Welcome to another edition of the Bible in the News. This is Jonathan Bowen joining you. The sea and the waves continue to roar and men’s hearts are failing them for fear as we draw ever nearer to the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are encouraged and exhorted by the words of the Apostle Paul not to be not to be “in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief. Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day; we are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore let us not sleep as do others; but let us watch and be sober.” (1 Thessalonians 5:4-5). So let us look at the events that are heralding the Lord’s thief-like coming.

We begin in the Middle East where the Gaza war continues to rage. This week Osama Bin-Laden waged in on the rhetoric releasing an audio tape. In the speech Bin-Laden stated,

"Our brothers in Palestine, you have suffered a lot.... the Muslims sympathize with you in what they see and hear. We, the mujahideen, sympathize with you also….We are with you and we will not let you down. Our fate is tied to yours in fighting the Crusader-Zionist coalition, in fighting until victory or martyrdom… [there is] only one strong way to bring the return of al-Aqsa and Palestine, and that is jihad in the path of God.”

Only the future can tell what Bin-Laden’s call for Holy War will bring… however it is not the extremist Muslims that pose the greatest threat.

United Nations Against “My People Israel”

As this crisis continues the true colors of politicians are beginning to show. The United Nations passed UN Resolution 1860 to bring an end to the situation in the Middle East. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the UN Stated the following:

“Distinguished members of the council, distinguished foreign ministers, ministers of Arab countries, excellencies, ladies and gentlemen. For the past two weeks, people around the world have observed with grief and horror the escalating violence and suffering in Gaza and southern Israel, and have looked to the United Nations to put an end to the fighting. I am heartened and relieved at the adoption by the counsel today of a resolution to bring an end to this tragic situation. Your decision signals the will of the international community. It must be fully respected by all parties to this conflict. The resolution calls for an immediate and durable ceasefire in and from Gaza…”

It is interesting to note that Ban Ki-moon specifically addresses the Arab ministers with no acknowledgement of Israel. What is of greater significance is the United Nations positioning itself to impose its will on Israel. Where have the outcries been when rockets hailed down on Israel over the past several years.

The Bible specifically talks about the mindset of the international community at the time of the end. In Joel 3 we are told,

“in those days and in that time, when I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will also gather all nations and bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people Israel.”

We continue reading in verse 11, “Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen (nations), and gather yourselves together”. We read in Zechariah 14:2, “I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle…” So we are to see all nations, united, in war against, and around, the nation of Israel. The agent that will gather these nations is described in Revelation 16:14 as the frog spirits which “are spirits of devils working miracles, which go forth to unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them together them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.” These frog spirits are the spirits of democracy and human rights. They are discussed in detail in Volume 11, Issue #2 of the Bible Magazine.

It is under the frog-spirit banner of human rights that the United Nations has made this resolution which states in point 8:

“The Security Council calls for renewed and urgent efforts by the parties and the international community to achieve a comprehensive peace based on the vision of a region where two democratic states, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace with secure and recognized borders, as envisaged in Security Council Resolution 1850 (2008), and recalls also the important of the Arab Peace Initiative.”

The resolution calls for a meeting in 2009 in, of all places, Moscow. This past week too, the United Nations Human Rights Council made a resolution stating that the United Nations

“Recognizing that the massive ongoing Israeli military operation in the Occupied Palestinian territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, caused grave violations of the human rights of the Palestinian civilians therein, exacerbated the severe humanitarian crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and undermined international efforts towards achieving a just and lasting peace in the region…. 

The human rights resolutions states that the UN:

1. Strongly condemns the ongoing Israeli military operation…

2. Calls for the immediate cessation of Israeli military attacks throughout the Palestinian Occupied Territory…

3. Demands the occupying Power, Israel, to immediately withdraw its military forces from the occupied Gaza Strip….

4. Calls upon the occupying Power, Israel, to end its occupation to all Palestinian lands occupied since 1967, and to respect its commitment within the peace process towards the establishment of the independent sovereign Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital, living in peace and security with all its neighbors…

7. Calls upon the international community to support the current initiative aiming at putting an immediate end to the current military aggression in Gaza

8. Calls for urgent international action to put an immediate end to the grave violations committed by the occupying Power, Israel, in the occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip;

9. Calls for immediate international protection of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory in compliance with the International Human Rights Law and International Humanitarian Law."

This is tantamount to asking for military intervention in Gaza. The commission is basically charging Israel with war crimes. Russia voted for this, the only nation to vote against this was Canada, Britain abstained along with others, and the US is not part of the UN Human Rights Commission.

United Nations radio reported the following:

A special expert on situation of human rights on the occupied Palestinian territories... in a statement Tuesday the expert Richard Falk says Israel still maintains its siege on Gaza allowing only barely enough food and fuel to enter to stave of mass famine and disease. He says such a policy of collective punishment initiated by Israel to punish Gazans for political developments within the Gaza strip constitutes a continuing flagrant and massive violation of international humanitarian law, as laid down in the fourth Geneva convention. Falks calls for protective action to be taken immediately to offset the persisting and wide-ranging violations of the fundamental human right to life, in view of the emergency situation that is producing a humanitarian catastrophe, that is unfolding day by day. He says, however difficult politically, it is time to act, and he suggests it would seem mandatory for the international criminal court to investigate the situation and determine whether the Israeli civilian leaders and military commanders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law.

We can see the ground work being laid that will eventually justify the invasion by “all nations” of Israel - on “humanitarian grounds”. The Vatican Moves to Vilify Israel. What we also see in the news this week are the Vatican’s moves to vilify Israel. One of the pope’s top aides, Cardinal Renato Martino claimed that Gaza was a big concentration camp. This Catholic Rhetoric is being echoed around the world by politicians and journalist drunken with the frog-spirit laced wine of Rome. US conservative political personality Pat Buchanan had the following to say in televised interview where he was debating Clifford May of the Foundation of the Defense of Democracy.

“The Israelis have been hit for six months with these little rockets which didn’t kill anybody. It was outrageous, cruel and stupid, and they triggered blitzkrieg against the Palestinians in Gaza, which in my judgement is an Israeli concentration camp...”

Notice how he minimizes the Hamas attack on Israel, and then accuses them of a blitzkrieg – the word used by Adolph Hitler to describe his lighting war on Europe. He echoes the Vatican’s statement, calling Gaza an Israeli concentration camp. Not only this but he went further in stating that the Israeli towns being bombed by Hamas were actually Palestinian towns.

“...any war crime I criticize those attacks by those rockets, stupid and cruel. But you sit here and tell me that the Israeli people, or the Israeli nation have treated the Palestinian people with any kind of justice, those towns hit by the rockets are former Palestinian towns, Ashelon, Ashdod, Sderot...."

Before being cut off in his virulent attack, he claimed the towns of Ashkelon, Ashdod and Sderot were Palestinian towns. These towns are outside the border of the lands captured by Israel in 1967. Essentially, he is stating that all of Israel is “Palestinian land.” Any guesses as to the religious persuasion of Pat Buchanan? You guessed it, proudly Roman Catholic.

Another proud Roman Catholic is Tony Blair, the EU’s representative to the Middle East. In an interview with MSNBC this past week he expressed his views on how the United Nations and Europe need to be involved in the Mi ddle East. He lays out four points in what he believes is the peace plan for the Middle East:

My advice is that we need four things going forward now. We need a reinvigorated political process, a negotiation between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Secondly, we need big change, what I would call step change on the West Bank. That is where the majority of the Palestinian territory, the majority of Palestinian people live. There has been progress there but there needs to be far bigger progress. The third thing is we need a major attempt at the reconstruction of Gaza which will be necessary after the conflict there. The fourth thing is we need Palestinian Unity between Gaza and the West Bank, but on the right terms, on the terms that help propel us toward the two state solution, not push us away from it.

It is clear to see that Europe wants to unite the Palestinians, reconstruct their infrastructure and sees the two state solution as a foregone conclusion. How involved is Europe with the Palestinians?

For example, the biggest funders now for the Palestinians are the Europeans. The changes we have been making recently on the West Bank in the Palestinian civil police have been driven by Europeans.

Hypocritical Humanism

The frog-spirit doctrine of Human Rights is driving Europeans to overlook the fundamentalist jihad mentality of Hamas and the Palestinians and force Israel into a peace agreement with a nation that wants them destroyed. Don’t forget that Hamas didn’t start the terrorism in the Middle East – it was the work of Yasir Arafat and Fatah.

Why is the world rushing to defend people that use mothers, children and the elderly as “human shields”? Michael Bloomburg, Mayor of New York, commented on the use of human shields in a recent CNN interview:

“It is the ultimate cowardliness to launch your attack with human shields around you. It is one of the oldest sick things that terrorists do. They take civilians, they surround themselves with civilians, and then they reach over their head to attack you, and if you defend yourself by attacking back, the civilians get in the way and they say, “Oh, look you are killing civilians.” Keep in mind there is no question of what is happening here. Hamas keeps sending rockets over, they’ve been doing it. Israel just started their response a few days ago. Hamas has been doing this since 2005. I don’t know how many days in a row that you need to prove that it is one side starting all this. Finally the other side responds and your going to say, “Oh, .... first started this?” Come on.”

The Hamas government is a terrorist institution, committed to destroying Israel. They worship “Allah” with a modern version of human sacrifice - sending young people to their deaths, blinded by religious zeal, blowing themselves up in an effort to murder as many innocent bystanders they can including women and children. The Palestinians rejoice when one of these attacks take place - and glorify those whom they call “martyrs” - who have died in the islamic cause. The scripture doesn’t call the frog spirits spirits of “madness” or “demons” for nothing. Obviously, the bigger issue is not “human rights” but the destruction of Israel.

One of the big criticism of Israel has been that the force being used is excessive. This question was put to Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York. His response is interesting:

“Let me just phrase it for you in something that will bring it home. If you are in your apartment and some emotionally disturbed person is banging on the door, screaming “I’m going to come through this door and kill you”, do you want us to respond with one police officer, which is proportional, or all the resources at our command? Just think about it in that context. There is no such thing as proportional response to terrorism. This is not a game we are playing by the Marquess of Queensbury rules. People’s lives are at risk, and the fact of the matter is that since the Israeli’s pulled out of Gaza in 2005, Hamas, rather than trying to build up Gaza, has tried to destroy Israel for their own political purposes. Hamas is a wholly owned subsidiary of Iran, and they are trying to every day kill innocent civilians in the streets by sending rockets, randomly overhead, just trying to kill as many people who happen to be in the way.”

The morality of the Vatican, Catholic Europe, Russia and the legions of the Catholic church throughout the world and especially in the media is grossly hypocritical. It was the Catholic Croatian government of Ante Pavelic supported by Archbishop Stepanic who murdered over 900,000 men women and children during the Second World War under a policy of “convert or die”. The Serbs and Muslims who were victims of this attack were not “aggressors” lobbing missiles at Croatia, but neighbours living amongst the Croatians. The Catholic Church supported and helped organize these attacks.

Or how about the silence of Pius XII during the holocaust when 6,000,000 men, women and children were butchered simply because they were Jews. Or was it silence... it was Pius XII, known as Archbishop Pacelli who signed the concordant with the Nazi party, whose top leadership including Hitler down were all Catholics. Did the Jews rain missiles down on German towns provoking the Holocaust?

From the birth of this apostate church its hands are dyed red with the blood throughout all its inquisitions and crusades. The words of scripture ring true where it states in Revelation 18:24, “And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth.”

How dare nations like Germany, Poland and Russia condemn Israel for “human rights abuses” when their history runs deep red with the blood of the Jewish people - a people killed because they were Jewish. They didn’t launch rocket attacks on their neighbors.

Establishing The Kingdom of Israel

We look forward to the return of Christ, when in the words of Joel 3:16-17:

“The LORD also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the LORD will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel. So shall ye know that I am the LORD your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more.”

Christ’s judgment’s will be “true and righteous”. He will save the nation of Israel from the attacks of the Palestinians and the rest of the world. In the times of the Judges, Samson destroyed 3,000 of the lords of the Philistines in Gaza. The Messiah will have to destroy many more when he establishes the kingdom, taking the lands promised to Abraham and - dashing in pieces like a potters vessel, an opposition, sending out the command to

“Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” (Revelation 14:7).

The situation in the world is boiling - we haven’t even had an opportunity this week to look at Russia’s use of its natural gas supplies to blackmail Europe and prepare the way for it to take control of the Ukraine. God willing, we will have opportunity to address this next week on The Bible in the News. www.bibleinthenews.com