Yair, Yair, Yair

I guess I just wanted Yair Lapid to play against type.

Shouldn’t have let my heart rule my head.

Nearly 10 years ago, a gargantuan natural gas field was discovered in the eastern Mediterranean. Disputed ownership of course emerged, but among non-crazy governments: Israel, Egypt, Greece, Cyprus. These fields and others had the potential to make Israel energy independent for the foreseeable future.

It also sparked among Bible prophecy students visions of the fulfillment of the Gog-Magog war of Ezekiel 38-39. As usual, I urge caution when fitting current events onto the grid of prophecy in Scripture, but still, many of these occurrences are plausible when considering the timing of Gog and the hook in his jaw.

In a piece titled “Israel’s Devastating Capitulation to Hezbollah,” Caroline Glick outlines her expert analysis of Lapid’s bizarre decision to aid terrorists.

Here’s how her piece begins:

“It is almost impossible to grasp the danger of Israel’s present moment. A month before the Knesset elections, the caretaker government led by Prime Minister Yair Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz is moving full speed ahead with a maritime agreement with an enemy state that it insists will obligate Israel in perpetuity. The Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) agreement Israel is concluding with Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon will fundamentally alter Israel’s maritime borders, deny the Jewish state tens of billions of dollars, which will go instead to a government controlled by Iran’s Lebanese foreign legion, Hezbollah, and transform Hezbollah and Iran into actors in the eastern Mediterranean.”

The problem is that initially, Israel did not negotiate a deal with Lebanon because the latter is a terrorist state. However…Cyprus did negotiate with Lebanon (controlled of course by Hezbollah). In the end, Lebanon demanded part of Israel’s territorial waters, including much of the Qana natural gas field. It was never resolved and so it stood until recently.

In the meantime, as Israel developed the Karish gas field, Hezbollah threatened to attack it unless the previous issue was resolved. In fact, Hezbollah’s Sheik Nasrallah, one of the most evil men in the world, did attack Karish with drones (Israel intercepted them). This was really an act of war, but Bibi Netanyahu is no longer in charge. Lapid is.

Sadly, the Lapid government has been fearful of further terrorist activity and so has done nothing to protect its interests. Here’s where things get really weird.

The Biden Regime, following the lead of (who I think is really in charge, Obama) others, is bent on giving money and support to Lebanon, thus strengthening Hezbollah, thus strengthening…Iran! This was Obama’s grand scheme.

(If you want to run a really wild conspiracy theory, notice that Obama’s moves in the Middle East the last 13 years have been to bolster Iran. This would provide evidence—to people that believe Obama is a closet Muslim—that he is Shi’ite. US foreign policy in those years was always to deconstruct Sunni Muslim states.)

Biden—I do not believe he is impaired, as most think—on his Middle East visit weeks ago pushed deals with Lebanon. His “dementia” allows him to continue carrying water for Obama. This menacing individual is doing great harm to our traditional ally, Israel. Obama loathes Jews and especially the Jewish state.

Sadly, the Lapid government has bent to US pressure. Glick understands:

“Lapid, Gantz and their allies portray the deal as a diplomatic and strategic masterstroke. By surrendering to all of Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon’s 12-year-old demands, they brag that Israel has secured its ability to develop Karish. In other words, they’re bragging that they’re signing a protection deal with Hezbollah. In exchange for 854 square kilometers of sovereign Israeli waters, they believe that Hezbollah will permit us to exploit our natural resources—at least until Nasrallah decides to renew his threats and demands.”

This is a situation to continue to monitor. We are living in desperately evil times, and this situation involving Israel’s sea sovereignty is critically important going forward. Remember—Russia has its long-wanted warm weather port in Syria, and is watching closely…

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

JEPD?

I like to explore the roots of current situations, as you well know by now. For 25 years I have advocated for Israel in a variety of ways. My journalism degree and experience in Christian publishing has helped me understand why the American Church has become watered-down over the decades. I’m speaking of the “Church Visible,” of course, the big, megachurch movement. I’m not speaking of the thousands of still faithful Bible churches across the country.

Support for Israel, as a Christian, is extremely important to me. There are so many variables when discussing this topic, one can become dizzy. There are terrorism issues, politics, diplomacy (often the most mendacious element in this field).

But in my own community (I was raised Southern Baptist), I’ve become aware of a slippage in support for Israel. This didn’t happen overnight, and that’s the point of this week’s Israel Watch.

It is my opinion that the erosion of support for Israel began happening in this country more than 100 years ago, from theological sources. Now of course that has spilled out into the wider culture. In order to make modern Israel illegitimate, one must get rid of the nation’s history.

That means attacking the Bible.

Tom Rush, a trustee at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said recently that when he attended that institution in the 80s:

“One of the things that was being pushed really hard at Southeastern when I was there,” Rush said in a podcast, “is what’s known as the Documentary Hypothesis interpretation of the Old Testament. And some of the behaviors I saw among the students that were at the seminary were not Christian behaviors.”

The “Documentary Hypothesis” or JEDP (Jahwist/Elohist/Deuteronomist/priestly author of Leviticus). It sounds complicated, and it is. In short, the theory states that the first five books of the Bible were not written/compiled solely by Moses. There must have been later unknown editors, because at various stages in the Pentateuch, different words are used for “God.”

In fact, this was a clever tactic developed by unbelieving European Bible scholars that wanted to cast doubt about the historicity of these books, in particular Genesis. The JEDP view maintains that the final portions of these books were probably set down by Ezra in the 4^th century B.C.

 

To me this is very simple. By forcing much of Jewish history into the categories of myth or legend, the stage was set for disbelieving in the land promises to the Jews. I promise you this is playing out today even in the most “conservative” American churches. Almost unbelievably, the SBC is infected with this, as you can see from Rush’s statement.

A former professor at Fuller buys into all this.

“God is not a provable commodity.”—Tony Jones (In 2013, Jones announced he no longer believes in Original Sin)

But WorldNetDaily’s Joseph Farah knows otherwise:

“Prophecy is a reason for faith.”

Farah’s voice is in the minority now.

Millar Burrows, a key translator of the Revised Standard Version, wrote about predictive prophecy:

“For many events, to be sure, we have abundant evidence of their occurrence in addition to the biblical record, but unless the statement that they had been predicted is accepted on the authority of the Bible itself, there is nothing to prove that the supposed prediction was not written after the event took place.” THIS IS SATANIC Burrows wrote this in 1946! He also claimed that Noah’s Flood was a myth story.

In 1961, the Southern Baptists’ Sunday School Board published Ralph Elliott’s The Message of Genesis. There, he said that the Genesis accounts were inspired by Sumerian myth!

We lament the passing from the scene of men like Adrian Rogers (2004), but did we know as the rank-and-file that the SBC was off the rails on this subject 60 years ago?

I doubt it.

At the time Charles Darwin was hatching his diabolical theory on origins, there were still enough clergy to oppose him—although large swaths of that community were eager to embrace him. Darwin was clever enough to make some passing reference to a Creator in the first edition of On the Origin of Species, but he subsequently deleted it from future editions.

L.R. Croft wrote in 1988:

“Darwin’s dishonesty is apparent. He had long been an atheist and had inserted the above paragraph to lessen the tumult he knew his book would create. He no more believed in a Creator than he did in a flat earth.”

My point is, in part, that the undermining of both ancient and modern Israel has been going on for a very long time. It was opposed internally by too few.

If you want to know why teaching about Israel and Bible prophecy has fallen out of favor today, this is a big reason why.

Jim1fletcher@yahoo.com