On November 19, 2022, Kalon Mitchell will present the sermonette, titled, “Quiet Quitting Christianity,” and Michael Link will present the sermon, titled, “Thoughtful Action.”

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.

People often have things that they consider to be precious to them. It may be memories of a particular event. It could be an object, for example, a photograph, that reminds them of a particularly enjoyable occasion. It could be a particular friendship that has been longstanding and close. Whatever it is, it is important to them and they consider it precious.

In the natural world, there are minerals that are considered precious—metals like gold, silver and the platinum group of metals. There are also precious gemstones.

A good definition of precious is found in the Cambridge dictionary. It defines precious as: “Of great value because of being rare, expensive, or important.” This definition certainly applies to the above-mentioned listings. A person may find things, events or friendships precious because they are rare or important and the things may possibly be expensive.

Considering metals and gemstones, they are precious because of their importance in industry or commerce on account of their physical features. Some of them are very durable. Gold and silver and some gemstones have been considered precious for thousands of years. They can also be expensive because of their rarity.

It’s obvious that we consider things that are precious to us to be important for various reasons. When we read through the Bible, there are a number of things that are stated as being precious to man—things like precious stones or jewels, precious ointment, precious gold and silver—but there are a number of things that are precious or important to God. They are of much greater importance than physical things that are only temporary. These have a common goal that God considers a highly important part of His plan.

What does God reveal that is really precious to Him? It is not physical objects but more spiritual considerations. Looking at the Hebrew words in this regard, the meaning of precious is basically heavy in value (valuable) or rare. The Greek words for precious have the meaning of costly, valuable, honored, esteemed, beloved.

The first occurrence of precious other than a physical object is in 1 Samuel 3:1 where we find that at that time God’s Word was rare (or precious, as in the Authorised Version and some other versions): “Now the boy Samuel ministered to the LORD before Eli. And the word of the LORD was rare (precious, Authorised Version) in those days; there was no widespread revelation.”  We certainly know that God’s Word is valuable and, in those days, it was also very rare.

In Psalm 49:8-9, we find just how precious redemption is. The previous verses reveal that no amount of money can redeem souls: “For the redemption of their souls is costly (precious, Authorised Version), And it shall cease forever—That he should continue to live eternally, And not see the Pit.” Here, redemption is so important that it leads to eternal life. No amount of money could buy it, as will be seen later.

Further on in the Psalms, we find that God considers the blood, or death, of His saints to be precious. This is revealed in Psalm 72:14: “He will redeem their life from oppression and violence; And precious shall be their blood in His sight.” And in Psalm 116:15: “Precious in the sight of the LORD Is the death of His saints.” This is because when a saint dies, God will resurrect him or her to eternal life as a part of His Family forever. Their future is assured.

Psalm 139:17 informs us of something that should be precious to us, not just to David. It shows that we should think as God thinks: “How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!” Regarding God’s thoughts, we read in other passages that God desires all men to be saved, and He thinks good toward His people and not evil.

Proverbs 20:15 reveals that “the lips of knowledge are a precious jewel,” more than “gold and a multitude of rubies.” True knowledge gives us understanding of our future and what we will be.

In Isaiah 28:16 is a prophecy of the coming Messiah, revealing that He is precious: “Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: ‘Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation, A tried stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation; Whoever believes will not act hastily.”

In Isaiah 43:3-4, God reveals that He considers His people of Israel to be precious: “For I am the LORD your God, The Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I gave Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in your place. Since you were precious in My sight, You have been honored, And I have loved you; Therefore  I will give men for you, And people for your life.”

In the New Testament, further things are mentioned as being precious to God. In 1 Peter 1:7, the genuineness of our faith is much more precious than gold that perishes. In 1 Peter 1:19, the blood of Jesus Christ is also considered precious.

In 1 Peter 2:4-7, Isaiah 28:16 is expanded upon. The Messiah is again called the chief cornerstone and precious upon whom we are built up as a holy priesthood.

2 Peter 1:1 shows that God’s people have obtained the precious faith by the righteousness of Jesus Christ—not by anything we have earned by our own efforts. And the last mention of what God considers precious is in 2 Peter 1:4, telling us that we have received “exceedingly great and precious promises” that we can partake of the divine nature; basically, that we become God and have His nature.

So, what can we conclude from these passages? Even though God made precious physical things for man, which things are temporary, He considers those things much more precious which are leading to our eternal life. His Word, our redemption, the resurrection after our death, what God thinks about us and His intentions for us, the Messiah of course, genuine faith, the costly blood of Jesus Christ which alone makes our redemption possible, and the precious faith which can only come through the righteousness of Jesus Christ—all these result in the promise of us being born as a part of the Family of God.

All these precious things have the aim of increasing the number of Spirit beings in His Family which is His overall purpose. This is why Peter used his strongest expression “exceedingly great and precious promises.” Nothing in this physical world can compare with that.

We begin with the undeniable fact that not much good will happen in Washington, regardless as to who will control the House and the Senate. But we also point out that the “disastrous” midterm elections (depending on one’s viewpoint) will have global ramifications.

We publish an article from Germany’s mass tabloid Bild, which accurately reflects the negative sentiments of most Germans about Donald Trump who just declared that he will run in the 2024 presidential election; and we quote from articles showing the positive feelings about Trump in Israel in connection with bestowing on him a rare and highly prestigious medal of honor.

We speak on the Biden Administration’s declaration not to support Israel’s proposed annexation of Judea and Samaria; and point out the terrible consequences of Biden’s incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan and the return of the dictatorial and inhumane Taliban (an outcome which was so predictable). We also address the recent event of a missile hitting Poland. Please view in this regard our new StandingWatch program, titled, “Missile Hits Poland.”

We discuss the dishonesty of the medical establishment in regard to the coronavirus propaganda [including the absurd decision of the TSA to continue the ban for non-American unvaccinated tourists to enter the USA]; address the dishonesty by especially younger and somewhat inexperienced scientists and the mass media in regard to the man-made climate change propaganda, speak of Italy’s skepticism towards Covid 19 vaccines, same-sex marriages, euthanasia and assisted suicide, and we conclude with an interesting assessment of the situation in Great Britain pertaining to Camilla, wife of King Charles III, and the role which the late Queen Elizabeth II might have played in this regard.  

 Throughout this section, we have underlined pertinent statements in the quoted articles, for the convenience and quick overview of the reader.

Not Much Will Change in Washington

The Ron Paul Institute wrote on November 11:

“… very little will change in Washington after this election… After all, so much of federal policy is now determined by the executive branch that moderate changes in party leadership in Congress will do very little to change the course of the nation’s administrative agencies such as the EPA, the IRS, and the FBI. These agencies have immense power over the daily lives of countless Americans, yet even sizable majorities of so-called conservatives have shown little stomach to rein in this power. Certainly, the small GOP majority now headed for the House will do little.

“...we can expect to keep hearing plenty about the evil of fossil fuels. The administration will continue to press for less drilling for oil and gas, and the war on coal will continue. The administration will continue to issue new edicts for ‘fighting global warming.’ This, of course, will continue to drive up the cost of living.

“On foreign policy, it was clear nothing much would change short of an overwhelming victory by ‘America First’ types in Congress. That hasn’t happened, so we can expect more of the same foreign interventionism we’re seeing now. The US regime will add to the $65 billion it has already sent to Ukraine and will continually ratchet up its involvement in the region as it recently did with a deployment of US troops near the Ukraine border. Even worse, the US will likely continue to flirt with nuclear war, as the regime’s new National Defense Strategy document has given the Pentagon more leeway in using nuclear arms. The US will not any time soon remove the approximately nine hundred American troops that are currently conducting a regional occupation in Syria.

“Naturally, as far as social spending goes, we can expect zero change. Under Donald Trump, Republicans signed off on massive new spending increases and were headed toward approving trillion-dollar deficits even before 2020. With covid, of course, spending exploded even more, and only a small handful of Republicans expressed doubts… The only disagreements we’ll see in Washington in the next two years will be over how exactly to run up the next massive annual deficit…

“While Washington will keep up with the same disastrous policies, the real change we’ll see will be at the state level… What all this likely means is a continued divergence between places like Washington State, New York State, and California, on the one hand, and Florida, Texas, and Ohio, on the other. On matters like abortion, schools, immigration, guns, and energy policy, the differences between the two blocs will only continue to grow…

“Over time, this will continue to build a real cultural divide that will inevitably lead to de facto political division between these blocs of states… ‘National divorce’ will increasingly be evident on the horizon.”

And so, the division in the USA will continue while Washington—regardless as to who is in power— will prove as being totally incompetent and irrelevant. Out of Arizona, Nevada and Georgia, the Republicans needed at least two wins to gain the majority in the Senate.

Breitbart reported on November 11 that “the Arizona Senate race has been called for Democrat Mark Kelly, who beat his Republican challenger Blake Masters.”

NBC News reported on November 12: “The picture in the Senate became clear late Saturday after Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada narrowly defeated Republican Adam Laxalt to win re-election, putting her party over the threshold… Masto’s victory means Democrats will hold the Senate regardless of the outcome of Georgia’s Dec. 6 runoff election when Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker will face each other again after neither cleared the 50% threshold required under state law.

“A Walker win would keep the Senate 50-50, where Vice President Kamala Harris casts the tie-breaking vote for Democrats. A Warnock victory would make it 51-49, giving Democrats one extra vote…”

This would enable the Democrats to pass a few bills which require a simple majority. Most bills need 60 votes. A Democratic majority in the Senate also means that Biden can nominate federal judges and appointees to the Supreme Court, should vacancies occur.

Most news articles project or have already announced a slight win of the Republicans taking back the House. The votes of several races are still being counted. 

The Associated Press reported on November 17:

“More than a week after Election Day, Republicans secured the 218th seat needed to flip the House from Democratic control. The full scope of the party’s majority may not be clear for several more days — or weeks — as votes in competitive races are still being counted. But they are on track to cobble together what could be the party’s narrowest majority of the 21st century, rivaling 2001, when Republicans had just a nine-seat majority, 221-212 with two independents.”

The New York Post added on November 17:

“The narrow majority calls into question the future of promised wide-ranging, GOP-led House committee investigations into the Biden administration on topics including the botched US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the ongoing migration crisis at the US-Mexico border — and first son Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings…”

One could add to this list promised investigations into the origin of the coronavirus and Fauci’s role in the matter. 

Many blame Trump for these developments. The New York Post reported on November 11:

“President Donald Trump [made] a racially insensitive attack against Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (“his name sounds Chinese”)… [It was also reported:] ‘He was really upset about Dr. [Mehmet] Oz [losing his Senate race in Pennsylvania]. It really set him off… [It was even reported that he blamed his wife Melania for convincing him to endorse Dr. Oz.] He’s grumpy and unhappy that Ron DeSantis did so well…’ Trump went on a social media tirade against the Florida governor Thursday, saying that DeSantis should not run in 2024 and deriding him as an ‘average REPUBLICAN Governor with great Public Relations…’”

Global Implications

Deutsche Welle wrote on November 11:

“A divided government has implications for US global leadership… The midterm shift, which will not take effect until the new year, looks to be small, but potentially decisive…

“Stephen Wertheim, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington-based think tank, told DW: … ‘It is a good time for Europe to think about how self-sufficient it is and wants to be when it comes to its defense… I don’t know how many more warning signs from the United States are necessary to convey this message.’”

Finally, Europe, which has been called the “sleeping giant” in the past, will wake up.

USA and Canada… On Their Road to Perdition

National Post wrote on November 10:

“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is likely to draw some encouragement from Tuesday’s U.S. midterms. Despite running an unpopular government, and a weak economy, President Joe Biden’s party, which shares many views with Canada’s Liberals, out-performed all expectations and has kept the Republican ‘red tide’ at bay, at least for now.

“The message to Biden, and indirectly to Trudeau, who is similarly unpopular and also governs a country that the overwhelming majority thinks is headed in the wrong direction, that there is no need to change direction. They can both continue extreme policies on climate, control of media and protest…

“The current course both the U.S. and Canada are taking seems destined to create a recession…  if attempts to control social media and political speech did not hurt Biden with voters, the even more draconian approach being proposed by Trudeau to regulate the internet may not cause him long term damage…  the Democrats’ performance suggests that, as in Canada, our increasingly multi-racial societies will continue to be pummeled by claims of ‘systemic racism’ and demand for racial quotas and favouritism… The road to political perdition and disunion seems a bit better paved today in both countries.”

Manasseh and Ephraim’s prophesied downfall is coming.

Trump Will Run…

The New York Post wrote on November 15:

“Former President Donald Trump ended months of speculation and launched his bid to retake the White House in 2024 Tuesday, an early attempt to clear the GOP primary field… Trump brushed off the unexpectedly poor showing by Republicans in last week’s midterm elections.

“… if Trump wins the White House again in 2024, he will have pulled off one of the biggest political comebacks in US history after leaving office with the riot overshadowing his domestic and foreign policy accomplishments… Trump would be the second president elected to non-consecutive terms, after Democrat Grover Cleveland in 1884 and 1892. [A victory would make Trump the 45th and the 47th president, according to Fox News.]

“He would have to leave office in January 2029 because the Constitution doesn’t allow a president to be elected to three terms.”

The accuracy of the last sentence is debatable, with some legal scholars contending that the Constitution only prohibits more than two consecutive terms.

“In Regard to Donald Trump”

We are publishing the following article—not because we necessarily agree with its sentiments, but because we want to show how the overwhelming majority of Germans feel about Trump, as captured very well by the most-read mass tabloid’s article, quoted below.  

On November 11, Bild Online published the following Editorial:

“Unfortunately, it is not over after the midterm elections… he’s a narcissist. He loves himself more than America. He’s only fascinated with himself. Psychiatrists speak of personality damage in narcissism.

“According to the Roman poet Ovid, Narcis was a beautiful young man who had many admirers. But they didn’t interest him. When he saw himself reflected in a water, in a brook, he was so consumed with himself that he threw himself in the water with desire and drowned.

“Trump is such an amorous narcissist…The narcissist does not tolerate insults. He hits back with brutality. His language is like Trump’s language. Chaos, end of the world, electoral fraud… My prayer is: Lord, deliver us from Donald Trump.”

Our prayers should be: God, deliver us from all our politicians running our countries, and send back Jesus Christ to make an end to man’s mad misrule. In other words: Your Kingdom Come!

Zionists Honor Trump

JTA wrote on November 14:

“In his first public appearance after midterm elections in which his Republican Party failed to take control of the U.S. Senate, former president Donald Trump headed to a friendly audience. The Zionist Organization of America was awarding Trump a rare honor, the Theodor Herzl Medal, for his contributions on behalf of Israel… the gala landed at a precarious moment for the former president, as allies throughout the Republican Party have signaled or even said forthrightly in the last several days that they believe he should not run…

“Trump received standing ovations just about every time his name was mentioned, as multiple presenters recited the litany of achievements that they said had made him the best U.S. president ever for Israel. They include moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, brokering the Abraham Accords between Israel and Arab countries, pulling the United States out of the Iran nuclear deal and more… The group’s president, Mort Klein — in a fiery speech… made clear that his confidence in Trump was unwavering…”

Newsmax added on November 14:

“Former President Donald Trump received the Zionist Organization of America’s greatest honor for ‘being the best friend Israel ever had in the White House.’ The organization’s Theodor Herzl Medallion, awarded rarely, previously was presented to people including former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, former President Harry Truman, and former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir… [Klein said:] ‘President Trump is, in fact, so popular in Israel that, were he eligible to run, he would likely be elected prime minister. Indeed, Israel named a new town after the 45th president, ‘Trump Heights.’”

“Other Theodor Herzl Medallion winners included Lord Balfour, David Ben Gurion, Menachem Begin, and Sheldon G. Adelson.”

JNS added on November 14:

“Klein added that the Biden administration was acting hypocritically by implicitly condemning the ‘extremism’ of Religious Zionism leaders Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, yet failing to denounce Abbas’s promotion of terrorism against Israelis.”

But as the articles also point out, many Jews in America do not support Trump, and, according to Trump, they do not even support the state of Israel.

USA Would Oppose Israel’s Annexations

Israel Today wrote on November 10:

“US Ambassador to Israel Thomas Nides warned that Washington would oppose any Israeli steps to annex Judea and Samaria…

“The comments were the first by American officials on specific issues related to Israeli-Palestinian peace process. One of the Religious Zionism party’s demands for joining Netanyahu’s coalition is for Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria to be governed by Israeli government ministries…”

America will NOT be a reliable partner and ally for Israel—and especially NOT under the Biden Administration.

Afghanistan’s Return to Its Evil Past

Daily Mail wrote on November 14:

“Afghanistan’s supreme leader has ordered judges to fully enforce aspects of Islamic law that include public executions, stonings and floggings, and the amputation of limbs for thieves… Akhundzada, who has not been filmed or photographed in public since the Taliban returned to power in August last year, rules by decree from Kandahar, the movement’s birthplace and spiritual heartland.

“’Carefully examine the files of thieves, kidnappers and seditionists,’… Akhundzada [was quoted] as saying. ‘Those files in which all the sharia (Islamic law) conditions of hudud and qisas have been fulfilled, you are obliged to implement. This is the ruling of sharia, and my command, which is obligatory.’

“… Hudud refers to offences which, under Islamic law, certain types of punishment are mandated, while qisas translates as ‘retaliation in kind’ – effectively an eye for an eye. Hudud crimes include adultery – and falsely accusing someone of it – drinking alcohol, theft, kidnapping and highway robbery, apostasy and rebellion. Qisas covers murder and deliberate injury, among other things, but also allows for the families of victims to accept compensation in lieu of punishment…

“Women in particular have seen hard-won rights evaporate in the past 15 months, and they are increasingly being squeezed out of public life. Most female government workers have lost their jobs – or are being paid a pittance to stay at home – while women are also barred from travelling without a male relative and must cover up with a burqa or hijab when outside. In the past week, the Taliban also banned women from entering parks, funfairs, gyms and public baths.”

All of this was so predictable. The incompetence, indifference and naivety of the Biden Administration when leaving Afghanistan are next to unparalleled in recent American history.

Missile Hits Poland

Fox News reported on November 16:

“Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said Wednesday that there is an ‘indication’ the missile that landed in Polish territory and killed two was an ‘air defense missile.’ ‘There is no indication that this was an intentional attack on Poland,’ he said… The missile came down Tuesday on the Polish-Ukrainian border and landed in the village of Przewodów around 3:40 p.m.

“Three anonymous U.S. officials told the Associated Press that preliminary assessments suggested the missile was fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian one… NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg also confirmed Wednesday that the missile that hit Poland was likely a Ukrainian air defense missile…”

Daily Mail added on November 16:

“Hours after the incident, Volodymyr Zelensky had blamed it on ‘Russian missile terror’, and Kyiv is yet to concede its own missile was involved…

“The news came after a nervous night in which it looked like NATO and Russia could be heading for a direct confrontation that would have risked triggering World War Three, and it underlines the risk that a single mistake or miscalculation in Ukraine could yet spark such a conflict.”

The Ron Paul Institute wrote a castigating report on November 16. As it is true for all articles which we republish, we do not take sides on this issue, nor do we confirm the accuracy of what is stated, but we are just presenting it for the information of our readers:

“NATO and Russia briefly stood on the brink of World War III Tuesday evening after Ukraine accidentally bombed Poland. The incident happened as its forces were trying to intercept incoming Russian missiles during what’s been described as Moscow’s fiercest attack… thus far… Instead of shooting down the Russian missile, Kiev’s S-300 malfunctioned and ended up dropping into Poland, where it killed two people.

“The Ukrainian leadership was well aware of what happened but decided to propagate the most dangerous conspiracy theory in history in an attempt to literally spark World War III. Zelensky lied to the world by describing his forces’ accidental bombing of Poland as ‘a Russian missile strike on collective security’ and telling NATO that ‘We need to act.’ His Foreign Minister [claimed] that all allegations that his side was responsible for this incident are nothing but ‘Russian propaganda’.

“To his credit, Biden told the press in response to a question about whether Russia was responsible that ‘There is preliminary information that contests that. It is unlikely in the lines of the trajectory that it was fired from Russia, but we’ll see.’…  There’s no reason to doubt Biden’s assessment nor that of those three unnamed US officials… Quite clearly, just like with the Nord Stream terrorist attack that was in all likelihood carried out by the Anglo-American Axis… NATO doesn’t truly hold Moscow responsible…”

The article also questions the popular narrative that Ukraine is winning the war.

Mormons Support Legislation for Same-Sex Marriage

The Associated Press wrote on November 15:

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said Tuesday it supports proposed federal legislation to safeguard same-sex marriages… The 17-million member, Utah-based faith said in a statement that church doctrine would continue to consider same-sex relationships against God’s commandments, yet would support rights for same-sex couples as long as they didn’t infringe upon religious groups’ right to believe as they choose…

“The faith opposes same-sex marriage and sexual intimacy, but it has taken a more welcoming stance to LGBTQ people in recent years. In 2016, it declared that same-sex attraction is not a sin, while maintaining that acting on it was.”

The “Respect For [Same-Sex and Interracial] Marriage Act”

 Breitbart wrote on November 16:

“Twelve Senate Republicans voted with Democrats on Wednesday for the far-left ‘Respect for Marriage Act,’ which is reportedly designed to provide federal protections for same-sex and interracial marriages… the bill will go back to the House before going to President Joe Biden. The White House has expressed support for the measure.

“RFMA… would require the federal government to recognize any marriage that was ‘valid in the place where entered into.’ The bill would also require every state to recognize every same-sex marriage that ‘is valid in the State where the marriage was entered into.’… So the RFMA does not force Texas to issue a marriage certificate to a same-sex couple. But it does force Texas to recognize a marriage certificate issued to a same-sex couple by New Mexico….

“… religious liberty proponents say the amendment does nothing to shield Americans who have a traditional view of marriage from being targeted under the law… RFMA is yet another instance of Senate Republicans providing the votes needed to pass overreaching Democrat legislation…”

Much of Medical Establishment Deeply Dishonest

The New York Post wrote on November 11:

“A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine purports to show that mask policies in schools work to contain COVID. But that’s not all: The authors conclude, ‘We believe that universal masking may be especially useful for mitigating effects of structural racism in schools, including potential deepening of educational inequities.’… And the next study will show masking fights climate change.

“No, what this study shows is that much of the medical establishment continues to be intensely woke — and deeply dishonest because of it. Just as the ‘experts’ told us gathering in crowds wasn’t OK in spring of 2020, but just weeks later protesting for Black Lives Matter somehow was. This dishonesty is going to hurt us all for a long time.

“As for this study specifically: It does not prove what the authors intended to. It’s just the latest in a push by agenda-driven scientists, and the media who love them, to get people back in masks… COVID rates in all the schools were higher before anyone took off their mask — but that uncomfortable fact goes unmentioned in the write-up… Which didn’t stop The New York Times’ Roni Caryn Rabin from promoting the new study as ‘a so-called natural experiment’ and breathlessly concluding, ‘The bottom line: Masking mandates were linked with significantly reduced numbers of Covid cases in schools.’

“This is full-on nonsense. The mask mandates did no such thing… It’s pathetic that in November 2022, we have to keep pointing out the obvious — and that garbage science like this destroys everyone’s confidence in the medical field…

“Not until April 25, 2021, did Dr. Anthony Fauci say, ‘It’s common sense to know that the risk when you are outdoors, which we have been saying all along, is extremely low, and if you are vaccinated it’s even lower.’ He had not, actually, been saying that all along — and those of us who had that ‘common sense’ got targeted and ridiculed for being ‘anti-science.’

“… the problem isn’t just with masking. It’s that the medical establishment has gone fully woke. Wokeness goes hand-in-hand with forced conformity. No one is allowed to step out of the woke lines — though those lines are free to shift at any time. It’s very Soviet. Under those rules, you can’t be critical of even this cockamamie study… Inside the woke echo chamber, you even have to embrace insane ideas like ‘masking fights racism.’

“No one at the Times could write an article about how a study like this is gibberish. Medical professionals and journalists who point out the obvious, that the study makes no sense, will be quickly excommunicated.

“It’s sick, and it has to stop. This isn’t science, it’s politics — and this woke cancer has to be fought until it’s defeated.”

Wow! And how true this is! Forget having trust in the medical establishment and their propaganda of falsely-called “science.” That “trust” and confidence in the “expertise” and “competence” of the likes as Fauci (or Lauterbach in Germany) has long gone.

Ongoing Harassment Until At Least January 2023

Wochenblatt wrote on November 12:

“The US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has extended the ban on entry for [unvaccinated] non-US citizens and non-immigrants until at least January 8, 2023. The justification contradicts not only the medical facts, but also what is valid within the USA. There, people who have been [vaccinated] and those who are not vaccinated are treated equally. The reasoning of the TSA could not be more absurd: [Unvaccinated] people could bring the virus to the United States and spread it there. Even the director of the powerful US health authority CDC, Rochelle Walensky, admitted that [vaccinated] people are infectious and she is herself an example of this: vaccinated twice and boosted, she tested recently positive for corona.

“The USA is thus in the illustrious circle of countries such as Yemen, Liberia, North Korea, China and Libya. In any case, the regulation on the entry ban for non-vaccinated persons would have expired on November 8^th. By order of the Biden regime, the TSA extended it with ridiculous justifications…

“… it is clear that the vaccination does not prevent either infection or transmission of the virus, according to the Biden decree, since last June people who have been vaccinated have no longer had to submit a negative PCR test. So these passengers are free to travel into the country with the virus and spread it there if they have received a Covid-19 genetic vaccination…

“Corona is no longer about health and medical facts, but only about political tactics… One also has to ask oneself why non-Americans are not a ‘danger’ for Australia or Canada – the two extremely brutal vaccination dictatorships have already opened their borders for non-vaccinated people… With the absurd Corona foreign policy of the colorful Biden troop in the White House, they perhaps wanted  to let the aged super-adviser Anthony Fauci save face. If he had his way, the unvaccinated would still be in permanent quarantine. He announced his departure at the end of the year, but is likely to remain the gray eminence of the pandemic as long as Biden is in office. It will be interesting to see whether the USA will continue to insist on entry vaccination after January 8, 2023. Maybe something will happen in the House of Representatives, where the legislature sits and which may soon be dominated by Republicans. As is well known, they think little of Biden’s corona harassment.”

Hopefully, this ridiculous and absurd ban WILL finally cease to exist and vanish in January. “Let Freedom Ring!”

Italy Skeptical of Covid 19 Vaccines

AFP wrote on November 15:

“The deputy health minister in Italy’s new far-right government sparked controversy Tuesday after stating there was no proof that vaccines against Covid-19 actually worked… ‘But I’m not falling into the trap of taking sides for or against vaccines,’ the undersecretary told state broadcaster Rai, while denouncing the ‘ideological’ approach of the previous government of Mario Draghi towards the Covid crisis.

“As a deputy from the Brothers of Italy, the right-wing party led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, the pharmacist by profession opposed Italy’s so-called coronavirus Green pass, a proof of vaccination required to access most public spaces…

“Gemmato’s comments provoked calls for him to step down, including from the head of the centre-left Democratic Party, Enrico Letta. ‘A health undersecretary who doesn’t take his distance from no-vaxxers is certainly in the wrong job’ wrote the leader of the centrist party Action, Carlo Calenda, on Twitter…”

Of course, to state what the deputy health minister of Italy uttered is deeply unpopular in the so-called “scientific” establishment. And he did not even take a side on the issue, but even that is already too much for the propaganda driven by the big and rich Pharma industry and its supporters.

Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

Israel 365 News reported on November 13:

“In a controversial move, Canada is expanding its government-funded euthanasia program to include the mentally ill. At the same time, parliamentarians in Scotland are being petitioned to incorporate a ‘suicide pod’ that would allow people to autonomously end their lives…

“Canada’s voluntary euthanasia program called Medical Assistance in Dying… became legal in 2016. The program is part of Canada’s healthcare system. To receive euthanasia, patients experiencing intolerable suffering must sign a written request expressing their wish to end their life. In 2021, more than 10,000 people chose euthanasia, an increase of over 32% from the previous year, accounting for 3.3% of all deaths in Canada…

“The law has been amended to make the program available to people whose death is not medically foreseeable. It was also amended to include those with dementia who may not be able to understand the implications of their decision. The decision to access medically assisted suicide will also be for people whose only medical ailment is a mental issue. This amendment will go into effect next year.

“In the Netherlands, where a quarter of all deaths are now carried out by assisted suicide, euthanasia is utilized for babies under one year of age with ‘severe deformations’ and ‘very grave… medical syndromes’...

“Euthanasia, where doctors use drugs to kill patients, is legal in seven countries — Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand and Spain — plus several states in Australia. Other nations, including several U.S. states, permit assisted suicide — in which patients take the lethal drug themselves, typically in a drink prescribed by a doctor…”

For more information on this issue, please read our Q&A ,‘Should true Christians engage in mercy killing or euthanasia?”

“41% of Climate Scientists Don’t Believe in Catastrophic ‘Climate Change’”

Life Site News wrote on November 14:

“For years, the promoters of the spurious ‘settled science’ narrative have claimed that there is a 97-99% consensus among scientists about humans causing climate change…  A recently published survey of top-level climate scientists found that just over five in 10 attributed the human contribution to recent climate change to be 75% or above. Only around four in 10 scientists believed that the frequency and severity of extreme weather events had increased significantly in recent years…

“Emeritus Professor Richard Lindzen recently called the current climate narrative ‘absurd.’ Perhaps, he added, it was the trillions of dollars diverted to green projects and the relentless propaganda from grant-dependent academics and agenda-driven journalists that had persuaded people it is not absurd…

“But the new poll shows that even after 25 years of relentless propaganda, there is considerable debate over the subject in scientific circles.

“… U.S. meteorologist Anthony Watts said the poll illustrates that there is less consensus on climate change and a broader scope of differing opinions that we are led to believe…’

“H. Sterling Burnett from Heartland was intrigued that the poll showed older, more experienced scientists were more sceptical of climate disaster claims. ‘It seems, years of indoctrination have succeeded in brainwashing younger, less experienced climate scientists into believing, data to the contrary, that humans are causing a climate catastrophe,’ he concluded.”

No doubt, much political propaganda and the desire for money are involved with the common narrative of man-made climate change.

How Camilla Became Accepted

The New York Post wrote on November 12:

“Camilla Parker Bowles was, for a time, the most hated woman in Britain, only leaving her home under the cover of darkness. Yet in early May of next year, she will be crowned England’s next queen [technically: queen consort, see comments below] in a ceremony at Westminster Abbey officiated over by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the highest ranking cleric in the land.

“… Queen Elizabeth II… gave Camilla the final stamp of approval in February, when she expressed her ‘sincere wish’ that Camilla would be crowned queen [queen consort] ‘when the day comes.’…

“In the early days, the queen was on friendly terms with Camilla and her then-husband, Andrew Parker Bowles… All that changed when Camilla was revealed as the other woman in the stormy marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales. Camilla became persona non grata in the mid-90s, shunned from formal royal parties and other functions…

“Things were moving along at a quicker pace, thanks to a decision by the Church of England to take a more relaxed view of divorced couples marrying in church. For years, the queen had been balancing her son’s future happiness with her role as monarch and head of the Church of England. Now she could act to end Camilla’s long wait. During an audience with Charles at Sandringham on Christmas 2004, the queen gave permission for them to marry. They married in a civil ceremony at the Guildhall in Windsor in April 2005. Camilla, who had become accustomed to being the butt of criticism, was delighted at the warmth of her reception by the waiting crowds.

“The queen was also relieved, as any negative publicity would have had a direct impact on the monarchy. Still, she was aware that the Camilla issue remained a touchy subject with many of her subjects. The official word from the palace was that there were no plans to make Camilla queen…

“In their different ways, both the queen and Camilla — who was conferred with the title Duchess of Cornwall after the marriage — were in it for the long game, a strategy which matched their conservative, rather cautious personalities… this past February,  the queen announced that she wished Camilla to take on the styling of queen consort when Charles ascended the throne…

“In her quiet, subtle way she tested both her son and his paramour before allowing Camilla into the royal fold. That she has been largely accepted as queen is testimony to the good sense and judgement of Elizabeth II. When Camilla walks down the aisle at Westminster Abbey in six months, husband King Charles III by her side, she will know that she has much to thank her mother-in-law for.”

Many try to emphasize that Camilla is expected to be crowned as “queen consort,” rather than as queen. But as the article implies, this distinction is rather academic in practical terms, as long as Charles III is King. While a queen consort is not the head of the British monarchy nor does she enjoy political or military powers, she will be crowned with the King in a similar but simpler ceremony, and her role involves offering her husband support and accompanying him to official engagements, at which she is addressed as “Her Royal Highness.” Everyone in the royal family is expected to bow to Camilla, including Prince William. Camilla’s title of Queen Consort will be similar to that of Queen Elizabeth’s husband, Prince Consort, Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

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.

Sometimes, when looking at various “parallel” Scriptures, one may find at first glance an apparent contradiction. Some feel that the accounts in Acts 9:7 and Acts 22:9 contradict each other.

To begin with, let us consider the context in Acts 9.

Saul, who is later called Paul, persecuted true Christians seeking their death (Galatians 1:13-14). Saul was a carnal-minded Pharisee, who embraced the teachings of the Pharisees (Acts 23:6). At that time, he was very eager to kill genuine followers of Jesus Christ, because they had a different doctrine that, from the Pharisaic point of view, was contrary to their teachings. It was the religion of that “new way,” the Way of Jesus Christ, who was time and again wrongfully accused of being a blasphemer, because He claimed to be the Son of God. But Christ has always been, and still is, the Son of God!

Saul, furious in his anger, went to the high priest and asked letters which he wanted to carry to the synagogues of Damascus, affirming that he had the authority to bind and deport the disciples of that new Way, whether women or men, to Jerusalem, in order to accuse them of death in court (Acts 9:1-2).

Now let us read Acts 9:3-6:

“As he journeyed he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’ And he said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ Then the Lord said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’ So he, trembling and astonished, said, ‘Lord, what do You want me to do?’ Then the Lord said to him, ‘Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.’”

Verse 7 then says, “And the men who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice but seeing no one.”

Now, comparing this verse with the parallel Scripture in Acts 22:9, it appears that two different statements are being contrasted, when Paul says in his later account of the events:

“Now those who were with me indeed saw the light and were afraid, but they did not hear the voice of Him who spoke to me.”

How can this apparent contradiction be explained, since we know that the Bible does not contradict itself? Therefore, when Jesus Christ appeared on the way to Damascus, did Saul’s companions hear a voice but see no one, or did they see the light but did not hear the voice?

Let’s first explore the first part of the question, “Did Paul’s companions hear the voice of the Lord, or did they not hear it?”

In both chapters, the Greek uses the word “phóné” which indeed means “voice.” But Acts 22:9 concludes: “… but they did not hear the voice of Him who spoke to me.”

Hence, it seems that we are dealing here with a special kind of hearing or understanding. That is, Saul’s companions heard a voice, but apparently could not understand what it was saying. The Greek word for “hear” is “akouo.” Its meaning can be “to hear” or it can mean “to understand.” It is used in the second sense in 1 Corinthians 14:2: “For he who speaks in a tongue [another or a different language] does not speak to men but to God, for no one understands him; however, in the spirit he speaks mysteries.”

A similar expression is found in John 8:43: “Why do you not understand My speech? Because you are not able to listen to My word.” The German Luther Bible 1984 renders the second part as: “…Because you cannot hear My Word.”

The Living Bible renders the passage as follows: “Why can’t you understand what I am saying? It is because you are prevented from doing so!” Christ thus states that even if they could hear the word, without God the Father opening their minds, they would not be able to understand the words He spoke (compare also Deuteronomy 29:4).

Let us also compare Christ’s statement in John 12:28-29: “‘Father, bring glory and honor to your name.’ Then a voice spoke from heaven saying, ‘I have already done this, and I will do it again.’  When the crowd heard the voice, some of them thought it was thunder, while others declared an angel had spoken to him” (Living Bible).

This is another case of some hearing a voice, but they did not understand what was being said. Others heard only thunder as in a thunderstorm.

The two statements about Christ’s appearance in Acts 9:7 and Acts 22:9 are rendered as follows in different translations.

Acts 9:7: “And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice…” (Authorized Version).

Acts 22:9: “The men with me… didn’t understand what was said” (Living Bible).

We see that Saul’s companions heard the voice Luke wrote about in Acts 9:7, but in accordance with Acts 22:9, they could not understand what was said because they might have perceived it only as thunder.

Therefore, it is not a question of whether Saul’s companions heard the voice, but rather, what was spoken that they heard but did not understand. Paul heard and understood Christ’s words; his companions heard a voice but did not understand what was said.

The German Schlachterbibel comments: “‘…the voice they did not hear.’ This [Acts 22:9] does not contradict [Acts] 9:7. Since Jesus spoke solely to Paul, only he understood what the Lord was saying; his companions heard the sound of a voice but did not understand the words.”

Let’s move on to the second part of the question: “Who or what did the companions see when Christ appeared to Saul?”

The Authorized Version renders Acts 9:7 as follows: “And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man.”

Consider also how Acts 22:9 is rendered in the Living Bible: “The men with me saw the light but didn’t understand what was said.”

So, they saw “no one” or “no man” (compare again Acts 9:7), that is, no figure or person, but they did see the light (compare Acts 22:9).

The German Schlachterbibel comments, “Paul’s companions saw the light, but only he saw the Lord Jesus Christ.” Compare also Paul’s further account in Acts 26:12-14.

It was very important to Christ that the companions heard a sound and saw a light surrounding Saul, so that Paul could not be accused of being a liar, but a righteous apostle and God’s faithful servant who spoke the Truth and could present real witnesses testifying to it.

As we have shown in this Q&A, the Bible does not contradict itself, though it is important to clarify apparent contradictions in the right way (Isaiah 28:10; Ecclesiastes 12:11; 2 Peter 1:20-21).

Lead Writer: Thilo Hanstein

Initial Translation from German: Daniel Blasinger

compiled by Dave Harris

“Missile Hits Poland,” is the title of a new StandingWatch program, presented by Evangelist Norbert Link. Here is a summary: 

The recent episode involving a missile hitting Poland shows how quickly a nuclear world war could begin. 

“Rakete schlägt in Polen ein,” is the title of a new AufPostenStehen program, presented by Norbert Link. This German program covers the same subject as described above.

“Die baldige Herrschaft des Tieres,” is the title of this Sabbath’s new German sermon presented by Norbert Link. Title in English: “The Soon-Coming Rule of the Beast.”

“Die Liebe des Vaters,” the sermonette presented last Sabbath in Germany by Johann Schell, is now posted. Title in English: “The Love of the Father.”

“The Toxic Choice,” the sermonette presented last Sabbath by Frank Bruno, is now posted. Here is a summary:

We understand that sin is a debilitating aspect of the human existence. It takes us away from God in our thoughts and actions and separates us from Him. What is perhaps less obvious is that sin is toxic, and it impacts many around us when we choose that pathway. This Sermonette will cover Scriptures that help us to understand this and incorporate this awareness into our lives. We will also discuss the steps we can take to repair the damage we can inflict with our sins.

“Be Counted Worthy,” the sermon presented last Sabbath by Eric Rank, is now posted. Here is a summary:

Worthiness inherently involves an evaluation, which can be frightening in certain circumstances. For Christians, being worthy in the eyes of God for salvation and other blessings requires faith and personal transformation. It is within the capacity of everyone whom God calls to succeed, turning that frightening experience of evaluation into an exciting one.

On November 12, 2022, Frank Bruno will present the sermonette, titled, “The Toxic Choice,” and Eric Rank will present the sermon, titled, “Be Counted Worthy.”

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.

Sometime in the fall, bears start increasing their food intake and really add on the bulk as they get ready to hibernate through the winter. In the spring, they come out of hibernation a little lighter than when they went in and begin to put on weight again. Adding on those extra pounds sustains them physically through the cold winter.

We have just recently come back to our homes from the Feast of Tabernacles where we have been spiritually fed for eight days when some of us only see each other once a year at that time. This spiritual food, added to the weekly spiritual food, should sustain us till the next Holy Day in the spring, since it is the longest period of lapsed time till the next Holy Day. That is from the Last Great Day till Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread.

We may have a tendency of getting into winter doldrums; especially in the northern hemisphere where the days get shorter, the temperature drops below zero, and that at times for months. We get snow falls which curtail our outside physical activities, and we may have a tendency to let down a bit in our spiritual responsibilities.

Mr. Norbert Link indicated in a recent sermon that we are unique. We really are, namely because of our resistance against compromise and boldly getting the gospel and warning message out to this dying world. We are not trying to add to the membership by watering down the Word of God.

Individually, we cannot let down in our relationship with God, nor get discouraged if our Church organizations in countries such as the USA, Canada, the UK or Australia do not grow in leaps and bounds. Christ is the Head of the Church, and He will add to the Church when He sees fit. We, on the other hand, must continue to support the Work even if our responsibility is reduced to financial support and prayer for the Work.

The glue that keeps us together is God’s Spirit in us which we have to maintain by using the tools God has given us; namely, prayer, Bible study, meditation and occasional fasting.

The time is short which is really a relative term in that it could be very short for us, individually, if God determines we have accomplished what He wants from us and we die, as some faithful servants have in the past.

The one sure thing is our eternal reward if we remain true to the end, so let us not allow the winter doldrums to get us down, but let us look to the future, regardless of when God decides to end this world’s madness. Christ has no pleasure in us when we put our hand to the plow and look back, desiring to hold on or regain to what we are to give up. Our hopes, desires and rewards are not in the past which we left behind, but our potential is to enter into God’s glory as His sons and daughters. So, let us focus on that.

We begin with the US midterm elections and some surprising results; and continue with a potential rematch of Trump and Biden and the distinct possibility of civil war in the US which has been described as a matter of when, not if.

We speak on further fears of a worldwide nuclear war as a matter of when, not if, including rising tensions with North Korea; address Netanyahu’s victory and the most religious Israeli government ever [please note in this regard our new StandingWatch program, titled, The Third Temple under Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir?]; speak on the persecution of a Catholic priest who dared to speak the Truth while Russia confirms its fight for traditional values; and point out the EU’s intention of suppressing free speech.

We point out Olaf Scholz’s controversial trip to China and the resulting criticism from all sides; and admissions by the German health minister of colossal mistakes made in dealing with the coronavirus. Tragically, the USA has not learned from its mistakes and continues to make them as we speak. This goes for the TSA, the CDC, the FDA, the Biden Administration and of course Dr. Fauci.

Throughout this section, we have underlined pertinent statements in the quoted articles, for the convenience and quick overview of the reader.

US Midterm Elections—No Red Wave

The Associated Press reported on November 9:

“For weeks, Republicans predicted a ‘red wave’ would carry them to power in Congress, as voters repudiated majority Democrats for failing to tame skyrocketing inflation and address worries about rising crime. The reality appeared far different early Wednesday. Rather than a wholesale rejection of President Joe Biden and his party, the results were far more mixed…

“Many Democratic incumbents proved surprisingly resilient, outperforming their party’s own expectations…

“Fetterman defeated Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz for a crucial Pennsylvania Senate seat vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Pat Toomey. Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and former NFL star Herschel Walker, a Republican, were locked in a close contest in Georgia. The Wisconsin race between Republican Sen. Ron Johnson and Democrat Mandela Barnes was too early to call. And the outcome of the remaining two seats that will determine which party will hold a Senate majority — Arizona and Nevada — may not be known for days because both states conduct elections in part by mail ballots, which take a long time to count.”

While the careful predictions are that the Republicans will win a majority of the House, the outcome for the Senate is uncertain. It appears that there will be a runoff in Georgia’s Senate race in December. The Huffington Post added on November 9:

“Right now the House still looks likely to enter GOP control… But its majority could be small enough that GOP leader Kevin McCarthy would struggle to pass almost any legislation.”

Fox News wrote on November 9:

“Republicans aren’t parading through the streets of Rome like a conquering army, it’s important to keep perspective on what Tuesday night’s election results mean…

“President Joe Biden’s promises to unite the country are long gone. More than anything, Tuesday night proved that we are as divided as ever. There was no red wave, but more of a red ripple… Republicans will likely govern the House by a distinct margin. The Senate is still up for grabs. Aside from a few select issues, it’s unlikely much will get done in Washington…

“Tuesday night, Hispanics powered the GOP to victory in Florida. Ron DeSantis and Marco Rubio blew the doors off in the Sunshine State…

“Many conservative commentators took the election results as a sign it was time for the GOP to move on from Trump. Commentators argued that Trump had endorsed outlandish candidates who turned easy victories into close races, and close races into losses.  Others compared Trump’s failure to secure wins across the country with the huge wave of support for Republicans in Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Florida… Of the races that have been decided as of Wednesday morning, Trump’s endorsed candidates have won nine and lost eight…

“The poor performance of Trump’s candidates comes just as he was reportedly attempting to ward DeSantis away from making a run for president in 2024… [He] warned DeSantis that a 2024 run could hurt him ‘very badly’ on Tuesday….”

The New York Post wrote on November 9:

“Former President Donald Trump ignored Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ crushing victory in the 45th president’s election night remarks — as other results spelled potential trouble for Trump’s path to the 2024 GOP presidential nomination… Trump highlighted Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s similarly large margin of victory instead… DeSantis’ massive win amid an otherwise worse-than-expected night for Republicans fueled the rivalry between the men’s supporters.”

Rematch of Trump and Biden?

The Guardian wrote on November 4:

“As the midterm elections loom and Republican hopes of retaking Congress rise, it appears to be a matter of when, not if, Donald Trump will announce his third White House run… Polls show Trump is likely to win the Republican nomination but have also shown most Americans do not want him to do so…

“The poll that showed most voters do not want Trump to run also showed that more than 60% of Americans and 30% of Democrats said Biden should not run either. Nonetheless, the Washington Post this week reported that the president, who will soon turn 80, is ‘quietly’ preparing to do so. A rematch of 2020 seems likely…”

Interesting times ahead… Still, with the relatively poor performance by both Biden and Trump during the midterm election, we have to wait and see how it all plays out. But it would be certainly premature to write off Trump.

How Close Are We to Civil War?

The Guardian published on November 6 opinions by several political writers. We are bringing you a synopsis below:

“Americans are increasingly talking about civil war. In August… Twitter references to ‘civil war’ jumped 3,000%… Americans on both sides of the political divide increasingly state that violence is justified… Two years ago, no one was talking about a second American civil war. Today it is common…

“If a second civil war breaks out in the US, it will be a guerrilla war fought by multiple small militias spread around the country. Their targets will be civilians – mainly minority groups, opposition leaders and federal employees. Judges will be assassinated, Democrats and… Republicans will be jailed on bogus charges, black churches and synagogues bombed, pedestrians picked off by snipers in city streets, and federal agents threatened with death should they enforce federal law. The goal will be to reduce the strength of the federal government and those who support it, while also intimidating minority groups and political opponents into submission…

“America is rushing headlong into another civil war, and it’s a matter of when, not if… Look for the next civil war to take place after the 2024 election cycle, when the next wave of violence is likely to emerge. Similar to the original civil war, there’s too much at stake for both sides. Then, as now, the threats are existential. In the 19th century, Democrats viewed the newly established Republican party as a threat to their way of life. Republicans, for their part, saw southern intransigence on the issue of slavery as a threat to the union…”

The outbreak of a second civil war is a distinct possibility.

Doomsday Clock: 100 Seconds to Midnight

Newsweek wrote on November 4:

“The organization behind the Doomsday Clock has published a guide that details the potentially catastrophic consequences of a global nuclear war—which could kill hundreds of millions in hours—in what is a ‘wake-up call’ for people around the world…

“The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic device designed to warn the public about how close humanity is to destroying itself with ‘dangerous technologies of our own making,’ such as nuclear weapons as well as those that are contributing to climate change.

“The clock, which was created in 1947 and is maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic

Scientists magazine, has been reset 24 times, most recently in 2020 when the minute hand moved from two minutes to midnight to 100 seconds to midnight. In January 2022, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin, which decides the clock’s time, announced that the minute hand was staying at 100 seconds to midnight…

“A global, all-out nuclear war…, based on a scenario involving 4,400 100-kiloton weapons, would very quickly result in a minimum of 360 million deaths around the world from the direct effects alone. Even though these figures are staggering,… these deaths would be only the beginning of a massive catastrophe that would affect… the entire world…”

Sadly, the Bible DOES predict worldwide nuclear war which would annihilate ALL LIFE on earth if it weren’t for God shortening those days and for Christ’s return to prevent this from happening.

A Blunder Will Happen…

Time wrote on November 4:

“Over the past year, global adversaries have routinely threatened to violate the decades-old taboo against the first-use of nuclear weapons. Launching a nuclear strike, once unthinkable in modern conflict, has become more and more normalized with each passing day of 2022. Meanwhile, the global revulsion against using the world’s most destructive weapons, which was borne out of the ashes of World War II, appears to have drastically abated. In its absence is emerging a dangerous and unpredictable era where threats to cross the nuclear threshold have become commonplace by world leaders…

“Down that road may lie the greatest danger of all. ‘These developments call attention to the underlying truth that is not new: Nuclear weapons are unacceptably dangerous and for most countries that have them, one person alone has the authority to launch them with few checks and balances,’ says Lynn Rusten, vice president at the Nuclear Threat Initiative… ‘The idea that reliance on nuclear weapons for national and global security is sustainable for the long-term is delusional. A blunder will happen sooner or later.’”

Rather sooner than later… Frightening indeed.

Rising Tensions

npr wrote on November 5:

“North Korea added to its recent barrage of weapons demonstrations by launching four ballistic missiles into the sea on Saturday, as the United States sent two supersonic bombers streaking over South Korea in a dueling display of military might that underscored rising tensions in the region… The North has test-fired more than 30 missiles this week…  and flew large numbers of warplanes inside its territory in an angry reaction to a massive combined aerial exercise between the United States and South Korea… The exercise involved around 240 warplanes, including advanced F-35 fighter jets from both countries.

“North Korea’s Foreign Ministry late Friday described the country’s military actions this week as an appropriate response to the exercise, which it called a display of U.S. ‘military confrontation hysteria.’ It said North Korea will respond with the ‘toughest counteraction’ to any attempts by ‘hostile forces’ to infringe on its sovereignty or security interests.

“South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said the participation of the B-1Bs in the joint drills demonstrated the allies’ readiness to ‘sternly respond’ to North Korean provocations and the U.S. commitment to defend its ally with the full range of its military capabilities, including nuclear.”

The confrontation and rising tensions between North Korea and the USA should be closely watched as well.

Lapid Concedes

JTA wrote on November 3:

“Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid called his rival, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to concede this week’s election… Netanyahu… has launched the negotiating process to form the next government with the far-right Religious Zionist party and haredi Orthodox parties. With a total of 64 seats, Netanyahu’s bloc surpassed poll predictions… [amid] rumors that President Joe Biden’s administration might not engage with Itamar Ben-Gvir, one of the Religious Zionist leaders who will likely be given a cabinet position…

“Ben-Gvir — who has said he prefers to be public security minister, which controls Israel’s police — has worried U.S. leaders with his extremist rhetoric about the use of police force against Arabs and his calls to expel people who are not loyal to Israel.

“An array of international leaders began to congratulate Netanyahu on Thursday, including Viktor Orban, the far-right president of Hungary, and Giorgia Meloni, the right-wing prime minister of Italy. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has criticized Israel’s unwillingness to supply Ukraine with weapons in its war with [Russia], also sent congratulations. ‘We hope to open a new page in cooperation with the new Government for & benefit!’ he wrote.”

As of November 6, Biden had not yet called Netanyahu to congratulate him, while he rushed to call Lula da Silva, the new corrupt lefty-wing President of Brazil. JTA reported on November 7 that Biden finally called Netanyahu and allegedly congratulated him during an eight-minute exchange. Not much is known about the contents of the call. The White House did not respond to questions about the call, according to JTA.

Israel 365 added on November 8: “The call from Biden came after British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak congratulated Netanyahu. French President Emmanuel Macron congratulated Netanyahu on Sunday.”

The Most Religious Government Ever

Haaretz wrote on November 3:

“Israel’s next government will be by far the most religious in its history… Of the four parties,  three are religious. Two of them… are ultra-Orthodox parties… The third… is on the conservative side of the religious spectrum, leaning toward ultra-Orthodoxy.

“Together, these three parties will account for more than half the seats in the coalition headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, which is expected to assume power within the next few weeks… Add to that seven lawmakers from Netanyahu’s own Likud party, and it turns out that 40 of the expected 65 members of Israel’s next coalition will be Orthodox Jews…

“To be sure, there never has been separation of religion and state in Israel. Issues of marriage and divorce, for instance, fall under the jurisdiction of religious authorities – in the case of Jews, the Orthodox-controlled Chief Rabbinate. With rare exceptions, public transportation does not run on Shabbat, and most retail businesses are closed that day.”

Will this new government fulfill important biblical prophecies? Note the next article.

Praying on the Temple Mount

Israel Today wrote on November 6:

“Among the things liberals both in Israel and abroad fear the incoming religious right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu will do is open the Temple Mount to Jewish prayer... Muslims today claim that Jerusalem’s Temple Mount is Islam’s third holiest site, though that wasn’t always the case, and some are beginning to acknowledge that the site means little, if anything to Islam. Still, the majority have bought the lie, and as a premier Islamic holy site, they cannot accept its use by any other religion.

“This prohibition against all but Islamic religious expression at the Temple Mount is what Israel calls ‘the status quo,’ a Muslim-imposed state of affairs that the Jewish state and the West dare not violate for fear of an outbreak of Muslim violence… For many Jews the issue becomes who they fear more: God, or the Arab Muslim world.”

Soon, the issue will not just be, praying on the Temple Mount, but building the Third Temple.

Jewish Prayer on Temple Mount Will Lead to War?

The Times of Israel wrote on November 5:

“Any move by the incoming government to allow Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount ‘will lead to war,’ Ra’am party leader Mansour Abbas has said. Abbas told Channel 12 on Thursday that he was ‘worried’ about the apparent new government… ‘Let’s not be naive,’ said Abbas, whose Islamist party was a core component of the outgoing coalition…

“The presence of Jewish visitors on the Temple Mount is opposed by Palestinians, and Hamas warned of violent ‘repercussions’ over visits during the Jewish holidays… MK Ben Gvir… has often visited the Temple Mount while demanding Israel fully realize its sovereignty there. During the recent holiday period, Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman took to blowing the shofar at a Muslim cemetery near Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, an action heavily criticized by police for its combustive potential but allowed by courts.

“Speaking Monday, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu — who is set to form the next government — said he would ‘maintain the status quo’ at the Temple Mount despite pressure from Ben Gvir. The Otzma Yehudit leader is seeking to be public security minister, which would make him responsible for keeping the peace at the Jerusalem holy site….”

A Catholic Priest Tells the Truth

Daily Mail wrote on November 3:

“A Catholic priest has been branded hateful over a sermon about ‘rampant’ sin, and denounced same sex marriage, abortion and the ‘lunacy’ of transgenderism… A reported 30 members of the congregation walked out of the church…

“During the sermon, Fr Sheehy said: ‘You rarely hear about sin but it’s rampant. It’s rampant… And we see it, for example in the legislation of our governments. We see it in the promotion of abortion. We see it in the example of this lunatic approach of transgenderism. We see it, for example, in the promotion of sex between two men and two women. That is sinful. That is mortal sin.’

“He added it was a ‘fact; a reality’ that these things were sinful… Asked if he planned to apologise, he said: ‘Not at all – why would I apologise for the truth?‘”

Yes, why indeed?

Russia For Traditional Values

AFP wrote on November 9:

“Russia on Wednesday vowed to defend its ‘traditional’ values against threats from the United States and ‘gay propaganda’ in a document signed by President Vladimir Putin. The presidential decree… warns that Moscow must take ‘urgent measures’ to ward off threats including terror groups, ‘certain mass media’ and ‘the United States and other unfriendly foreign countries.’

“It also lists internal threats from ‘the activities of certain organisations and people on Russian soil’. These foes risk implanting ‘alien’ ideas in Russian society and causing ‘the destruction of the traditional family unit through propaganda of nontraditional sexual relationships,’ the decree says, using a phrase referring to LGBTQ relationships.

“The Orthodox Church welcomed the document as a way to ‘preserve our people and protect our children from being defiled,’ senior cleric Fyodor Lukyanov told TASS state news agency. The mission statement comes as Russian lawmakers are pushing through amendments to toughen up a controversial 2013 law banning ‘gay propaganda’ to minors, rewriting it to include adults as well.”

Diversity of Religions Act of God?

Life Site wrote on November 7:

“Pope Francis defended his controversial Abu Dhabi document which claimed that ‘diversity of religions’ is ‘willed by God,’ saying that it was ‘something that came from God.’…

“The Abu Dhabi document has been widely criticized by faithful Catholics for putting the Catholic faith and its worship of the God of Revelation on the same plane with religions that do not worship the true God and deliberately reject Him… the dubious passage in the document was never publicly corrected or clarified by the Pope or another Vatican official.”

The EU Rejects Free Speech!

On November 4, the Ron Paul Institute published the following article by Law Professor Jonathan Turley:

“We have been discussing how Democratic leaders like Hillary Clinton called on foreign companies to pass censorship laws to prevent Elon Musk from restoring free speech protections on Twitter. The EU has responded aggressively to warn Musk not to allow greater free speech or face crippling fines and even potential criminal enforcement. After years of using censorship-by-surrogates in social media companies, Democratic leaders seem to have rediscovered good old-fashioned state censorship.

“Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) declared Musk’s pledge to restore free speech values on social media as threatening Democracy itself… Former President Obama has declared ‘regulation has to be part of the answer’ to disinformation… Hillary Clinton is looking to Europe to fill the vacuum and called upon her European counterparts to pass a massive censorship law to ‘bolster global democracy before it’s too late.’

“New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern recently repeated this call for global censorship at the United Nations to the applause of diplomats and media alike. EU censors have assured Democratic leaders that they will not allow free speech to break out on Twitter regardless of the wishes of its owner and customers.

“One of the most anti-free speech figures in the West, EU’s Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton has been raising the alarm that Twitter users might be able to read uncensored material or hear unauthorized views… Breton has made no secret that he views free speech as a danger coming from the United States that needs to be walled off from the Internet… the EU views free speech itself as an existential danger. They reject the notion of free speech…”

 It will only get worse when a core Europe of ten nations or groups of nations has formed, transferring their power and authority to a dictator and autocrat, called the Beast in the Bible.

Olaf Scholz Goes to China

Deutsche Welle wrote on November 5:

“On Friday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz went to China, despite domestic and international skepticism about his trip…

“Scholz’s 11-hour trip to China remains controversial — and not least because Germany’s current coalition government previously promised to change its approach to China, including reducing its dependency on the Asian giant. Experts say Scholz’s trip shows that Germany hasn’t really changed its policies towards China…

“‘The trip sends a message that even though Berlin should be seriously rethinking the relationship with China, they are going back to business as usual,’ said Zsuzsa Anna Ferenczy, an assistant professor at National Dong Hwa University in Taiwan and a former political advisor to the European Parliament. ‘While I think Europe needs to find a way to constructively talk to China from a position of strength, what Berlin is doing undermines that position by pursuing its own interests at the expense of the emerging, yet fragile, European unity that we’ve seen since the Ukraine war,’ she added.

“Reinhard Bütikofer, a German politician and member of the Greens party in the European Parliament, told DW that Scholz’s trip has contradicted the German coalition government’s agreement and will also have a negative impact on the European Union… ‘Germany’s China policy can’t be developed on the basis of the Chancellor alone, who has ignored competent advice on China at least three times. When we founded the new German government, we agreed Germany’s future China policy should be strongly integrated at the European level, and it should be coordinated in the trans-Atlantic relationship. Both haven’t happened,’ Bütikofer added.

“Prior to the trip, Scholz defended a controversial deal that allowed China’s state-owned shipping company [Cosco] to buy a minority 24.9% stake in one of Hamburg’s port terminals, ignoring objections from several cabinet members… ‘This visit is a manifestation of the fragmentation, not only within the EU, but also within the German political scene,’ said Marcin Jerzewski, head of the Taiwan office of the European Values Center, a Czech think tank…

“Sari Arho Havren, China researcher and adjunct professor at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, told DW that Scholz’s trip gives Beijing a strong signal that Germany ‘would bring the EU to see Beijing again in a more pragmatic and favorable light… This would mean normalizing Beijing’s behavior, [something] which is largely seen as the problem in the EU.’

“There’s also a significant divergence in how the two leaders view the world, Havren noted. ‘Scholz emphasized the severe consequences of the Ukrainian war, but for Xi, there is much more to it than that … Beijing sees the world through the lens of the US trying to contain China,’ she told DW. Through this lens, which also includes possible reunification of China and Taiwan, an ongoing partnership with Russia is important to China, as is a Europe that is not united on these issues. ‘With increasingly deepened ties to China through its powerful companies, Germany would potentially make a common European response against China less likely, in case of needing to choose sides between Beijing and Washington,’ Havren concluded.”

Scholz’s performance as chancellor has been controversial, to say the least. Note the next article.

Criticism From All Sides

Bild Online wrote on November 6:

“First of all, before his controversial trip (Friday) to the self-crowned lifetime dictator Xi Jinping (69), foreign minister [and coalition partner] Annalena Baerbock (Greens) had told him that this trip would not work at all…

“And then on Saturday: Scholz [SPD] had just returned from his China ride (23-hour flight for four-hour talks), FDP leader [and coalition partner] Christian Linder (43) reached out and explained to the chancellor how things should actually work with China: ‘Only what is allowed for Germans in China can also be allowed for Chinese people in Germany ‘, he said… What Lindner tells the chancellor via the press: If China refuses German companies to set up their own companies, then the Chinese companies can lie down here too and at most enter into a joint venture. And: If German companies cannot participate in Chinese infrastructure, then the reverse is also not possible. This also means that if we are not allowed to buy a port in China, then the chancellor cannot push this through for the Chinese either, as has just happened in Hamburg.

“As reported, Scholz flew to Beijing with a piece of the port of Hamburg as a gift. Half of the cabinet had opposed the purchase… Scholz earned ridicule and incomprehension worldwide for a tweet after the trip to Communist dictator Xi. It sounded as if friends had met: ‘Reliability and trust – these two values ​​play an important role in German and Chinese culture. They are also the basis for diplomatic relations and political partnerships. It’s good that we spoke in person.’

“Criticism rained down from all sides. Tenor: How can you use ‘trust’ and ‘reliability’ in connection with Xi and the China dictatorship?! Like they aren’t breaking human rights and spying on our economy.”

This also shows how fragile the German government and the coalition are.

Eight Billion People!

Daily Mail wrote on November 7:

“The world’s population is set to hit eight billion next week in a key milestone for humanity… The UN Population Division said that the population will continue to grow in the decades to come, with life expectancy set to increase to an average of 77.2 years by 2050. By November 15, the number of humans on Earth will grow to eight billion, more than three times higher than the 2.5 billion global headcount in 1950.

“The increase in life expectancy, as well as the number of people of childbearing age, has meant the UN predicts the world’s population will continue growing to about 8.5 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, and a peak of about 10.4 billion in the 2080s… the UN projects that more than half of the population growth by 2050 will come from just eight countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines and Tanzania.”

EU’s Actions Re Coronavirus and Ukraine Cost Europeans Dearly

Euro News wrote on November 4:

“European citizens could have lost out on nearly €3,000 a year because of the austerity measures implemented by EU governments since the 2007 financial crisis, a new report has claimed… The news comes at a time when EU states are racking up levels of debt unseen during modern peacetime to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic and effects of the war in Ukraine. Frank Van Lerven, programme lead of macro-economics at NEF, said austerity measures have been a failure…

“Berlin, known as one of the most frugal EU member states, was a main proponent of austerity and cutbacks at the time. It has recently been able to afford a €200 billion aid package to help German people and businesses through the current energy crisis, much to the annoyance of other member states that cannot afford to do so on such a large scale.

“Polling included in the report found that 70% of people are concerned by what might happen if austerity is reintroduced. At the same time, 70% of respondents also reported concern about rising government debt...”

Herr Lauterbach: Are You Not Ashamed?

Bild Online wrote on November 4:

“It was a really surprising appearance: Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (59, SPD) told journalists on Wednesday: ‘The daycare closures were unnecessary.’ In one sentence, he declared the years of severe government intervention in the lives of millions of families to be a mistake that shouldn’t have been made. Ironically, the man who drove the lockdown like no other, who painted the devil on the wall, who constantly insisted that daycare centers and schools remain closed, now stands up and speaks of a mistake.

“Lauterbach was referring to a recent study conducted by the German Youth Institute (DJI) and the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). According to this, the corona transmission rate for children under the age of 5 was 9.6 percent. The minister summed it up: ‘You could get infected much more slowly in daycare centers than within families.’ So the risk was higher at home and not the other way around.

“In June 2020, several German universities presented the preliminary results of their so-called Heidelberg study and came to the conclusion: ‘No indication of children as drivers of the infection process’. On January 22, 2021, data from a study by the Berlin Charité showed that children are not among the infection drivers in the pandemic.

“Such results were consistently ignored by the federal government. Above all by the then Chancellor Angela Merkel (68, CDU), her head of the chancellery Helge Braun (50, CDU), her health minister Jens Spahn (42, CDU) and Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder (55, CSU). And also from Lauterbach, who was still a simple member of parliament at the time. On March 17, 2021, he called on all federal states to close the schools that they had cautiously opened. Again and again he warned of the danger of corona in daycare centers…

“Lauterbach tirelessly prophesied new corona catastrophes that never materialized. Just like the other politicians who closed Germany’s daycare centers and schools. One would like to ask: Aren’t you ashamed?

“Obviously not. When asked if he regretted the closure of the daycare centers, Lauterbach said coldly: ‘I don’t believe in assigning blame.’ Merkel and [Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus] Söder also showed no regrets and did not ask parents and children for forgiveness.

“Lauterbach was asked whether the closure of the schools was also unnecessary. There is no comprehensive study on this yet, he said. Why not? Family Minister Lisa Paus (54, Greens) announced on Wednesday that children and young people ‘often suffered less from the virus itself than from the consequences of the containment measures’. The psychological well-being has deteriorated in half of the students in Germany, among the socially disadvantaged even in two thirds. In 2021, 40 percent more children were hospitalized for eating disorders than in 2019.

“It is obvious that the closure of the schools was not necessary either. Millions of children and young people have been harmed senselessly. This is the balance that Lauterbach has to face.

“How does the government intend to help the harmed children and young people who have been thrown into depression by wrong political decisions? Answer us, Minister of Health. It’s your… duty.”

What was and is happening in Germany mirrors what was and is happening in the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia and many other English-speaking nations where equally senseless coronavirus restrictions were imposed—especially based on the wrong advice of Dr. Fauci and other “experts”—and NO apologies have been issued for the incredible harm caused for millions of citizens in those countries. But the USA is still living in a ridiculously appalling Orwellian fantasy world. Read the next article.

Injections Extended Into 2023

Life Site News wrote on November 6:

“The U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has extended the requirement for non-U.S. citizen, non-immigrants to show proof of COVID-19 injection in order to enter the country. This makes the U.S. one of the few remaining Western countries to uphold such a mandate.

“The renewal of the U.S. border restrictions was announced November 4, and will expire on January 8, 2023. The current restrictions – which require visitors and temporary residents to show proof of COVID-19 vaccination to enter the country – were due to expire on November 8…

“Under the terms of the extended border restrictions, airline operators must ensure that passengers, prior to boarding, show paper or digital proof of having taken COVID injections, or provide documents detailing an exemption from such requirements. The requirements align with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, which stipulate that a passenger must have had either one injection of a single-dose vaccine, or two of a double-dose injection. The injections must be at least 14 days prior to flying. While the restrictions apply to ‘noncitizen nonimmigrants,’ they do not apply to U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

“… the COVID19 injections do not prevent against contracting the virus… studies are now showing that the injections actually increase the chances of contracting the virus. Given the extension of the COVID-19 injection mandate for the U.S. border, this means that passengers could be allowed to fly into the country even if they have the virus, so long as they also have taken the injections. Such a policy undermines the TSA’s purported aim of limiting the transmission and spread of COVID-19.

“The U.S now also has the dubious honor of remaining one of the few countries (and the most significant) still requiring proof of COVID-19 vaccination for incoming passengers. Other countries include Yemen, Liberia, North Korea, China and Libya.”

What a list of dictatorial countries. The incredible shortsightedness, ignorance and incompetence of the American government and their agencies is beyond comprehension. Even Canada and the United Kingdom removed any requirements of coronavirus vaccinations for international travel.

“Fauci’s Failing to Meet His Sales Quota”

The Ron Paul Institute wrote on November 7:

“Speaking at an awards ceremony over the weekend, retiring government bureaucrat Anthony Fauci expressed his dismay over the fact that Americans seem entirely uninterested in getting the latest Pfizer and Moderna booster shots… Fauci raged, like a pharma rep who failed to meet his sales quota…

“In total, only about 7% of all Americans have taken the new shot, according to the CDC. The boosters were only tested on mice, but approved for emergency use through the FDA’s rubber stamp partnership with Pfizer and Moderna.

“There is no evidence that the boosters do anything beneficial to help combat Covid-19…  At the event, Fauci paradoxically received a humanitarian award named after Muhammad Ali, the anti-establishment, counter culture boxing icon who was persecuted by career government bureaucrats like Fauci for his refusal to serve in Vietnam. Fauci, for his part, avoided the draft by joining the NIH.

“In his acceptance speech, the disgruntled bureaucrat expressed his disgust with Americans who refuse to follow Government Health orders… ‘What I refer to as the normalization of untruths. Put more bluntly, the normalization of lies that we see all around us. Now, helped along by social media, facts and falsehoods now coexist as sometimes equals, deliberately sowing confusion and discord, and distorting reality,’ he continued…”

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.

This is an interesting question. Many times, especially the Catholic concepts of angels picture them as good-looking women with long blond hair, long white dresses and huge white wings, but is there any biblical evidence for such concepts?  On the other hand, can it be dogmatically said that angels, representing female features, do not exist?

We have addressed the question as to how angels are being portrayed in the Bible in our free booklet, “Angels, Demons and the Spirit World.”  Beginning with page 13, under the headline, “What Angels Look Like,” we show from the Bible that some angels have man-like features; some look like animals with wings (especially mentioned are those who are looking like a lion, a calf, a flying eagle, or black, white, red and sorrel horses); and others have features combining man-like and animal-like features (cherubs with wings are described as having the likeness of men, but each one has four faces—faces of a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle). When describing the man-like features, we point out that sometimes, angels appeared as “young men,” but this is not always the case (at least, in several incidents, it is not mentioned that the angels manifesting themselves as men looked like young men).

We also said this in the above-mentioned booklet, on page 16, under the sub-headline, “Some Angels May Look Like Women”:

“We saw that angels commonly appear with man-like features, and some of them looked like young men. In addition, there is one Scripture that might perhaps indicate that some angels may look like women.  Notice Zechariah 5:9–11: ‘Then I raised my eyes and looked, and there were two women, coming with the wind in their wings; for they had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the basket between earth and heaven. So I said to the angel who talked with me, “Where are they carrying the basket?” And he said to me, “To build a house for it in the land of Shinar [Babylon, Genesis 11:2, 9; compare also Genesis 10:10; Daniel 1:2]; when it is ready, the basket will be set there on its base.”’”

We explain this seventh vision of the woman in the basket in our free booklet, “The Book of Zechariah—Prophecies for Today.” 

Beginning on page 45, we also quoted Zechariah 5, verses 5-8, saying this:

“(5) Then the angel who talked with me came out and said to me, ‘Lift your eyes now, and see what this is that goes forth.’ (6) So I asked, ‘What is it?’ And he said, ‘It is a basket that is going forth.’ He also said, ‘This is their resemblance [better: their iniquity] throughout the earth: (7) Here is a lead disc lifted up, and this is a woman sitting inside the basket’; (8) then he said, ‘This is Wickedness!’ And he thrust her down into the basket, and threw the lead cover over its mouth…”

In identifying the woman in the basket, we stated:

“Some commentaries identify the woman in the basket as the woman or harlot riding the beast, as described in the book of Revelation. There, she is called ‘Mystery, Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and abominations of the earth’ (Revelation 17:5). She is also described as a religious city built on seven hills (Revelation 17:9, 18, New International Version, Living Bible)—in other words, Babylon the great, in the book of Revelation, signifies a false religious, political, military and economic system. In this regard, notice the explanation of the Scofield Reference Notes: ‘The Babylon phase of the apostate church is symbolized by an unchaste woman, sodden with the greed and luxury of commercialism… Prophetically, the application to the Babylon of the Revelation is obvious.’

“Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible agrees: ‘The land of Shinar means Babylon; and Babylon means Rome, in the Apocalypse…’”

When explaining the basket, in which the woman sits, we stated:

“We read that the woman… is confined to a basket or container, but she is trying, unsuccessfully, to escape from her prison (verses 7–8). This gives us the time setting of Zechariah’s vision—it describes the woman’s future judgment—which will occur when Jesus Christ returns… two women with wings of a stork (Zechariah 5:9)—perhaps angels—carry the imprisoned woman to the land of Babylon, to build a house or dwelling place for her (verse 11)… The two women will assist in removing ‘wickedness’—the wicked system—from this earth. Please note that true Christians are already told today to ‘Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues’ (Revelation 18:4). In the future, wickedness will be placed ‘forever in Babylon’ (compare Geneva Study Bible); that is, the burned and destroyed location and area of the modern city of Babylon will become a ‘house’ for demons during the time of the Millennium.”

The symbolism of the “woman” in the basket is biblically explained by comparing her with the fallen woman—Babylon the Great—riding the scarlet-colored beast in Revelation 17. In this context, we see the role of angels in regard to the destruction of Babylon and the evil Babylonian system of this world. In our Q&A, titled, “Please explain Christ’s saying, ‘Wherever the body is, there the eagles will be gathered together,’” we explain two passages in Matthew 24:26-28 and Luke 17:24-37, by showing an important distinction. While the passage in Luke seems to describe the protection of the body [Greek: soma] of Christ (the Church of God) through angels, including at the place of safety,  the passage in Matthew seems to be describing this world as a body or better carcass or corpse [Greek: ptoma], referring to the destruction of this evil world at the time of Christ’s return, emphasizing the role of angels in the process. We say:

“Eagles or angels will be gathered together to protect Christ’s body–the Church, as implied in Luke 17:37. And as everyone can observe when eagles or vultures descend on a carcass, so Christ’s actual return to this earth, as implied in Matthew 24:28, will be obvious and visible to all. Since eagles can refer to angels, it is even possible that Christ’s picture of descending eagles in Matthew 24:28 (and not only in Luke 17:37) refers to angels, in the sense that God will send symbolic eagles or angels to descend on the dead body or the carcass of this spiritually dead world, to render punishment and judgment on those who do not know or obey God.

“We read that God will ‘give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven WITH HIS MIGHTY ANGELS, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed’ (2 Thessalonians 1:7-10).”

We also note the reference to and involvement of angels in the destruction of Babylon in passages such as Revelation 14:8; 16:17-19; and 18:21.

In light of these parallel references and the fact that angels will be involved with the fate of the Babylonian harlot or fallen church, the conclusion could be reached that the two women in the book of Zechariah, carrying Babylon to her place of destruction and of imprisonment for demons, could indeed be a description of angels.

If we were to say that the two women are strictly symbolic and figurative, without describing in some way angels and their appearance, then what would they portray? The Bible does not give any hint at their symbolic meaning, if in fact it is strictly a symbolic description. We must be careful not to use certain passages as strictly symbolic, rather than literal, because otherwise, everything could be interpreted as being strictly symbolic. This mistake has been made oftentimes in orthodox Christianity, teaching for example that God has no form and shape. All the references clearly describing God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son as having a Man-like appearance were interpreted away as simply figurative representations. The same was done in regard to angels who allegedly have no “gender” and no form and shape either. But nowhere has it been explained what these very specific and quite different descriptions of angelic appearances are supposed to symbolize.

When a description is supposed to be understood only in a symbolic way, that symbol must be made clear in the Bible (Certain commentaries have attempted to give the two women in Zechariah 5 a symbolic meaning, allegedly referring to the Greeks and the Romans, or the Assyrians and the Babylonians, but all of this is clearly false and quite ludicrous, and no biblical evidence was presented to back up their claims.) While Christ is described in the book of Revelation as looking like a glorified “Man” (Revelation 1:12-15), which description is to be taken quite literally, as confirmed in many other passages, He is also pictured as a Lamb (Revelation 5:6). This description is clearly symbolic, as Christ does not look like a Lamb, but the symbol is also clearly explained, as Christ was and is the Lamb of God who was slain to take away the sins of the world (John 1:29).

Some commentaries concede that the reference to the two women is not symbolic and that “there be no symbol” (cp. Barnes’ Notes on the Bible), but utterly fail to explain convincingly what the women are supposed to represent.

The following statements were published in bible.org:

“While angels generally appear as men in Scripture, Zechariah 5:9 may suggest this is not always the case. The two women mentioned in this passage are not specifically called angels, but they are clearly agents of God… The fate of the woman (wickedness) is portrayed: She is to be removed from the land. Although some regard the two women as agents of evil (partly because the stork is an unclean bird…), it seems preferable to regard them as divinely chosen agents. [To view the two women as agents of evil because they have wings compared with the wings of an unclean animal—a stork—is a ridiculous conclusion anyhow, because holy angels are also portrayed as representing “unclean” animals.]… The simile ‘wings like those of a stork’ is evidently intended to show that the winged women—carried along by the wind—were capable of supporting the woman (wickedness) in the basket over a great distance. The main point is that Scripture does not identify them as angels and we would be hard pressed to prove that angels sometimes appear as women from this passage.”

On the other hand, no alternative explanation is given as to what the women DID represent. One author wrote on the Internet: “… in Zech. 5:9, two winged women take the woman ‘wickedness’ away to Babylonia in a basket. While it is true that ‘wickedness’ is a personification rather than a true person in that context, the two creatures who transport her seem to be angels, functioning in a typically angelic way, and they are clearly described as female.”

In addition, we should take note of the fact that the physical world is patterned after the spirit world, which is explained in our recent sermon, “Our Ultimate Human Potential”. We also explain this fact in detail in our aforementioned booklet, “Angels, Demons and the Spirit World,” beginning on page 58. God created the first human couple after His image and likeness (Genesis 1:26; 5:1-2). We are not saying, of course, that God combines male and female features in His appearance (as some have falsely suggested), nor are we saying that God would have “spirit” organs necessary in the physical realm for reproduction, but the fact remains that human beings resemble God, and as born-again members of the God Family, they will be God’s sons and daughters (2 Corinthians 6:18). Humans who were women in the flesh do not become “men” in the resurrection, but they will be able to manifest themselves to humans in such a way that they can be recognized as resembling their former physical appearance.

We read that angels do not marry or are given in marriage, and the same will be true for born-again members of the God Family, but it does not say that they (angels or resurrected saints) won’t be male or female (even though this has been erroneously stated many times, in misquoting Scripture). The passage in question reads in Luke 20:35-36:

“But those who are counted worthy to attain that age, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry nor are given in marriage; nor can they die anymore, for they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection” (also compare Mark12:25).

The point is, God created human beings as male and female in the physical realm, and they will be called sons and daughters of God in the spirit realm. The angels were created before man but in the spirit realm. So it cannot be ruled out that some of the angels (but by no means all or maybe even the vast majority of them) have been created as models for the physical creation of man.

We cannot dogmatically conclude that the reference in Zechariah 5:9 describes angels with women-like manifestations, but lacking biblical evidence showing what they could otherwise exclusively portray symbolically, the inference might be there. In any event, their description in Zechariah 5:9 differs fundamentally from the way orthodox Christianity portrays female angels.

Lead Writer: Norbert Link

compiled by Dave Harris

“The Third Temple Under Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir?” is the title of  a new StandingWatch program, presented by Evangelist Norbert Link. Here is a summary:

A new most religious and conservative government is being formed in Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu, with the new rising star Itamar Ben-Gvir wanting to become security minister, which would make him responsible for keeping the peace at the Temple Mount. Who is Ben-Gvir? What is his position towards Jewish prayers on the Temple Mount and the building of the Third Temple?

A new Member Letter (November 2022) has been posted and sent to our subscribers. Norbert Link encourages us to remember that the Work of the Church of God produces fruit far beyond what we might sometimes be able to immediately see.

We conducted a Tech Team Meeting and a Ministerial Meeting via Google Meets on last Sunday, November 6, 2022. Hosted by Eric Rank, we first focused on our ad campaigns with the Team and then followed up with the ministry during which we discussed speaking procedures during Sabbath Services as well as planning for 2023.

Plans have been made to conduct our annual Church Conference in Escondido, CA, from Thursday, April 27, 2023, until and including Sunday, April 30, 2023.

A new Ad Campaign directed to German speakers features our booklet, “Die Zehn Gebote,” (The Ten Commandments).

“Nicht mehr heiraten?” is the title of this Sabbath’s new German sermon, presented by Norbert Link. Title in English: “Don’t Marry Anymore?”

“Himmelhoch jauchzend – zum Tode betrübt Zusammenfassung,” is the title of last Sabbath’s German sermonette, presented by Robert Muhr. Title in English: “Cheering Sky High – Saddened to Death.”

“Squirm,” the sermonette presented last Sabbath by Eric Rank, is now posted. Here is a summary:

The only way that we can grow as Christians is by acknowledging our weaknesses so that we give place for God to work in our lives. The vulnerability in that acknowledgment is uncomfortable, but we can trust in the strength of God to give us relief.

“Seeking and Finding God!” the sermon presented last Sabbath by Dave Harris, is now posted. Here is a summary:

The Bible presents examples of nations and individuals who sought God and found Him, and it also reveals what God expects of mankind in this regard.

On November 5, 2022, Eric Rank will present the sermonette, titled, “Squirm,” and Dave Harris will present the sermon, titled, “Seeking and Finding 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.

In Psalm 90, we find “a prayer of Moses the man of God.” He discusses the very foundational truth that man’s physical life is only temporary… and VERY short. Verse 10 states: “The days of our lives are seventy years; And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” We understand, of course, that these numbers are only average estimates in this day and age; many people might die before they turn seventy, and others may even get as old as one hundred years, and counting. But Moses makes the point that death IS inevitable, and he continues in verse 12: “So teach us to number our days, That we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

David echoed this sentiment in Psalm 39:4: “LORD, make me to know my end, And what is the measure of my days, That I may know how frail I am.”

This admonition is not only meant for older people. Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 12:1: “Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth,” continuing in verses 13 and 14: ”… Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every work into judgment, Including every secret thing, Whether it is good or whether it is evil.”

This physical life is not an end in itself… it is a training ground to qualify for a better life to come. But while “in the flesh,” we must have the right focus, as so aptly expressed by James:

“Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, spend a year there, buy and sell, and make a profit,’ whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanished away. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that’” (James 4:13-15).

We must acknowledge God in all our ways, striving to become more and more like Him—becoming perfect as He is perfect (cp. Matthew 5:48). Jesus enjoyed this physical life in a right and godly way, but He never lost sight of His real purpose—why He came and what He had to do. While God wants us to “prosper in all things” (3 John) and that we have “life” “more abundantly” (John 10:10), having “all sufficiency in all things” (2 Corinthians 9:8), His ultimate goal for us is much more permanent and eternal.

He wants us to become born-again immortal members in His very Family, and in working for that goal, we must be willing to give up everything, counting it as rubbish (Philippians 3:8), in order to attain the resurrection from the dead to eternal life (verses 10-11). In that, we follow and are looking unto Christ who was rich, but, in comparison, became poor for our sakes (2 Corinthians 8:9). He was willing “for the joy that was set before Him” to endure the cross and to despise the shame (cp. Hebrews 12:2).

His focus was always on God the Father, only saying and doing the things which were pleasing in God’s sight. He knew how short His physical life would be, and He could not afford to become side-tracked. We, too, must avoid becoming entangled with the affairs of this life which could easily cloud our minds as to what is really important for us. Rather, we need to have the mind of Christ (Philippians 2:5), and when we do, we will number our days to gain a heart of wisdom, knowing they will end soon, but only in this physical realm.

by Norbert Link

We begin with the election day in Israel and the return of Benjamin Netanyahu which could lead to a collision course between the USA and Israel; report on the terrible South Korea stampede on Halloween; speak on the election in Brazil resulting in the victory of a “corrupt” “hardline socialist”; point out ongoing frictions between the USA and the Arab world; report on concerns about a new trade war between America and Europe; and show that Europe is waking up on defense.  

We speak on new developments regarding the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine; and publish a remarkable article reporting on America’s past war crimes. We also show that Germany is heading for “rough years ahead” and give further examples of the terrible “leadership” of Germany’s chancellor and his health minister.

We report on another appalling move by the CDC; crazy and dangerous experiments by English and American scientists; and conclude with an article about the newest WMD destroying America—Fentanyl. Please view in this regard our new StandingWatch program, titled, “How We Are Destroying Ourselves.”

Throughout this section, we have underlined pertinent statements in the quoted articles, for the convenience and quick overview of the reader.

Election Day in Israel

Israel Today wrote on November 1:

“Today we choose our next prime minister, his government coalition, and those who we believe can meet the many challenges of the modern Jewish state… the airwaves are crammed with the dizzying spin of candidates flattering themselves as though they will somehow miraculously protect our nation from our enemies, from ourselves, and unify the country. In the next breath they gleefully point out just how horrible their opponent would be if elected…

“Politicians don’t even bother anymore to offer an honest assessment…”

Sadly, this assessment is true for politicians all over the world, and the USA is certainly no exception.

Netanyahu Is Back

JTA wrote on November 2:

“As most of the votes in Israel continue to be tallied on Wednesday, Benjamin Netanyahu looks assured of returning to power, as his far-right bloc of parties is predicted to win around 65 seats, well above the 61 needed in the 120-seat Knesset, or parliament.

“The official final results are not expected to be finalized on Wednesday, but over 80% of the votes had been counted by the afternoon local time.

“Many of the votes that have not yet been counted are nicknamed ‘double-envelope ballots,’ cast by security officers, prisoners, diplomats abroad, residents of assisted living facilities and hospital patients and staff. These ballots have in recent years heavily favored right-wing parties.

“Netanyahu, who has only been out of the prime minister’s office for 16 months, is expected to form a coalition with multiple haredi Orthodox parties and the Religious Zionism slate of two parties, led by the far-right extremists Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. Ben-Gvir has worried American Jewish leaders with his anti-Arab, anti-LGBTQ and other inflammatory rhetoric…

“Current Prime Minister Yair Lapid’s party is predicted to win 24 seats, compared to 32 for Netanyahu’s Likud…

“Ben-Gvir, touted as a rising star who has electrified the conservative electorate, will likely be given a high-ranking cabinet position. He is hoping to be named security minister, which would put him in charge of the country’s police force.”

The Associated Press wrote on November 2:

“Tuesday’s election was Israel’s fifth in less than four years, with all of them focused largely on Netanyahu’s fitness to govern. On trial for a slew of corruption charges, Netanyahu, who denied wrongdoing, is seen by supporters as the victim of a witch hunt and vilified by opponents as a crook and threat to democracy…

“Netanyahu was Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, governing for 12 consecutive years – and 15 years altogether – before he was ousted last year by a diverse coalition led by the centrist Yair Lapid, the current caretaker prime minister. But the coalition that Lapid cobbled together, which included the first Arab party ever to join a government, was decimated by infighting and collapsed after just one year in power…

“The night’s strongest showing was by the Religious Zionism party, which emerged as the third-largest party. At an all-male campaign gathering in Jerusalem, religious men wearing Jewish skullcaps and waving Israeli flags danced in celebration. At the celebration, supporters of the party’s top candidate, Itamar Ben-Gvir, chanted ‘Death to terrorists.’

“Ben-Gvir is a [of] disciple Rabbi, Meir Kahane, who was banned from parliament and whose Kach party was branded a terrorist group by the United States before he was assassinated in New York in 1990…

“Such positions could put a future Netanyahu government on a collision course with the Biden administration, which supports a two-state solution with the Palestinians…”

Ultimately, America will rise up against Israel.

Terrible South Korea Stampede Causes Many Fatalities and Injuries

Deutsche Welle wrote on October 30:

“At least [151] people were killed in a stampede on Saturday night in the South Korean capital of Seoul… An additional 150 people were injured in the crush, which took place in the city’s Itaewon district, where Halloween festivities were taking place… Most of the dead are in their teens and 20s…

“Local media estimated that 100,000 people were in the streets of Itaewon on Saturday night for the Halloween parties. The festivities were the largest they had been in years after South Korea eased its coronavirus restrictions in recent months…

“EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said he was ‘deeply saddened… by the terrible events in central Seoul. What [was] meant to be a celebration turned into a tragedy with so many young casualties,’ he tweeted…”

The problem is, Halloween is a festival in honor of Satan and should not be celebrated by anyone. Note the next article:

Halloween—a Demonic Festival

CBN wrote on October 30:

“Millions of people will be celebrating Halloween on Monday, October 31, including many Christians. In fact, Halloween is the second-largest commercial holiday in America, typically grossing around $10 billion in sales… However, many do not realize there’s a darker reality to this celebration and it is steeped in paganism and witchcraft…

“CBN News’ Charlene Aaron interviewed former Satanist John Ramirez, who warned that Christians should have nothing to do with practicing pagan customs. ‘Halloween is the most diabolical demonic holiday,’ he said.”

It certainly is…

Brazil’s New (Old) Left Leader

Breitbart wrote on October 30:

“The top electoral authority in Brazil announced on Sunday evening that 77-year-old hardline socialist Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, once convicted and sentenced to over two decades in prison for alleged corruption, had won this year’s presidential election against incumbent conservative Jair Bolsonaro…

“Little more than a percentage point separated Lula, who served as president previously from 2003 to 2011, from Bolsonaro… National newspaper of record O Globo described the results as the closest election since 1989, when Lula narrowly lost to Fernando Collor de Mello, who was impeached and ousted from office over corruption allegations in 1992…

“Lula’s victory is particularly momentous given that, during 2018 elections, which Bolsonaro won, he was in prison after being found guilty of buying a luxury beachfront property with bribe money. The case was part of a much larger corruption investigation… which unveiled a nationwide corruption scheme involving dozens of high-ranking politicians that operated during Lula’s presidential tenure. The government enriched itself by offering overpriced contracts for infrastructure and other public works projects to private contractors… and those private contractors would then use some of the excess money to bribe the politicians, securing future contracts.

“Last year, the nation’s top court, the Supreme Federal Tribunal (STF), let the now president-elect run for office again by overturning his conviction on the grounds that the judge initially in charge of the case, Sergio Moro, was personally biased against Lula and originally did not have jurisdiction to try the case. The reasoning did not challenge any of the evidence against Lula or the appeals that affirmed the original conviction…

“Leftist American President Joe Biden was among the first to congratulate Lula on his reported victory on Sunday. Biden, as a candidate in 2020, had vowed to destroy the Brazilian economy…  if Bolsonaro did not accept an unspecified $20-billion environmental investment, prompting Bolsonaro to later threaten to go to war with the United States. Their relationship never recovered.”

Reuters added on October 31 that “Argentine President Alberto Fernandez flew to Sao Paulo to meet the president-elect on Monday and hailed ‘a new era for the history of Latin America. A time of hope and future that begins today.’… Congratulations also poured in from other foreign leaders [besides Biden], including China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron.”

An interesting list of leaders congratulating the new corrupt leader of Brazil. We do not expect that the relationship between the USA and Brazil will become or remain friendly in the long run.

America Insults Arab World?

Israel 365 wrote on October 30:

“The Saudis believe that the Biden administration’s hostility towards Saudi Arabia is the result of the influence of far-left US politicians who have infiltrated the Democratic Party.

“The Saudis, in addition, are warning that the Biden administration is acting against America’s interests in the Middle East by alienating and insulting Saudi Arabia and other traditional allies of the US in the Arab world.”

Coming–Trade War Between Europe and the USA?

Politico wrote on October 27:

“After publicly falling out, Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron have found something they agree on: mounting alarm over unfair competition from the U.S. and the potential need for Europe to hit back… both leaders agreed that the EU cannot remain idle if Washington pushes ahead with its Inflation Reduction Act, which offers tax cuts and energy benefits for companies investing on U.S. soil, in its current form.

“Specifically, the recently signed U.S. legislation encourages consumers to ‘Buy American’ when it comes to choosing an electric vehicle — a move particularly galling for major car industries in the likes of France and Germany… [According to Scholz and Macron,] similar incentive schemes for companies will be needed to avoid unfair competition or losing investments. That move would risk plunging transatlantic relations into a new trade war…

“In a blow to Germany’s industrial core, chemical giant BASF announced plans Wednesday to reduce its business activities and jobs in Germany, with company chief Martin Brudermüller citing heightened gas prices — which he criticized for being six times as high as in the U.S. — as well as increasing EU regulation as the reason….”

Europe Wakes Up on Defense

The Media Line wrote on November 1:

“Now that 15 European countries have joined the German-led European Sky Shield Initiative, a joint defense system, the likely sale of Israel’s Arrow 3 air defense system to Germany will become the largest defense export in Israeli history, reaching a sum of 3 billion euros. Jerusalem and Berlin are waiting for Washington to approve the deal; the United States has the right to veto any sale of the Israeli defense system, since the US financed the research and development of the Arrow 3…

“Israeli defense industries have always had a market in Europe, but since the Russia-Ukraine war started, …there is that deep understanding among central, eastern and northern European countries that the threat is real, and that big wars are not over… As the threat grows… the demand for advanced and proven systems like Arrow 3 is growing as well… the Russian invasion of Ukraine served as a wake-up call for many European countries regarding… the lack of capabilities to cope with the Russian attack on their territory… the United States… is probably not enthusiastic about watching Germany’s accelerated military build-up plans over the past year…”

And so, Europe will develop a powerful Army.

Germany Warns Serbia

Insider Paper wrote on November 1:

“Germany has cautioned Serbia against cultivating deeper ties with Russia, warning that it could thwart its bid to join the European Union, a German government source said on Tuesday. Two days ahead of a Western Balkans summit in the German capital intended to bolster relations with the six countries of the region, the senior official said Belgrade needed to decide whose side it was on: Moscow’s or the EU’s… ‘Should he choose the other path, it will have ensuing consequences’ for Belgrade’s future with the EU, the official said.

“Serbia has been a candidate to join the European Union since 2012 but its prospects are seen as bleak without a normalisation of relations with Kosovo… Tensions have been exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, with many Serbs sympathetic to traditional ally Russia…

“Thursday’s summit in Berlin hosted by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will bring together the heads of government of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia as well as EU leaders.”

It will be interesting to see in whose corner Serbia will end up. Serbia’s interest in Russia is well-known.

Too Much Money for Ukraine?

The Week wrote on October 18:

“House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has suggested the days of Ukraine aid could come to an end should Republicans regain the lower chamber in the upcoming midterm elections… ‘I think people are gonna be sitting in a recession and they’re not going to write a [free] blank check to Ukraine. They just won’t do it…’ McCarthy recently [said]. ‘And then there’s the things [the Biden administration] is not doing domestically…’

“So far, the U.S. has approved over $60 billion in support for Ukraine… with more than $18.2 billion in security assistance given since January 2021… Other Republicans, including those running for office in November have criticized the amount of money the U.S. has contributed to the war.”

Der Spiegel wrote on October 26 that not only Republicans, but also Democrats are becoming critical of Joe Biden’s actions towards and military support for Ukraine.

Russia Suspends Black Sea Grain Export Deal

Thomson/Reuters wrote on October 29:

“Russia’s suspension of a Black Sea grain export deal requires a strong international response from the United Nations and the Group of 20 major economies, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday. In a video address, he accused Russia of trying to create an artificial famine in Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.

“U.S. President Joe Biden denounced the move as ‘purely outrageous’ and said it would increase starvation.

“Russia’s defense ministry said Ukraine attacked the Black Sea Fleet near Sevastopol on the annexed Crimean peninsula with 16 drones early on Saturday, and that British navy ‘specialists’ had helped coordinate the ‘terrorist’ attack.

“The suspension will cut Ukrainian grain exports from its crucial Black Sea ports… The deal allows shipments of grain from Ukraine, one of the world’s largest exporters, that the Russian invasion had halted.”

In the meantime, Russia has allegedly agreed to resume the Black Sea grain export deal.

Reuters reported on November 2:

“Russia said on Wednesday it would resume its participation in a deal freeing up grain exports from war-torn Ukraine, reversing a move that world leaders had said threatened to exacerbate global hunger. Moscow announced the sudden reversal after Turkey and the United Nations helped keep Ukrainian grain flowing for several days without Russian participation in inspections.

“The Russian defence ministry justified the change by saying it had received guarantees from Kyiv not to use the Black Sea grain corridor for military operations against Russia...”

Russia has also claimed now that British navy personnel blew up the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines on September 26. Britain strongly denied this claim. Previously, Russia had said “Washington had a motive as it wants to sell more liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe” (Thomson/Reuters, October 29).

All Guilty of War Crimes

MSN wrote on October 30:

“Russian bombs and artillery have killed thousands of civilians while destroying Ukrainian schools, hospitals and apartment buildings.

“As of this week, the UN has tallied 15,908 civilian casualties, including 6,306 killed. Those numbers, which include hundreds of children, are likely low. Russia’s strike this summer on a crowded shopping mall drew the condemnation of leaders of the G7: ‘Indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilians constitute a war crime,’ said the elected leaders of the largest Western democracies. ‘Russian President Putin and those responsible will be held to account.’

“But that statement, endorsed of course by President Biden, glosses over America’s own complicated legacy of bombing civilians in World War II. Throughout that war, civilians worldwide sadly bore a heavy burden. The Japanese pulverized China’s wartime capital of Chongqing, while the Germans hammered British cities in the Blitz. The British subsequently retaliated, burning Hamburg, Berlin and, of course, Dresden, a city whose name has become synonymous with the horror of air warfare…

“As head of the 21st Bomber Command on Guam, LeMay chose to abandon America’s longtime strategy of daylight high-altitude precision attacks in favor of burning Japanese cities in low-level nighttime raids. For his inaugural strike on the night of March 9, 1945, he set his sights on Tokyo. LeMay’s 12-square-mile target area, which was 87.4 percent residential, had an average population density of 103,000 people per square mile, meaning the bombs fell largely on the kitchens, living rooms and bedrooms of the Japanese capital’s working-class civilians…

“At 12:07 a.m., his first bomber unloaded on the Japanese capital. For the next 142 minutes, nearly 300 planes dropped 1,665 tons of incendiaries. These napalm-filled explosives were designed to punch through the metal and tile roofs of shops and homes, spraying flaming jellied gasoline on walls, furniture and bedding. Hundreds of blazes soon erupted, ultimately melding into a massive tidal wave of fire that rolled across the city. Temperatures amid the conflagration soared as high as 2,800°F., hot enough to melt concrete, liquefy asphalt and fuse coins together. ‘The town was a blazing hell,’ recalled survivor Sumi Ogawa, ‘lit by the swirling and roiling flames.’…

“The sun rose the next morning to reveal an apocalyptic wasteland. The attack incinerated 16 square miles of Tokyo and killed 105,000 men, women and children. Another 40,000 people suffered injuries and a million were left homeless…

“Back in Washington, officials monitored the nation’s editorial pages and radio broadcasts for evidence that the killing of civilians might spark outrage among the American public. Those fears, however, proved unfounded…

“The lack of any public outcry served as a green light for LeMay, who over the next five months proceeded to burn dozens of Japanese cities… America, in short, was waging war against Japan’s civilians… In the 177 days from his strike on Tokyo until the Japanese surrender on board the USS Missouri, LeMay torched 66 Japanese cities, leveling 178 square miles. Of all those operations, LeMay’s raid on Tokyo proved one of the deadliest, rivaled only by the fatalities caused by the atomic bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the waning days of the war.

“All told, America’s bombing campaign against the Japanese homeland killed 330,000 people, injured nearly a half million more, and left 8.5 million homeless. ‘Curtis LeMay,’ observed his biographer Warren Kozak, ‘ordered the deaths of more civilians than any other man in U.S. history. No one else comes close, not William Tecumseh Sherman, not George S. Patton — no one.’

“It is important, as we grieve the awful war crimes Russia is committing in Ukraine, that we as Americans remember our own tragic history of attacks on civilians nearly eight decades ago in our quest for total victory.”

No nation has a corner on the market when it comes to terrible war crimes and the killing of innocent civilians.

Germany Warns of Rough Years Ahead

Reuters wrote on October 28:

“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has plunged Europe into an era of insecurity, Germany said on Friday a day after Vladimir Putin predicted a ‘dangerous’ decade ahead. German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the 24 February invasion had ended ‘old dreams’ of a united continent.

“‘It has plunged us into another time, into an insecurity we thought we had overcome: a time marked by war, violence and flight, by concerns about the expansion of war into a wildfire in Europe,’ said the president, who is from a wing of Germany’s Social Democrats that long argued for closer economic ties to Moscow. ‘Harder years, rough years are coming.’

“Germany, which has joined European sanctions against Russia and weapons deliveries to Ukraine, has recorded the arrival of more than a million Ukrainian refugees and warned of possible energy shortages this winter after cuts in Russian gas supplies.

“Mr Putin… accused Western leaders of inciting the war in Ukraine, which he says was justified by Kyiv’s expressed wish to join Nato. Western dominance over world affairs was coming to an end and ‘ahead is probably the most dangerous, unpredictable and, at the same time, important decade since the end of the Second World War,’ Putin said.”

Unfortunately, Germans don’t listen anymore to Steinmeier, also because of his support of Russia and Germany’s dependence on Russian gas, as Bild Online commented on October 3:

“What a pity that the current Federal President can no longer shake anyone up, that his words simply fade away. But it is not surprising: Frank-Walter Steinmeier has lost all credibility. Hardly any other German politician has been on the wrong side of history as often as our head of state…

“A strong Federal President would never be more important than now, in times of war, energy crisis and inflation. A President who holds the country together. Unfortunately, the wrong person is sitting in Bellevue Palace.”

Wake Up, Chancellor Scholz

Focus wrote on October 30:

“‘Has Germany learned from its Russia problem? The test could come in China,’ writes the ‘New York Times’ on Sunday. The Danish newspaper Politiken has a headline: ‘Wake up Chancellor’. Who is meant is Chancellor Olaf Scholz and his ‘geopolitical blindness,’ the newspaper judges. Shortly after the controversial deal for the Chinese state shipping company Cosco to enter the port of Hamburg, Scholz is preparing for his first visit to China.

“… SPD leader Lars Klingbeil, Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) and leading representatives of German business have warned against excessive Chinese influence. The pressure on the Chancellor is great these days.”

German Health Minister’s Lack of Credibility

 “Health Minister Lauterbach (59, SPD) wants to legalize cannabis, although the consumption of this drug can lead to significant health damage. This is based on the view that people act on their own responsibility, i.e. they should decide for themselves what danger they want to expose themselves to. The state should no longer make this decision for them through a ban.

“That is understandable. Why shouldn’t an informed citizen be able to decide for himself whether to consume cannabis? However, this argument contradicts everything Lauterbach thought was right in the case of Corona. No state coercive measure, no restriction of personal freedom was hard enough for him to avert damage to the health of the population. He propagated the lockdown, compulsory vaccinations, compulsory home office, bans on contact, the closure of schools, the complete standstill of cultural life, allegedly everything to protect health.

“Through this radical policy, he even made a career from a simple MP to a minister. So now the opposite…

“Lauterbach… still advocates vaccinating even young children. Children and young people were never particularly at risk from Covid-19…

“This health minister has got himself caught up in an irresolvable contradiction. Against the background of the Corona policy he is pushing, his cannabis approval just seems bigoted.”

The CDC Strikes Again

The Ron Paul Institute wrote on October 21:

“On Oct. 20, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention handed another huge gift to Big Pharma: In a little-publicized meeting, the agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices voted to recommend adding the Covid vaccine to the childhood and adolescent immunization schedule. This makes the Covid vaccine market vast and indefinite—exposing children to unnecessary risks while shielding drug companies from liability.

“Throughout the pandemic, the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration rubber-stamped every iteration of the vaccines that came through the door. So this final outcome is hardly surprising. And yet it still has the power to shock. It never should have come to this. Despite all the ‘sciencing’ that led us here, it is a completely perverse outcome. The Covid bonfire is down to its last fading embers—and now the CDC effectively decrees that every child forever should receive this novel, barely tested, potentially dangerous injection.

“The potential profits flowing from this approval are enormous. The Covid injections were all approved under emergency laws that effectively shielded the corporate developers from any liability. This temporary shield would expire in October 2024. When the CDC officially adds the shots to the childhood immunization schedule, all future liability transfers to the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program, or VICP. The shield extends to adult shots, as well; once the product is covered under VICP, manufacturers become immune against all consumer legal challenges, shifting damages claims to US taxpayers. Having already received FDA approval as ‘safe and effective,’ and with no concern for liability, the manufacturers are free to churn out mRNA injections as they will. Shots and boosters from birth until death, multiplied by every citizen in the nation. Childhood Covid vaccination is the 2021 windfall compounded into eternity.

“Children are at minuscule risk from the novel coronavirus and transmit it at lower rates than adults. That much we have known since the early days of the pandemic. Public-health authorities also acknowledge that the Pfizer/Moderna products don’t prevent infection or transmission of the virus, that the mRNA formulation doesn’t grant any lasting immunity, that the benefit of the shot against severe disease is only evident for older patients, and that there are risks of significant adverse events, including heart inflammation, neurological impairment, autoimmune disease, and death. There is no reason to inject children with this novel therapeutic.

“Parents have spoken with their feet; the uptake of these injections for children under 11 has been well below what officials were hoping. Despite a massive publicity campaign that likened vaccination to a ‘super-power’ and recruited Sesame Street characters to the cause, by September, only 6 percent of children under 5 had received even a single dose, and fewer than 2 percent were ‘fully vaccinated.’ Dr. Peter Hotez, CNN’s go-to vaccine advocate, thinks the reason is a failure to scare parents enough… maybe parents can see what is hiding in plain sight: Kids don’t need this shot, and the risk of harm is real.”

Let those who have ears to hear listen…

Crazy Scientific “Experiments” in England and the USA

Daily Mail wrote on October 31:

“British scientists intentionally created hybrid Covid strains in risky experiments judged to be like ‘playing with fire’, MailOnline can reveal.

“Hamsters were infected with mutant viruses, blends of the original Wuhan strain and parts of either Omicron or Delta. Critics of the research, carried out by Imperial College London, called it ‘insanity’ and warned the lab trials could, in theory, unleash a new viral threat. Twenty scientists were involved in the project, including one who sits on the Government’s advisory panel SAGE…

“Our revelation comes amid ongoing furore over similar experiments in the US, where authorities have proposed a crackdown on virus manipulation research. Earlier this month, DailyMail.com, MailOnline’s US equivalent, revealed academics at Boston University combined different parts of the Omicron and the original Wuhan Covid strains.

“Critics say this combined the higher lethality of the ancestral SARS-CoV-2 version, which triggered the pandemic in early 2020, with the extreme transmissibility of the milder Omicron strain. Omicron is said to be just contagious as measles, although the claim is disputed. The hybrid virus they created killed 80 per cent of infected mice…

“A leak of such an engineered virus from the Wuhan Institute of Virology is one of the main theorised origins of the pandemic. The infamous lab carried out similar research involving coronaviruses found in bats, with some arguing this work constituted gain of function experiments, though others refute this. But others argued the Boston University research was unquestionably gain of function as it had the potential of increasing its transmissibility — even if the end result appeared to be the opposite.”

What are these crazy scientists up to? Do they want to eradicate most of mankind?

Fentanyl—a Weapon of Mass Destruction

National Interest wrote on October 27:

“Since 9/11, enterprises in China and cartels in Mexico have produced and exported thousands of pounds of a lethal chemical that has killed over 100,000 Americans. Despite this deadly assault on America, there has been no decisive whole-of-government reaction by the United States to solve this problem. In fact, there has been almost no coordinated reaction at all.

‘That lethal chemical is fentanyl, and it is high time for the Biden administration to declare it a weapon of mass destruction (WMD), treat the Mexican cartels that push it into the United States as foreign terrorist organizations (FTO), identify Communist China as the source of the problem and make it pay for it, and bring order to our southern border, the main gateway for this deadly drug.

“The numbers are staggering. Fentanyl can be up to 50 times stronger than heroin and up to 100 times stronger than morphine, and as little as two milligrams can be fatal. Federal data indicates that of the almost 1 million drug overdose fatalities since 1999, most of which were from fentanyl. And the loss of life is growing rapidly: Fentanyl overdoses caused 57,832 deaths in 2020 and 71,238 in 2021, a 23 percent increase. Fentanyl overdoses are the number one cause of death for Americans between the ages of eighteen and forty-five. In 2021, fentanyl killed almost twice as many Americans in this age group than the second-place killer, motor vehicle accidents.

“Last year, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol seized 11,201 pounds of fentanyl and noted that this quantity could kill every American citizen seven times over.”

America is being destroyed from the outside and is destroying itself from the inside.

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 the first of this two-part series, we looked at Scriptures which indicate that the early apostles thought that Jesus might return in their lifetime, and since that time, there have been many other predictions about the Second Coming right up until the present time. We showed that the world is currently in chaos with prophecies being fulfilled.  We also briefly reviewed the manifold and insurmountable problems around the world at this time.

It is the job of the true Church of God to preach the gospel about the soon-coming Kingdom of God on earth and to warn about what is to come.

In our booklet “The Gospel of the Kingdom of God,” the following is written under the heading, “We Must Be About Our Father’s Business,” on pages 25-26:

“As we saw earlier, when Jesus Christ came preaching the Kingdom of God, people thought that He would establish it right then. Note in Luke 19:11: ‘Now as they heard these things, He spoke another parable, because He was near Jerusalem and because they thought the Kingdom of God would appear immediately.’

“Although He, the future King of the Kingdom, was among them, the establishment of the Kingdom of God here on this earth would come much later—at the time of His second coming. He gave a parable in Luke 19 to explain this. Remember, He spoke in parables so that the world would not understand, but so that His disciples would understand.

“Luke 19:12: ‘Therefore He said: A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return.’ Christ is talking about Himself. He is the nobleman who went into a far country—the third heaven—to receive from God the Father the kingdom or government or rulership over this earth.

“We read about this already in the account of Daniel 7:13-14, where the Son of Man would appear in the clouds before the Ancient of Days to receive everlasting dominion and a kingdom that shall not be destroyed, so that all peoples and nations should serve Him.

“And the angels confirmed this in Acts 1:11, when they told the disciples at the time when Christ ascended to heaven: ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven.’

“Before Christ, the nobleman, departed for the far country, he instructed his servants to keep busy during his absence. We read in Luke 19:13: ‘So he called ten of his servants, delivered to them ten minas [a mina was worth about three month’s salary], and said to them, “Do business till I come.”’

“What the master gave his servants was valuable. And they were to DO something with what they had received. They were not to sit back and do nothing. Over and over we read in the Bible that Christ expects action from His disciples. He tells us in Matthew 28:19-20 that we are to make disciples of all nations, ‘“teaching them to observe ALL THINGS that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’” We already read in Mark 16 that we are to ‘go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.’

“Also, He admonishes us in Matthew 24 to watch and to be ready when He, the Master, returns. Beginning in Verse 45: ‘Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. Assuredly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods. But if that evil servant says in his heart, My master is delaying his coming, and begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and to drink with the drunkards, the master of that servant…will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites.’

“Again, we see that Christ expects His servants to BE DOING something—but it has to be the RIGHT kind of work. In this parable, the head servant is charged with feeding his fellow servants healthy physical food while his master is gone.

“The analogy here is that of the ministry feeding the sheep healthy spiritual food until Christ returns. As Christ told Peter three times, ‘feed my sheep.’”

The Church must feed the sheep, those who have repented and been baptised and are living a life pleasing in the sight of God.  The Church also has the duty and responsibility to warn the world about what is surely now not too far away.  Let us list the reasons why we feel this way. 

1. We have seen that since the 1950’s, this has been the first time in recorded human history that we have had the capacity to commit cosmocide which is the destruction of planet Earth, especially as a result of human  Just as an aside, and purely out of Church of God interest, according to WordSense Dictionary online and  Wiktionary.org., the origin and history of the word “cosmocide” is shown as being in the “1989, Plain Truth – Volume 54, page 9, a magazine of the now defunct Worldwide Church of God.
2. In addition, we are now at the end of the 6,000 years allotted to man.   In our Q&A “Do you teach that modern man is only about 6,000 years old? Do you believe in a 6,000-year plan of God?”, https://www.eternalgod.org/q-a-14722/ we read the following:

“The concept of a biblical 7,000-year plan and the creation of man about 6,000 years ago has been believed by Jews and Christians alike over the millennia. The historian Edward Gibbon wrote in ‘The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’ that this concept was taught by Rabbi Elias around 200 B.C., who expressed the common belief that it had been taught by the prophet Elijah. The Encyclopaedia Judaica explains that this tradition can even be traced back to Moses.”

3. From our understanding of prophecy, much is now in place for the end-time scenario with some important pieces of the jigsaw almost ready to be put in place, e.g., the arrival of the beast power in Europe and a new charismatic leader; a third temple to be built; nations with nuclear capabilities which could be unleashed at the press of a button; and all of the unprecedented problems that the world now faces for which there are no humanly-devised answers available.
4. Signs of the times.  We read in Matthew 24:32-33: “Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer isSo you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near—at the doors!” This follows on from Jesus talking about His Second Coming (see verses 29-31).   We have to discern what is going on in the world and how prophecy is being fulfilled.

There have always been scoffers about, and there are plenty today – those that deride the understanding that there is indeed a supreme Almighty God, and even if this is admitted, scoffing about the return of Christ abounds.

“And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man: They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.  Likewise as it was also in the days of Lot: They ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they built; but on the day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all.  Even so will it be in the day when the Son of Man is revealed” (Luke 17:26-30).

We further read in 2 Peter 3:1-4 a passage that shows that there will be scoffers at the end of this age: “Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle (in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder),  that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior,  knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.’”

Jude verses 17-18 also reveals mockers: “But you, beloved, remember the words which were spoken before by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ:  how they told you that there would be mockers in the last time who would walk according to their own ungodly lusts.” 

The original question asked was “Don’t you emphasise the end times too much when there still seems to be plenty of time left?,” and it is an assumption that there seems to be plenty of time left, but is there?

Some claim that it has been the end times since the inauguration of the New Testament Church in 31 AD and that it is a period of time from the first coming of Jesus Christ until His return.   After all, we read in 2 Peter 3:8: “But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”

On the website “got questions,” we read:

“In a sense, the marking of time is irrelevant to God because He transcends it. Peter, in 2 Peter 3:8, cautioned his readers not to let this one critical fact escape their notice—that God’s perspective on time is far different from mankind’s (Psalm 102:12; 24-27). The Lord does not count time as we do. He is above and outside of the sphere of time. God sees all of eternity’s past and eternity’s future. The time that passes on earth is of no consequence from God’s timeless perspective. A second is no different from an eon; a billion years pass like seconds to the eternal God.

“Though we cannot possibly comprehend this idea of eternity or the timelessness of God, we in our finite minds try to confine an infinite God to our time schedule. Those who foolishly demand that God operate according to their time frame ignore the fact that He is the ‘High and Lofty One . . . who lives forever’ (Isaiah 57:15).”

The phrase “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” shows the difference between God and man and is just a way of trying to show that the difference between the ways of God and the ways of man are so great that words cannot do this justice.   It is a way of trying to describe that which we cannot really understand.  God is patient, and He gives us the time we need; man, generally, is impatient.

However, the idea that in regard to Christ’s Second Coming, the end-times began with Christ’s first coming does not at all convey accurately what the Bible is talking about. The prophecies and statements regarding Christ’s Second Coming do not refer to events which occurred about 2,000 years ago, but are written for the last generation—for OUR learning and instruction, “on whom the end of the ages have come” (1 Corinthians 10:11). Paul was inspired to address us today, even though, as we pointed out in the previous Q&A, he might have thought that he would experience the return of Christ in his lifetime. Also compare Christ’s words in Revelation 1:1-3, saying that the time of the Day of the Lord (the main theme of the Book of Revelation) was near or at hand. Again, He addressed the end-time generation with this statement, as it could by no means be said that the Day of the Lord was near about 2,000 years ago.

No one knows the time of Jesus Christ’s return, except the Father, who is the One who will decide as to when He will send Christ back, and those who take it easy, not expecting His return anytime soon, could be caught out as we read in Matthew 24:36-44, and that would be a very unfortunate position to be in.  Jesus was “about His Father’s business” at the age of 12 as we read in Luke 2:41-49.   Can we, as followers of Jesus, do any less?

The signs are there in the world today that man simply does not have the answers to the many and varied problems that exist, and only the intervention of God to save mankind will resolve this matter.   But we must be close as we understand prophecy and how it is being fulfilled on the world scene now.   It surely cannot be that long but it is for the Father only to decide such timing.

Let us consider this. Regardless as to when Christ returns, those called and chosen will have lived a far better life than they would have done had they remained “in the world” and its ways.   God’s Way brings far more joy, happiness and peace of mind and it enables them to be a part of the end-time commission to the Church to preach the gospel. And the future for those called and chosen by God will be an eternity of serving and sharing in the Kingdom of God.

Please see the sermon given by Mr Eric Rank entitled “Don’t Stop Living,” given on 20^th August 2022, where he encourages everyone to proceed with normal planning in our lives involving God in every way and aligning ourselves with His Way of Life and if Christ returns before such plans come to maturity, then something much better will replace them – the Kingdom of God. https://www.globalchurchofgod.co.uk/dont-stop-living/

We know from Scripture that Jesus will return and whether we died before this or are still alive at that time, we will be with Him when He does.   As we read earlier in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18: “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.  Therefore comfort one another with these words.”

Until that time happens, it is our job to warn the nations about what is just around the corner.   We do that through the StandingWatch programme, through all of the material that is available on our website, and through our advertising and involvement with social media outlets that allow us to reach right across the globe.   And we will continue to do this for as long as we are able and for as long as God allows us to do this in His service.

Lead Writer: Brian Gale (United Kingdom)

compiled by Dave Harris

“How We Are Destroying Ourselves,” is the title of a new StandingWatch program, presented by Evangelist Norbert Link. Here is a summary: 

Certain developments might very well contribute to the prophesied downfall of America and Britain. We report on dangerous and risky experiments taking place in laboratories in London, England, and in Boston, USA, which were called “insanity” and which could unleash, in theory, a new deadly “viral threat”; and we address a new lethal chemical, dubbed as a “weapon of mass destruction,” which has arrived on American soil in quantities which could kill every American citizen seven times over.

“Der Thron Davids und Jakobs Gedenkstein („der Stein des Schicksals“),” is the title of this Sabbath’s new German sermon, presented by Norbert Link. Title in English: “The Throne of David and Jacob’s Pillar Stone (‘the Stone of Destiny’).”

“Wachsen in der Erkenntnis Gottes—Aber wie?” is the title of last Sabbath’s German sermonette, presented by Mike Richter. Title in English:  “Grow in the Knowledge of God—But How?”

“Sind wir das Salz der Erde?” is the title of last Sabbath’s German sermon, presented by Thilo Hanstein. Title in English: “Are We the Salt of the Earth?”

“Live with the Right Vision—Comments on News and Prophecy (October 29, 2022), the first message presented last by Norbert Link, is now posted. Here is a summary:

Terrible Events are escalating in the world on a daily basis, and the future looks grim. Some say that there is no reason to study hard in school or college in order to get good grades; pursue a career, get married, have children, and plan otherwise for the future in general, as the world will end soon and Christ’s return is on the horizon. But is this the right approach?

“How Are We to Do God’s Work?” the sermon presented last Sabbath by Norbert Link, is now posted. Here is a summary:

Many different ideas exist today as to what is the responsibility of God’s Church in these end times, and how to accomplish what we are commissioned to do. The Bible compares our task with the blowing of trumpets to warn of impending disaster. It also shows us how we are to blow these trumpets. It takes dedication and zeal, as well as total reliance on God and the conviction that He will bless our efforts as long as we are loyal to Him and do not give up.