it is an important message to send out in these very uncertain times.”
Germans will not continue to tolerate this situation much longer; especially, since they do not see any action taken by their weak government.
Acknowledgement and Disclaimer
These Current Events are compiled and commented on by Norbert Link. We gratefully acknowledge the many contributions of news articles from our readership. The publication of articles in this section is not to be viewed as an endorsement or approval as to contents or accuracy of the selected articles, but they are published for the purpose of pointing at worldwide developments in the light of biblical end-time prophecy and godly instruction. Our own comments are provided in italics.
On December 9, 2023, Michael Link will present the sermonette, titled, “Sweet Smelling Aroma,” and Norbert Link will present the sermon, titled, “Can You Forgive God?”
The live services are available, over video and audio, at http://eternalgod.org/live-services/ (12:30 pm Pacific Time; 1:30 pm Mountain Time; 2:30 pm Central Time; 3:30 pm Eastern Time; 8:30 pm Greenwich Mean Time; 9:30 pm Central European Time). Just click on Connect to Live Stream.
by Kalon Mitchell
In the New Testament, two of the Church leaders, Peter and Paul, spoke about the same attribute that Christians need in their lives. They encouraged everyone to have love for each other. It is easy to say, “yes, I have love,” but do we really show love in our actions?
The first Scripture that I want to use is found in 1 Peter 4:7-9: “But the end of all things is at hand; therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers. And above all things have fervent love for one another, for ‘love will cover a multitude of sins.’ Be hospitable to one another without grumbling.“
Peter’s encouragement for us is to be aware that, as we draw closer to the end of this age, there are going to be more opportunities for each of us to show love for one another. But not just love, but fervent love! The word “fervent” can mean, “having or displaying a passionate intensity”—like a fire: hot and burning. Being on fire for showing love is a proper way to think about it. In the letter to Titus, Paul iterates it in a different way but with the same meaning, saying in Titus 2:14 about Christ “who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.”
Our use of love in a Godly sense means that we need to be going above and beyond in our love for each other—in prayer, in deeds, in actions, and in our thoughts. We need to be thinking about HOW we can show love more fully. Christ’s warning in the book of Matthew comes to mind where we are warned that as this world grows darker, there is a real danger that the love of true Christians will grow cold; that it will no longer be fervent and zealous (Matthew 24:12).
In what ways can we allow this fervent love for each other to become manifest? We bring this love to fruition by looking for opportunities and then taking action. This is going to be different for each person—but make no mistake: when we take the opportunity to show this love, the immediate impact may be unknown; and yet, it will have lingering effects. In every relationship that we have in this life, the most powerful thing is love. With Godly agape love, we are fulfilling God’s law.
In 1 Corinthians 13, the apostle Paul writes under inspiration about how this love of God should be manifesting itself. This love is not for us—it is for the people around us. When I review these words from Paul, it becomes apparent how I fail in regard to having these actions show up in every situation. And yet, the opportunities to show and prove this Godly love are there, but we have to take advantage of these opportunities.
These actions of love encourage and help people to deal with life. The life that we each live now is not an easy life, and it will get harder. The challenge for each of us is to grasp that each person, Christian or not, is dealing with the effects of sin. This whole world is under the subjection of Satan and his demons.
We are truly living in the most challenging of times.
This is why I find the following Scriptures encouraging.
1 Thessalonians 5:11 says in the New International Version: “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.”
From our children to our elders, we are to be encouraging—and building one another up. It is so much more powerful to show encouragement and solidarity in love than it is in finding fault and tearing each other down. It is so easy to find fault and to tear into people for their wrong doings or failures—but in the long run, we ourselves have just as much failure. There is a common idiom: Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes. This means, before judging someone, we must understand their experiences, challenges, thought processes, etc. It is no easy thing to do. Another idiom is: Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
As we spend time and meditate on our opportunities for love, we should realize that God the Father and Jesus Christ show us the ultimate love. We are so blessed to have their example.
1 Peter 2:4-5 tells us: “Coming to Christ as to a living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen by God and precious, you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
This Scripture, paired with 1 Thessalonians 5:11, is very powerful: We are precious in God’s sight. We are worthy of love because He deems it so. And it is because of this knowledge that we can grow in our love for each other and for the God Family.
by Norbert Link
We report on the end of the temporary cease fire in Israel’s war with Hamas; Europe’s fear of terrorist attacks; an attack on a US warship in the Red Sea; and on a disturbing report about Israel’s alleged prior notice of the Hamas attack in Gaza on October 7 (while the USA denies any knowledge). We continue with Israel’s determination to kill all Hamas leaders worldwide; and with allegations that America has stopped Israel in the past from securing victory against its enemies; and that there is concern that the USA will do so again.
We introduce you to a deeply controversial White House advisor who is claimed to be one of the most powerful men in Washington; and speak on President Biden’s continued denial of what seems to be the obvious truth.
In other news, we focus on the situation regarding Russia and Ukraine with special emphasis on the question as to how most Russians view the war with Ukraine; the allegation that Germany is trying to reduce financial aid for Ukraine; the debate in the USA and elsewhere on how and whether to continue supporting Ukraine militarily and financially; the accusation that Zelensky is becoming an autocrat who has lost the trust of many Ukrainians; the assassinations of “dissidents” by Ukraine’s intelligence service; and Hungary’s objection to Ukraine’s EU membership.
We speak on Germany’s fear of war with Russia (please see in this regard our new StandingWatch program, titled, “War Between Russia and Germany?”) and address claims that Europe must (and will) become a superstate; and we conclude with the realization that Germany has a big problem. In this regard, please view our new message, titled, “The Rise of the Beast—Comments on News and Prophecy, December 2, 2023.”
Throughout this section, we have underlined pertinent statements in the quoted articles, for the convenience and quick overview of the reader.
Israel Today wrote on December 1:
“Shortly after 7 am Israel time, the Israeli army resumed its military offensive against the Hamas terrorist infrastructure in Gaza. Hamas had until that time every morning to provide a list of at least 10 additional hostages it planned to release in order to buy one more day of ceasefire. It failed to provide a list by the specified time this morning… [Netanyahu said:] ‘The Government of Israel is committed to achieving the goals of the war: Releasing the hostages, eliminating Hamas, and ensuring that Gaza never again constitutes a threat to the residents of Israel.’…
“The Biden administration has stressed in recent days that it expects Israel to be ‘more careful’ to avoid civilian casualties in southern Gaza than it was in the north of the coastal enclave. The insinuation of the demand was seen by many Israelis as an insult, as though Israel had purposefully killed thousands of civilians in northern Gaza, or at best had coldly disregarded them.
“Israel goes to great lengths to avoid collateral damage in battle, much more so than American forces in recent Middle East wars, and this often comes at the cost of higher IDF casualties. That thousands of Gaza civilians are dying is entirely the fault of Hamas, which uses them as human shields. But Washington can’t complain to Hamas, so it instead blames Israel.”
Newsmax added on December 1:
“The United Nations said the fighting would worsen an extreme humanitarian emergency. ‘Hell on Earth has returned to Gaza,’ said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian office in Geneva… Hamas accused Washington of giving a green light for an Israeli ‘war of genocide and ethnic cleansing.’”
Deutsche Welle wrote on December 5:
“European Union member states are facing a ‘huge risk of terrorist attacks’ over the holiday season due to the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson said on Tuesday… Johansson referred to a Saturday’s knife attack in Paris, where one German tourist was killed and two people were injured. The attacker reportedly pledged allegiance to the so-called ‘Islamic State’ (IS) and expressed anguish about Muslims dying, notably in the Palestinian territories…
“‘With the war between Israel and Hamas and the polarization it causes in our society, with the upcoming holiday season, there is a huge risk of terrorist attacks in the European Union,’ Johansson said. ‘We saw [it happening] recently in Paris, unfortunately, we have seen it earlier as well,’ Johansson added.”
If such attacks were to happen in Europe, there is no telling what Europe might do.
The New York Post wrote on December 3:
“A US warship and multiple commercial vessels were attacked in the Red Sea on Sunday, the Pentagon said — a frightening development ratcheting up maritime tensions in the Middle East during the Israel-Hamas war.
“The USS Carney — which previously shot down missiles and drones aimed at it as it escorted a commercial vessel through the war-torn region — was targeted along with at least two other commercial ships starting around 10 a.m. local time in an assault that lasted about five hours, the Pentagon and an unnamed US official said…
“Yemen’s Houthi rebels — who have proclaimed they would attack ships on the Red Sea over Israeli’s ground incursion into Gaza — later acknowledged that they had targeted two Israeli commercial ships Sunday but did not mention the US Navy vessel.”
The New York Times wrote on November 30:
“Israeli officials obtained Hamas’ battle plan for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened, documents, emails and interviews show. But Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, considering it too difficult for Hamas to carry out.
“The approximately 40-page document, which Israeli authorities code-named ‘Jericho Wall,’ outlined, point by point, exactly the kind of devastating invasion that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people.
“The translated document, which was reviewed by The New York Times, did not set a date for the attack, but described a methodical assault designed to overwhelm the fortifications around the Gaza Strip, take over Israeli cities and storm key military bases, including a division headquarters.”
Gatewaypundit added on December 1:
“… As Channel 11 reported on Tuesday, in May 2023, the Gaza Division’s intelligence officer created a slide presentation… setting out in detail how Hamas intended to bring down the security fence and invade Israel at up to 60 separate points, invade the division’s bases and enter civilian communities to commit mass murder and seize hostages. In a follow-up report from August, the intelligence officer even explained that Hamas intended to carry out its plan either on Shabbat or on a holiday when only a small cadre of soldiers would be on duty. His work was dismissed as unrealistic and out of line with Hamas’s true intentions by senior intelligence officers at Tel Aviv headquarters…”
The Huffington Post wrote on December 3:
“The National Security Council claimed on Sunday that United States intelligence had no prior knowledge of a document detailing Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack plan, after a bombshell report recently revealed that Israeli authorities obtained such information a year ago… The report adds to the already existing public outrage in Israel over Netanyahu and his government’s failure to prevent the attack despite several warnings.”
The Wall Street Journal wrote on December 1:
“Israel’s intelligence services are preparing to kill Hamas leaders around the world when the nation’s war in the Gaza strip winds down, setting the stage for a yearslong campaign to hunt down militants responsible for the Oct. 7 massacres, Israeli officials said.
“With orders from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s top spy agencies are working on plans to hunt down Hamas leaders living in Lebanon, Turkey and Qatar… For years, countries such as Qatar, Lebanon, Iran, Russia and Turkey have provided Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, with a measure of protection…
“Targeted killings abroad can violate international law and run the risk of blowback from nations in which assassins operate without their permission. In practice, however, Israel and others have pursued targeted killings and weathered the repercussions…
“Perhaps no other nation has Israel’s experience in carrying out worldwide assassination campaigns. Since World War II, Israel has conducted more than 2,700 such operations… Even before Israel was founded in 1948, Jewish militants killed European diplomats who were involved in the British administration of Mandatory Palestine. In the 1960s, Israeli spies used letter bombs to target former Nazi Germany scientists helping Egypt develop rockets…
“In 1997, Netanyahu, then serving his first term as prime minister, ordered Israeli spies to kill Meshaal, a Hamas founder who was then living in Jordan. The Israeli team entered Jordan posing as Canadian tourists and attacked Meshaal outside the Hamas political office in Amman. One Israeli assassin sprayed a toxin into Meshaal’s ear but he was captured along with another member of the team before they could escape. Meshaal fell into a coma, and Jordan threatened to terminate its peace treaty with Israel. Then-President Bill Clinton pressed Netanyahu to end the crisis by sending his Mossad chief to Amman with the antidote that saved Meshaal’s life. Israel then secured the freedom of its operatives in Jordan by agreeing to release Yassin, the Hamas spiritual leader, and 70 other Palestinian prisoners…
“It was the deadly Palestinian militant attack on Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics that cemented the nation’s embrace of covert assassinations as a tool of government policy. Palestinian gunmen with a group known as Black September took a group of Israeli athletes and coaches hostage in the Olympic Village, leading to a two-day standoff that ended with a failed rescue attempt by West German police. All 11 Israeli hostages were killed. In response, then-Prime Minister Golda Meir ordered Israeli spies to hunt down and kill all Palestinian militants involved in the attack. The covert campaign was dubbed Operation Wrath of God and became the subject of an Oscar-nominated 2005 Steven Spielberg movie.
“Israeli assassins spent 20 years hunting those linked to the Munich attack. They killed Palestinians in France, Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Lebanon. They used a remote-controlled bomb hidden inside a phone in France and used guns with silencers to kill targets in the streets of Rome… But Operation Wrath of God also led to one of Israel’s most embarrassing covert failures in 1973, when a team of Israeli operatives killed a Moroccan waiter in Norway who they had mistakenly identified as a Palestinian militant involved in the Munich attack. Six of the 15 Israeli operatives were arrested and five were sentenced to short prison terms for their roles in the killing.”
Israeli attacks in countries such as Turkey would create incredible hostility.
Israel Today wrote on November 30:
“The Biden administration is frantically looking for a way to stop Israel from fulfilling its vow to its citizens to defeat Hamas and eliminate it as a military and terrorist threat. America has a history of stopping Israel just short of actually defeating its enemies. In 1967 and 1973, Israel’s most famous full-scale wars came to a sudden halt when Washington insisted on a truce just as the IDF was preparing its final assault. The First Lebanon War in the early 1980s concluded with Israel being pressed to accept a deal whereby Yasser Arafat and his PLO could escape to fight another day.
“And the same formula is now being discussed in regards to Hamas. According to the Wall Street Journal, the Biden administration wants Israel to consider a deal under which the Hamas leadership, along with thousands of Hamas gunmen and their families, will be allowed to leave Gaza to a third country… all of this ignores the lessons learned, or not learned, from the Lebanon War fiasco. After destroying Lebanon, Arafat and his men were allowed to leave and take shelter in Tunisia, from where they continued to conduct a global campaign of terror…
“Honestly, the biggest obstacle to peace in the Middle East at this point is the short-sighted incompetence of Western leaders.”
In a somewhat cryptic message, “in a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu [last Thursday], Blinken also reportedly said Israel may only have ‘weeks’ left to fight, rather than months” (JTA, dated December 1). Does this mean that America will again put pressure on Israel to stop fighting against Hamas? And not surpassingly, but quite expectedly, it seems that Europe might be blowing the same horn.
AA wrote on December 3:
“The EU’s foreign policy chief [Josep Borrell] on Saturday expressed ‘regret’ over the resumption of Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip, emphasizing Tel Aviv’s obligation to respect international humanitarian law and the laws of war, which he described as ‘not only a moral obligation but also a legal one.’”
The Huffington Post wrote on December 1:
“Four men in Washington shape America’s policy in the Middle East. Three are obvious: President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan. The fourth is less well-known, despite his huge sway over the other three ― and despite his determination to keep championing policies that many see as fueling bloodshed in Gaza and beyond.
“His name is Brett McGurk. He’s the White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, and he’s one of the most powerful people in U.S. national security… He controls whether global affairs experts within the government ― including more experienced staff at the Pentagon and the State Department ― can have any impact, and he decides which outside voices have access to White House decision-making conversations…
“It’s a stunning degree of authority for a 50-year-old operative with a deeply controversial career… McGurk’s primary focus, a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia, has come to dominate American diplomacy in the region… Saudi Arabia, the wealthy spiritual hub of the Muslim world, has long said it will only establish ties with Israel if a Palestinian state is established…
“A White House official told HuffPost that McGurk and the Biden administration prioritize Palestinian rights, including during talks about Saudi-Israel normalization… But skeptics fear McGurk’s focus on so-called Saudi-Israel ‘normalization’ will mean centering America’s Middle East strategy on a Saudi-Israel deal that lacks a settlement that satisfies Palestinians, sowing the seeds of future discord ― and that the deal would disregard U.S. values by, for instance, including huge arms sales and security commitments despite documented Saudi and Israeli misuse of American military assistance…”
Saudi Arabia will ultimately become one of Israel’s enemies.
Daily Mail wrote on December 6:
“President Joe Biden denied ‘interacting’ with Hunter Biden’s business partners and called allegations a ‘bunch of lies’ when asked about the Republican impeachment probe. He insisted there weren’t any communications with scandal-hit son’s associates, despite the GOP sharing evidence of at least 22 phone calls the then-vice president sat in on, dinners with Hunter’s associates at Washington, D.C., restaurants and participation in coffee meetings…
“He was asked about polling showing that nearly 70 percent of Americans think he did something unethical or illegal with family business interests and why he interacted with ‘so many’ of his son Hunter and brother James’ associates… Earlier this week, House Oversight chairman Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) released bank records that Republicans say indicate he got at least three monthly payments [in the amount of $1,380 each] from a company owned by Hunter Biden that took in millions from China…
“The president has repeatedly denied being in business with his son, but former Hunter Biden business associates have testified he would briefly pop on conference calls or drop by meetings.”
Politicians lie. Joe Biden is no exception.
The New York Post wrote on December 7:
“Three times on Wednesday, Joe Biden denied that he has interacted with his son Hunter and brother Jim’s business associates, when it is an undeniable, documented fact that he has interacted with them dozens of times… But Joe Biden can’t stop lying. The hole he has dug for himself is too deep. The evidence already amassed by the three congressional committees working on the impeachment inquiry is overwhelming. It shows that when Joe Biden was vice president, he was intimately involved in the lucrative scheme his son and brother were running to extract millions of dollars from countries that were America’s adversaries or supplicants and in which he wielded enormous power as the point man for the Obama administration…
“But the cover-up of the Biden grift is even worse since it involves the corruption of institutions that are supposed to keep us safe: the FBI, DOJ and CIA. The only reason we know about the cover-up is because a handful of noble whistleblowers from those institutions have exposed the wrongdoing… But in the end, it will be up to the American people to cast judgment on Joe Biden’s lies.”
Euronews wrote on December 2:
“Support for the Ukraine war in Russia has hit rock bottom, according to a recent poll. The independent pollster Chronicle found that the number of Russians who fully support the invasion has almost halved since February 2023. Their survey revealed those who favour peace far outnumber pro-war voices, with more Russians supporting the departure of the country’s troops from Ukraine than not.”
However, Atlantic Council wrote on November 30:
“Despite some indications of war weariness, most Russians continue to support their country’s invasion of Ukraine, according to a comprehensive new report published this week. Based on polling and focus groups conducted by Russia’s only internationally recognized pollster, the Levada Center, and the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, the report found that the majority of Russians had ‘gotten used to’ living against the backdrop of a brutal armed conflict and had consolidated around the Kremlin…
“Debate has raged for the past twenty-one months over the true extent of Russian public support for the invasion of Ukraine. Many continue to question the validity of polls conducted in wartime Russia, with skeptics arguing that very few members of the public would be comfortable expressing anti-regime opinions to strangers. Indeed, given the draconian legislation adopted in Russia since February 2022 criminalizing criticism of the invasion, there is good reason to treat all research data coming out of the country with caution.
“While there are legitimate doubts over the credibility of polling data, the findings detailed in this new report and the Levada Center’s more regular monitoring both closely mirror the available anecdotal evidence, which indicates high levels of public acceptance for the ongoing invasion. Perhaps the most compelling evidence has come from personal interactions between Ukrainians and their Russian relatives. With family ties connecting millions on both sides of the border, there has been ample opportunity for Ukrainians to get a sense of how ordinary Russians feel about the war. This has led to countless painful conversations with Ukrainians frequently finding that people they have known all their lives now parrot Kremlin propaganda, blame Ukraine for the war, or deny core aspects of the invasion altogether.
“The almost complete absence of any meaningful anti-war activity in Russia is a further indication of public support, or at least acceptance, of the invasion. During the first weeks of hostilities, there were some attempts to hold anti-war rallies in a number of Russian cities, but these modest efforts soon ran out of steam. Some commentators have since argued that it is simply too dangerous to protest. However, wartime restrictions have not prevented Russians from freely voicing their opposition to various specific aspects of the invasion…
“The more than one million Russians who are believed to have fled the country following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine have also proven largely unwilling to voice their opposition to the war, despite not facing any of the restrictions in place inside Russia itself. While there are large Russian diasporas in multiple cities across Europe, there have been very few anti-war rallies since February 2022 or any other attempts by Russian citizens to protest against the invasion being carried out in their name…
“All this is very good news for Vladimir Putin. The Russian dictator had initially hoped to secure a rapid military victory in Ukraine, but he is now actively preparing his country for a long war. He has already moved much of the Russian economy onto a war footing, and seems to have succeeded in convincing the vast majority of his compatriots that they are engaged in a struggle with the West that is both existential and unavoidable. With his home front looking remarkably stable and no sign of any domestic challenges on the horizon, Putin can look ahead to 2024 with a degree of confidence.
“These latest indications of continued Russian public support for the war will further dampen any lingering hopes in Western capitals that internal opposition could yet derail the Russian invasion. The timing is particularly unfortunate, with talk of a battlefield stalemate in Ukraine already fueling doubts over the future of Western military aid. For now, Western leaders remain adamant that they will continue to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes. However, they are extremely unlikely to be aided by any kind of anti-war uprising inside Russia itself.”
Express wrote on December 2:
“Ukraine has been caught off-guard after it was revealed that Germany wants to cut the amount of money it gives to an EU fund for Kyiv’s war effort… European capitals were reportedly stunned by Olaf Scholz’s U-turn… Ukraine is also understood to be alarmed by the news, since Germany, the EU’s largest economy, contributes a quarter of the EPF’s total funds…
“The dramatic German reversal followed a recent shock constitutional court verdict that blew a €60billion (£51bn) hole in Berlin’s budget. The court ruled that Chancellor Scholz’s government had breached a debt brake, which places a limit on public spending…
“The news comes less than 24 hours after President Zelensky admitted that Ukraine’s counteroffensive against invading Russian forces did not achieve the success he had hoped for. The counteroffensive is widely viewed as having failed to quickly deliver the hoped-for gains, despite significant Western backing…”
Daily Mail wrote on December 6:
“President Joe Biden on Wednesday warned that American troops could have to fight Russian forces if Congress prevents further aid being sent to Ukraine. He demanded that lawmakers approve his request for tens of billions in military and economic assistance…
“His administration is warning of dire consequences for Kyiv if lawmakers don’t act to keep support flowing and European allies are increasingly alarmed at the consequences for democracy in their backyard.”
Deutsche Welle reported on December 5:
“The United States is running out of time and money to help Ukraine fight back against the Russian invasion unless Congress can approve a new spending package, the White House said on Monday. The Biden administration had asked Congress in October to approve a $106 billion (€98 billion) package to fund aid for Ukraine and Israel, as well as for border security, but it was voted down by the Republican-controlled House.
“In a letter to the speaker of the House of Representatives on Monday, President Joe Biden’s budget director Shalanda Young said time was running out to help Ukraine… ‘without congressional action, by the end of the year we will run out of resources to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to provide equipment from US military stock’ she wrote… ‘Cutting off the flow of US weapons and equipment will kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield, not only putting at risk the gains Ukraine has made, but increasing the likelihood of Russian military victories.’…
“House Speaker Mike Johnson gave the letter a cool response. ‘The Biden administration has failed to substantively address any of my conference’s legitimate concerns about the lack of a clear strategy in Ukraine, a path to resolving the conflict, or a plan for adequately ensuring accountability for aid provided by American taxpayers,’ Johnson said in a statement on social media. He also said that any national security supplemental package ‘must begin with our own border.’”
Fox News added on December 5:
“NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a recent interview that the Western military alliance should ‘be prepared for bad news’ in the Ukraine war ahead of the winter months… without elaborating.”
The New York Post wrote on December 5:
“Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is becoming an autocrat who is reshaping Ukraine into an authoritarian state no different than Russia, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko has shockingly claimed. Klitschko, a former heavyweight boxing champion-turned-politician, took the unprecedented step of publicly attacking Zelensky, an ex-comedian and actor, so vehemently for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine 21 months ago.
“While the pair have been political foes, such a blistering public condemnation was still shocking to many, given the country’s war crisis. ‘At some point we will no longer be any different from Russia, where everything depends on the whim of one man,’ Klitschko said in a new interview with the German news outlet Der Spiegel.
“Klitschko, who has served as the mayor of Kyiv since 2014, praised his fellow mayors and regional governors for thwarting Ukraine’s descent into authoritarianism… Klitschko… claimed that the president has become isolated…
“In a separate sit-down with the Swiss news site 20Minutes, Klitschko accused Zelensky of lying to the public about Ukraine’s progress in the bloody conflict. Klitschko, 52, argued that Zelensky’s popularity has been declining since the start of the war in February 2022, when he emerged onto the world stage as the symbol of Ukraine’s struggle for survival — and the mayor predicted that the president will eventually find himself out of power as payback for his ‘mistakes’…
“But despite his litany of grievances, the mayor stopped short of calling for Zelensky’s immediate ouster. ‘The president has an important function today, and we have to support him until the end of the war,’ Klitschko said. ‘But at the end of this war, every politician will pay for his successes or failures.’”
Eventually, Ukraine and Russia will unite. Then, Ukraine will not be any different from Russia.
Sky News added on December 4:
“Volodymyr Zelenskyy is ‘paying for mistakes he has made’ and the Ukrainian people are wondering why the country was not better prepared, Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, has said in interviews with various news outlets. Mr Klitschko said Ukrainians were losing trust in the wartime leader’s handling of the crisis… ‘There was too much information that didn’t match reality…’
“The former boxing champion also claimed the Ukrainian leader had authoritarian tendencies… ‘At some point we will no longer be any different from Russia, where everything depends on the whim of one man.’”
Breitbart reported on December 6:
“Ilya Kiva, who was a Member of Parliament in Ukraine until the war started and dissenting lawmakers were purged, was shot in the head in an assassination claimed by the Ukrainian intelligence service. The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) confirmed they were responsible for the killing of a former Member of Parliament of the nation who was found dead in Moscow, Russia… The report from the Ukrainian state news outlet described Ilya Kiva as a ‘top traitor, collaborator and propagandist… criminal’ and stated he was ‘liquidated’ with ‘small arms’, or gunfire.
“The BBC reports a spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence not only confirmed the state-sanctioned assassination but said more would follow…
“The former Presidential candidate had been a parliamentarian for the pro-Moscow ‘Opposition Platform — For Life’ party in Ukraine’s Parliament but was stripped of his seat in 2022 after he spoke out in favour of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Days after Kiva was kicked out of Parliament, his entire party— along with 11 other Ukrainian pro-Russia parties — was banned as part of the nation’s state of emergency martial law rules. Kiva fled Ukraine to Russia, and was convicted in absentia of high treason for his support of Russian military action.
“The killing came… amid a slew of other former Ukrainian opposition lawmakers — ‘traitors’ — apparently also eliminated. Kyiv claimed responsibility for the killing of another pro-Russian Ukrainian politician last month, with Mikhail Filiponenko of the Russian-occupied Luhansk region being killed by a car bomb…
“Another apparent car bomb killing took place just today, although in this case the Ukrainian state has not yet claimed responsibility. Oleg Popov, also a Ukrainian collaborating with the Russian occupation of Luhansk was killed after his car exploded, reports Le Monde. The New York Post states Popov had already survived one alleged assassination attempt last year and that sources claimed the SBU were responsible for his killing today, but that has not been confirmed.”
Is Ukraine copying the assassinations of dissidents for which Russia is famous?
Sky News wrote on December 4:
“Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has demanded that Ukraine’s membership in the EU and billions of euros in funding meant for the country be taken off the agenda at a summit of the bloc’s leaders next week… Mr Orban insisted that a ‘strategic discussion’ is needed first about Ukraine’s European future and warned that forcing a decision could destroy EU unity…”
Ukraine will never become a member of the EU.
The Telegraph wrote on December 1:
“The European Union should become a single megastate as it is not working in its current form, according to… Mario Draghi, who led the European Central Bank (ECB) and served as [Italy’s] prime minister during the pandemic… It made no sense, the former premier said, to have 27 separate national armed forces and 27 separate drug control agencies…
“Mr Draghi… has hopes of becoming the next president of the European Council, according to Italian media reports. ‘By expanding the European Union to 28 members [prior to Brexit] we made a colossal error: to think that it could work with the rules that were put in place when there were just 12 members,’ Mr Draghi said in a speech in Rome. For the EU to have a future in a multicentric world dominated by big powers such as the US and China, ‘it should become a state’, Mr Draghi said…
“The former prime minister compared the EU in its current state unfavourably with ancient Rome, lamenting that it had no common foreign policy or single army. He criticised the bloc for not being engaged enough in the Israel-Gaza crisis, saying ‘it needs to do more’… ‘The European market is too small,’ he said, adding that European companies often sell up or move to the US once they become successful.”
The comparison with ancient Rome is interesting; given the fact that the coming United States of Europe will be the tenth resurrection of the ancient Roman Empire.
The Record wrote on December 1:
“Charles Michel, the president of the European Council — the EU body that sets the bloc’s political direction — proposed on Thursday the creation of ‘a European cyber force … equipped with offensive capabilities’… Michel said: ‘I feel that the time has come to create a real union of defence, coupled with a true defence single market.’”
Up until now, Europe stated their forces should be used strictly for defensive purposes.
Die Welt wrote on December 6:
“Because the West is hesitating, time is working for Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. And that’s just the beginning… with consequences for Germany that no one can imagine…
“Among those who are still interested in the Ukraine war, there are two camps: those who believe in a victory for Kiev. And those who dream of negotiations with Russia. But on the front, Ukraine is at a dead end. And Putin has no reason to negotiate because time is working for him: support for Kiev is dwindling in the USA, and the prospect of a new Trump presidency is becoming more real on the horizon.
“Putin, for his part, has staying power – and allies. The Emirates and Saudi Arabia are among six states that will soon join the Brics alliance – which so far includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The alliance is united by one goal in terms of power politics: to end the supremacy of the West. With its imperialist drive, Russia is only the tip of the spear, but has the tacit approval of many states as long as it does not disturb their circles.
“For Putin, the military problems in Ukraine were just a setback on a path that he is continuing undeterred. His goal remains the conquest of the entire Ukraine. Secret services assume that Russia would need six years after the war to arm itself for an attack on NATO territory. If NATO still exists.
“…while Putin is investing huge sums of money in his army, the Federal Republic’s enthusiasm for armaments has already dried up.
“Germany is risking what hardly anyone in this country can or wants to think at the moment: that war will come to our country one day not far away.”
Please view our new StandingWatch program, titled, “War Between Russia and Germany?”
The Daily Mail wrote on December 1:
“When 1.1 million migrants arrived in Germany in 2015, Bild Zeitung launched a ‘welcome’ campaign, echoing the sentiments of then-Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had unilaterally opened the country’s borders to Syrians fleeing civil war in their homeland…
“Which makes the new campaign by Germany’s favourite paper, known to everyone simply as Bild, quite extraordinary. Under the front-page headline ‘Germany, we have a problem!’, it has published a highly controversial 50-point manifesto telling migrants how to behave as the country experiences a national culture clash.
“’Our world is in chaos, and we are in the middle of it,’ says the paper. ‘Since the terrorist attack of Hamas on Israel on October 7, we are experiencing a new dimension of hatred, against our values, our democracy and against Germany. In our country, there are many who oppose our way of life. People who celebrate the murder of innocent civilians. Those who teach their children to hate others because they are “infidels” (non-believers), those who forbid women from wearing trousers; those who listen to radical preachers because they want a different society. Germany must say no!’
“Though Bild calls its manifesto a ‘sort of house rules’ for everyone living in Germany, it is clearly aimed at migrants. And its significance cannot be overstated. With its racy pictures and eye-grabbing headlines, Bild — which sells one million print copies a day — has a massive impact on the German people’s mindset. Twenty regional editions serve every corner of the country and each month its website attracts 25 million visitors, almost a third of the nation’s adult population…
‘The move marked a sharp turning point for Germany and its increasingly uneasy relationship with mass migration. Since the beginning of 2015, three million asylum seekers and illegal arrivals have come with far-reaching economic consequences. This week, as Germany flirts with recession, the Federal Employment Agency announced that six out of ten welfare recipients are migrants who are fit and able to work. Many are aged between 16 and 25, and many are women who have been in the country for years…
“A report on Germany’s migrant population produced by Harvard University warns that, instead of adapting to the liberal way of life in their new host nation, many remain attached to the austere conservative Islamic customs of their countries of origin…
“At least 250,000 migrants have arrived in Germany this year. Some will be genuine asylum seekers but many are not. Berlin fears that Hamas terrorists fleeing Palestine and hoping to harm Europe are infiltrating the incomers. Police checks have been re-introduced at four German borders, but the flow continues. The atmosphere is growing tense. Berlin-based Iranian whistleblower Kazem Moussavi, who arrived as a refugee escaping Islamic persecution 30 years ago, has warned the German government for years that some mosques are fomenting hatred against Jews, Christians, women and the Western way of life…
“He may be right… Many ordinary Germans, who feel their past generosity has been hurled back in their faces, think it is an important message to send out in these very uncertain times.”
Germans will not continue to tolerate this situation much longer; especially, since they do not see any action taken by their weak government.
Acknowledgement and Disclaimer
These Current Events are compiled and commented on by Norbert Link. We gratefully acknowledge the many contributions of news articles from our readership. The publication of articles in this section is not to be viewed as an endorsement or approval as to contents or accuracy of the selected articles, but they are published for the purpose of pointing at worldwide developments in the light of biblical end-time prophecy and godly instruction. Our own comments are provided in italics.
In a Q&A in April 2017, entitled “Does God Change?” we quoted the following observations. We have underlined key phrases:
“In an article in April 2015 in the New York Times, a columnist wrote: ‘And homosexuality and Christianity don’t have to be in conflict in any church anywhere. That many Christians regard them as incompatible is understandable, an example not so much of hatred’s pull as of tradition’s sway. Beliefs ossified over centuries aren’t easily shaken. But in the end, the continued view of gays, lesbians and bisexuals as sinners is a decision. It’s a choice. It prioritizes scattered passages of ancient texts over all that has been learned since — as if time had stood still, as if the advances of science and knowledge meant nothing. It disregards the degree to which all writings reflect the biases and blind spots of their authors, cultures and eras. It ignores the extent to which interpretation is subjective, debatable.’”
Can we see how subtle and deceptive this all is? The article goes on to show how “advances” in understanding have been made with respect to slavery, contraception, gender roles and same-sex marriages. This author and the people he quotes who share many of his views obviously think that they know better than God.
We continued in our Q&A:
“God does NOT change when it comes to the eternal truths that He has made clear in His Word. God has, and is, perfect character which cannot change and we have to have the spiritual insight and understanding to comprehend this, rather than lumping everything together.
“Moral absolutes are just that – absolute. They cannot be changed and God does not change in this area.”
We reviewed a few examples where God DID change His mind, but none of these changes involved alterations to His unalterable spiritual law. For example, Abraham debated with God how many righteous were to be found in Sodom and Gomorrah that would save it from destruction and he negotiated it down from 50 to 10 – but God does NOT change when it comes to the eternal Truths that He has made clear in His Word.
Another example we quote is in Numbers 14 which tells the story of Israel refusing to enter Canaan and instead of entering the land immediately, God changed this by deferring their entry for 40 years. These are just things of a temporary nature but nothing changes about God’s eternal Law.
A further example was when God relented from the disaster that He had said He would bring upon the Ninevites – because of their repentance.
And so, let us look at the “culture of the time” argument.
You’ve no doubt heard this argument. A while ago, the Episcopal church in the USA, which is part of the Anglican movement worldwide and allied to the Church of England, were debating the appointment of a practicing homosexual to a senior position. The following comment was made live on television:
“The Bible has to be interpreted in the light of contemporary society – not in an arcane way” (that is, a primitive or outdated way).
In other words, as society becomes more and more liberal and permissive and controlled by the media and those with vested interests, God’s Word has to be altered and manipulated to fit in with the world’s ways. This would, in reality, be moulding and shaping God into the form that we wanted or suited us – and that is preposterous. It would mean that those who are “influencers,” to use a modern word, could come up with all sorts of ideas and then God’s Way would have to be interpreted in the light of their musings and pronouncements!! What utter nonsense that is!
In short, today, many can use the arguments that as culture changes, God will go along with the flow and bend according to the particular dictates of man at any given time. They don’t phrase it that way of course, but that is how they view it.
How ridiculous that would be, but it is the way of some – but, hopefully, not those of us in the Church of God! If that were the case, we could justify ANYTHING – anything at all. God does not change – and His Word doesn’t change. That’s the way of the world.
Hebrews 13:8 says: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” Does Jesus Christ “move” with the times and go along with the musings of men?
In Malachi 3:6, we read the following: “For I am the LORD, I do not change;”
Barnes Notes on the Bible read:
“I am the Lord, I change not – better, more concisely, ‘I, the Lord I change not.’ The proper name of God, ‘He who Is,’ involves His unchangeableness. For change implies imperfection; it changes to that which is either more perfect or less perfect: to somewhat which that being, who changes, is not or has not. But God has everything in Himself perfectly.”
We read in the Pulpit Commentary:
“For I am the Lord, I change not; or, Jehovah, I change not. This is to show that God performs his promises, and effectually disposes of the allegation in Malachi 2:17, that he put no difference between the evil and the good. The great principles of right and wrong never alter; they are as everlasting as he who gave them. (our emphasis). God here speaks of himself by his covenant name, which expresses his eternal independent being, ‘the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning’ (James 1:17). ‘Therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed’. Because God’s eternal purpose stands good, and his ‘gifts and calling are without repentance’ (Romans 11:29), therefore the Israelites are indeed chastised and corrected, but not wholly consumed; they have a place and a nation, and the great promises made to their forefathers will all be fulfilled in due time (Jeremiah 30:11; Micah 7:20).”
If God does not change, neither will His Word. 2 Timothy 3:16 is further evidence of the permanency, constancy and dependability on the Word of God whichever century or millennium it applies to: “All Scripture (not just that which is convenient – but ALL Scripture) is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.”
And there is yet another passage of Scripture that those who want to bend God’s Word into their own interpretation and ignore its clear instructions, would find very hard to defend. John 17:17 quotes Christ’s words: “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth.”
Our approach is exactly the opposite to that of the world – we DO believe God. Sanctify means to set apart – and true Christians are set apart by the Truth – and God’s Word is Truth. Why can’t others see this? We know that at the right time, God will remove their spiritual blindness. But we have been called now – and we know the Truth. And as we take the approach of the Bereans by searching the Scriptures, we will ensure that we find out what God’s Will is and subjugate our own human reasoning to His perfect Will and Way. That is the approach that God expects of His children.
Some time ago, one letter in a newspaper said:
“The Church of England should go the whole hog and just sling the Bible in the bin. It could then preach its ‘anything goes’ philosophy to its largely empty churches. The rest of us will have moved on to a Christian church.”
The Daily Caller wrote on August 30, 2023: “The Church of England’s (CofE) liberal drift continues as a new survey shows that a majorities of priests now support abandoning traditional Christian sexual ethics.
“A survey by the Times found that 62.6 percent of priests believe the church should relax its teaching that all premarital sex is sinful. A smaller majority (53.4 percent) voiced their support for same-sex marriage. The Church of England currently allows marriages only between men and women, though the General Synod — the CofE’s legislative body — voted in February to offer blessings to civilly married same-sex couples.”
While this was talking about the Church of England, it could certainly be extended to cover many more in mainstream Christianity. There is no leadership in the most important area of all – that of Bible understanding. Judges 21:25 tells us, and this was applicable thousands of years ago and is certainly applicable today:
“In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
This is a repeat of what is stated in Judges 17:6. The fact that this concerned royalty does not deflect from the principle. For “king,” we can substitute “leader” – and the fact that there is no clear, unambiguous and moral leadership in the Church of England, and in so many other churches allowing women in the ministry, and many other things, which are not approved or sanctioned by Scripture—means that everyone is doing what is right in his own eyes.
(To be continued)
Lead Writer: Brian Gale (United Kingdom)
compiled by Dave Harris
“War Between Russia and Germany?” is the title of a new StandingWatch program, presented by Evangelist Norbert Link. Here is a summary:
Many in Germany are concerned that “war will come to [their] country one day not far away,” as the German paper “Die Welt” put it. It even gives an approximate time as to when this might happen. And sadly, it will occur, but only after a dramatic event has taken place first, which has been recently described by Italy’s former prime minister and leader of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi.
“Krieg zwischen Russland und Deutschland?” is the title of a new AufPostenStehen program, presented by Norbert Link, covering the same topic as the StandingWatch program.
A new Member Letter (December 2023) has been posted and mailed to our subscribers. Kalon Mitchell draws analogies from the struggles of preparing for and facing winter to what Christians are now facing as more and more trials challenge us to fight against the evil of Satan’s influence—especially, as we prepare for the return of Jesus Christ!
We have started this week an advertising campaign for our new booklet, “The Fall and Rise of Germany and Europe.” An advertising campaign for the German booklet, “Aufstieg und Fall von Deutschland und Europa,” will follow soon.
“Der Brief des Paulus an die Galater—wie er zu verstehen ist,” our new German booklet, has been translated from, “Paul’s Letter to the Galatians.” Graphic artist, Shelly Bruno, has completed design work and the booklet has been sent to the printer and will soon be available.
“Ängste und Sorgen und die täglichen Probleme,” last Sabbath German sermon by Christoph Sperzel, is now posted. Title in English, “Fears and Worries and Daily Problems.”
“Verantwortung übernehmen,” last Sabbath’s German sermonette by Robert Indlekofer, is now posted. Title in English: “Take Responsibility.”
“The Rise of the Beast—Comments on News and Prophecy, December 2, 2023,” last Sabbath’s sermonette presented by Norbert Link, is now posted. Here is a summary:
Germans lose all confidence in their leadership—arguably the weakest and most incompetent German government since World War II—and the German mass media, such as the mass tabloid Bild, attacks vehemently Germany’s immigration policy. America’s cluelessness, self-deception and past mistakes, and the pope’s “Jewish problem” are blamed for Israel’s dilemma and for Hamas’ joy. How tired are Russians really of the Ukraine war? And are UFOs proof for aliens, angels or demons? What have all these events to do with the rise of the beast and the false prophet?
“Choices and Consequences–Cause and Effect,” last Sabbath’s sermon presented by Rene Messier, is now posted. Here is a summary:
This message will look at biblical examples of the choices people made, and at the outcome of those choices. Some were good choices with a good outcome, while others were not so good.
This Update is an official publication by the ministry of the Church of the Eternal God in the United States of America; the Church of God, a Christian Fellowship in Canada; and the Global Church of God in the United Kingdom.
Editorial Team: Norbert Link, Dave Harris, Rene Messier, Brian Gale, Johanna Link, Eric Rank, Michael Link, Anna Link, Kalon Mitchell, Manuela Mitchell, Dawn Thompson
Technical Team: Eric Rank, Shana Rank
Our activities and literature, including booklets, weekly updates, sermons on CD are provided free of charge. They are made possible by the tithes, offerings and contributions of Church members and others who have elected to support this Work.
While we do not solicit the general public for funds, contributions are gratefully welcomed and are tax-deductible in the U.S. and Canada.
Donations can be sent to the following addresses:
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On December 2, 2023, Norbert Link will present “Comments on News and Prophecy, December 2, 2023,” and Rene Messier will present the sermon, titled, “Choices, Consequences, Cause and Effect”.
The live services are available, over video and audio, at http://eternalgod.org/live-services/ (12:30 pm Pacific Time; 1:30 pm Mountain Time; 2:30 pm Central Time; 3:30 pm Eastern Time; 8:30 pm Greenwich Mean Time; 9:30 pm Central European Time). Just click on Connect to Live Stream.
The Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal wrote on November 21:
“The deal again shows the moral gulf between the two sides. Hamas kidnapped Israeli children as young as nine months to use as hostages and spring its jihadists who have been arrested or convicted in a fair trial for their crimes. Israel takes military risks to save its citizens. Hamas risks Palestinian civilians to save itself.
“Even as Israelis rejoice for the women and children who will return home, they know Hamas is rejoicing too. Its war crimes have been rewarded. It will steal fuel from its own people to power its terror tunnels. Its shattered northern Gaza brigades will use the cease-fire to regroup, escape from weak positions and set more ambushes for Israeli troops. Israel’s leaders made this deal knowing that their soldiers will pay for it…
“Expect Hamas to drag out the cease-fire in hopes of making it permanent. Dribbling out 10 hostages a day, Hamas could stall for a few weeks. Or what if it claims after day two that Israel has broken the deal and hostage releases will continue only after Israel holds off for another few days? What if it pulls that trick over and over?
“The domestic and international picture will become more complicated for Israel. At home a nation united will be divided over how long to wait. Abroad, the pressure to continue the cease-fire indefinitely will grow, and Israel can expect harsher criticism when it resumes fighting. Israelis know all this, but they are willing to accept the costs to retrieve the captives.
“They are also unwavering in their determination to overthrow Hamas. The Israeli cabinet says fighting will resume immediately once the cease-fire is up…
“Much depends on the Biden Administration. Complaints from the Democratic left are no reason to let the Hamas jihadists who carried out the Oct. 7 massacre stay in power in Gaza. President Biden has said Hamas needs to be destroyed. If he means it, he will back Israel’s right to resume fighting and finish the job after hostages are released.”
The Biden Administration has made its position crystal clear. Note the next article.
Israel Today wrote on November 22:
“The White House says it won’t support Israel’s plan to expand its operations into the south of the Gaza Strip unless it shows it will protect the Palestinian civilians there.
“In a Tuesday press call, US National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby said the United States won’t support Israel ‘moving forward with operations in the south absent a clearly articulated plan for how they’re going to protect the lives of the hundreds of thousands of people’ there.”
The Bible says that finally, America—and Britain—will be against Israel. Frictions are already materializing at this point. See the next article.
Israel Today wrote on November 24:
“As if Israelis weren’t traumatized enough by the depraved Hamas pogrom on Oct. 7, the hostage deal concluded this week cruelly deepened their agony… Israel is no longer in control of events. At a stroke, it has yielded control of the war to Gaza’s Hamas leader… As the former US National Security Advisor John Bolton declared: ‘… Hamas will take advantage of that to reposition or extricate some of its leaders, move the hostages around and otherwise prepare for the next stage of combat’…
“Hamas is an enemy of mankind that the world has never seen before… the deal makes an eventual victory for Hamas more likely. Having agreed to this ceasefire, Israel will find itself under increasing pressure from America and the West for additional and longer ceasefires ‘to get more of the hostages out.’
“Israel is in this terrible situation principally because of America. The fingerprints of the Iranian regime were all over the Oct. 7 pogrom. Iran is also behind the attacks on Israel currently being mounted from Syria and Lebanon. Yet it was the Obama and Biden administrations whose appeasement of Iran empowered it to fund, arm, train and direct proxy armies, including Hamas, Hezbollah and Syrian militias bent upon Israel’s destruction.
“It is the Biden administration that, five weeks after the Hamas pogrom, funneled a further $10 billion in sanctions relief into Tehran’s coffers. It is the Biden administration that forced Israel to make the deal with the hostages. It is the Biden administration that is now pressuring Israel not to continue its war in the south of Gaza where it intends to finish off Hamas… America has been leveraging its military support for Israel to force it to run the war in accordance with the Biden administration’s aims: to continue to appease Iran and to create a state of Palestine. Both those aims pose a mortal threat to Israel’s security and existence…
“Israel’s terrible dilemma over the hostages is reminiscent of the unspeakable choices forced upon the Jewish councils who administered the ghettos of Europe during the Holocaust, and whom the Nazis forced to provide lists of people to deport to the death camps or risk the murder of everyone in the ghetto…”
These are strong words.
Newsmax wrote on November 24:
“Caroline Glick, who was a member of Israel’s negotiations team in the 1990s peace talks with then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, told Newsmax on Friday that the current talks with Hamas aren’t the same, as the situation now involves ‘sadistic terrorists’ who are holding almost 240 hostages, including babies and their parents. ‘The negotiations here are the sort of negotiations that a woman who’s being raped would have with a terrorist who’s holding a gun to the head of her child while she’s being raped,’ Glick said…
“Glick… added that when she was involved in the ‘so-called peace talks’ with Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization, ‘they lied to us about everything.’ ‘Every single one of the commitments they accepted on themselves in the framework of all of the peace treatments or agreements that we signed with them over a period of six or seven years, they didn’t abide by any of their obligations to Israel, so they were operating in bad faith but smiling at that time,’ she said. ‘Now things have deteriorated significantly… The minute that you start negotiating with terrorists you basically become their hostages.’
“And even with the cease-fire, Israel will need to return to the war as quickly as possible, said Glick. ‘These monsters simply cannot be allowed to continue to exist,’ she said. ‘The greatest fear here is that [with] the cease-fire that we have, we’re going to face massive and intense pressure from the Biden administration not to go back and finish the job that we started.’’
The New York Post Editorial Board wrote on November 24:
“Hamas’ first hostage release has confirmed some very telling facts about the terrorists: 1) They’re ruthless liars; 2) they’ll victimize anyone they can, and 3) they think they can get America to break with Israel.
“One of those released Friday was… a woman whom Palestinian Islamic Jihad (the No. 2 terror group based in Gaza) repeatedly announced days ago was killed by an Israeli airstrike. That is, PIJ reported her as dead for pure propaganda purposes — to make the world think the Israeli government was killing hostages…
“It’s no surprise that terrorists lie — but US and world media keep giving Hamas’ claims equal footing with anything Israel’s government says, even when it comes to such long-established and widely reported facts as the way Hamas had major terror bases around and even in the al-Shifa hospital…
“Hamas and PIJ see Biden administration support for Israel as soft: They want it to make Israel agree to a ‘permanent’ cease-fire, or at least to greatly extend this one so they can resupply as much as possible from all the humanitarian aid flowing into Gaza… If the cease-fire ends with Americans still held hostage, we guarantee the terrorists will soon claim the Israelis have killed one of them — and if that doesn’t work, they’ll kill an innocent themselves to produce the ‘proof.’”
Hamas is a terrorist group of murderers and liars. Their lying has been seen throughout this recent struggle to support their evil cause. Satan is called a murderer and the father of lies (John 8:44). One does not negotiate with the Devil! And the Palestinians are by no means innocent. Note the next article.
Israel Today wrote on November 23:
“One of the reasons why Palestinian leaders refuse to condemn Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre is because they know that many Palestinians support the atrocities committed by the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group… A public opinion poll published on Nov. 14 showed that 75% of Palestinians support Hamas’s murder spree, including rape and beheadings, as opposed to only 13% who disapprove…
“The poll also showed that 68% of the Palestinians in the West Bank said they ‘extremely support’ the butchering of Israelis, while another 14.8% said they ‘somewhat’ support it. In total, 87.7% of the Palestinians in the West Bank have a positive sentiment toward Hamas. Only 10.2% of the Palestinians living in the West Bank have a negative sentiment toward Hamas.
“Another, but less surprising, result of the poll is that 80% of Palestinians reject both the ‘one-state’ and ‘two-state’ solutions, and instead demand all the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea—in short, the entire State of Israel.
“The findings of the poll shatter the claim made by US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken that Hamas is not representative of most Palestinians. Sadly, the results show, without doubt, that the Biden administration is completely clueless about the anti-Israel sentiment among a large majority of the Palestinians. That a majority of Palestinians want to replace Israel with an Iran-backed terror state also shows that the Biden administration and most European governments are engaging in extreme self-deception when they talk about the need to promote a ‘two-state solution.’…
“Hamas named its massacre ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,’ presumably in response to peaceful and routine visits by Jews to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, which are permitted, by mutual agreement, to open-air areas that are outside of the mosque. Hamas claimed that the name of the massacre came in response to supposed ‘Israeli violations in the courtyards of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.’ There were, of course, no ‘violations’ by Jews…
“‘The [Israeli] enemy desecrated the Al-Aqsa Mosque and dared to visit prophet Mohammed’s place of worship,’ said Hamas arch-terrorist Mohammed Deif, one of the masterminds of the Oct. 7 massacre. Addressing Palestinians, he added: ‘Start marching now toward Palestine, and do not let borders or restrictions deprive you of the honor of jihad [holy war] and participating in the liberation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.’
“… the only solution most Palestinians are willing to accept is one that leads to the murder of all Jews and the destruction of Israel. It remains to be seen whether the latest Palestinian slaughter of Jews serves to awaken the Biden administration and the Europeans to this inconvenient, uncomfortable fact.”
Sadly, it won’t. And so, the Western propaganda that Palestinians want a two-state solution is nothing more than fake news and a hoax. They want the total destruction of Israel.
Deutsche Welle wrote on November 30:
“Henry Kissinger… was born on May 27, 1923, the son of Louis, a Jewish high school teacher, and Paula Kissinger, in the Bavarian city of Fürth. In 1938, when Kissinger was 15, he emigrated to the United States with his parents to escape the persecution of Jews by the Nazis…
“After the construction of the Berlin Wall, Kissinger advised then-President John F. Kennedy against military retaliation. In 1968, President Richard Nixon named him national security adviser. Four years later, in 1973, Kissinger became secretary of state. Kissinger remained in that office after Nixon resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal…
“In 1973, Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, an honor that was, in light of the US role in the Vietnam War, highly controversial…
“… he not only recognized China’s rise to becoming a great power early on and consequently helped engineer a new US relationship with the People’s Republic, he also identified the potential for peace that arose after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Furthermore, he played a supporting role as an adviser on German reunification.
“… Following the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, and US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Kissinger warned of a rupture in the trans-Atlantic partnership… Kissinger has repeatedly made the case for a strong Europe. In 2012, during the eurozone crisis, he warned of the threat of Europe falling back into the old nation-state system…
“In one of his final public interviews, shortly after the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, he told Welt TV that Germany had let in too many immigrants, warning that the conflict could spark a regional conflagration….”
Breitbart wrote on November 29:
“Special Counsel Jack Smith, in a search warrant sent to X, formerly Twitter, requested a vast swathe of information about the account of former President Donald J. Trump, as well as information on the millions of accounts that interacted with it — even those that liked a tweet by Trump in the timeframe of October 2020 to January 2021.
“The heavily redacted search warrant requests a list of all users who liked or retweeted posts from Trump between October 2020 and January 2021, including ‘all associated logs and metadata,’ which could cover location data. This extraordinarily expansive request would result in data on millions of American users being turned over to the DOJ.
“X/Twitter initially delayed complying with the request,… resulting in a $350,000 fine levied against the company.
“The warrant also requests all IP addresses associated with Trump’s account, and a list of all devices used to log in to it. This means that any staffer or aide who logged into the account would have the information divulged to the special prosecutor.
“All information on Trump’s ‘connect’ and ‘notification’ tabs was requested, as well as all search history, blocks, mutes, and even drafted tweets.
“The warrant instructed X/Twitter not to notify Trump of the search order. The company attempted to overcome this in court, but failed…’
This is alarming and deeply upsetting. Such conduct by Smith and the court is worthy of a dictatorship such as Russia or China, but terribly unworthy of the USA. When will the American people wake up? Note the next article.
Daily Mail wrote on November 26:
“Donald Trump’s legal team filed a document Monday arguing the ex-president had a legitimate ‘good faith’ basis to question the results of the 2020 election results. The… filing also demanded government prosecutors to turn over communications between President Joe Biden and his family members with the Justice Department.
“Trump’s lawyers… claim in the filing that the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021 [did not result from] any directions from President Trump.’ The defense made 59 requests including the identification of ‘informants and other undercover operatives‘ involved in the January 6 Capitol attack as well as information regarding security measures carried out that day….”
They could have also asked for all communication between Special Prosecutor Jack Smith and the Justice Department, the Biden Administration, the courts and other prosecutors, based on the appearance of conspiracy and lack of objectivity, but such request would surely be denied based on confidentiality, privilege and privacy. So, what happened to the privacy of those Americans whom Jack Smith is trying to persecute with his outlandish search warrant directed at Twitter/X?
At the same time, Breitbart reported on November 30:
“In an order Thursday, the First Judicial Department of the Appellate Division for the Supreme Court of New York vacated an interim relief that blocked Justice Arthur Engoron’s initial gag on Trump, prohibiting him from making public statements about his law clerk, Allison Greenfield.“
The reputation of the judicial system is suffering more and more. Note the next article.
LifeSiteNews wrote on November 24:
“The New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division’s Fourth Judicial Department has reversed a lower court’s ruling against a regulation called Rule 2.13 allowing the government to involuntarily and indefinitely detain individuals for the purported sake of public health. ‘The language in the [regulation] makes it crystal clear that the DOH [Department of Health] can pull you from your home (and your life) and, with the force of police, hold you anywhere they deem appropriate, including “other residential or temporary housing,’” explained attorney Bobbie Anne Cox, who is representing Uniting NYS and state legislators. The regulation says ‘they don’t have to prove you are sick, they can hold you for however long they want, and there is no way for you to get out of lock up or lock down,’ unless a detained person obtains legal representation and sues.
“The lower court had ruled in July 2022 that the regulation was unconstitutional and lacking due process, but the state appealed that ruling. The Appellate Division then ruled unanimously on November 17 that the plaintiffs lacked standing because they hadn’t been forcibly quarantined. ‘The court seems to insinuate that the only person with the right to sue is someone who has been forcibly locked in their home against their will, or ripped from their home, taken from their loved ones, and thrown into a quarantine detention center, facility, institution, camp, etc…The court insinuates that apparently only that person would be injured,’ explained Cox.
“‘The idea that the State Health Department will lawfully quarantine a New Yorker against their will sounds Soviet,’ reacted state Sen. Mark Walczyk. “The Judiciary has a role to play in checking the Executive and I’m deeply disappointed the Appellate Division missed the opportunity to draw the line at tyranny…”
America is becoming more and more a dangerous autocratic dictatorship. What is happening in left-wing democratic New York State might soon be seen in other US States.
Le Monde wrote on November 22:
“Thursday night’s violence in the Irish capital – which erupted after three children were wounded in the stabbings – was of a level not seen in decades, according to police. A night of torched vehicles and shop looting sparked in Dublin after a knife attack outside a school was of an ‘extraordinary’ level of violence unseen in decades, police said Friday, November 24. The violence started when a group broke through a police cordon Thursday in the area where three young children and a women who was caring for them were injured in a knife attack.
“Groups went on to torch busses and trams and loot shops in one of Dublin’s most famous thoroughfares, O’Connell Street. Garda Commissioner Drew Harris told a press conference in the Irish capital on Friday that multiple Irish police officers were injured in a running battle with the group that stormed the crime scene on Thursday night. Rumours on social media about the nationality of the assailant who police only described as a man in his fifties, helped fuel unrest following the attack…
“Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said that protesters who battled police and looted shops were motivated by ‘hate’ and brought ‘shame on Ireland’… ‘As a country, we need to reclaim Ireland. We need to take it away from the cowards who hide behind masks and tried to terrify us with their violence,’ said Varadkar…
“For his part, Harris blamed a ‘complete lunatic faction driven by far-right ideology’ for the disorder… Ireland has been facing a chronic housing crisis, with the government estimating that there is a deficit of hundreds of thousands of homes for the general population. Widespread dissatisfaction has fed into a backlash against asylum seekers and refugees, and far-right figures have promoted anti-immigration sentiment at rallies and on social media with claims that ‘Ireland is full.’”
Breitbart had quite a different take on the situation. It wrote on November 25:
“Poor Irish people staged a riot in central Dublin following the stabbing of three children by a man described as a homeless migrant, yet the Irish establishment is portraying the Thursday-night anti-migration riots as merely ‘hate,’ ‘lunatic’ and ‘far-right.’
“The unprecedented riots come after years of growing community protests against the migration that is impoverishing Irish people with rising rents and flatlining wages. So far, none of the established Irish political parties have sought to curb or reduce the impact of migration on Ireland’s people… ‘that [riot was] an expression of the disconnect that has been festering amongst disadvantaged young men for a long time,’ reported an anti-establishment Irish news outlet, Grip.ie, which added: ‘But the media, like the government and the Opposition, were eager to change the conversation, and Dublin city centre being set on fire gave them perfect cover to do so. So the usual nonsense about the “far-right” started immediately, and the front pages are full of those photographs this morning.’
“The government offered a very different view… Ireland’s… prime minister Leo Varadkar… portrayed the government as the victim of the drama…In 2020, Vardakar defended the deadly and destructive Black Lives Matter looting and riots in the United States…
“The government is a coalition of establishment parties, all of which support mass migration that has pushed a huge number of Irish people into poverty. So the government’s dismissal of the rioters is expanding the political opportunity for anti-establishment parties…
“Conor McGregor, the very popular Irish martial arts fighter, slammed the establishment media and government for ignoring the migration-caused crime and poverty…”
As so often, Ireland’s failing government blames others for the country’s misery, rather than looking at themselves.
Deutsche Welle wrote on November 25:
“The rules are clear: The German state must make ends meet with the money it takes in. That’s what is written in the constitution. It’s called the Schuldenbremse, or debt brake. Only in exceptional circumstances can the debt brake be lifted, and the government take on new debt. From 2014 to 2019, the federal government was able to comply with these conditions as the budget was always balanced. But then came the coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Bundestag suspended the debt brake several times, and the government was able to borrow billions.
“Finance Minister Christian Lindner’s goal was to put an end to this trend of suspending the debt brake and consolidate the budget. Now he feels compelled to suspend the debt brake retroactively for 2023 as well.
“Since the Federal Constitutional Court declared the financing of the Climate and Transformation Fund (KTF) to be unconstitutional, the government’s current budget planning has become inapplicable. The €60 billion ($66 billion) that the coalition of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), Greens, and neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) paid into this special fund after taking office in 2021 had been left over from the coronavirus pandemic and hadn’t been used. The judges ruled that setting aside emergency loans for the future and spending them in ways not approved by the Bundestag isn’t permissible. The decision caught the coalition off guard, and now there has been widespread confusion about how to react to it. Especially since the KTF isn’t the only special fund.
“The German armed forces have a special fund of €100 billion for example, though since this (is) backed by the constitution, it is presumably unaffected. [However, this is not undisputed. It was reported that this fund is affected, but the government later declared that it is not. The question is, in light of all the lies spread by the government, whom are we to believe?]
“The situation is different with the Economic Stabilization Fund (WSF), a crisis fund of up to €200 billion primarily designed to finance energy price controls. It was set up in 2022, and a large part of the money was earmarked for 2023 and 2024. [This fund is clearly affected and can basically not be used.]… Finance Minister and FDP leader Lindner has now imposed a budget freeze…
“But what happens then? The SPD, Greens, and FDP appear stumped. One reason for this is that the three parties have fundamentally different positions. The coalition is made up of two more left-leaning parties and one neoliberal party… the SPD and Greens refuse to budge on their climate and social policy goals, which come at a high cost…
“The debt brake is a thorn in the side of many in the SPD and Greens… in view of Germany’s miserable economic data…
“Is Germany once again the ‘sick man of Europe’? While the economy is growing in many other countries around the world, Germany hasn’t been able to get back on its feet and has even slipped into recession in 2023. Since the coronavirus pandemic, the German economy has recorded the lowest economic growth in the eurozone, with no rapid turnaround in sight.
“The country is struggling with high energy costs and a shortage of skilled workers. The railroads, roads and bridges are as dilapidated as are many the public buildings, especially schools and universities. Digital infrastructure leaves a lot to be desired…
“What happens in Germany is of international interest. If Europe’s largest economy reduces its investments and spending, it will be felt first by its European neighbors and then by the rest of the world… a reform of the [debt break] rule is only possible with two-thirds majority support in parliament, which currently doesn’t exist.
“The conservative opposition parties CDU and CSU have ruled out any changes… The FDP shares these policy positions. However, the CDU/CSU and FDP don’t have a majority in parliament….”
Of course, changing the debt brake rule would mean, Germany will go out borrowing money to no end, to be able to pursue its controversial climate change goal and other even more controversial green policies. How is that going to help the country?
The miserable state of affairs will change, and Germany will rise again, but NOT under the present divided government.
Report 24 wrote on November 25:
“The recent landslide victory of Wilders’ PVV in the Netherlands is just another step in the changing face of European politics. Mass immigration, migrant riots, foreign crime and terrorism are just one of many reasons for the subjective ‘shift to the right’. Viewed objectively, given the center’s shift to the left, one would rather have to speak of a ‘readjustment‘…
“All it takes is actually a comparison of the current political positions of ‘centre parties’ such as the SPD, CDU/CSU and FDP in Germany or the SPÖ or ÖVP in Austria with those of 30, 40 or 50 years ago. Much of what is considered ‘right’ today was not so long ago a centrist position…
“… to put it simply, the normal worker or employee just wants to earn enough money to support his family, go on vacation and not have to worry in old age. Gender asterisks and political correctness? The majority don’t care about that because it doesn’t affect everyday life. But if contributions into the social systems due to mass immigration have to be increased, if there is no longer any increase in purchasing power and if there is a threat of poverty in old age, then people do care. And this whole shift to the left in politics has led in exactly this direction.
“Who would have thought, for example, at the end of the 1990s that the Union [CDU] would one day jump on the left-green bandwagon of climate fanatics, initiate a catastrophic ‘energy transition’ and make German industry dependent on the whims of nature when it comes to wind and sun? The current Ampel coalition is basically just continuing what was started under Angela Merkel. Just with a lot more vehemence and pressure. If, instead of traditional sex education and biology education, schools are shown drag queen porn shows, things won’t get any better.
“And then there are the effects of mass immigration from countries with completely different (sometimes archaic) cultures…
“However, the parties and politicians defamed as ‘right-wing populists’ by the left-liberal pseudo-mainstream are interested in such problems and grievances. What’s more, they are becoming a new ‘mainstream’ by increasingly receiving vote shares of a third or more in elections and surveys in more and more countries. For the establishment, this is a ‘shift to the right’, but in reality, this development is simply a natural correction to find a political balance. A one-sided political landscape with a left-liberal unity party consisting of several factions is no longer a democracy, but in fact a kind of dictatorship in which dissenting opinions are defamed.”
This “readjustment” and “natural correction” is attracting more and more voters.
Crux wrote on November 26:
“When Pope Francis was elected in 2013, the forecast among those invested in Jewish-Catholic dialogue generally was rosy. The new pope brought considerable background to the relationship, given that Argentina has the largest Jewish population in Latin America and the sixth largest outside Israel – indeed, the first kosher McDonalds outside Israel was located in a Buenos Aires shopping center…
“And yet, the fact of the matter is that Pope Francis long has had a Jewish problem, and it’s come to the fore anew amid the current war in Gaza. To some extent, the issue is political, having to do with the instinctive sympathy history’s first pope from the developing world feels for the Palestinian cause… There’s also a theological dimension to the angst Francis has generated in Jewish circles, including his frequently disparaging references to the ‘Pharisees… Moreover, there’s a perception that Francis’s campaign to build bridges with Islam sometimes comes at the expense of solidarity with Jews…
“These three sources of tension – the politics of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the theological approach to Judaism, and the inter-faith balancing act vis-à-vis Islam — are all coming to a head amid the current conflagration. The criticism of the pope’s response to the Gaza war started almost immediately…
“The rabbis wondered aloud what the point has been of decades of Jewish-Catholic dialogue when, in a time of need, what Jews get from the pope isn’t solidarity but ‘diplomatic acrobatics, balancing acts…’
“… it’s impossible to ignore the signs of growing tension. Recently an Italian Jew named Vittorio
Mascarini, who leads a Zionist organization in Italy, wrote in the Jewish News Syndicate: ‘If it continues to maintain its ambiguous position, the Holy See risks its entire relationship with Israel and world Jewry.’
“The war in Gaza has already taken an enormous toll. For Francis, who clearly aspires to be a peace-maker, it undoubtedly would be especially agonizing should his relationship with Jews and Judaism end up being among the casualties.”
In light of the foregoing, the following article by Israel 365 News, dated November 26, is truly remarkable:
“On Wednesday, the Pope met with families of hostages taken by Hamas. He also met with Palestinians whose relatives were security prisoners in Israeli jails or were in Gaza. No media representatives were present at the meetings but members of the Palestinian delegation told the media that the pope had described Israel’s actions as ‘genocide’. The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, said he didn’t believe that Francis used that term… The Palestinian delegation insisted nonetheless that Pope Francis described Israel’s military incursion as ‘genocide.’
“After the meeting, the Pope made a speech in St. Peter’s Square in which he said that he heard ‘how both sides suffer’ and how the war between Israel and Hamas has ‘transformed from war to terror.’…
“The American Jewish Committee tweeted gratitude for the pope’s meeting with families of the hostages and calling for their release, while also criticizing his other remarks and asking for clarification. ‘Hamas’ butchering and kidnapping of civilians is terrorism. Israel’s self-defense is not,’ the AJC wrote. ‘Vatican, please clarify.’”
The Pope’s “balancing act” shows, in effect, where he and the Vatican REALLY stand.
The Daily Mail wrote on November 29:
“Pope Francis has kicked conservative US Cardinal Raymond Burke out of his Vatican apartment and stripped him of his salary after he criticized the pontiff’s pro-LGBT stance… Burke… is the second American prelate to face punishment in what appears to be a new phase of Francis’ pontificate. This reform-minded period seems to have accelerated with the arrival in September of Francis’ hand-picked new doctrine czar, Argentine Cardinal Victor Fernández.
“Earlier this month, Francis forcibly removed the bishop of Tyler, Texas, Joseph Strickland, another conservative who had also become one of Francis’ critics.
“… the two seemingly were at odds over COVID-19 vaccines. Francis had been a big proponent of the vaccines and had lashed out at vaccine skeptics, who included some conservative Catholics.”
Did Francis ever repent of and apologize for his inappropriate support of experimental Covid-19 vaccines?
Breitbart wrote on November 29:
“In his piece [for the leftwing Religious News Service,] titled ‘In a World Where Christ Is King, Authoritarian Leaders Can Only Be Antichrists,’ [Jesuit Thomas] Reese asserted that ‘anti-democratic leaders’ like Trump are promising to ‘deliver justice by any means necessary.’… Reese made reference to the holiday [“the liturgical feast of Christ the King”] to contrast Christ’s kingdom with that of ‘antichrists’ like Donald Trump…
“In 2020, Father Reese stumped for Joe Biden, urging his fellow Catholics to join the ‘grassroots’ group ‘Catholics for Biden.’… Reese also attempted to convince Catholics that it is okay to vote for Catholic candidates who openly flout Church teaching on issues such as abortion… Reese acknowledged that most Catholic Democrats disregard the Church’s moral teaching and ‘agree with Biden that abortion should be legal,’ which removes any moral obstacle for supporting him.”
Did and does the pope know about this “Jesuit logic,” and did and does he endorse his fellow Jesuit’s viewpoint? The liberals in the Vatican and the Catholic Church are clearly winning… for now.
Acknowledgement and Disclaimer
These Current Events are compiled and commented on by Norbert Link. We gratefully acknowledge the many contributions of news articles from our readership. The publication of articles in this section is not to be viewed as an endorsement or approval as to contents or accuracy of the selected articles, but they are published for the purpose of pointing at worldwide developments in the light of biblical end-time prophecy and godly instruction. Our own comments are provided in italics.
On December 2, 2023, Norbert Link will present “Comments on News and Prophecy, December 2, 2023,” and Rene Messier will present the sermon, titled, “Choices, Consequences, Cause and Effect”.
The live services are available, over video and audio, at http://eternalgod.org/live-services/ (12:30 pm Pacific Time; 1:30 pm Mountain Time; 2:30 pm Central Time; 3:30 pm Eastern Time; 8:30 pm Greenwich Mean Time; 9:30 pm Central European Time). Just click on Connect to Live Stream.
by Thilo Hanstein (Germany)
These words, “You have to stay strong”, can easily be uttered by outsiders, when the affected person is clearly suffering under certain circumstances.
One might try to strengthen the other person with these words, but whether that alone will help is debatable. And sometimes, I come across people who simply ask, “How are you?” as they walk by, and without paying any attention to my response, they either do not reply at all or just say, “…then take care”.
The world has become very short-lived in its actions, and nobody seems to have any honest care for their neighbor. Society in my neighborhood has changed a lot for the worse, and I would even say that this applies to the whole world.
Not only have people become very superficial and almost everyone thinks only of themselves, but also antisemitism has returned in the most brutal way all over the world. I would argue that antisemitism never went away, it just, for a brief period, didn’t manifest itself to the outside world, and sadly, this condition only lasted for a generation. The words, “We must never forget,” are of no special value.
For true Christians, it is not difficult to recognize that this world is ruled by none other than Satan, who is also called the Devil, the dragon, and the old serpent.
Personally, I have never heard so many war reports in my entire life as these days, and I have to admit that it makes me, as well as certainly others, sad, angry and worried, when I think about it or see or hear about it in the media – but then again, I am also at the same time hopeful in anticipation of the coming of Christ, that it will happen soon after all. It’s all like a merry-go-round of emotions.
And then I ask myself: “Am I even ready for the coming of Christ? And how will I then stand before Him? Will I even be worthy before Him? Will I fail miserably by then or will I remain strong in this last dramatic time?”
We could very well face terrible wars, persecution, betrayal of our own brothers and sisters, and even persecution from our own family. And we must constantly remind ourselves that Jesus Christ pointed out the following to us in the Bible:
“And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows” (Matthew 24:6-8).
These are precisely the times we are currently experiencing; nevertheless, it is not yet the end, but the beginning of sorrows. And then, Christ said:
“‘Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved” (Matthew 24:9-13).
This message from Christ does not seem to point to a rosy future. One factor or another can cause somebody to lose their balance completely, so they may run out of inner strength and fail miserably. Many will have to go through a terrible and merciless tribulation after falling away from the Truth. Some will be able to come out of this tribulation, as Christ tells us; but others may indeed fail and even end up fighting a hateful and murderous battle against God until their ultimate bitter destruction.
We read in Revelation 7:4-9 that of all the tribes of Israel, 144,000 will come out of this tribulation and will be sealed, as well as a great multitude which no one could number. But then we also read in Revelation 16:9-11 about people filled with hate who blaspheme God despite great plagues and pain.
It must be absolutely clear to us: “But he who endures [and stays strong] to the end shall be saved.”
But we cannot do this by our own strength, as we have already learned from the Word of God. We need God’s power, His help and strength. This can only be achieved through prayer, Bible study and thinking about what we have read, occasional fasting and strong faith without any doubts. And we must be there with and for each other, for we all have one faith, one hope, one confidence, one love, one Lord, one God and one Spirit of power in us.
In his second letter to Timothy, Paul wrote the following words, which also have great significance for us today:
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus before time began, but has now been revealed by the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, to which I was appointed a preacher, an apostle, and a teacher of the Gentiles. For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day. Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you have heard from me, in faith and love which are in Christ Jesus. That good thing which was committed to you, keep by the Holy Spirit [which] dwells in us” (2 Timothy 1:7-14).
All in all, this means for each and every one of us: “You must stay strong!”
Initial translation: Daniel Blasinger
by Norbert Link
We begin with further developments in the Middle East in light of the ill-advised Israel-Hamas deal (please view in this regard our previous StandingWatch program, titled, “The Foolish Hamas-Israel Deal—and What It Means!”), while placing special emphasis on the lies of the Palestinians and Hamas; the perception that America and President Biden are at fault for Israel’s “dilemma”; the fear that America will backstab Israel; and the feeling that Biden is “sound asleep” and lacking a clear view of reality, while the Middle East is burning. Please view our most recent StandingWatch program, titled, “Will There Ever Be a Two-State Solution?”
We continue with an outlandish request by Special Counsel Jack Smith, totally violating the rights of millions of American citizens; speak on truly appalling laws and court decisions in New York State, placing the freedom of its citizens in the unscrupulous hands of the government; and we report on unparalleled violence in Dublin, Ireland, with completely opposed reports as to its cause.
We point out Germany’s ever-increasing debacle due to a completely incompetent and out-of-touch “leadership”; publish an interesting, but controversial perspective on the so-called “shift to the right that actually isn’t one at all”; and conclude with the dubious position of the pope and the Vatican regarding their “Jewish problem” and the Catholic Church’s persecution of its critics.
Throughout this section, we have underlined pertinent statements in the quoted articles, for the convenience and quick overview of the reader.
The Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal wrote on November 21:
“The deal again shows the moral gulf between the two sides. Hamas kidnapped Israeli children as young as nine months to use as hostages and spring its jihadists who have been arrested or convicted in a fair trial for their crimes. Israel takes military risks to save its citizens. Hamas risks Palestinian civilians to save itself.
“Even as Israelis rejoice for the women and children who will return home, they know Hamas is rejoicing too. Its war crimes have been rewarded. It will steal fuel from its own people to power its terror tunnels. Its shattered northern Gaza brigades will use the cease-fire to regroup, escape from weak positions and set more ambushes for Israeli troops. Israel’s leaders made this deal knowing that their soldiers will pay for it…
“Expect Hamas to drag out the cease-fire in hopes of making it permanent. Dribbling out 10 hostages a day, Hamas could stall for a few weeks. Or what if it claims after day two that Israel has broken the deal and hostage releases will continue only after Israel holds off for another few days? What if it pulls that trick over and over?
“The domestic and international picture will become more complicated for Israel. At home a nation united will be divided over how long to wait. Abroad, the pressure to continue the cease-fire indefinitely will grow, and Israel can expect harsher criticism when it resumes fighting. Israelis know all this, but they are willing to accept the costs to retrieve the captives.
“They are also unwavering in their determination to overthrow Hamas. The Israeli cabinet says fighting will resume immediately once the cease-fire is up…
“Much depends on the Biden Administration. Complaints from the Democratic left are no reason to let the Hamas jihadists who carried out the Oct. 7 massacre stay in power in Gaza. President Biden has said Hamas needs to be destroyed. If he means it, he will back Israel’s right to resume fighting and finish the job after hostages are released.”
The Biden Administration has made its position crystal clear. Note the next article.
Israel Today wrote on November 22:
“The White House says it won’t support Israel’s plan to expand its operations into the south of the Gaza Strip unless it shows it will protect the Palestinian civilians there.
“In a Tuesday press call, US National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby said the United States won’t support Israel ‘moving forward with operations in the south absent a clearly articulated plan for how they’re going to protect the lives of the hundreds of thousands of people’ there.”
The Bible says that finally, America—and Britain—will be against Israel. Frictions are already materializing at this point. See the next article.
Israel Today wrote on November 24:
“As if Israelis weren’t traumatized enough by the depraved Hamas pogrom on Oct. 7, the hostage deal concluded this week cruelly deepened their agony… Israel is no longer in control of events. At a stroke, it has yielded control of the war to Gaza’s Hamas leader… As the former US National Security Advisor John Bolton declared: ‘… Hamas will take advantage of that to reposition or extricate some of its leaders, move the hostages around and otherwise prepare for the next stage of combat’…
“Hamas is an enemy of mankind that the world has never seen before… the deal makes an eventual victory for Hamas more likely. Having agreed to this ceasefire, Israel will find itself under increasing pressure from America and the West for additional and longer ceasefires ‘to get more of the hostages out.’
“Israel is in this terrible situation principally because of America. The fingerprints of the Iranian regime were all over the Oct. 7 pogrom. Iran is also behind the attacks on Israel currently being mounted from Syria and Lebanon. Yet it was the Obama and Biden administrations whose appeasement of Iran empowered it to fund, arm, train and direct proxy armies, including Hamas, Hezbollah and Syrian militias bent upon Israel’s destruction.
“It is the Biden administration that, five weeks after the Hamas pogrom, funneled a further $10 billion in sanctions relief into Tehran’s coffers. It is the Biden administration that forced Israel to make the deal with the hostages. It is the Biden administration that is now pressuring Israel not to continue its war in the south of Gaza where it intends to finish off Hamas… America has been leveraging its military support for Israel to force it to run the war in accordance with the Biden administration’s aims: to continue to appease Iran and to create a state of Palestine. Both those aims pose a mortal threat to Israel’s security and existence…
“Israel’s terrible dilemma over the hostages is reminiscent of the unspeakable choices forced upon the Jewish councils who administered the ghettos of Europe during the Holocaust, and whom the Nazis forced to provide lists of people to deport to the death camps or risk the murder of everyone in the ghetto…”
These are strong words.
Newsmax wrote on November 24:
“Caroline Glick, who was a member of Israel’s negotiations team in the 1990s peace talks with then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, told Newsmax on Friday that the current talks with Hamas aren’t the same, as the situation now involves ‘sadistic terrorists’ who are holding almost 240 hostages, including babies and their parents. ‘The negotiations here are the sort of negotiations that a woman who’s being raped would have with a terrorist who’s holding a gun to the head of her child while she’s being raped,’ Glick said…
“Glick… added that when she was involved in the ‘so-called peace talks’ with Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization, ‘they lied to us about everything.’ ‘Every single one of the commitments they accepted on themselves in the framework of all of the peace treatments or agreements that we signed with them over a period of six or seven years, they didn’t abide by any of their obligations to Israel, so they were operating in bad faith but smiling at that time,’ she said. ‘Now things have deteriorated significantly… The minute that you start negotiating with terrorists you basically become their hostages.’
“And even with the cease-fire, Israel will need to return to the war as quickly as possible, said Glick. ‘These monsters simply cannot be allowed to continue to exist,’ she said. ‘The greatest fear here is that [with] the cease-fire that we have, we’re going to face massive and intense pressure from the Biden administration not to go back and finish the job that we started.’’
The New York Post Editorial Board wrote on November 24:
“Hamas’ first hostage release has confirmed some very telling facts about the terrorists: 1) They’re ruthless liars; 2) they’ll victimize anyone they can, and 3) they think they can get America to break with Israel.
“One of those released Friday was… a woman whom Palestinian Islamic Jihad (the No. 2 terror group based in Gaza) repeatedly announced days ago was killed by an Israeli airstrike. That is, PIJ reported her as dead for pure propaganda purposes — to make the world think the Israeli government was killing hostages…
“It’s no surprise that terrorists lie — but US and world media keep giving Hamas’ claims equal footing with anything Israel’s government says, even when it comes to such long-established and widely reported facts as the way Hamas had major terror bases around and even in the al-Shifa hospital…
“Hamas and PIJ see Biden administration support for Israel as soft: They want it to make Israel agree to a ‘permanent’ cease-fire, or at least to greatly extend this one so they can resupply as much as possible from all the humanitarian aid flowing into Gaza… If the cease-fire ends with Americans still held hostage, we guarantee the terrorists will soon claim the Israelis have killed one of them — and if that doesn’t work, they’ll kill an innocent themselves to produce the ‘proof.’”
Hamas is a terrorist group of murderers and liars. Their lying has been seen throughout this recent struggle to support their evil cause. Satan is called a murderer and the father of lies (John 8:44). One does not negotiate with the Devil! And the Palestinians are by no means innocent. Note the next article.
Israel Today wrote on November 23:
“One of the reasons why Palestinian leaders refuse to condemn Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre is because they know that many Palestinians support the atrocities committed by the Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group… A public opinion poll published on Nov. 14 showed that 75% of Palestinians support Hamas’s murder spree, including rape and beheadings, as opposed to only 13% who disapprove…
“The poll also showed that 68% of the Palestinians in the West Bank said they ‘extremely support’ the butchering of Israelis, while another 14.8% said they ‘somewhat’ support it. In total, 87.7% of the Palestinians in the West Bank have a positive sentiment toward Hamas. Only 10.2% of the Palestinians living in the West Bank have a negative sentiment toward Hamas.
“Another, but less surprising, result of the poll is that 80% of Palestinians reject both the ‘one-state’ and ‘two-state’ solutions, and instead demand all the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea—in short, the entire State of Israel.
“The findings of the poll shatter the claim made by US President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Anthony Blinken that Hamas is not representative of most Palestinians. Sadly, the results show, without doubt, that the Biden administration is completely clueless about the anti-Israel sentiment among a large majority of the Palestinians. That a majority of Palestinians want to replace Israel with an Iran-backed terror state also shows that the Biden administration and most European governments are engaging in extreme self-deception when they talk about the need to promote a ‘two-state solution.’…
“Hamas named its massacre ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood,’ presumably in response to peaceful and routine visits by Jews to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, which are permitted, by mutual agreement, to open-air areas that are outside of the mosque. Hamas claimed that the name of the massacre came in response to supposed ‘Israeli violations in the courtyards of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque.’ There were, of course, no ‘violations’ by Jews…
“‘The [Israeli] enemy desecrated the Al-Aqsa Mosque and dared to visit prophet Mohammed’s place of worship,’ said Hamas arch-terrorist Mohammed Deif, one of the masterminds of the Oct. 7 massacre. Addressing Palestinians, he added: ‘Start marching now toward Palestine, and do not let borders or restrictions deprive you of the honor of jihad [holy war] and participating in the liberation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.’
“… the only solution most Palestinians are willing to accept is one that leads to the murder of all Jews and the destruction of Israel. It remains to be seen whether the latest Palestinian slaughter of Jews serves to awaken the Biden administration and the Europeans to this inconvenient, uncomfortable fact.”
Sadly, it won’t. And so, the Western propaganda that Palestinians want a two-state solution is nothing more than fake news and a hoax. They want the total destruction of Israel.
Deutsche Welle wrote on November 30:
“Henry Kissinger… was born on May 27, 1923, the son of Louis, a Jewish high school teacher, and Paula Kissinger, in the Bavarian city of Fürth. In 1938, when Kissinger was 15, he emigrated to the United States with his parents to escape the persecution of Jews by the Nazis…
“After the construction of the Berlin Wall, Kissinger advised then-President John F. Kennedy against military retaliation. In 1968, President Richard Nixon named him national security adviser. Four years later, in 1973, Kissinger became secretary of state. Kissinger remained in that office after Nixon resigned in the wake of the Watergate scandal…
“In 1973, Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, an honor that was, in light of the US role in the Vietnam War, highly controversial…
“… he not only recognized China’s rise to becoming a great power early on and consequently helped engineer a new US relationship with the People’s Republic, he also identified the potential for peace that arose after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Furthermore, he played a supporting role as an adviser on German reunification.
“… Following the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, and US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Kissinger warned of a rupture in the trans-Atlantic partnership… Kissinger has repeatedly made the case for a strong Europe. In 2012, during the eurozone crisis, he warned of the threat of Europe falling back into the old nation-state system…
“In one of his final public interviews, shortly after the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, he told Welt TV that Germany had let in too many immigrants, warning that the conflict could spark a regional conflagration….”
Breitbart wrote on November 29:
“Special Counsel Jack Smith, in a search warrant sent to X, formerly Twitter, requested a vast swathe of information about the account of former President Donald J. Trump, as well as information on the millions of accounts that interacted with it — even those that liked a tweet by Trump in the timeframe of October 2020 to January 2021.
“The heavily redacted search warrant requests a list of all users who liked or retweeted posts from Trump between October 2020 and January 2021, including ‘all associated logs and metadata,’ which could cover location data. This extraordinarily expansive request would result in data on millions of American users being turned over to the DOJ.
“X/Twitter initially delayed complying with the request,… resulting in a $350,000 fine levied against the company.
“The warrant also requests all IP addresses associated with Trump’s account, and a list of all devices used to log in to it. This means that any staffer or aide who logged into the account would have the information divulged to the special prosecutor.
“All information on Trump’s ‘connect’ and ‘notification’ tabs was requested, as well as all search history, blocks, mutes, and even drafted tweets.
“The warrant instructed X/Twitter not to notify Trump of the search order. The company attempted to overcome this in court, but failed…’
This is alarming and deeply upsetting. Such conduct by Smith and the court is worthy of a dictatorship such as Russia or China, but terribly unworthy of the USA. When will the American people wake up? Note the next article.
Daily Mail wrote on November 26:
“Donald Trump’s legal team filed a document Monday arguing the ex-president had a legitimate ‘good faith’ basis to question the results of the 2020 election results. The… filing also demanded government prosecutors to turn over communications between President Joe Biden and his family members with the Justice Department.
“Trump’s lawyers… claim in the filing that the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021 [did not result from] any directions from President Trump.’ The defense made 59 requests including the identification of ‘informants and other undercover operatives‘ involved in the January 6 Capitol attack as well as information regarding security measures carried out that day….”
They could have also asked for all communication between Special Prosecutor Jack Smith and the Justice Department, the Biden Administration, the courts and other prosecutors, based on the appearance of conspiracy and lack of objectivity, but such request would surely be denied based on confidentiality, privilege and privacy. So, what happened to the privacy of those Americans whom Jack Smith is trying to persecute with his outlandish search warrant directed at Twitter/X?
At the same time, Breitbart reported on November 30:
“In an order Thursday, the First Judicial Department of the Appellate Division for the Supreme Court of New York vacated an interim relief that blocked Justice Arthur Engoron’s initial gag on Trump, prohibiting him from making public statements about his law clerk, Allison Greenfield.“
The reputation of the judicial system is suffering more and more. Note the next article.
LifeSiteNews wrote on November 24:
“The New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division’s Fourth Judicial Department has reversed a lower court’s ruling against a regulation called Rule 2.13 allowing the government to involuntarily and indefinitely detain individuals for the purported sake of public health. ‘The language in the [regulation] makes it crystal clear that the DOH [Department of Health] can pull you from your home (and your life) and, with the force of police, hold you anywhere they deem appropriate, including “other residential or temporary housing,’” explained attorney Bobbie Anne Cox, who is representing Uniting NYS and state legislators. The regulation says ‘they don’t have to prove you are sick, they can hold you for however long they want, and there is no way for you to get out of lock up or lock down,’ unless a detained person obtains legal representation and sues.
“The lower court had ruled in July 2022 that the regulation was unconstitutional and lacking due process, but the state appealed that ruling. The Appellate Division then ruled unanimously on November 17 that the plaintiffs lacked standing because they hadn’t been forcibly quarantined. ‘The court seems to insinuate that the only person with the right to sue is someone who has been forcibly locked in their home against their will, or ripped from their home, taken from their loved ones, and thrown into a quarantine detention center, facility, institution, camp, etc…The court insinuates that apparently only that person would be injured,’ explained Cox.
“‘The idea that the State Health Department will lawfully quarantine a New Yorker against their will sounds Soviet,’ reacted state Sen. Mark Walczyk. “The Judiciary has a role to play in checking the Executive and I’m deeply disappointed the Appellate Division missed the opportunity to draw the line at tyranny…”
America is becoming more and more a dangerous autocratic dictatorship. What is happening in left-wing democratic New York State might soon be seen in other US States.
Le Monde wrote on November 22:
“Thursday night’s violence in the Irish capital – which erupted after three children were wounded in the stabbings – was of a level not seen in decades, according to police. A night of torched vehicles and shop looting sparked in Dublin after a knife attack outside a school was of an ‘extraordinary’ level of violence unseen in decades, police said Friday, November 24. The violence started when a group broke through a police cordon Thursday in the area where three young children and a women who was caring for them were injured in a knife attack.
“Groups went on to torch busses and trams and loot shops in one of Dublin’s most famous thoroughfares, O’Connell Street. Garda Commissioner Drew Harris told a press conference in the Irish capital on Friday that multiple Irish police officers were injured in a running battle with the group that stormed the crime scene on Thursday night. Rumours on social media about the nationality of the assailant who police only described as a man in his fifties, helped fuel unrest following the attack…
“Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said that protesters who battled police and looted shops were motivated by ‘hate’ and brought ‘shame on Ireland’… ‘As a country, we need to reclaim Ireland. We need to take it away from the cowards who hide behind masks and tried to terrify us with their violence,’ said Varadkar…
“For his part, Harris blamed a ‘complete lunatic faction driven by far-right ideology’ for the disorder… Ireland has been facing a chronic housing crisis, with the government estimating that there is a deficit of hundreds of thousands of homes for the general population. Widespread dissatisfaction has fed into a backlash against asylum seekers and refugees, and far-right figures have promoted anti-immigration sentiment at rallies and on social media with claims that ‘Ireland is full.’”
Breitbart had quite a different take on the situation. It wrote on November 25:
“Poor Irish people staged a riot in central Dublin following the stabbing of three children by a man described as a homeless migrant, yet the Irish establishment is portraying the Thursday-night anti-migration riots as merely ‘hate,’ ‘lunatic’ and ‘far-right.’
“The unprecedented riots come after years of growing community protests against the migration that is impoverishing Irish people with rising rents and flatlining wages. So far, none of the established Irish political parties have sought to curb or reduce the impact of migration on Ireland’s people… ‘that [riot was] an expression of the disconnect that has been festering amongst disadvantaged young men for a long time,’ reported an anti-establishment Irish news outlet, Grip.ie, which added: ‘But the media, like the government and the Opposition, were eager to change the conversation, and Dublin city centre being set on fire gave them perfect cover to do so. So the usual nonsense about the “far-right” started immediately, and the front pages are full of those photographs this morning.’
“The government offered a very different view… Ireland’s… prime minister Leo Varadkar… portrayed the government as the victim of the drama…In 2020, Vardakar defended the deadly and destructive Black Lives Matter looting and riots in the United States…
“The government is a coalition of establishment parties, all of which support mass migration that has pushed a huge number of Irish people into poverty. So the government’s dismissal of the rioters is expanding the political opportunity for anti-establishment parties…
“Conor McGregor, the very popular Irish martial arts fighter, slammed the establishment media and government for ignoring the migration-caused crime and poverty…”
As so often, Ireland’s failing government blames others for the country’s misery, rather than looking at themselves.
Deutsche Welle wrote on November 25:
“The rules are clear: The German state must make ends meet with the money it takes in. That’s what is written in the constitution. It’s called the Schuldenbremse, or debt brake. Only in exceptional circumstances can the debt brake be lifted, and the government take on new debt. From 2014 to 2019, the federal government was able to comply with these conditions as the budget was always balanced. But then came the coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The Bundestag suspended the debt brake several times, and the government was able to borrow billions.
“Finance Minister Christian Lindner’s goal was to put an end to this trend of suspending the debt brake and consolidate the budget. Now he feels compelled to suspend the debt brake retroactively for 2023 as well.
“Since the Federal Constitutional Court declared the financing of the Climate and Transformation Fund (KTF) to be unconstitutional, the government’s current budget planning has become inapplicable. The €60 billion ($66 billion) that the coalition of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), Greens, and neoliberal Free Democrats (FDP) paid into this special fund after taking office in 2021 had been left over from the coronavirus pandemic and hadn’t been used. The judges ruled that setting aside emergency loans for the future and spending them in ways not approved by the Bundestag isn’t permissible. The decision caught the coalition off guard, and now there has been widespread confusion about how to react to it. Especially since the KTF isn’t the only special fund.
“The German armed forces have a special fund of €100 billion for example, though since this (is) backed by the constitution, it is presumably unaffected. [However, this is not undisputed. It was reported that this fund is affected, but the government later declared that it is not. The question is, in light of all the lies spread by the government, whom are we to believe?]
“The situation is different with the Economic Stabilization Fund (WSF), a crisis fund of up to €200 billion primarily designed to finance energy price controls. It was set up in 2022, and a large part of the money was earmarked for 2023 and 2024. [This fund is clearly affected and can basically not be used.]… Finance Minister and FDP leader Lindner has now imposed a budget freeze…
“But what happens then? The SPD, Greens, and FDP appear stumped. One reason for this is that the three parties have fundamentally different positions. The coalition is made up of two more left-leaning parties and one neoliberal party… the SPD and Greens refuse to budge on their climate and social policy goals, which come at a high cost…
“The debt brake is a thorn in the side of many in the SPD and Greens… in view of Germany’s miserable economic data…
“Is Germany once again the ‘sick man of Europe’? While the economy is growing in many other countries around the world, Germany hasn’t been able to get back on its feet and has even slipped into recession in 2023. Since the coronavirus pandemic, the German economy has recorded the lowest economic growth in the eurozone, with no rapid turnaround in sight.
“The country is struggling with high energy costs and a shortage of skilled workers. The railroads, roads and bridges are as dilapidated as are many the public buildings, especially schools and universities. Digital infrastructure leaves a lot to be desired…
“What happens in Germany is of international interest. If Europe’s largest economy reduces its investments and spending, it will be felt first by its European neighbors and then by the rest of the world… a reform of the [debt break] rule is only possible with two-thirds majority support in parliament, which currently doesn’t exist.
“The conservative opposition parties CDU and CSU have ruled out any changes… The FDP shares these policy positions. However, the CDU/CSU and FDP don’t have a majority in parliament….”
Of course, changing the debt brake rule would mean, Germany will go out borrowing money to no end, to be able to pursue its controversial climate change goal and other even more controversial green policies. How is that going to help the country?
The miserable state of affairs will change, and Germany will rise again, but NOT under the present divided government.
Report 24 wrote on November 25:
“The recent landslide victory of Wilders’ PVV in the Netherlands is just another step in the changing face of European politics. Mass immigration, migrant riots, foreign crime and terrorism are just one of many reasons for the subjective ‘shift to the right’. Viewed objectively, given the center’s shift to the left, one would rather have to speak of a ‘readjustment‘…
“All it takes is actually a comparison of the current political positions of ‘centre parties’ such as the SPD, CDU/CSU and FDP in Germany or the SPÖ or ÖVP in Austria with those of 30, 40 or 50 years ago. Much of what is considered ‘right’ today was not so long ago a centrist position…
“… to put it simply, the normal worker or employee just wants to earn enough money to support his family, go on vacation and not have to worry in old age. Gender asterisks and political correctness? The majority don’t care about that because it doesn’t affect everyday life. But if contributions into the social systems due to mass immigration have to be increased, if there is no longer any increase in purchasing power and if there is a threat of poverty in old age, then people do care. And this whole shift to the left in politics has led in exactly this direction.
“Who would have thought, for example, at the end of the 1990s that the Union [CDU] would one day jump on the left-green bandwagon of climate fanatics, initiate a catastrophic ‘energy transition’ and make German industry dependent on the whims of nature when it comes to wind and sun? The current Ampel coalition is basically just continuing what was started under Angela Merkel. Just with a lot more vehemence and pressure. If, instead of traditional sex education and biology education, schools are shown drag queen porn shows, things won’t get any better.
“And then there are the effects of mass immigration from countries with completely different (sometimes archaic) cultures…
“However, the parties and politicians defamed as ‘right-wing populists’ by the left-liberal pseudo-mainstream are interested in such problems and grievances. What’s more, they are becoming a new ‘mainstream’ by increasingly receiving vote shares of a third or more in elections and surveys in more and more countries. For the establishment, this is a ‘shift to the right’, but in reality, this development is simply a natural correction to find a political balance. A one-sided political landscape with a left-liberal unity party consisting of several factions is no longer a democracy, but in fact a kind of dictatorship in which dissenting opinions are defamed.”
This “readjustment” and “natural correction” is attracting more and more voters.
Crux wrote on November 26:
“When Pope Francis was elected in 2013, the forecast among those invested in Jewish-Catholic dialogue generally was rosy. The new pope brought considerable background to the relationship, given that Argentina has the largest Jewish population in Latin America and the sixth largest outside Israel – indeed, the first kosher McDonalds outside Israel was located in a Buenos Aires shopping center…
“And yet, the fact of the matter is that Pope Francis long has had a Jewish problem, and it’s come to the fore anew amid the current war in Gaza. To some extent, the issue is political, having to do with the instinctive sympathy history’s first pope from the developing world feels for the Palestinian cause… There’s also a theological dimension to the angst Francis has generated in Jewish circles, including his frequently disparaging references to the ‘Pharisees… Moreover, there’s a perception that Francis’s campaign to build bridges with Islam sometimes comes at the expense of solidarity with Jews…
“These three sources of tension – the politics of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the theological approach to Judaism, and the inter-faith balancing act vis-à-vis Islam — are all coming to a head amid the current conflagration. The criticism of the pope’s response to the Gaza war started almost immediately…
“The rabbis wondered aloud what the point has been of decades of Jewish-Catholic dialogue when, in a time of need, what Jews get from the pope isn’t solidarity but ‘diplomatic acrobatics, balancing acts…’
“… it’s impossible to ignore the signs of growing tension. Recently an Italian Jew named Vittorio
Mascarini, who leads a Zionist organization in Italy, wrote in the Jewish News Syndicate: ‘If it continues to maintain its ambiguous position, the Holy See risks its entire relationship with Israel and world Jewry.’
“The war in Gaza has already taken an enormous toll. For Francis, who clearly aspires to be a peace-maker, it undoubtedly would be especially agonizing should his relationship with Jews and Judaism end up being among the casualties.”
In light of the foregoing, the following article by Israel 365 News, dated November 26, is truly remarkable:
“On Wednesday, the Pope met with families of hostages taken by Hamas. He also met with Palestinians whose relatives were security prisoners in Israeli jails or were in Gaza. No media representatives were present at the meetings but members of the Palestinian delegation told the media that the pope had described Israel’s actions as ‘genocide’. The Vatican spokesman, Matteo Bruni, said he didn’t believe that Francis used that term… The Palestinian delegation insisted nonetheless that Pope Francis described Israel’s military incursion as ‘genocide.’
“After the meeting, the Pope made a speech in St. Peter’s Square in which he said that he heard ‘how both sides suffer’ and how the war between Israel and Hamas has ‘transformed from war to terror.’…
“The American Jewish Committee tweeted gratitude for the pope’s meeting with families of the hostages and calling for their release, while also criticizing his other remarks and asking for clarification. ‘Hamas’ butchering and kidnapping of civilians is terrorism. Israel’s self-defense is not,’ the AJC wrote. ‘Vatican, please clarify.’”
The Pope’s “balancing act” shows, in effect, where he and the Vatican REALLY stand.
The Daily Mail wrote on November 29:
“Pope Francis has kicked conservative US Cardinal Raymond Burke out of his Vatican apartment and stripped him of his salary after he criticized the pontiff’s pro-LGBT stance… Burke… is the second American prelate to face punishment in what appears to be a new phase of Francis’ pontificate. This reform-minded period seems to have accelerated with the arrival in September of Francis’ hand-picked new doctrine czar, Argentine Cardinal Victor Fernández.
“Earlier this month, Francis forcibly removed the bishop of Tyler, Texas, Joseph Strickland, another conservative who had also become one of Francis’ critics.
“… the two seemingly were at odds over COVID-19 vaccines. Francis had been a big proponent of the vaccines and had lashed out at vaccine skeptics, who included some conservative Catholics.”
Did Francis ever repent of and apologize for his inappropriate support of experimental Covid-19 vaccines?
Breitbart wrote on November 29:
“In his piece [for the leftwing Religious News Service,] titled ‘In a World Where Christ Is King, Authoritarian Leaders Can Only Be Antichrists,’ [Jesuit Thomas] Reese asserted that ‘anti-democratic leaders’ like Trump are promising to ‘deliver justice by any means necessary.’… Reese made reference to the holiday [“the liturgical feast of Christ the King”] to contrast Christ’s kingdom with that of ‘antichrists’ like Donald Trump…
“In 2020, Father Reese stumped for Joe Biden, urging his fellow Catholics to join the ‘grassroots’ group ‘Catholics for Biden.’… Reese also attempted to convince Catholics that it is okay to vote for Catholic candidates who openly flout Church teaching on issues such as abortion… Reese acknowledged that most Catholic Democrats disregard the Church’s moral teaching and ‘agree with Biden that abortion should be legal,’ which removes any moral obstacle for supporting him.”
Did and does the pope know about this “Jesuit logic,” and did and does he endorse his fellow Jesuit’s viewpoint? The liberals in the Vatican and the Catholic Church are clearly winning… for now.
Acknowledgement and Disclaimer
These Current Events are compiled and commented on by Norbert Link. We gratefully acknowledge the many contributions of news articles from our readership. The publication of articles in this section is not to be viewed as an endorsement or approval as to contents or accuracy of the selected articles, but they are published for the purpose of pointing at worldwide developments in the light of biblical end-time prophecy and godly instruction. Our own comments are provided in italics.
Man’s fascination with UFOs and aliens seems to know no bounds. Apart from science fiction movies, more and more reports are being published of people claiming to have seen UFOs or of having had “close encounters of the third kind,” including having allegedly been the victims of alien abductions.
In a recent article by Politico, dated November 17, it was stated:
“Early in Ronald Reagan’s second term, he asked his Soviet counterpart a seemingly off-the-wall question… Reagan turned to his Cold War enemy and said: ‘What would you do if the United States were suddenly attacked by someone from outer space? Would you help us?,’ Gorbachev later recounted. ‘I said, “No doubt about it.” He said, “We too.”’…
“Reagan… had an encounter with a UFO while riding in a plane in the 1970s. Reagan, it turns out, wasn’t the only president who has had a more than passing interest in the possibility of extraterrestrial life. For the past half-century, almost every president has come to office pledging — publicly or privately — to get to the bottom of UFOs…
“Jimmy Carter spotted his UFO while waiting for a Lion’s Club event to start on Jan. 6, 1969… [According to Politico, this UFO was later explained as a man-made natural phenomenon, “a high-altitude rocket-released barium cloud.”]
“Most recently, in 2021, former President Barack Obama spoke about the mystery [saying] ‘that there’s footage and records of objects in the skies that we don’t know exactly what they are. We can’t explain how they moved, their trajectory. They did not have an easily explainable pattern.’”
And so, conspiracies abound to the effect that the government is hiding the truth about aliens and that the remains of an alien body or bodies are kept secret in Roswell.
It must be pointed out that many reported UFO “sightings” and “encounters” can be explained naturally. After all, UFO means “unidentified flying object”—and many, if not most of those “sightings” have a natural origin. When it comes to “strange” occurrences such as alleged encounters or even abductions etc., they can often be explained with hallucinations, wishful thinking and wild human imagination. But some of the reports might be very real, and if so, how can they be explained?
Most associate UFOs with the existence of aliens, even though the Bible nowhere suggests that aliens exist—or have existed—on other planets. While the argument is that the mere biblical silence does not deny their existence, it would be strange if God, the Creator of EVERYTHING, visible and invisible, never even gives a hint of the possibility of such extraterrestrial human-like existence on other planets. From beginning to end, the Bible deals with the human existence on earth… including when man in the future will have been made immortal on a new earth and a new universe.
And so, some associate UFOs, if they believe in them, not with aliens, but with demons or angels.
We state the following in our free booklet, “Angels, Demons and the Spirit World”:
“Satan and his demons can show great signs and wonders… Haunted houses, poltergeists, séances, communication with the dead, and contacts with ‘aliens’ are all clearly of demonic origin…
“Satan and demons have the power to transport a human being from one place to another (Matthew 4:5, 8; Luke 4:5, 9). This explains strange encounters with UFOs, where ‘abducted’ people are sometimes found hundreds of miles away from their residence, without knowing how they got there…
“It appears from Scripture that demons cannot materialize themselves the way that angels can. Demons cannot appear as men. They can, however, create an illusion, or an apparition that might look very real to people…”
When we research the topic on the Internet, we find that more often than not, it is claimed that UFOs are holy angels manifesting themselves in some way. It is sometimes claimed that UFOs give us a glimpse of the fights between angels and demons (which do exist, as passages in the book of Daniel clearly prove; compare Daniel 10:13, 20)… even though UFO sightings do not even remotely picture such fights; or that angels have manifested themselves in many different ways, and that they can appear in whatever form and shape they want. This, too, is manifestly wrong. Angels are created spirit beings, but when they manifest themselves, they do so by showing their true appearance in the physical realm, but of course not as glorified spirit beings, except in visions. On the other hand, remember that demons cannot manifest themselves as physical beings (but they can create illusions and apparitions and “lying wonders”).
Furthermore, some say that the Bible proves the existence of UFOs by claiming that fallen angels had sexual intercourse with women. This false teaching is based on a wrong understanding of the passage in Genesis 6. As we explain in our free booklet, “Heavens and Earth… Before and After the First Man,” in chapter 5, that passage describes forbidden sexual relationships between human beings— the unrighteous descendants of Cain and the righteous descendants of Seth.
Is it conceivable, then, that some UFOs could be the manifestations and the activities of holy angels?
Those who propose this concept give certain biblical examples of human encounters with God’s angels (while others use those same examples to “prove” the existence of aliens).
Ezekiel repeatedly saw in a vision four cherubim (Ezekiel, chapters 1 and 10). Some have used this description to say that they depict aliens with spaceships—an idea which had been made popular by Swiss author Erich von Däniken in the late 1960s and more recently by the 2009 movie “Knowing” with Nicolas Cage.
What Ezekiel saw was a clear manifestation, in a vision, of angelic beings carrying the throne of Christ, who in turn delivered a powerful message to Ezekiel to pass on to the people. By contrast, no godly messages are contained in or communicated by UFOs or “alien abductions.”
David saw an angel with a drawn sword to punish Israel. David immediately understood the message and asked God for forgiveness and for the angel to stop slaughtering the Israelites (2 Samuel 24:16-17). In Luke 1, Gabriel appears to Zacharias and to Mary with a clear message. Daniel saw an angel in a vision in Daniel 9 and 10, who passed on a detailed message from God. On the other hand, no clear or even hidden UFO or alien message is communicated to anyone (except in science fiction movies), but all it does is confuse people—and God is not the author of confusion (compare 1 Corinthians 14:33).
We also read that angels appear unrecognized (compare Hebrews 13:2; the example given has to do with testing Christians to see how hospitable they are). Practical examples could perhaps be the appearance of two angels to Lot and to the people of Sodom. Their appearance and their message had clear purpose—to see how many righteous were in Sodom, and to lead Lot out of Sodom before its destruction.
We point out the following in our free booklet, “Angels, Demons and the Spirit World”:
“Hebrews 1:14 says about angels: ‘Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?’ Psalm 34:7 adds: ‘The angel of the LORD encamps all around those who fear Him [that is, ‘who will inherit salvation’], And delivers them’…
“God sends forth His angels to ‘minister,’ that is, to serve and help man achieve his potential to inherit salvation—eternal life in the Family of God. With this understanding, let’s take note of the particular services that angels are called upon to perform.”
We then explain in our booklet seven purposes, namely:
On the other hand, we should realize that what God’s angels don’t and won’t do is:
As pointed out above, when angels do manifest themselves to us, they do it for a clear purpose… to help us, to test us, or to encourage us. Nothing like that can be said about the sightings of UFOs which seem to have no godly purpose at all. What possible godly purpose could there be in UFO sightings? But they give room for speculations regarding the existence of aliens and extraterrestrial spaceships—many times combined with the idea that they are out there to destroy us. If we consider the appearance of UFOs as a godly warning, then we should remember that God condemns those who practice astrology and who observe the clouds or planets for guidance. Deuteronomy 18:14 says, literally, that we are not to observe the clouds—as the study and motion of the clouds was a common way of foretelling good or bad fortune. 2 Chronicles 33:6 draws a clear connection between observing times (or clouds), using enchantments and witchcraft, and dealing with a familiar spirit (a demon) and with wizards.
Could it be that Satan is “preparing” mankind for Christ’s return in the sense that Satan is convincing mankind that the coming Christ will be in fact a hostile alien who will have to be destroyed? We read that armies will fight Christ and His holy angels when they appear (Revelation 17:14; 19:11-14, 19). They may perhaps think He is the Antichrist… or the leader of hostile aliens, riding on “white horses,” which they may interpret as strangely construed “spaceships.”
To summarize, there is little room to assume that UFOs and “close encounters of the third kind” are alien or angelic manifestations. Rather, the evidence points to the divisive activities of demonic forces with the declared goal to confuse and deceive a gullible and God-defying mankind.
Lead Writer: Norbert Link
compiled by Dave Harris
“Will There Ever Be a Two-State Solution?” is the title of a new StandingWatch program, presented by Evangelist Norbert Link. Here is a summary:
While the war between Israel and Hamas is ongoing, with a temporary cease fire to carry out a ridiculous deal, many are already advocating a permanent cease fire and a two-state solution. They are totally ignorant about the true feelings of most Palestinians. The Bible tells you that some Arab nations, Turkey and Europe under German leadership will try, not to create a two-state solution, but something which would be altogether different, but they won’t succeed.
“Wird es jemals zu einer Zweistaatenlösung kommen?” is the title of a new AufPostenStehen program, presented by Norbert Link. Title in English: “Will There Ever Be a Two-State Solution?”
“Über Scham und Sünde,” last Sabbath’s German sermonette presented by Andreas Ratz, is now posted. Title in English: “About Shame and Sin.”
“Nowhere to Hide,” last Sabbath’s sermonette presented by Eric Rank, is now posted. Here is a summary:
We cannot hide from God. He knows about everything we do. He even knows our most secret thoughts. Do we consider this to be an intrusion on our privacy or do we treat it with honor, knowing that He has an intimate relationship with us?
“Will There Ever Be Peace?” last Sabbath’s sermon presented by Dave Harris, is now posted. Here is a summary:
We hear of “wars and rumors of war,” but we are not hearing of true peace!
Is peace actually possible, now?
This Update is an official publication by the ministry of the Church of the Eternal God in the United States of America; the Church of God, a Christian Fellowship in Canada; and the Global Church of God in the United Kingdom.
Editorial Team: Norbert Link, Dave Harris, Rene Messier, Brian Gale, Johanna Link, Eric Rank, Michael Link, Anna Link, Kalon Mitchell, Manuela Mitchell, Dawn Thompson
Technical Team: Eric Rank, Shana Rank
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On November 25, 2023, Eric Rank will present the sermonette, titled, “Nowhere to Hide,” and Dave Harris will present the sermon, titled, “Will There Ever Be Peace?”
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The New York Post wrote on November 19:
“Argentina elected libertarian outsider Javier Milei as its new president on Sunday, rolling the dice on an outsider with radical views to fix an economy battered by triple-digit inflation, a looming recession and rising poverty…
“Milei’s challenges are enormous. He will have to deal with the empty coffers of the government and central bank, a creaking $44 billion debt program with the International Monetary Fund, inflation nearing 150% and a dizzying array of capital controls…
“… he faces a highly fragmented Congress, with no single bloc having a majority, meaning that he will need to get backing from other factions to push through legislation.”
The Daily Mail wrote on November 19:
“Milei – who is also a prominent economist and radio chat-show host – has spoken about his preference for threesomes, why he believes poor people should be free to sell their body parts, and how he enjoys communicating via telepathy with his dead dog for political advice.
“The far-Right libertarian is also an admirer of Donald Trump… He prefers to call himself an anarcho-capitalist, which means he’d like to rip up as much government intervention in people’s lives as he can and leave it all to the free market… [His plan] includes getting rid of Argentina’s public health and education systems…
“Milei… has repeatedly taken aim… at Pope Francis, his compatriot, calling him… the ‘representative of the evil one on Earth’ in brutal social media posts…
“A recent biography by journalist Juan Luis González revealed Milei studies telepathy in his spare time and has a medium to ‘communicate’ with [his dog] Conan, who died in 2017, asking him for advice on political matters. Astonishingly, Milei hasn’t denied the claims…
“[He was raised] a Catholic and now said to be converting to Judaism…
“He wants to see Argentina ditch the peso and adopt the US dollar as its national currency… he believes his natural allies would be the US and Israel, saying: ‘I don’t want to have anything to do with the communists of Cuba, China and North Korea.’
“On the ever thorny question of the Falkland Islands, which Argentina unsuccessfully tried to grab from Britain in 1982 during the prime ministership of Margaret Thatcher, one of his icons, Milei proposes copying the UK’s transfer of Hong Kong to China in 1997…”
Fox News added on November 19:
“With war unfolding in Israel, Milei also proved popular with the nation’s large Jewish community, the largest in Latin America…”
LifeSiteNews wrote on November 20:
“Milei called the global agenda to push abortion a ‘bloodthirsty policy, in which some humans believe they should decide who should live and who should not…’
“The designated president of Argentina called the alarmist climate change narrative a ‘socialist lie’…
“While the eccentric politician called out modern ‘sexual education’ as a ‘post-Marxist program’ seeking to destroy the family, he also said that he is against ‘marriage as an institution’ regulated by the state and that people should be free to marry whoever they want, including people of the same sex….”
Milei—a “mixed bag” for sure. Many voters have said they were voting for him as the “lesser evil.”
Mediaite wrote on November 19:
“Former President Donald Trump along with a whole host of other online conservative influencers celebrated the victory of far-right outsider Javier Milei in Argentina’s presidential election…
“‘I am very proud of you. You will turn your Country around and truly Make Argentina Great Again,’ the president wrote to his followers.”
THAT will have to be seen…
The Associated Press wrote on November 23:
“Anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders won a huge victory in Dutch elections… in a stunning lurch to the far right… The result will send shockwaves through Europe, where far-right ideology is on the rise, and puts Wilders in line to lead talks to form the next governing coalition and possibly become the first far-right prime minister of the Netherlands…
“Wilders’ election program included calls for a referendum on the Netherlands leaving the European Union… He says he wants no mosques or Islamic schools in the country, although he has been milder about Islam during this election campaign than in the past…
“‘The Dutch will be No. 1 again,’ Wilders said. ‘The people must get their nation back.’ But Wilders, who has in the past been labeled a Dutch version of Donald Trump, first must form a coalition government before he can take the reins of power. That will be tough as mainstream parties are reluctant to join forces with him and his party, but the size of his victory strengthens his hand in any negotiations…
“Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who… has similarly harsh stances on migration and EU institutions, was quick to congratulate Wilders. ‘The winds of change are here! Congratulations,’ Orban said…
“The result is the latest in a series of elections that is altering the European political landscape. From Slovakia and Spain, to Germany and Poland, populist and hard-right parties triumphed in some EU member nations and faltered in others.”
Barron’s added on November 23:
“Wilders’s PVV may not be able to build a coalition to make him prime minister so he can join the other 26 EU members at their summits. And his hardline plans to expel immigrants would be unlikely to survive legal challenges in the Dutch or European courts. But Europe’s support for Ukraine, grand plans to fight climate change… could be endangered.
“European elections to be held in June will be a new test of Wilders’s popularity… The Netherlands is the seventh most populous EU country and its MEPs — along with right-wingers from countries like Poland, Italy, France and Hungary — could form a powerful group… The PVV… could join the National Rally (RN) of France’s Marine Le Pen and Germany’s AfD in the assembly’s Identity…”
The AfD was also quick in congratulating Wilders.
Deutsche Welle added on November 23:
“Wilders’ victory is expected to have far-reaching consequences in the Netherlandfs and Europe. The anti-EU politician has vowed to halt all immigration, slash Dutch payments to the union and block the entrance of any new members, including Ukraine… Italian far-right leader and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini also congratulated Wilders. ‘Congratulations to our friend Geert Wilders… for this extraordinary electoral victory. A new Europe is possible.’…
“From calling Moroccans ‘scum’ to holding competitions for cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, Wilders has built a career from his self-appointed mission to stop an ‘Islamic invasion’ of the West… he was convicted for insulting Moroccans — and death threats that have meant he has been under police protection since 2004.
“Born in 1963 in southern Venlo, close to the German border, Wilders grew up in a Catholic family with his brother and two sisters. His mother was half-Indonesian, a fact Wilders rarely mentions…”
Newsmax added on November 23:
“Wilders… promised ‘zero immigration’ into the Netherlands by closing the borders and deporting illegal immigrants… He has… likened the Quran to Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’… A decade ago, a ‘Prime Minister Geert Wilders’ would have been unthinkable. But so would a ‘Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’ in Italy. Politics in modern Europe is genuinely unpredictable. And with traditional parties and politicians collapsing, the unthinkable happens with increasing frequency….”
The Associated Press wrote on November 17:
“President Joe Biden signed a temporary spending bill a day before a potential government shutdown…
“The spending package keeps government funding at current levels for roughly two more months while a long-term package is negotiated. It splits the deadlines for passing full-year appropriations bills into two dates: Jan. 19 for some federal agencies and Feb. 2 for others, creating two dates when there will be a risk of a partial government shutdown. The two-step approach was championed by new House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, and was not favored by many in the Senate, though all but one Democrat and 10 Republicans supported it…
“The spending bill does not include the White House’s nearly $106 billion request for wartime aid for Israel and Ukraine. Nor does it provide humanitarian funding for Palestinians and other supplemental requests, including money for border security…”
This was more like a Pyrrhic victory. One wonders how long Johnson will remain the House speaker.
On November 17, the New York Post published the following opinion by Jonathan Turley, attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School:
“Trump’s greatest threat of conviction remains in Florida, where he is facing federal charges related to his retention of classified documents. But the judge in that case seems inclined to delay it, perhaps even until after the election. And with reports that President Biden will not face charges in his own handling of classified documents, Trump has a political rallying cry that — correctly or not — he’s being treated differently.
“So that leaves the two cases surrounding the 2020 election.
“In Georgia, a slew of former lawyers are taking pleas with promises to testify if called. Some of their depositions have been leaked, much to the dismay of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. She has reason to be alarmed because some of the leaked interviews hit hard at the weakest link in her conspiracy case. For instance, Sidney Powell stated that Trump clearly believed that he had won the election when he was challenging the results in the courts and Congress. Powell pleaded to misdemeanors for a deal that avoids jail time and preserves her ability to resume the practice of law. She notably did not plead guilty to the sweeping racketeering charges brought by Willis to link Trump in an effort to subvert the election.
“I previously wrote that the Achilles heel of the racketeering case was Trump’s state of mind: ‘As a threshold matter, one problem is immediately evident. If Trump actually did (or does) believe that he did not lose the election, the indictment collapses.’ That’s exactly what Powell argues. Trump had ‘general instincts that something wasn’t right here’… That supplies a key defense for Trump: that he believed assurances from counsel that he had a case to make in challenging the election.
“Powell’s statement will also present challenges to special counsel Jack Smith, who has a parallel case in Washington, DC. While both prosecutors benefit from heavily favorable jury pools in staunchly Democratic strongholds, it requires only one holdout juror to result in a hung jury. Smith has admitted that Trump’s election claims were protected under the First Amendment but claims that, at some point, they became criminal lies. But Smith fails to explain when that line was clearly crossed — a dangerous ambiguity for free speech, particularly in the context of an election.
“Smith ignores past election challenges by Democrats that were made without factual or legal support, including the challenge in Congress to certify Trump’s victory in 2016 by figures like Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.). The statement of Powell only magnifies those concerns over the lack of a clear line between political advocacy and criminal conduct in future cases…
“Trump has long been portrayed as a megalomaniac in the media who never apologizes or accepts failure. It is perfectly consistent that a man long described as having an inflated self-image would not accept that he is a loser. That long-held journalistic view is now a viable criminal defense….”
Also, the gag order by biased judge Arthur Engoron in the New York case against Trump and his attorneys was stayed by the Court of Appeal, allowing Trump to continue making statements against the biased clerk. His motion for a mistrial because of alleged misconduct by Engoron and his clerk was, of course, denied by Engoron, who was subsequently accused by Trump attorney Alina Habba of refusing to take responsibility.
The fact that Biden will apparently not be indicted for illegally retaining documents should convince everyone how weaponized and corrupt the Justice Department has become. Unlike Trump, Biden was not President when he retained the classified documents in his garage, in China Town and at other places, so he did not have any privilege or legal justification to retain those documents. The same is true, by the way, for Hillary Clinton. Why are they not being indicted? So, the illegal witch hunt against Trump by an authoritarian radical left-wing government and its corrupt agents continues.
Also, a Colorado district judge ruled that Donald Trump must be placed on the ballot in the 2024 presidential contest. Even though she ruled, quite ridiculously, that Trump did engage in insurrection on January 6, 2021, she also ruled that he was not an officer of the United States as defined by the Fourteenth Amendment, which is only limited to “Senator or Representative in Congress” and “elector of President and Vice President” but does not include the “President.”
As Breitbart explained on November 17:
“A federal court in New Hampshire recently dismissed a similar case… A Minnesota state court recently dismissed a lawsuit aiming to keep Trump off that state’s primary ballot. And a Michigan Court of Claims judge ruled that the Secretary of State must list Trump on the ballot as well. An appeal is likely. The Colorado case, or another similar case in another state, could likely land before the Supreme Court, which has never before ruled on the Civil War-era amendment.”
The New York Post wrote on November 19:
“A powerful fire obliterated a Brooklyn brownstone. Three people from three generations of the West family, ages 33 to 81, perished. As has become common over three years, the cause was a battery charging an e-scooter, blocking exits.
“So far, 17 of this year’s 93 fire deaths are from such batteries. Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh calls it ‘devastating.’
“Twenty-seven New Yorkers have died in these fires since 2021, the year after the city legalized e-bikes and similar devices. (No one had ever died in such a fire before.) … e-battery fire deaths exceed electrical fire deaths…
“The only way to prevent more deaths is for the FDNY to call for a ban on residential e-battery storage and charging, just as it bans home storage of gasoline and other flammable or hazardous materials…”
e-Bikes ARE dangerous.
Israel 365 News wrote on November 19:
“A deeply disturbing trend has been emerging in the last 6 weeks since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas. I am seeing antisemitism within the Conservative Christian camp in many arenas… However, this form of antisemitism is not out-and-out Jew-hatred. It is much more subtle, and therefore, perhaps more dangerous…
“How can this be?
“I believe it goes back to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden… I believe it is because these newscasters over-focus on the DARK SIDE. They are plucking fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and eating mostly EVIL fruit…
“What is Replacement Theology? In a nutshell, it is the false teaching that the church has replaced Israel, that the covenants God made with Israel and the Jewish people are null and void, and that those covenants now apply to the church. The ‘New Testament’ has replaced the ‘Old Testament’. Nothing could be further from the truth!…
“The roots of Replacement Theology [go] back many centuries. One of those roots goes back to Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant Reformation… did you know that he wrote a book… called ‘On the Jews and their Lies’? It was filled with hateful diatribes against the Jews.
“… Did you know that, 400 years later, the Nazis revered Martin Luther, and his book was widely circulated and read? And did you know that ‘Kristallnacht’, the ‘Night of Broken Glass’, happened not on just any random day, but was chosen to happen on Nov 9-10, 1938, in honor of Martin Luther’s birthday? (his date of birth: Nov 10, 1483)
“His words were put into ACTION by the Nazis 400 years later. So one of the ROOTS of Replacement Theology gave us a very evil fruit! Kristallnacht is what kicked off the Holocaust. The Western civilized world was silent. The churches were silent…”
Antisemitism can be seen, not only in Arab nations, in pro-Hamas supporters demonstrating in the streets of London, Paris, Washington DC and Berlin, as well as on college campuses, and in liberal leftists who are funding the Pro-Hamas demonstrations in America—it can also be seen in “Christian” churches, which is truly disturbing.
Israel 365 News reported on November 17:
“… at least 19 volcanoes are currently erupting around the world… The eruptions are on several disperse continents and countries but particular focus is being directed towards Iceland where scientists warn that a recent week-long wave of over 1,200 earthquakes presages a period of prolonged and intense seismic unrest. The strongest quake measured 3.8 but the micro-quakes signalled activity below the surface.
“Scientists estimate that a layer of magma is about 500 meters below the surface and is working its way to the surface… But the real fear is that an eruption is part of a 1,000-year cycle of volcanic activity that will likely cause eruptions for centuries…
“The last volcano in Iceland to cause international mayhem was Eyjafjallajökull, which erupted in 2010. A huge ash cloud that rose five miles into the sky and grounded flights across Europe, forcing its airspace to shut down.
“The topic of ‘volcanoes’ became relevant to the conflict in Israel. On Saturday, Hezbollah claimed to have fired a Burkan 2-H missile at Israel bearing a 100 kilogram warhead. Burkan means ‘volcano’ in Arabic.”
Daily Mail wrote on November 17:
“About 300 million people in the United States would be put at risk of death from exposure to radioactive fallout in the four days following a nuclear attack, according to a new report that models the possible effects of such a grim event.
“If the US is attacked with nuclear weapons, an adversary would most likely concentrate all fire on the country’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch facilities (silos). Any retaliatory attack from the US would come from these silos, located in Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wyoming — and taking them out would be an enemy’s first priority…
“Depending on weather conditions, 90 percent of the population of the lower 48 U.S states, as well as people living in Mexico’s northern states and the most populous regions of Canada, would be at risk of receiving lethal doses of radiation…
“The editors of Scientific American commissioned the special report because the US government is in the midst of a $1.5 trillion project to refresh its obsolete nuclear weapons, including the ones stored at these silos in the western states. Their message is unambiguous: ‘We should rethink this miserable folly rather than once again squandering our wealth while driving a new arms race.’”
Even though most feel that a nuclear attack might be launched on the USA by Russia or China, the truth is that it will be another, basically overlooked power which will destroy the USA in a nuclear war.
Newsmax wrote on November 19:
“France has successfully test-fired an M51.3 long-range ballistic missile, boosting the credibility of France’s nuclear deterrence capabilities…
“The missile, which did not carry a nuclear weapon, was fired from the French army’s Biscarosse missile testing site in southwest France and landed in the North Atlantic, ‘hundreds of kilometers from any coastline’ the ministry said, without giving further detail…”
Politico wrote on November 17:
“Early in Ronald Reagan’s second term, he asked his Soviet counterpart a seemingly off-the-wall question… Reagan turned to his Cold War enemy and said: ‘What would you do if the United States were suddenly attacked by someone from outer space? Would you help us?’ Gorbachev later recounted. ‘I said, “No doubt about it.” He said, “We too.”’…
“Reagan… had an encounter with a UFO while riding in a plane in the 1970s.
“Reagan, it turns out, wasn’t the only president who has had a more than passing interest in the possibility of extraterrestrial life. For the past half-century, almost every president has come to office pledging — publicly or privately — to get to the bottom of UFOs…
“Like his Oval Office predecessors, the former Arkansas governor [Bill Clinton] had expressed interest in aliens as soon as he had taken the oath of office…
“Jimmy Carter spotted his UFO while waiting for a Lion’s Club event to start on Jan. 6, 1969… As Carter campaigned in ’76 against Ford, he promised he would open up the nation’s UFO secrets… But, once in the Oval Office, Carter never followed up on his pledge. Whatever the government was hiding would stay hidden…
“Most recently, in 2021, former President Barack Obama spoke about the mystery — what the government by then called UAPs, unidentified anomalous phenomenon — telling late night host James Corden, ‘When I came into office, I was like ‘All right, is there the lab somewhere where we’re keeping the alien specimens and spaceship?’ And you know, they did a little bit of research and the answer was ‘no.’ But what is true — and I’m actually being serious here — is that there’s footage and records of objects in the skies that we don’t know exactly what they are. We can’t explain how they moved, their trajectory. They did not have an easily explainable pattern.’
“It was a remarkable statement and one that hinted at how long-standing — and real — the mystery of UFOs was, even to commanders in chief who, presumably, would have had access to answers if there were ones.”
It must be admitted that many reported UFO “sightings” and “encounters” can be explained naturally, or because of wild human imagination. But some of the reports might be very real, and if so, they would be based on Satanic and demonic deception.
“Deutsche Welle wrote on November 21:
“A matter-of-fact announcement was issued by the Finance Ministry on Monday evening: With immediate effect, a spending freeze applies to almost the entire budget for 2023, it read. This drastic step was taken due to ‘the need to review the overall budgetary situation for the federal budget,’ read a statement from the ministry.
“The government is sending the message that it considers last week’s dramatic landmark ruling by Germany’s highest judges to have much more severe consequences than initially thought… [It] was a political bombshell for Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his federal government. It ruled that the government cannot reallocate €60 billion meant to fight the COVID-19 pandemic to instead address climate change.
“… Germany’s three-way coalition government is not marching in one direction… the government’s approval rating among voters has hit rock bottom. Fresh elections would therefore likely hurt all three parties. The SPD, Greens and FDP are desperately seeking a solution — one that’s nowhere in sight.”
Focus added on November 22:
“Next ‘Ampel’ [German coalition government] shock… 200 billion euro fund can no longer be used.
“After the budget ruling of the Constitutional Court, the Federal Ministry of Finance also blocked the Economic Stabilization Fund (WSF). Due to the Karlsruhe decision, the WSF credit authorizations ‘could no longer be used in 2023 according to the current legal situation’, it says…
“‘In order to avoid further burdens on the budget for this year and burdens for future financial years’, ‘all of the expenditures for 2023 which have not been spent already… are blocked with immediate effect,” it says… ‘Consent from the Federal Ministry of Finance’ is therefore required for any WSF expenditure that is still necessary.”
The spending freeze also included the German military.
Deutsche Welle wrote on November 23:
“German Finance Minister Christian Lindner plans to present a supplementary budget next week for the current year that lifts borrowing limits… A decision to suspend a so-called debt brake will allow the government to significantly increase new borrowing this year…”
As a consequence, one of the Coalition parties (the FDP) is going to ask their members in a formal poll as to how they feel about staying in or departing from the government.
Reuters wrote on November 17:
“Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Friday suggested that Germany supported Israel in the Gaza war out of guilt over the Holocaust and drew a contrast with Turkey, which he said was able to speak without bias…. ‘Those who feel indebted to Israel cannot speak freely. We did not go through the Holocaust process, we don’t have such a situation, because our respect for humanity is different,’ the Turkish president said…
“Erdogan’s comment in Berlin went to the heart of Germany’s post-war identity, which is based on deep atonement for the Holocaust. Germany systematically killed 6 million Jews and 5 million other victims during World War Two. Modern Israel was founded in 1948 as a safe haven for Jews. [Chancelor] Scholz did not respond directly to Erdogan’s remarks but restated Germany’s commitment to Israel’s right to defend itself.
“… Erdogan’s trip was his first visit to Germany in four years. Erdogan, whose party faces key local elections next year, could benefit from Scholz’s backing for modernising Turkey’s customs union with the European Union and visa-free EU travel for Turks. Scholz, dealing with a court ruling that blew a 60-billion-euro hole in his budget, a coalition row over the economy and rising immigration, needs Ankara’s help in stemming migration to the EU…
“Scholz declined to respond to a question on whether he would approve the sale of the 40 Eurofighter warplanes that Turkey wants. His approval would be needed since Germany is a member of the British-French-Spanish consortium that makes them. Erdogan said he could go elsewhere if Scholz did not agree… Berlin would also like to see Turkey give its final approval to Sweden’s accession to the NATO military alliance. Though Erdogan has dropped his objections, the Turkish parliament has yet to ratify Sweden’s membership.”
Aljazeera added on November 17:
“The two countries have always been, as characterised by Scholz’s spokesman, ‘uncomfortable partners.’ Berlin has been a loud critic of Erdogan’s clampdown on domestic dissent… Despite their differences, economic cooperation between the two countries has continued, with bilateral trade reaching a record 51.6 billion euros ($56.2bn) in 2022.
“Germany is home to the largest Turkish diaspora abroad. A majority of the Turkish community of three million are supporters of Erdogan.”
The Local wrote on November 17, prior to Erdogan’s arrival in Germany:
“The daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said Germany offered the ‘ideal stage’ for Erdogan to position himself as a voice for the ‘global south’. ‘As the loudest critic of Israel, he is underlining his demand for leadership of the Islamic world,’ said the daily…
“Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said Erdogan did not deserve to be trusted. ‘Anyone who not only denies Israel’s right to exist but also actively fights against it should not a be a partner for German politicians,’ he told newspaper group RND.”
Israel Today wrote on November 19, prior to his arrival in Germany:
“Turkish President… Erdogan told his country’s parliament on Wednesday that Israel would soon be destroyed. ‘Right now, I am openly saying with clear conscience that Israel is a terrorist state,’ said Erdoğan.
“While this comment was widely reported, his subsequent remarks went largely unnoticed. ‘Hey Israel: You have an atomic bomb, a nuclear bomb. And you are making threats with this. We know this. And your end is near,’ said Erdoğan. ‘You can have as many nuclear bombs as you want, but you’re on your way out,’ he added.
“Turkish lawmakers responded to the message with a thunderous standing ovation.”
Israel will NOT be totally destroyed, but it will receive a “wound”—a military defeat—prior to the Great Tribulation, and it will be occupied during the Great Tribulation by a foreign power. Turkey will have a terrible part in this.
Focus wrote on November 19:
“As soon as he returned to Turkey, the ruler [Erdogan] attacked the federal government harshly. According to ‘Bild’, the Turkish president accused the federal government in a speech of being involved in a ‘crusader-imperialist structure’.
“‘Unfortunately, I discovered that during my visit last night,’ the Turkish president was quoted as saying by the tabloid newspaper. ‘I saw that with President [Frank-Walter Steinmeier] and with the other one too’—the ‘other one’ was a reference to Chancellor [Olaf] Scholz.”
This love-hate relationship between Germany and Turkey does not prevent economic and military cooperation.
Deutsche Welel wrote on November 22:
“Israel and Hamas agreed on Wednesday to a four-day pause in fighting in Gaza to allow the release of 50 hostages held in the strip in exchange for 150 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel… Hamas said hundreds of humanitarian, medical and fuel aid trucks would be allowed to enter Gaza during the temporary truce… ‘The number of those released will be increased in later stages of implementing the agreement,’ the Foreign Ministry in Qatar [which “mediated” the deal] wrote on X, formerly Twitter…
“The agreement came amid mounting pressure from the hostages’ families and the international
community… ‘The government of Israel is obligated to return home all of the hostages,’ Netanyahu’s office wrote on X… Netanyahu… said the war in the Gaza Strip would continue after the pause until his government has achieved all its goals, including the elimination of Hamas, which is considered a terrorist group by Israel, the European Union, the United States, and others…
“Israel said it would extend the four-day pause by an additional day for every ten hostages released by Hamas. Israel’s Justice Ministry published a list of 300 names of Palestinian prisoners who could be freed. The list represents twice the number of people initially slated for release — 150 Palestinian women and children.
“Meanwhile, Hamas said the truce would not halt their broader fight. ‘As we announce the striking of a truce agreement, we affirm that our fingers remain on the trigger, and our victorious fighters will remain on the look-out to defend our people and defeat the occupation,’ it said.”
Daily Mail added on November 22:
“Among those released are operatives of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah and the Popular Front and some were tried in military courts and some in civilian courts. Half will be released in the first stage with the second depending on how the ceasefire and exchange of hostages goes.”
It is clear that as of now, with this deal, Hamas has won and Israel has lost. As one observer commented: Hamas is getting all what they want.
Newsmax wrote on November 22:
“Not only has President Joe Biden’s watch seen two wars erupt, in Ukraine and Gaza, but pro-Hamas leftists have forced Israel to negotiate with terrorists, former Trump administration Ambassador Ric Grenell told Newsmax Wednesday… America under past presidents would hunt the terrorists down and eradicate them, Grenell lamented… Biden’s administration is ‘pressuring Israel to cut deals,’ and even unfair ones, Grenell continued… ‘Israel had to go into its prisons to find 150 people who were convicted of crimes, brutal crimes in some instances, to exchange for 50 innocent people — 50 of the 200,’ Grenell said…
“Negotiating with terrorists is never a winning strategy and only further ups ‘the ante’ for hostages, including for a Biden administration that was forced to release $6 billion to Iran before Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack… ‘This is outrageous, and it’s going to make us less safe.’”
Sadly, Grenell is absolutely correct.
The Associated Press wrote on November 19:
“Hungary’s prime minister said Saturday that Ukraine is ‘light years away’ from joining the European Union…
“Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said he and his government would ‘resist’ talks scheduled for mid-December on whether to formally invite Ukraine to start membership negotiations. Admitting a new country requires unanimous approval from all existing member countries, giving Orbán a powerful veto… Orbán said… that standing in the way of Ukraine joining the EU would be one of his government’s top priorities in the coming months…
“Orbán… has argued that negotiations should not begin with a country that is at war…”
Ukraine will not become part of the EU. Rather, Ukraine will be united with Russia.
Acknowledgement and Disclaimer
These Current Events are compiled and commented on by Norbert Link. We gratefully acknowledge the many contributions of news articles from our readership. The publication of articles in this section is not to be viewed as an endorsement or approval as to contents or accuracy of the selected articles, but they are published for the purpose of pointing at worldwide developments in the light of biblical end-time prophecy and godly instruction. Our own comments are provided in italics.
| Live Services | Nowhere to Hide / Will There Ever Be Peace? |
|---|---|
| Editorial | Arbitrary Ethics |
| Current Events | This Week in the News |
| Q&A | How can parents teach their young children about God? |
| The Work | Preaching the Gospel and Feeding the Flock |
On November 25, 2023, Eric Rank will present the sermonette, titled, “Nowhere to Hide,” and Dave Harris will present the sermon, titled, “Will There Ever Be Peace?”
The live services are available, over video and audio, at http://eternalgod.org/live-services/ (12:30 pm Pacific Time; 1:30 pm Mountain Time; 2:30 pm Central Time; 3:30 pm Eastern Time; 8:30 pm Greenwich Mean Time; 9:30 pm Central European Time). Just click on Connect to Live Stream.
by Eric Rank
I took an introductory course in Philosophy when I was in my first semester of college. While I don’t remember a lot of what I learned at that time, I do recall our discussions about various theories of morality. Utilitarianism is one such theory that measures whether an action is right or wrong on a continuum of how much happiness it would produce. According to this theory, the most virtuous actions are the ones that produce the most happiness and least unhappiness. In a purely carnal sense, it sounds appealing. But it is troublesome to consider that there is no standard by which an action could be viewed as being right in an absolute sense. Morality is judged purely based on the arbitrary whim of humanly defined happiness produced in the individuals affected. This bothered me then, and it bothers me now. I never cared to take any additional courses in the field of ethics because to me it seemed that it was all baseless rhetoric.
Today we see the dominant ethics in our society disturbingly driven by what man judges is right, without any regard to an authoritative standard. Modern society wants to do what it wants, and condemns anyone who says that an action is wrong. As such, abortion, stealing, lying, and perversions of all sorts are confoundingly celebrated by so many. The ethics of mankind today seem to be based only upon hedonistic, self-serving desire. I find this quite disturbing.
We know from the pages of the Bible that behaving without the guidance of God’s immutable standard of law will lead to a disastrous outcome. “For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, But the way of the ungodly shall perish” (Psalm 1:6). A sinful practice of life is one that ignores God’s commandments, choosing instead to be directed by personal desire. By way of contrast, living a righteous Way of Life requires learning and practicing obedience to God’s laws. But the carnal nature of people fights against this standard. Carnal desire is at enmity with God (compare Romans 8:7). Therefore, without God to set the standard of ethics, people are doomed to perish!
It’s unfortunate that such a simple Truth is so undesirable to man. Ironically, rates of depression and suicide are so high, yet people don’t consider whether their code of ethics based on maximizing carnal pleasure might be the root cause. The answer for how to make a correction is simple. God makes the path to joy, prosperity and success very clear: “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success” (Joshua 1:8). Not only does obedience to God’s law lead to righteousness, it also leads to a truly happy life. Many of us who have decided to try this out have proven it to ourselves. God’s Way works.
We are privileged to know that God establishes the true standard by which we can discern between actions that are right and wrong. We don’t have to worry about figuring it out for ourselves or debating with our peers. We can be satisfied in knowing that the Truth was established long ago, and that it works then, now, and forever. “Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, And Your law is truth” (Psalm 119:142). The world around us might be lost, but we have a perfect standard to live by.
by Norbert Link
We begin with the surprising election of controversial “outsider” and Trump supporterJavier Milei as the new president of tumultuous Argentina and a description of Milei’s—at times—outrageous ideas and behavior; and we continue with the stunning victory of Geert Wilders (the Dutch “Donald Trump”) in the Netherlands; and a last-minute effort to avert—for now—a governmental shutdown in the USA and an analysis of the legal troubles for Donald Trump.
We speak—again—on the real dangers of e-bikes; and some of the reasons for antisemitism in “Christian” churches.
We report on worldwide volcanic eruptions and the devastating consequences of a nuclear attack on the USA (which is biblically prophesied to occur). We also address France’s ambitions to prove its nuclear abilities.
We continue with the fascination of American Presidents with UFOs; more trouble for the German government; Turkish President Erdogan’s controversial visit in Germany and his outlandish statements; and the highly controversial Israel-Hamas “deal”; and we conclude with Hungary’s assessment of the improbability of Ukraine’s membership in the EU.
Please view our new StandingWatch program, titled, “The Foolish Hamas-Israel Deal—and What It Means!”
Throughout this section, we have underlined pertinent statements in the quoted articles, for the convenience and quick overview of the reader.
The New York Post wrote on November 19:
“Argentina elected libertarian outsider Javier Milei as its new president on Sunday, rolling the dice on an outsider with radical views to fix an economy battered by triple-digit inflation, a looming recession and rising poverty…
“Milei’s challenges are enormous. He will have to deal with the empty coffers of the government and central bank, a creaking $44 billion debt program with the International Monetary Fund, inflation nearing 150% and a dizzying array of capital controls…
“… he faces a highly fragmented Congress, with no single bloc having a majority, meaning that he will need to get backing from other factions to push through legislation.”
The Daily Mail wrote on November 19:
“Milei – who is also a prominent economist and radio chat-show host – has spoken about his preference for threesomes, why he believes poor people should be free to sell their body parts, and how he enjoys communicating via telepathy with his dead dog for political advice.
“The far-Right libertarian is also an admirer of Donald Trump… He prefers to call himself an anarcho-capitalist, which means he’d like to rip up as much government intervention in people’s lives as he can and leave it all to the free market… [His plan] includes getting rid of Argentina’s public health and education systems…
“Milei… has repeatedly taken aim… at Pope Francis, his compatriot, calling him… the ‘representative of the evil one on Earth’ in brutal social media posts…
“A recent biography by journalist Juan Luis González revealed Milei studies telepathy in his spare time and has a medium to ‘communicate’ with [his dog] Conan, who died in 2017, asking him for advice on political matters. Astonishingly, Milei hasn’t denied the claims…
“[He was raised] a Catholic and now said to be converting to Judaism…
“He wants to see Argentina ditch the peso and adopt the US dollar as its national currency… he believes his natural allies would be the US and Israel, saying: ‘I don’t want to have anything to do with the communists of Cuba, China and North Korea.’
“On the ever thorny question of the Falkland Islands, which Argentina unsuccessfully tried to grab from Britain in 1982 during the prime ministership of Margaret Thatcher, one of his icons, Milei proposes copying the UK’s transfer of Hong Kong to China in 1997…”
Fox News added on November 19:
“With war unfolding in Israel, Milei also proved popular with the nation’s large Jewish community, the largest in Latin America…”
LifeSiteNews wrote on November 20:
“Milei called the global agenda to push abortion a ‘bloodthirsty policy, in which some humans believe they should decide who should live and who should not…’
“The designated president of Argentina called the alarmist climate change narrative a ‘socialist lie’…
“While the eccentric politician called out modern ‘sexual education’ as a ‘post-Marxist program’ seeking to destroy the family, he also said that he is against ‘marriage as an institution’ regulated by the state and that people should be free to marry whoever they want, including people of the same sex….”
Milei—a “mixed bag” for sure. Many voters have said they were voting for him as the “lesser evil.”
Mediaite wrote on November 19:
“Former President Donald Trump along with a whole host of other online conservative influencers celebrated the victory of far-right outsider Javier Milei in Argentina’s presidential election…
“‘I am very proud of you. You will turn your Country around and truly Make Argentina Great Again,’ the president wrote to his followers.”
THAT will have to be seen…
The Associated Press wrote on November 23:
“Anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders won a huge victory in Dutch elections… in a stunning lurch to the far right… The result will send shockwaves through Europe, where far-right ideology is on the rise, and puts Wilders in line to lead talks to form the next governing coalition and possibly become the first far-right prime minister of the Netherlands…
“Wilders’ election program included calls for a referendum on the Netherlands leaving the European Union… He says he wants no mosques or Islamic schools in the country, although he has been milder about Islam during this election campaign than in the past…
“‘The Dutch will be No. 1 again,’ Wilders said. ‘The people must get their nation back.’ But Wilders, who has in the past been labeled a Dutch version of Donald Trump, first must form a coalition government before he can take the reins of power. That will be tough as mainstream parties are reluctant to join forces with him and his party, but the size of his victory strengthens his hand in any negotiations…
“Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who… has similarly harsh stances on migration and EU institutions, was quick to congratulate Wilders. ‘The winds of change are here! Congratulations,’ Orban said…
“The result is the latest in a series of elections that is altering the European political landscape. From Slovakia and Spain, to Germany and Poland, populist and hard-right parties triumphed in some EU member nations and faltered in others.”
Barron’s added on November 23:
“Wilders’s PVV may not be able to build a coalition to make him prime minister so he can join the other 26 EU members at their summits. And his hardline plans to expel immigrants would be unlikely to survive legal challenges in the Dutch or European courts. But Europe’s support for Ukraine, grand plans to fight climate change… could be endangered.
“European elections to be held in June will be a new test of Wilders’s popularity… The Netherlands is the seventh most populous EU country and its MEPs — along with right-wingers from countries like Poland, Italy, France and Hungary — could form a powerful group… The PVV… could join the National Rally (RN) of France’s Marine Le Pen and Germany’s AfD in the assembly’s Identity…”
The AfD was also quick in congratulating Wilders.
Deutsche Welle added on November 23:
“Wilders’ victory is expected to have far-reaching consequences in the Netherlandfs and Europe. The anti-EU politician has vowed to halt all immigration, slash Dutch payments to the union and block the entrance of any new members, including Ukraine… Italian far-right leader and Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini also congratulated Wilders. ‘Congratulations to our friend Geert Wilders… for this extraordinary electoral victory. A new Europe is possible.’…
“From calling Moroccans ‘scum’ to holding competitions for cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, Wilders has built a career from his self-appointed mission to stop an ‘Islamic invasion’ of the West… he was convicted for insulting Moroccans — and death threats that have meant he has been under police protection since 2004.
“Born in 1963 in southern Venlo, close to the German border, Wilders grew up in a Catholic family with his brother and two sisters. His mother was half-Indonesian, a fact Wilders rarely mentions…”
Newsmax added on November 23:
“Wilders… promised ‘zero immigration’ into the Netherlands by closing the borders and deporting illegal immigrants… He has… likened the Quran to Adolf Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’… A decade ago, a ‘Prime Minister Geert Wilders’ would have been unthinkable. But so would a ‘Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’ in Italy. Politics in modern Europe is genuinely unpredictable. And with traditional parties and politicians collapsing, the unthinkable happens with increasing frequency….”
The Associated Press wrote on November 17:
“President Joe Biden signed a temporary spending bill a day before a potential government shutdown…
“The spending package keeps government funding at current levels for roughly two more months while a long-term package is negotiated. It splits the deadlines for passing full-year appropriations bills into two dates: Jan. 19 for some federal agencies and Feb. 2 for others, creating two dates when there will be a risk of a partial government shutdown. The two-step approach was championed by new House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, and was not favored by many in the Senate, though all but one Democrat and 10 Republicans supported it…
“The spending bill does not include the White House’s nearly $106 billion request for wartime aid for Israel and Ukraine. Nor does it provide humanitarian funding for Palestinians and other supplemental requests, including money for border security…”
This was more like a Pyrrhic victory. One wonders how long Johnson will remain the House speaker.
On November 17, the New York Post published the following opinion by Jonathan Turley, attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School:
“Trump’s greatest threat of conviction remains in Florida, where he is facing federal charges related to his retention of classified documents. But the judge in that case seems inclined to delay it, perhaps even until after the election. And with reports that President Biden will not face charges in his own handling of classified documents, Trump has a political rallying cry that — correctly or not — he’s being treated differently.
“So that leaves the two cases surrounding the 2020 election.
“In Georgia, a slew of former lawyers are taking pleas with promises to testify if called. Some of their depositions have been leaked, much to the dismay of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. She has reason to be alarmed because some of the leaked interviews hit hard at the weakest link in her conspiracy case. For instance, Sidney Powell stated that Trump clearly believed that he had won the election when he was challenging the results in the courts and Congress. Powell pleaded to misdemeanors for a deal that avoids jail time and preserves her ability to resume the practice of law. She notably did not plead guilty to the sweeping racketeering charges brought by Willis to link Trump in an effort to subvert the election.
“I previously wrote that the Achilles heel of the racketeering case was Trump’s state of mind: ‘As a threshold matter, one problem is immediately evident. If Trump actually did (or does) believe that he did not lose the election, the indictment collapses.’ That’s exactly what Powell argues. Trump had ‘general instincts that something wasn’t right here’… That supplies a key defense for Trump: that he believed assurances from counsel that he had a case to make in challenging the election.
“Powell’s statement will also present challenges to special counsel Jack Smith, who has a parallel case in Washington, DC. While both prosecutors benefit from heavily favorable jury pools in staunchly Democratic strongholds, it requires only one holdout juror to result in a hung jury. Smith has admitted that Trump’s election claims were protected under the First Amendment but claims that, at some point, they became criminal lies. But Smith fails to explain when that line was clearly crossed — a dangerous ambiguity for free speech, particularly in the context of an election.
“Smith ignores past election challenges by Democrats that were made without factual or legal support, including the challenge in Congress to certify Trump’s victory in 2016 by figures like Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.). The statement of Powell only magnifies those concerns over the lack of a clear line between political advocacy and criminal conduct in future cases…
“Trump has long been portrayed as a megalomaniac in the media who never apologizes or accepts failure. It is perfectly consistent that a man long described as having an inflated self-image would not accept that he is a loser. That long-held journalistic view is now a viable criminal defense….”
Also, the gag order by biased judge Arthur Engoron in the New York case against Trump and his attorneys was stayed by the Court of Appeal, allowing Trump to continue making statements against the biased clerk. His motion for a mistrial because of alleged misconduct by Engoron and his clerk was, of course, denied by Engoron, who was subsequently accused by Trump attorney Alina Habba of refusing to take responsibility.
The fact that Biden will apparently not be indicted for illegally retaining documents should convince everyone how weaponized and corrupt the Justice Department has become. Unlike Trump, Biden was not President when he retained the classified documents in his garage, in China Town and at other places, so he did not have any privilege or legal justification to retain those documents. The same is true, by the way, for Hillary Clinton. Why are they not being indicted? So, the illegal witch hunt against Trump by an authoritarian radical left-wing government and its corrupt agents continues.
Also, a Colorado district judge ruled that Donald Trump must be placed on the ballot in the 2024 presidential contest. Even though she ruled, quite ridiculously, that Trump did engage in insurrection on January 6, 2021, she also ruled that he was not an officer of the United States as defined by the Fourteenth Amendment, which is only limited to “Senator or Representative in Congress” and “elector of President and Vice President” but does not include the “President.”
As Breitbart explained on November 17:
“A federal court in New Hampshire recently dismissed a similar case… A Minnesota state court recently dismissed a lawsuit aiming to keep Trump off that state’s primary ballot. And a Michigan Court of Claims judge ruled that the Secretary of State must list Trump on the ballot as well. An appeal is likely. The Colorado case, or another similar case in another state, could likely land before the Supreme Court, which has never before ruled on the Civil War-era amendment.”
The New York Post wrote on November 19:
“A powerful fire obliterated a Brooklyn brownstone. Three people from three generations of the West family, ages 33 to 81, perished. As has become common over three years, the cause was a battery charging an e-scooter, blocking exits.
“So far, 17 of this year’s 93 fire deaths are from such batteries. Fire Commissioner Laura Kavanagh calls it ‘devastating.’
“Twenty-seven New Yorkers have died in these fires since 2021, the year after the city legalized e-bikes and similar devices. (No one had ever died in such a fire before.) … e-battery fire deaths exceed electrical fire deaths…
“The only way to prevent more deaths is for the FDNY to call for a ban on residential e-battery storage and charging, just as it bans home storage of gasoline and other flammable or hazardous materials…”
e-Bikes ARE dangerous.
Israel 365 News wrote on November 19:
“A deeply disturbing trend has been emerging in the last 6 weeks since the outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas. I am seeing antisemitism within the Conservative Christian camp in many arenas… However, this form of antisemitism is not out-and-out Jew-hatred. It is much more subtle, and therefore, perhaps more dangerous…
“How can this be?
“I believe it goes back to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden… I believe it is because these newscasters over-focus on the DARK SIDE. They are plucking fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and eating mostly EVIL fruit…
“What is Replacement Theology? In a nutshell, it is the false teaching that the church has replaced Israel, that the covenants God made with Israel and the Jewish people are null and void, and that those covenants now apply to the church. The ‘New Testament’ has replaced the ‘Old Testament’. Nothing could be further from the truth!…
“The roots of Replacement Theology [go] back many centuries. One of those roots goes back to Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant Reformation… did you know that he wrote a book… called ‘On the Jews and their Lies’? It was filled with hateful diatribes against the Jews.
“… Did you know that, 400 years later, the Nazis revered Martin Luther, and his book was widely circulated and read? And did you know that ‘Kristallnacht’, the ‘Night of Broken Glass’, happened not on just any random day, but was chosen to happen on Nov 9-10, 1938, in honor of Martin Luther’s birthday? (his date of birth: Nov 10, 1483)
“His words were put into ACTION by the Nazis 400 years later. So one of the ROOTS of Replacement Theology gave us a very evil fruit! Kristallnacht is what kicked off the Holocaust. The Western civilized world was silent. The churches were silent…”
Antisemitism can be seen, not only in Arab nations, in pro-Hamas supporters demonstrating in the streets of London, Paris, Washington DC and Berlin, as well as on college campuses, and in liberal leftists who are funding the Pro-Hamas demonstrations in America—it can also be seen in “Christian” churches, which is truly disturbing.
Israel 365 News reported on November 17:
“… at least 19 volcanoes are currently erupting around the world… The eruptions are on several disperse continents and countries but particular focus is being directed towards Iceland where scientists warn that a recent week-long wave of over 1,200 earthquakes presages a period of prolonged and intense seismic unrest. The strongest quake measured 3.8 but the micro-quakes signalled activity below the surface.
“Scientists estimate that a layer of magma is about 500 meters below the surface and is working its way to the surface… But the real fear is that an eruption is part of a 1,000-year cycle of volcanic activity that will likely cause eruptions for centuries…
“The last volcano in Iceland to cause international mayhem was Eyjafjallajökull, which erupted in 2010. A huge ash cloud that rose five miles into the sky and grounded flights across Europe, forcing its airspace to shut down.
“The topic of ‘volcanoes’ became relevant to the conflict in Israel. On Saturday, Hezbollah claimed to have fired a Burkan 2-H missile at Israel bearing a 100 kilogram warhead. Burkan means ‘volcano’ in Arabic.”
Daily Mail wrote on November 17:
“About 300 million people in the United States would be put at risk of death from exposure to radioactive fallout in the four days following a nuclear attack, according to a new report that models the possible effects of such a grim event.
“If the US is attacked with nuclear weapons, an adversary would most likely concentrate all fire on the country’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch facilities (silos). Any retaliatory attack from the US would come from these silos, located in Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Wyoming — and taking them out would be an enemy’s first priority…
“Depending on weather conditions, 90 percent of the population of the lower 48 U.S states, as well as people living in Mexico’s northern states and the most populous regions of Canada, would be at risk of receiving lethal doses of radiation…
“The editors of Scientific American commissioned the special report because the US government is in the midst of a $1.5 trillion project to refresh its obsolete nuclear weapons, including the ones stored at these silos in the western states. Their message is unambiguous: ‘We should rethink this miserable folly rather than once again squandering our wealth while driving a new arms race.’”
Even though most feel that a nuclear attack might be launched on the USA by Russia or China, the truth is that it will be another, basically overlooked power which will destroy the USA in a nuclear war.
Newsmax wrote on November 19:
“France has successfully test-fired an M51.3 long-range ballistic missile, boosting the credibility of France’s nuclear deterrence capabilities…
“The missile, which did not carry a nuclear weapon, was fired from the French army’s Biscarosse missile testing site in southwest France and landed in the North Atlantic, ‘hundreds of kilometers from any coastline’ the ministry said, without giving further detail…”
Politico wrote on November 17:
“Early in Ronald Reagan’s second term, he asked his Soviet counterpart a seemingly off-the-wall question… Reagan turned to his Cold War enemy and said: ‘What would you do if the United States were suddenly attacked by someone from outer space? Would you help us?’ Gorbachev later recounted. ‘I said, “No doubt about it.” He said, “We too.”’…
“Reagan… had an encounter with a UFO while riding in a plane in the 1970s.
“Reagan, it turns out, wasn’t the only president who has had a more than passing interest in the possibility of extraterrestrial life. For the past half-century, almost every president has come to office pledging — publicly or privately — to get to the bottom of UFOs…
“Like his Oval Office predecessors, the former Arkansas governor [Bill Clinton] had expressed interest in aliens as soon as he had taken the oath of office…
“Jimmy Carter spotted his UFO while waiting for a Lion’s Club event to start on Jan. 6, 1969… As Carter campaigned in ’76 against Ford, he promised he would open up the nation’s UFO secrets… But, once in the Oval Office, Carter never followed up on his pledge. Whatever the government was hiding would stay hidden…
“Most recently, in 2021, former President Barack Obama spoke about the mystery — what the government by then called UAPs, unidentified anomalous phenomenon — telling late night host James Corden, ‘When I came into office, I was like ‘All right, is there the lab somewhere where we’re keeping the alien specimens and spaceship?’ And you know, they did a little bit of research and the answer was ‘no.’ But what is true — and I’m actually being serious here — is that there’s footage and records of objects in the skies that we don’t know exactly what they are. We can’t explain how they moved, their trajectory. They did not have an easily explainable pattern.’
“It was a remarkable statement and one that hinted at how long-standing — and real — the mystery of UFOs was, even to commanders in chief who, presumably, would have had access to answers if there were ones.”
It must be admitted that many reported UFO “sightings” and “encounters” can be explained naturally, or because of wild human imagination. But some of the reports might be very real, and if so, they would be based on Satanic and demonic deception.
“Deutsche Welle wrote on November 21:
“A matter-of-fact announcement was issued by the Finance Ministry on Monday evening: With immediate effect, a spending freeze applies to almost the entire budget for 2023, it read. This drastic step was taken due to ‘the need to review the overall budgetary situation for the federal budget,’ read a statement from the ministry.
“The government is sending the message that it considers last week’s dramatic landmark ruling by Germany’s highest judges to have much more severe consequences than initially thought… [It] was a political bombshell for Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his federal government. It ruled that the government cannot reallocate €60 billion meant to fight the COVID-19 pandemic to instead address climate change.
“… Germany’s three-way coalition government is not marching in one direction… the government’s approval rating among voters has hit rock bottom. Fresh elections would therefore likely hurt all three parties. The SPD, Greens and FDP are desperately seeking a solution — one that’s nowhere in sight.”
Focus added on November 22:
“Next ‘Ampel’ [German coalition government] shock… 200 billion euro fund can no longer be used.
“After the budget ruling of the Constitutional Court, the Federal Ministry of Finance also blocked the Economic Stabilization Fund (WSF). Due to the Karlsruhe decision, the WSF credit authorizations ‘could no longer be used in 2023 according to the current legal situation’, it says…
“‘In order to avoid further burdens on the budget for this year and burdens for future financial years’, ‘all of the expenditures for 2023 which have not been spent already… are blocked with immediate effect,” it says… ‘Consent from the Federal Ministry of Finance’ is therefore required for any WSF expenditure that is still necessary.”
The spending freeze also included the German military.
Deutsche Welle wrote on November 23:
“German Finance Minister Christian Lindner plans to present a supplementary budget next week for the current year that lifts borrowing limits… A decision to suspend a so-called debt brake will allow the government to significantly increase new borrowing this year…”
As a consequence, one of the Coalition parties (the FDP) is going to ask their members in a formal poll as to how they feel about staying in or departing from the government.
Reuters wrote on November 17:
“Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Friday suggested that Germany supported Israel in the Gaza war out of guilt over the Holocaust and drew a contrast with Turkey, which he said was able to speak without bias…. ‘Those who feel indebted to Israel cannot speak freely. We did not go through the Holocaust process, we don’t have such a situation, because our respect for humanity is different,’ the Turkish president said…
“Erdogan’s comment in Berlin went to the heart of Germany’s post-war identity, which is based on deep atonement for the Holocaust. Germany systematically killed 6 million Jews and 5 million other victims during World War Two. Modern Israel was founded in 1948 as a safe haven for Jews. [Chancelor] Scholz did not respond directly to Erdogan’s remarks but restated Germany’s commitment to Israel’s right to defend itself.
“… Erdogan’s trip was his first visit to Germany in four years. Erdogan, whose party faces key local elections next year, could benefit from Scholz’s backing for modernising Turkey’s customs union with the European Union and visa-free EU travel for Turks. Scholz, dealing with a court ruling that blew a 60-billion-euro hole in his budget, a coalition row over the economy and rising immigration, needs Ankara’s help in stemming migration to the EU…
“Scholz declined to respond to a question on whether he would approve the sale of the 40 Eurofighter warplanes that Turkey wants. His approval would be needed since Germany is a member of the British-French-Spanish consortium that makes them. Erdogan said he could go elsewhere if Scholz did not agree… Berlin would also like to see Turkey give its final approval to Sweden’s accession to the NATO military alliance. Though Erdogan has dropped his objections, the Turkish parliament has yet to ratify Sweden’s membership.”
Aljazeera added on November 17:
“The two countries have always been, as characterised by Scholz’s spokesman, ‘uncomfortable partners.’ Berlin has been a loud critic of Erdogan’s clampdown on domestic dissent… Despite their differences, economic cooperation between the two countries has continued, with bilateral trade reaching a record 51.6 billion euros ($56.2bn) in 2022.
“Germany is home to the largest Turkish diaspora abroad. A majority of the Turkish community of three million are supporters of Erdogan.”
The Local wrote on November 17, prior to Erdogan’s arrival in Germany:
“The daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said Germany offered the ‘ideal stage’ for Erdogan to position himself as a voice for the ‘global south’. ‘As the loudest critic of Israel, he is underlining his demand for leadership of the Islamic world,’ said the daily…
“Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, said Erdogan did not deserve to be trusted. ‘Anyone who not only denies Israel’s right to exist but also actively fights against it should not a be a partner for German politicians,’ he told newspaper group RND.”
Israel Today wrote on November 19, prior to his arrival in Germany:
“Turkish President… Erdogan told his country’s parliament on Wednesday that Israel would soon be destroyed. ‘Right now, I am openly saying with clear conscience that Israel is a terrorist state,’ said Erdoğan.
“While this comment was widely reported, his subsequent remarks went largely unnoticed. ‘Hey Israel: You have an atomic bomb, a nuclear bomb. And you are making threats with this. We know this. And your end is near,’ said Erdoğan. ‘You can have as many nuclear bombs as you want, but you’re on your way out,’ he added.
“Turkish lawmakers responded to the message with a thunderous standing ovation.”
Israel will NOT be totally destroyed, but it will receive a “wound”—a military defeat—prior to the Great Tribulation, and it will be occupied during the Great Tribulation by a foreign power. Turkey will have a terrible part in this.
Focus wrote on November 19:
“As soon as he returned to Turkey, the ruler [Erdogan] attacked the federal government harshly. According to ‘Bild’, the Turkish president accused the federal government in a speech of being involved in a ‘crusader-imperialist structure’.
“‘Unfortunately, I discovered that during my visit last night,’ the Turkish president was quoted as saying by the tabloid newspaper. ‘I saw that with President [Frank-Walter Steinmeier] and with the other one too’—the ‘other one’ was a reference to Chancellor [Olaf] Scholz.”
This love-hate relationship between Germany and Turkey does not prevent economic and military cooperation.
Deutsche Welel wrote on November 22:
“Israel and Hamas agreed on Wednesday to a four-day pause in fighting in Gaza to allow the release of 50 hostages held in the strip in exchange for 150 Palestinians imprisoned in Israel… Hamas said hundreds of humanitarian, medical and fuel aid trucks would be allowed to enter Gaza during the temporary truce… ‘The number of those released will be increased in later stages of implementing the agreement,’ the Foreign Ministry in Qatar [which “mediated” the deal] wrote on X, formerly Twitter…
“The agreement came amid mounting pressure from the hostages’ families and the international
community… ‘The government of Israel is obligated to return home all of the hostages,’ Netanyahu’s office wrote on X… Netanyahu… said the war in the Gaza Strip would continue after the pause until his government has achieved all its goals, including the elimination of Hamas, which is considered a terrorist group by Israel, the European Union, the United States, and others…
“Israel said it would extend the four-day pause by an additional day for every ten hostages released by Hamas. Israel’s Justice Ministry published a list of 300 names of Palestinian prisoners who could be freed. The list represents twice the number of people initially slated for release — 150 Palestinian women and children.
“Meanwhile, Hamas said the truce would not halt their broader fight. ‘As we announce the striking of a truce agreement, we affirm that our fingers remain on the trigger, and our victorious fighters will remain on the look-out to defend our people and defeat the occupation,’ it said.”
Daily Mail added on November 22:
“Among those released are operatives of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Fatah and the Popular Front and some were tried in military courts and some in civilian courts. Half will be released in the first stage with the second depending on how the ceasefire and exchange of hostages goes.”
It is clear that as of now, with this deal, Hamas has won and Israel has lost. As one observer commented: Hamas is getting all what they want.
Newsmax wrote on November 22:
“Not only has President Joe Biden’s watch seen two wars erupt, in Ukraine and Gaza, but pro-Hamas leftists have forced Israel to negotiate with terrorists, former Trump administration Ambassador Ric Grenell told Newsmax Wednesday… America under past presidents would hunt the terrorists down and eradicate them, Grenell lamented… Biden’s administration is ‘pressuring Israel to cut deals,’ and even unfair ones, Grenell continued… ‘Israel had to go into its prisons to find 150 people who were convicted of crimes, brutal crimes in some instances, to exchange for 50 innocent people — 50 of the 200,’ Grenell said…
“Negotiating with terrorists is never a winning strategy and only further ups ‘the ante’ for hostages, including for a Biden administration that was forced to release $6 billion to Iran before Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack… ‘This is outrageous, and it’s going to make us less safe.’”
Sadly, Grenell is absolutely correct.
The Associated Press wrote on November 19:
“Hungary’s prime minister said Saturday that Ukraine is ‘light years away’ from joining the European Union…
“Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said he and his government would ‘resist’ talks scheduled for mid-December on whether to formally invite Ukraine to start membership negotiations. Admitting a new country requires unanimous approval from all existing member countries, giving Orbán a powerful veto… Orbán said… that standing in the way of Ukraine joining the EU would be one of his government’s top priorities in the coming months…
“Orbán… has argued that negotiations should not begin with a country that is at war…”
Ukraine will not become part of the EU. Rather, Ukraine will be united with Russia.
Acknowledgement and Disclaimer
These Current Events are compiled and commented on by Norbert Link. We gratefully acknowledge the many contributions of news articles from our readership. The publication of articles in this section is not to be viewed as an endorsement or approval as to contents or accuracy of the selected articles, but they are published for the purpose of pointing at worldwide developments in the light of biblical end-time prophecy and godly instruction. Our own comments are provided in italics.
One of the greatest parental responsibilities is to TEACH their children about God. In fact, God Himself is quoted in the Bible when He spoke of Abraham, saying:
“‘For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice, that the LORD may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him’” (Genesis 18:19).
The Authorized Version is even more emphatic, stating: “For I know him, THAT he WILL command his children… and they SHALL keep the way of the LORD…” Similar the NIV.
When God chose and redeemed Israel from Egyptian captivity, He commanded that the people should love Him with total commitment and that their children should be taught to do the same:
“‘Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates’ “ (Deuteronomy 6:4-9).
Christians also face the great challenge set forth by God to teach their children about Him, as Ephesians 6:4 states:
“And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.”
Quite obviously, teaching children requires a conscious commitment from parents, and that dedication should, where possible, begin before children are born. Couples planning to marry ought to prepare by discussing child-rearing goals and methods. For those who already have children, planning and preparations are still a necessity. As shown in the preceding biblical quotes, parents must, themselves, be anchored in the Word of God to teach their children properly and successfully.
The purpose of this Q&A is to address training young children about God and the Bible, and that training begins with the example of the parents.
Many parents wait longer than they should to begin teaching their children about God. They assume that small children are not ready until a point well beyond when they could—and should—have started teaching their children the basics about God and His Way of Life. Never forget that children are most impressionable at their youngest age.
At what age should we start teaching the Scriptures to our children? God’s Word should be an important and natural part of life from very early childhood on. We expect small children to grow up learning songs, stories, the names of colors and the sounds animals make. Why not take advantage of the incredible, sponge-like learning capacity of a small child and start planting the most important seed of all—God’s instructions—within them?
Here are some strategies for teaching the Bible itself. The Bible is a large book, and to introduce its study to our children, we must first present it in small, manageable portions according to their age level. Decide what subjects you wish to cover and think about how to present them in a user-friendly way. You may choose to cover a topic over several sessions. Focus on presenting important biblical teachings that they can use throughout their lives. Examples could include the Creation, the Exodus, the Ten Commandments, the life of David, Jesus Christ, lessons from the various “heroes” of the Bible, and as they get older, proofs of God’s existence and the history of the New Testament Church.
How much time should we spend per session? Find the balance in setting a time that is neither unreasonably long, nor so short that it gives the impression God’s Word is a low priority in our day. For instance, how long can a preschooler sit to watch a television show or hear a story read to them? How long can an elementary-age child sit to listen to a teacher read a book?
Before launching into your teaching session, take a few minutes to do your “homework.” Preview the lesson and compile your ideas.
Here are some suggestions and recommendations to help set up your Bible curriculum. Certainly, there are many other ideas that you, the parents, will have.
READING THE BIBLE
There are many good materials to read, but ultimately there is no substitute for the Bible itself. You cannot go wrong by starting in Genesis and reading on through the Bible. Alternate methods are also fine. For young children, consider skipping over long lists such as genealogies, or briefly summarizing them. You may also want to paraphrase some passages, putting them into your own words in simple language your child can understand, instead of reading the text as written. Your reading will become much more effective as you add your own comments to the passages you read. Ask questions to make them think (this is very important). Tell a little story that gets a point across. Act out the scenario. Anything you add along these lines is well worth the effort.
Whenever your child learns to read, present him or her with a Bible of his or her own. In order for our children to learn the Bible and become familiar and comfortable with handling it, they need to have one! It should be a true Bible (such as the New King James Bible), not a pseudo-Bible or children’s story-book-type volume. It should contain all the same Scriptures a regular Bible has. Thumb tabs are also very helpful for children to find books faster.
As the child becomes a more proficient reader, the publications of the Church of the Eternal God will serve as helpful study aids for parents. Bible atlases, Bible dictionaries and other reference materials can be introduced to the youth. In turn, parents can summarize important concepts in terms appropriate to their children’s learning level.
MEMORY WORK
Memorizing is a normal part of life for a child—from the alphabet to nursery rhymes to state capitals. It should be a normal part of life to memorize the most important information of all—God’s Words. Memorizing specific Scriptures and learning what they mean can be fun. A child is ready to start memory work by the age of three. Start by choosing short verses to learn. This will build your child’s confidence. Teach them one phrase or word from the verse at a time. Say a word (or phrase), then point to your child to supply the next word.
Show your child where the verse is found in the Bible. Mark their Bible with a special color to identify verses they have memorized. Say the book, chapter and verse, before and after the Scripture. Recite the verse several times a day in your child’s presence so that it becomes familiar to them. Do not simplify the verses. It is important to teach God’s Word as it is recorded. Clarify any words they don’t understand.
It is not wrong to offer an age-appropriate reward. Make the rewards immediate if possible. Rewards could include small treats, prizes, stars on a chart, a trip to the store, or special time with mom or dad. Having them share their accomplishment by reciting it to someone else (grandparents, teacher, etc.) is very beneficial, too. Children like to feel they have accomplished something.
PICTURES AND ARTWORK
As the saying goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Some Bible resource books (Bible dictionaries, Bible encyclopedias, etc.) contain good diagrams or pictures. A word of caution regarding pictures, however: A child’s mind is very impressionable, and a picture can stick in the mind for a long time. This also goes for adults. We should avoid using pictures such as those that depict God the Father, Jesus Christ [either when He was here on earth, as a Man, or in His present state as an immortal God Being], Satan the Devil, angels or demons, and men with long hair (except for Nazarites).
PROPS
Props are a great teaching aid. A complete interactive felt or flannel board teaching system used to teach and tell both Old and New Testament Bible stories is an excellent tool for illustration. This makes the Bible story come to life and lets the child interact and become part of the story—giving the child a chance to use his senses of hearing (listening to the story being read or told), seeing and touching. You can easily create a felt board by simply gluing a large piece of felt to a rectangular piece of cardboard. Have the children draw or color pictures of Bible characters and props onto heavy paper or poster board, cut them out, and then place Velcro adhesive on the back of each piece. The kids will love it! Also, you can purchase the felt board projects at your local Bible Book Store or Online but be sure to remove items that are inappropriate.
MAKE A TIMELINE
Starting with the beginning of the Bible, you may want to consider having your child start a timeline of the sequence of the major events you are reading about through the Bible. You could provide a short roll of paper to make a continuous timeline that can be rolled up later. Children could draw and color pictures they have created on this timeline.
TEACHING A CHILD TO PRAY
The beginning of the child’s prayer life is essentially an activity. A mother might ask the question: “When shall I begin to teach my little child to pray?” This question should be met by another: “When do you intend to start teaching your little child a language?” If the father and mother kneel by the child’s bed long before he can notice consciously what is happening, the child grows up during this event: “Mom and dad speaking to Someone whom they respect and love and cannot see.” Let your child see you praying. Children learn by example.
Our children and grandchildren need to understand that we, as Christian parents and grandparents, talk to God in prayer on a regular basis. Asking a blessing at mealtime, prayer of anointing for illness and prayers given at Church services provide important examples of our relationship with God. These illustrations become a Way of Life.
SUPPLEMENTAL
Using other Bible materials from the Internet can be very helpful, if they adhere to the Truth and correct doctrines, but parents must be careful to closely monitor what they use.
Make this a pleasant time for the child. By making it special, we are showing we place special value on God’s Word and the privilege of studying it. Pick an area with a table, if possible, where the setting and atmosphere are clearly “study time” and minimize distractions. Clear the table of clutter. Leave the television, their computer or their “devices” off and mute distractions such as cell phones. Be sure to begin each study session with a brief prayer together, asking for God’s help in understanding His Word.
These recommendations are suggestions as a starting point for prospective parents, parents, and grandparents. Understanding that God created humankind to eventually become part of His eternal Family makes the training of our children one of life’s most important and rewarding endeavors!
Lead Writer: Dave Harris
compiled by Dave Harris
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This Update is an official publication by the ministry of the Church of the Eternal God in the United States of America; the Church of God, a Christian Fellowship in Canada; and the Global Church of God in the United Kingdom.
Editorial Team: Norbert Link, Dave Harris, Rene Messier, Brian Gale, Johanna Link, Eric Rank, Michael Link, Anna Link, Kalon Mitchell, Manuela Mitchell, Dawn Thompson
Technical Team: Eric Rank, Shana Rank
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On November 18, 2023, Paul Niehoff will present the sermonette, titled, “To Do Justly,” and Brian Gale will present the sermon, titled, “Answering Criticism of God.”
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