Update 997

On November 20, 2021, Frank Bruno will present the sermonette, titled, “Trust and Be Grateful,” and Dave Harris will present the sermon, titled, “What May Be Known of 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.

When we hear and read about God’s children, can we actually put ourselves in that category?  Are we truly His children, and what does it mean?  After all, God did create everything, including all of mankind, and He loves His creation. He did say however at the time of Noah that He was sorry that He had created man, but that’s because He had a different plan in mind. He gave man a choice to obey Him, and man rejected God’s ways and, as a consequence, the whole world was corrupted (Genesis 6:6-12).

Therefore, He wanted to destroy everything on earth, and if it had not been for righteous Noah, mankind would not have been saved. And through Noah, mankind was spared, and God blessed him and his sons, and they were fruitful and multiplied on the earth (Genesis 9:1).

Now, that didn’t mean mankind was righteous from that point on, since the world has become corrupt again. We read in John 3:16 that God loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to die for us, but another step was significant, because He goes on to say that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.  So, does that mean that all we have to do is believe in Christ, and we are all saved and are considered God’s children?

Obviously, more is involved as the Bible points out in numerous Scriptures.  What do we know, actually know? The law of the 10 commandments has not been done away as we are to keep it still, which Christ makes very clear, for He didn’t come to do away with the law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17-20).  We need to do more than just believe—we have to be doers and followers of the law as Christ says in 1John 5:3, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome.”

Many Christians consider themselves children of God because they believe they have been saved just based on the mere fact that they believe in Christ.  They claim that they are born again and that if you’re born again, you are considered a child of God.  But the Bible clearly states that a born-again person IS spirit and invisible to the human eye, and anyone who is still human cannot be born again (John 3:6, 8).

How we are to be children of God is expressed in 1 John 3:1-2, 6-8:  “Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is… Whoever abides in Him does not [practice] sin. Whoever sins [practices sin] has neither seen Him nor known Him. Little children, let no one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. He who sins [practices sin] is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.”

Those who are not being saved cannot be children of God as we notice in 1 John 3:10: “In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.”

We have the opportunity right now, as begotten children of God, who have been chosen to come out of this world, to be a part of His Family.  And this step can only be done by receiving His Holy Spirit at the time of our baptism after we have truly repented from what we came out of, and after having believed in and obeyed the gospel of the Kingdom of God. And, we must continue to DO what God requires of us, as explained in Romans 8:13-17:

“For if you live according to the flesh you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.  For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.  For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of (sonship) by (which) we cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’ The (Holy) Spirit (itself) bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.”

by Norbert Link

We begin with several articles discussing the vaccination mandates by the Biden Administration and other developments which are dividing this country (moving down the dangerous road of “fascism”), as never before in recent history, and which may lead to the extremely frightening prospect of civil war—a possibility which more and more observers contemplate. Please view our StandingWatch program on the topic, titled, “Is Civil War Coming?”

We continue with Trump’s claim that Pence should not have certified the election (using this as an example to show how the press continues to misrepresent the facts); point out (as the New York Post put it) the continuing lies of the Biden administration regarding Afghanistan; address CNN’s report on the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris debacle; the “outrageous” indictment of Steve Bannon; the Kyle Rittenhouse scandal, pointing out, once again, how the mass media deceives us; and speak on the “climate change scare.”

Addressing the lessons which we should have learned (but did not) from World War I, we report on the fear that Russia might invade Ukraine; Germany’s energy regulator’s decision to place the Nord Stream 2 pipeline on hold; Russia’s missile test in space; the intensifying crisis between Poland and Belarus; and the concern that China might invade and take over Taiwan; the anti-Semitic unity of the world against Israel; and the prospects of a united Europe, which is perceived to be a power of peace, while in reality, it will become an instrument of war.

We speak on persecutions against the unvaccinated in Austria and Germany; report on huge earthquakes which WILL strike; address attempts in the past (but just only in the past?) to create humanzees; and conclude with an article about the divisions within the Catholic Church and its membership regarding abortion and other issues.

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

US Court of Appeals Permanently Prohibits Biden Vaccination Mandate

Breitbart wrote on November 12:

“A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reaffirmed its stay on President Joe Biden’s workplace vaccine mandate on Friday. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued a rule that would require businesses with at least 100 employees to mandate coronavirus vaccinations or implement frequent testing. Friday’s decision comes after the Fifth Circuit issued a stay on the OSHA rule last Saturday.

“On Monday, the U.S. Justice Department requested the appeals court lift the stay, arguing it would ‘likely cost dozens or even hundreds of lives per day.’

“In its decision, the court ordered OSHA to ‘take no steps to implement or enforce the Mandate until further court order’  [stating:] ‘The Mandate is a one-size-fits-all sledgehammer that makes hardly any attempt to account for differences in workplaces (and workers) that have more than a little bearing on workers’ varying degrees of susceptibility to the supposedly “grave danger” the Mandate purports to address.’”

Newsmax added on November 12:

“‘The mandate is staggeringly overbroad,’ the opinion said… ‘The public interest is also served by maintaining our constitutional structure and maintaining the liberty of individuals to make intensely personal decisions according to their own convictions – even, or perhaps particularly, when those decisions frustrate government officials’… “

A Ping Pong Ball Might Decide Biden’s Vaccination Mandate

The Associated Press reported on November 16:

“Challenges to President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for private employers will be consolidated in the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals… The Cincinnati-based court was selected Tuesday in a random drawing using ping-pong balls, a process employed when challenges to certain federal agency actions are filed in multiple courts.

“The selection could be good news for those challenging the administration’s vaccine requirement, which includes officials in 27 Republican-led states, employers and several conservative and business organizations… The challenges… were made this month in 12 circuit courts. Under an arcane system, it was up to the clerk of the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict litigation to select a ping-pong ball from a bin to choose where the cases would be heard.

“It was a favorable outcome for Republicans. Eleven of the 16 full-time judges in the 6th Circuit were appointed by Republican presidents… It had not yet been determined which judges from the 6th Circuit will be on a three-judge panel to hear the case or whether it will be considered by all the judges….”

A ping pong ball as the decision-maker. It would be laughable if it was not so sad. In any event, this will end up in front of the Supreme Court, and no matter what decision will be rendered, it will antagonize Americans even more.

Why the Biden Mandate Makes No Scientific Sense

On November 12, the Ron Paul Institute republished the following article by Dr. Gilbert Berdine, associate professor of medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center :

“The scientific basis for the [Biden vaccination] mandate is dubious. We are told that the vaccine is effective and safe. If this assertion were true… anyone taking the vaccine would have nothing to fear from the unvaccinated. If the vaccine worked, then everyone taking the vaccine would be protected. Of course, the vaccine does not work for everyone… it becomes a judgment call whether the risk of vaccination is worth the benefit.

“Contrary to what is claimed on a daily basis, the vaccine is not safe… As of November 7, 2021, there were 2,725,582 adverse events…including 8,284 deaths, 9,726 life-threatening events, 9,580 permanent disabilities, 363… birth defects, 38,818 hospitalizations, 79,615 ER visits, and 121,100 doctor’s office visits attributed to the covid vaccines. These are only the risks we know about so far. Nobody knows what the adverse effects will be one, five, or ten years from now….

“How effective are the vaccines?… As of August 25, 2021, it takes over twenty-five hundred vaccinations to prevent a single death in the US…

“What would the effect of 100 percent vaccination rate be on the virus? Contrary to claims, the virus will not disappear. The next outbreak would occur within a year and would be 100 percent breakthrough cases with a vaccine-resistant strain. Then we would need another vaccine mandate, and another, ad infinitum.

“… proponents of mandates underestimate the degree of conviction of those who decline the covid vaccines. Wherever people are not permitted to remain unvaccinated…, a percentage of people will quit their jobs rather than be vaccinated… at least 10 percent of physicians and 20 percent of nurses will quit rather than be vaccinated… similar events in hospitals could precipitate a catastrophic collapse of the US healthcare system…

“The worst-case scenario is outright civil war. This is too horrible to contemplate, but this possibility is real. President Biden said his patience is wearing thin. That works both ways…”

Apart from the downfall of America’s economy and its social services, including the health-care system, civil war IS, sadly, a distinct possibility. Note the next article.

“Would America Survive a Civil War?”

Unherd wrote on November 12:

“Talk of insurrection, secession, civil conflict and civil war is no longer the chatter of the gullible and the mentally ill. It’s entering the fringes of polite society…

“[There is a] very common assertion: that a civil war, if waged on American soil, would be over quickly… The idea here is that the US military is so advanced, and has so many tanks, gunships, fuel air bombs, and drones, that the federal government is simply assured of victory. As such, a civil war is an unlikely or impossible scenario, given the dramatic imbalance of power between the state and even a numerically large, dissatisfied internal population. But this is a dangerous misconception. While the US military is indeed powerful and lavishly funded, it is a military designed to fight other states….

“… how likely is it that there will be some sort of civil conflict in the near or mid future for the United States? Unfortunately, the correct answer here may very well be that it is not terribly unlikely…

“The legitimacy of its elite has been shaken repeatedly, and faith in the electoral process itself is now rapidly declining among large segments of the electorate…

“Most ominously of all, however, looms the growing supply crisis. This crisis would be tolerable if it merely implied a lack of variety at the grocery store… But it is also creating havoc in the productive economy itself, denying farmers the spare parts to run their harvesters and car manufacturers the metals they need to make cars. The longer the crisis goes on, the more broken the economy will become, and the more painful the necessary reforms will be, once America’s elites truly wake up to the danger.

“If there is one time throughout history where civil wars are actually likely to occur, it is precisely when a delegitimated elite undertakes necessary reforms after letting underlying problems fester for decades. That is when states are at their weakest, and when they are vulnerable to the worst forms of internal disasters. Sadly, that might just be where America is headed today.”

Our StandingWatch program, “Is Civil War Coming?”, addresses this frightening scenario. Also note the next article, showing how divided this country has already become over coronavirus regulations, mandates and restrictions.

How Covid Regulations Divide the Country

Newsmax wrote on November 13:

“Sixty percent of vaccinated individuals say they are banning unvaccinated family members from seasonal festivities… A slightly higher number, 63%, said they are not comfortable having unvaccinated relatives at their parties. Some 14% of those surveyed said they would never get the vaccine because of concerns about its safety and side effects.

“Almost half of the unvaccinated respondents, 49%, said they are no longer communicating with family members who won’t understand their hesitancy and unwillingness to get the shot, with 22% of those saying they have already been banned from family gatherings… 16% of those surveyed ended three or more friendships during the pandemic, starting in March 2020.”

There is really nothing godly about this.

The Road to Fascism

On November 17, the Ron Paul Institute republished the following article by the Rutherford Institute:

“We are moving fast down the road to fascism. This COVID-19 pandemic has shifted us into high gear. The heavy-handed collusion between the Techno-Corporate State and the US government over vaccine mandates is merely the latest manifestation of the extent to which fascist forces are working to overthrow our constitutional republic and nullify the rights of the individual… Katrina Trinko writes for USA Today, ‘the government is turning employers—who are not paid by, nor work for, the government—into an army of vaccine enforcers.’

“You know who won’t suffer any harm as a result of these vaccine mandates? The Corporate State (manufacturers, distributors, and health care providers), which were given a blanket ‘get out of jail’ card to insulate them from liability for any injuries or death caused by the vaccines… This has long since ceased to be a debate over how best to protect the populace at large against an unknown pandemic. Rather, it has become a massively intrusive, coercive and authoritarian assault on the right of individual sovereignty over one’s life, self and private property…

“At a minimum, our right to individual sovereignty over our lives and our bodies is being usurped by power-hungry authoritarians; greedy, self-serving corporations; egotistical Nanny Staters who think they know what’s best for the rest of the populace; and a short-sighted but well-meaning populace which fails to understand the long-term ramifications of trading their essential freedoms for temporary promises of safety and security…

“This merely pushes us one step further down that road towards a total control society in which the government… gets to decide who is ‘worthy’ of being allowed to take part in society.

“Right now, COVID-19 vaccines are the magic ticket for gaining access to the ‘privileges’ of communal life. Having already conditioned the population to the idea that being part of society is a privilege and not a right, such access could easily be predicated on social credit scores, the worthiness of one’s political views, or the extent to which one is willing to comply with the government’s dictates, no matter what they might be… nothing good can come from totalitarian tactics—no matter how benevolent they appear—that are used to make us cower, fear and comply with the government’s dictates.”

Amen to that.

How Big Pharma PROFITS from the Vaccines

Medical Press wrote on November 16:

“Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna… will make pre-tax profits of $34 billion this year between them, which works out to over $1,000 a second, $65,000 a minute or $93.5 million a day [from their COVID-19 vaccines]…

“Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna have used their monopolies to prioritise the most profitable contracts with the richest governments…”

 According to the New York Times, the US is planning to invest billions of dollars in expanding COVID-19 manufacturing capacity to have at least a billion doses by the second half of next year.

Trump Says Pence Should have Refused to Certify “Fraudulent” Election

The Insider wrote on November 12:

“Former President Donald Trump claimed in a new interview that half of constitutional scholars agree that former Vice President Mike Pence could have overturned his 2020 election loss… ‘How can you — if you know a vote is fraudulent, right? — how can you pass on a fraudulent vote to Congress? How can you do that?’ Trump told [Jonathan] Karl about Pence’s refusal to reject the election results when Congress met to certify them on January 6. ‘And I’m telling you: 50/50, it’s right down the middle for the top constitutional scholars when I speak to them.’

“… That push came after the dismissal of dozens of lawsuits by Trump’s legal team challenging the results… The Supreme Court, which holds a 6-3 conservative majority, also rejected a Trump-backed bid to invalidate the results in key swing states….

“Last month, a bipartisan group of former officials and lawyers sent a letter  to the California bar association calling for an investigation into [John] Eastman, the lawyer behind the memo that claimed Pence could overturn the election. The group said the state bar should look into whether Eastman violated attorney ethics by making false statements.

“Eastman also retired as a law professor at Chapman University after more than 150 faculty members called for his removal following the January 6 insurrection. “

To clarify some misleading and troublesome statements in the above article: NO court decided the issue of election fraud on the merits. Cases were dismissed strictly on procedural grounds, such as lack of standing. It is appalling to realize that an attorney can be “investigated” and can be forced to retire for stating legal opinions which might not be in conformity with [politically motivated?] majority views.

Team Biden’s Never-ending Lies

The Editorial Board of the New York Post wrote on November 13:

“Before his utterly botched Aug. 30 withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, President Biden made a solemn vow: ‘If there are American citizens left, we’re going to stay until we get them all out.’ Not only did he break that promise, we’re still learning just how badly he failed: Thousands upon thousands remain stranded.

“Foreign Policy magazine reports, citing an in-the-know congressional aide, that the State Department believes as many as 14,000 United States legal permanent residents remain in Afghanistan. Plus, Deputy Secretary of State Brian McKeon revealed at a Nov. 3 hearing that State knew of 289 US citizens stuck in Afghanistan as of Nov. 2, with a further 81 ready to depart — after 140 Americans had left in the prior week. That tracks with the 450 US citizens the Pentagon reported still being in the country at October’s end. But it doesn’t track with the lowball numbers that State and the White House have claimed [repeatedly, which was under 200 and likely closer to 100]…

“And this ignores the tens of thousands of Afghan allies [Biden] promised to evacuate, whom he instead left to face the wrath of the Taliban. Biden, in short, vowed to get everyone out while having no clue how many ‘everyone’ was. Like all his other promises and pronouncements, it was just meaningless noise.”

No wonder Biden’s popularity has now reached an unprecedented low—with only a 38% approval rate (according to Breitbart, dated November 14). According to another poll which was released on November 18, Biden’s approval rate dropped to 36 %. One wonders who those 36 % are who support Biden’s totally unsuccessful policies. 

The Biden-Harris Debacle

The New York Post wrote on November 15:

“Vice President Kamala Harris feels increasingly isolated inside the White House as her approval ratings plummet…  Despite their public show of unity, Biden and his right-hand woman have a dysfunctional relationship that has reached an ‘exhausted stalemate,’ according to CNN, which based its report on interviews with nearly three dozen insiders..

“At a time when the president would usually be expected to promote his vice president as a future replacement in the White House, Biden has instead been sidelining Harris as a potential liability, the report said. For their part, Harris’ allies are reportedly frustrated with the president for dumping politically fraught issues in her lap — including, infamously, the ongoing illegal immigration crisis at the US-Mexico border…

“Insiders told CNN the West Wing has been especially bothered by Harris’ handling of the border issue. The veep’s trip to Mexico and Guatemala was overshadowed by a disastrous interview with NBC News anchor Lester Holt, in which Harris responded to Holt by noting that she hadn’t yet been to the frontier region by chuckling and joking: ‘And I haven’t been to Europe….

“CNN also reported that Harris did not attend most of the meetings Biden held with members of Congress as he attempted to secure passage of the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill…

“The CNN report is not the first time Harris has been the focus of DC whispers. At the end of June, Politico reported that her office was ‘chaotic’…

“The revelations emerged days after a poll showed Biden with an approval rating of 37.8 percent, a new low for the president. However, Harris’ approval rating was 10 points lower, at 27.8 percent.”

Of course, the White House tried to dispute CNN’s report, but did so quite unsuccessfully. Breitbart wrote on November 15:

“The White House on Monday scrambled to support Vice President Kamala Harris from a damaging CNN report about her struggles… The sudden reaction to the CNN story from the White House prompted mockery, especially after [White House Press Secretary Jen] Psaki claimed Harris helped deliver on broadband and actually succeeded handling the migration crisis.”

A more ridiculous and blatantly untrue “defense” could hardly be imagined.

The “Outrageous” Indictment of Steve Bannon

Breitbart wrote on November 15:

“The Justice Department’s (DOJ) indictment of Steve Bannon is ‘outrageous,’ Harvard Law School Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz… said…  Bannon… faces contempt charges after defying a subpoena from a House committee ostensibly investigating the events of January 6th.

“Dershowitz said, ‘It’s an outrageous indictment. I’ll tell you why it’s outrageous. You don’t indict somebody when you don’t know what the law is. Nobody knows whether or not Bannon has the right to refuse to answer if the president tells him not to.  That is a disputed question. That’s not a proper subject for criminal indictment.’ Retention of executive privilege by former presidents is a disputed legal question, Dershowitz stated. ‘… you don’t use the criminal justice system except after you’ve exhausted all the alternatives to try to find out what the law is,’ he said…

“‘If you’ve got 10 constitutional scholars in a room — not Larry Tribe, because he’s not a constitutional scholar, he’s a partisan advocate, he was a scholar, but he’s now an advocate — but if you’ve got 10 reasonable constitutional scholars in the room and you didn’t tell them whether the person was a Democrat or a Republican, it would go five-to-five whether or not a former president has the authority to instruct his former adviser not to turn material over and not to testify.’”

Of course, the whole “investigation” is deeply political.

The Kyle Rittenhouse Scandal—and How the Media Deceives You

Fox News published on November 16 an article, which was adapted from Tucker Carlson’s opening commentary on November 15, 2021:

“Just days after Rittenhouse was first arrested, that was back in August of 2020… PolitiFact… claimed that Kyle Rittenhouse had committed a crime by carrying a firearm in the state of Wisconsin. Here’s the quote. ‘It is against the law in Wisconsin for someone younger than 18 to possess a dangerous weapon. Period.’…

“The problem was it was a lie. In fact, under Wisconsin law, which apparently no one in any newsroom in America had even bothered to check, 17-year-olds are allowed to carry rifles as long as their barrels meet a minimum length requirement, and Kyle Rittenhouse’s rifle met that requirement. So no, Kyle Rittenhouse did not violate Wisconsin’s gun laws. Today, even the prosecution at the trial was forced to admit that. And so immediately, the judge dismissed the firearms charge…

“Joe Scarborough [from MSNBC said]: ‘We have a 17-year-old kid underage, said he bought an AR-15 because he thought it was cool. He drove across state, had his mother drive him across state lines. He appointed himself a militia member. He goes around and he ends up unloading, what, 60 rounds?

“’… consider how totally dishonest the summary you just heard is. Virtually every word is a lie.  Kyle Rittenhouse wasn’t a militia member. He was a lifeguard. Kyle Rittenhouse did not fire 60 rounds, not even close to that. He was not underage, as we just told you, He was not in illegal possession of his gun. But most amazing is the claim, which you’re hearing everywhere right now, that Kyle Rittenhouse is bad because he ‘drove across state lines.’… So the very same people who have told you for years that borders are by definition White supremacy now claim it’s some kind of moral offense for an American citizen to enter a contiguous state. You’re making it sound like Kyle Rittenhouse snuck into a foreign land under cover of darkness to murder people. That’s not quite what happened. If you look at the map, you can see Kyle Rittenhouse’s drive from his mother’s home in Antioch, Illinois, to Kenosha, Wisconsin. Our map says 17 miles, probably shorter than your commute to work every morning. As Kyle Rittenhouse explained on the stand last week, when mobs set fire to Kenosha, he had every reason to want to defend the city because his father lives there…

“Bet you didn’t know that, bet you hadn’t heard it on CNN. Nor have any of the people hyperventilating about crossing state lines explained why it’s OK for the BLM rioters and the Antifa creeps to come from around the country to burn Kenosha down, as many of them did…

“But if there’s one thing this trial has taught us, it’s how completely dishonest and totally misleading so many of the news accounts of what Kyle Rittenhouse did have been. We’ve known for more than a year, for example, how Rittenhouse first encountered convicted child rapist Joseph Rosenbaum, the first man he shot… Joseph Rosenbaum had just been released from a mental hospital and for some reason decided to join the riot. So first he lit a fire. Then he began to swing a chain like a weapon. When he saw Kyle Rittenhouse, he threatened to kill Kyle Rittenhouse. Then he chased Rittenhouse in a full sprint, cornered him, and then tried to snatch his gun from his hands. It was at that point that Rittenhouse fired… After shooting Rosenbaum, Rittenhouse tried to turn himself in to police, but he couldn’t because a mob howling for his death chased him down a city street.  One rioter knocked Kyle Rittenhouse to the ground, another smashed him in the head with a skateboard, and a third rioter drew a loaded pistol, which he was not allowed to have, unlike Kyle Rittenhouse, and pointed it in Kyle Rittenhouse’s face. So at no point was Kyle Rittenhouse the aggressor in the sequence of events. Every move he made was defensive…

“In this case, there is… no racial angle to the story… everybody involved in the story is the same color [white]… the only bigot on the scene appears to have been Joseph Rosenbaum [who] kept screaming the N-word… And yet it’s Kyle Rittenhouse who Joe Biden accused of being a White supremacist on the basis of no evidence whatsoever. And let’s hope at some point he gets sued for that… So if a White guy shooting another White guy is an example of racism, maybe you should tell us how. This is insane.”

We publish these remarkable excerpts to show you how the left-wing mass media, including MSNBC and CNN, is lying to you to support their racial agenda. Also, for many months the mass media intentionally suppressed the fact that all actors were white, so that many thought that Rittenhouse had shot two black men during BLM’s riots. This “reporting” is appalling.

The Climate Change Scare

The Editorial Board of the New York Post wrote on November 12:

“For the past two weeks in Glasgow, Scotland, world leaders have gathered at COP 26,  the United Nations Climate Change Conference to listen to the same message: Disaster is just around the corner.

“[But] consider this news story from 1972: ‘We have ten years to stop the catastrophe,’ said the UN’s environmental protection boss… for more than 50 years, the United Nations and the media have regularly predicted we’re on the verge of calamity… In 1982, after the catastrophe failed to materialize, the New York Times covered the second UN conference on the environment, which opened ‘amid gloom’. The piece quotes Mostafa K. Tolba, executive director of the United Nations environmental program, as saying that if things aren’t fixed by the turn of the century — the year 2000 — the world would face ‘an environmental catastrophe which will witness devastation as complete, as irreversible, as any nuclear holocaust.’’

“In 1989, a senior UN environmental official [said] that if we didn’t fix climate change by 1999, we would have ‘Global disaster, nations wiped off the face of the earth, crop failures’… In 2004, the Guardian newspaper said a ‘secret report’ from the Pentagon to President George W. Bush said climate change would ‘destroy us.’ Among the predictions: Major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas. Britain is plunged into a ‘Siberian’ climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world…

“As of 2019, the UN said ‘only 11 years left to prevent irreversible damage from climate change’… That gives us until 2030 — or 58 years after the warnings of 1972. Advocates for change believe if they just scream louder… they’ll get the world to agree to a complete upheaval of modern life and trillions in spending…”

Buenos Aires Times wrote on November 11:

“Pope Francis warned time was ‘running out’ to save the planet while expressing regret at his absence from climate talks in Glasgow, in a letter published Thursday… ‘this occasion must not be wasted, lest we have to face God’s judgement for our failure to be faithful stewards of the world he has entrusted to our care,’ wrote Francis.”

A Lesson from World War I

The Daily Mail wrote on November 12:

“Known originally as Armistice Day, Britain’s first day of remembrance was held on November 11, 1919, marking the first anniversary of the end of World War I…. But what was it all about, that first Great War? Why did it happen?  Today… understanding the causes of World War I has never been so important. As in the years before 1914, we live in an age of feverish uncertainty…

“With China challenging U.S. power in the Pacific, and Vladimir Putin and his clients rattling their sabres in Belarus and eastern Ukraine, who would bet against provocation escalating into war one of these days?… China has reasserted its claim to the U.S.-backed island of Taiwan, while the U.S. State Department has explicitly warned that Russian troops are massing on the border of Ukraine… The footage that emerged yesterday of Russian and Belarusian paratroopers taking part in unannounced military drills close to the Polish border — where thousands of migrants are gathering — is certainly little cause for comfort….

“Has the global situation ever been so unpredictable? And isn’t it possible that the resulting adventurism, hubris, fear and distrust could build into precisely the same kind of cataclysm that tore the world apart in 1914?…”

Following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria/Hungary by a young fanatic in Sarajevo, and after blaming especially Serbia for the assassination and due to treaties between certain countries (not unlike the NATO treaties in existence today), war was proclaimed.  

Is Russia to Invade Ukraine?

Time wrote on November 11:

“The U.S. is raising the alarm with European Union allies that Russia may be weighing a potential invasion of Ukraine as tensions flare between Moscow and the bloc over migrants and energy supplies… Russia says military deployments on its territory are an internal matter and it denies any aggressive intentions, while accusing the U.S. of provocation by sailing warships in the Black Sea close to its territory this week…

“Ukraine and Russia have been in conflict since Putin responded to the 2014 Ukrainian revolution that ousted the pro-Moscow president by seizing Crimea. Russia also backed separatists in eastern Ukraine in a war that has killed more than 13,000 people… Some analysts argue that Putin may believe now is the time to halt Ukraine’s closer embrace with the West before it progresses any further… the recent Russian deployment has been covert, often taking place at night and carried out by elite ground units…

“The deputy speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, Pyotr Tolstoy, declared that ‘all of Ukraine will be part of Russia and there won’t be any Ukraine’ in a debate broadcast on Russia’s NTV last month….”

Sooner than later, Russia and Ukraine will become “re-united.”

Nord Stream 2 Gas Pipeline on Hold

AFP wrote on November 16:

“Germany’s energy regulator said Tuesday it was temporarily halting the approval process for Russia’s controversial Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, saying the operating company [which is registered in Switzerland] first needs to become compliant with German law. The move is the latest setback for the 10-billion-euro project ($12 billion), which has been dogged by delays and become a geopolitical hot potato. The Baltic Sea pipeline is set to double Russian gas supplies to Germany, which the EU’s top economy says is needed to help it transition away from coal and nuclear energy. But opponents say the recently completed pipeline will increase Europe’s energy reliance on Russia.

“Crucially, the pipeline also bypasses Ukraine’s gas infrastructure, depriving the country of much-needed transit fees. [This is also true for Belarus]. The dispute comes as Europe, which receives a third of its gas from Russia, is battling surging energy prices just as the continent heads into the colder winter season. German consumers have been warned that prices for energy are at their highest levels – and will increase further… The certification procedure ‘will remain suspended until the main assets and human resources’ have been transferred from the Nord Stream 2 parent company to its German subsidiary, that will own and operate the German part of the pipeline, [the regulator] added.

“Critics have accused Moscow of intentionally limiting gas supplies to Europe and driving up prices in an effort to hasten the launch of Nord Stream 2, a claim Russia denies… Germany’s energy regulator has four months, until January 2022, to give its green light for Nord Stream 2. After that, the European Commission still needs to give its recommendation.”

Militarizing Space?

The Hill wrote on November 17:

“Russia’s missile test that struck a defunct space satellite has U.S. officials and lawmakers rattled over fears Moscow seeks to further militarize space, with calls to hold the Kremlin accountable. The satellite explosion created at least 1,500 pieces of trackable space debris and hundreds of thousands of smaller pieces, which officials say could threaten astronauts and other satellites… U.S. officials and lawmakers worry that the ground-launched missile, which hit a Soviet satellite sent up in 1982, is indicative of ramped-up Russian efforts to develop and test space-based systems and weapons.

“The Kremlin in recent years has sought to outpace the U.S. in the hotly contested space domain — often referred to as the new ‘Wild West’ — testing several anti-satellite weapons, lasers and other armaments that could prevent the effective use of American and allied satellites… While the United States and its allies have condemned the missile test, it is unclear what more they can do to respond to the move. There are no universal norms, rules or principles of responsible behaviors relating to threats by nation states to others’ space systems. Russia earlier this month opposed a United Nations resolution that would move to set up such guidelines…”

It is not enough that man has waged war on the earth… now space has become the new frontier…

Crisis between Poland and Belarus Intensifies

Express wrote on November 16:

“An ongoing geopolitical crisis between Poland and Belarus has seen the EU prepare further sanctions against Minsk which the bloc accuses of attempting to destabilise the EU by pushing migrants across the border illegally… The Polish government is working to build a wall on the border with Belarus…

“The EU Commission has offered to pay for two percent of the cost of the wall. In exchange, Poland would have to change its laws allowing for pushbacks of migrants. Warsaw would also have to allow Frontex, the EU’s border agency, to process asylum seekers on Polish territory. But the Polish government is refusing to budge to Brussels’ demands, despite the lucrative cash incentive….

“According to Polish authorities, more than 20,000 members of the police, border guard and army are reinforcing the border where migrants have gathered near the Polish town of Kuznica. An estimated 4,000 migrants are at the border and many say Belarusian authorities are not allowing them to return to Minsk.

“Poland’s ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski said his country was facing a hybrid war… Belarus, a close Russian ally, said assertions it had fuelled the border crisis were ‘absurd’… “

China Threatens Australia and USA

The Daily Mail wrote on November 14:

“A former Chinese official has threatened Australia and the US with ‘Armageddon’ if the democratic allies move to protect Taiwan in a military conflict. Victor Gao, who… now serves as a mouthpiece for the government, warned western powers to stay out of China’s quest to annex the disputed territory…

“US President Joe Biden last month vowed American troops will stand in China’s way if any attempt is made to conquer the island. On Friday, defence minister Peter Dutton made similar remarks saying it would be ‘inconceivable’ that Australian troops wouldn’t back up the US if such a scenario played out in the region…

“Senator Jim Molan, who also climbed to the rank of Major General in the Australian Army, explained there are three possible scenarios of how China could take over Taiwan… One possibility is that China’s vast navy could set up a no-sail, no-fly blockade around Taiwan, slowing choking the island’s economy to death before seizing control. Another option is a sudden attack ‘Pearl Harbour’ type attack and the third possibility is a simultaneous combination of both strategies.

“If any of these situations played out he warns Australia would be ‘monstrously vulnerable’ because we have a ‘naïve faith that American military power is infinite and it’s not’.”

Even though a war between China and the USA or Australia is not prophesied in Scripture, the assessment that America’s military power is (no more) infinite is very true.

The World Against Israel

Israel 365 wrote on November 12:

“The largest rabbinic public-policy organization in the United States called the Biden administration’s decision to abstain from a U.N. General Assembly draft resolution that targeted Israel ‘quite disappointing.’ The text… demands ‘compensation’ for descendants of Palestinian refugees who lost property when they fled their homes, as well as an unlimited ‘right of return’ for Palestinian refugees to a sovereign Israel.

“Israel would cease being the world’s only Jewish state as a result of the resolution… Israel was the sole country that opposed the text, which passed the General Assembly on Tuesday 160-1 with nine abstentions from the United States, Canada, Cameroon, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea and Uruguay.

“Rabbi Yaakov Menken, managing director of the Coalition for Jewish Values (CJV), which represents more than 1,500 traditional Jewish leaders, said: ‘This resolution employed a blatantly anti-Semitic double standard, demanding “compensation” for Arabs who left as advised by the genocidal Arab League, but no similar compensation from Arab states for the endemic ethnic cleansing of Jews and confiscation of their property, much less a “right of return” to countries unsafe for Jews to enter. The [Biden] administration abstained on an issue of hate and bigotry… This is not moral leadership. The previous administration took the morally correct approach, and we did not expect its position to be so rapidly abandoned.’

“The Trump administration unequivocally voted against similar resolutions aimed at Israel while the Obama administration traditionally abstained from the same resolution, which comes annually before the General Assembly.”

To be clear, some of the following countries are party to the UN and the General Assembly and have therefore voted for the anti-Semitic resolution: Austria, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland and the UK, including many other Western European nations.

The United States of Europe

On November 9, the European Council of the European Union published the following speech of President Charles Michel at the Berlin Conference 2021:

 “I am deeply touched to speak to you, here in Berlin… Berlin… is [Europe’s] symbolic capital… The 21st century will be the century of Europe…

“[Europe is] the largest area of democracy and freedom in the world. The most advanced area of prosperity and social development… Our single currency, the euro, has become the second most traded currency in the world…

“Unity and strength, along with our ‘strategic autonomy’, are the keys to the future of Europe…

“Our countries and regions have diverse histories, languages, traditions, political and economic backgrounds. It is precisely this diversity that makes Europe extraordinarily rich. But it also makes our quest for unity particularly challenging. So we must strive to understand each other and respect our differences…

“The European Union is the world’s leading trading power…

“We are often asked the question: will Europe one day have its own European army? The prospect exists…  One thing is certain: we will one day have to face a major cyber-crisis or cyber-attack… Recent attacks have shown that the threats are global. And so are the attackers. It is therefore in the interest of Europeans to pool our efforts and to create defensive and deterrent cyber capabilities. This should start by establishing an EU system for cyber crisis management and response to large-scale attacks…

“Our cyber security is also intrinsically linked to the security of our resources in space… [We] must strengthen the synergies between the civil, space and defence industries…

“The European project takes time. Seventy years is still a young age for such a unique organisation like ours. We have already achieved a lot. Our experience shows that sometimes we can gain time by taking our time. And in other moments, it’s good to be pragmatic and speed up….”

Europe will not end up as a peaceful power bloc. When they say, “Peace, peace,” there is no peace.

Austria’s Lockdown for the Unvaccinated!

The Associated Press wrote on November 14:

“The Austrian government ordered a nationwide lockdown for unvaccinated people starting midnight Sunday to slow the fast spread of the coronavirus in the country. The move prohibits unvaccinated individuals older than age 12 from leaving their homes except for basic activities such as working, grocery shopping, going for a walk — or getting vaccinated…

“The lockdown affects about 2 million people in the Alpine country of 8.9 million people… It doesn’t apply to children under the age of 12 because they cannot yet officially get vaccinated… police have been asked to check people outside to make sure they are vaccinated. [Chancellor Alexander] Schallenberg [added] that additional officers would go on patrol to control the lockdown. Unvaccinated people can be fined up to 1,450 euros ($1,660) if they do not adhere to the restrictions…

“Schallenberg also called on people who have been vaccinated to get their booster shot, saying that otherwise ‘we will never get out of this vicious circle.’”

Reuters added on November 14:

“Austria is the first European country to reinstate the same restrictions on daily movements that applied during national lockdowns before vaccines were rolled out, though this time they only affect [the unvaccinated.]… The measures on Monday will extend those brought in a week ago which banned the unvaccinated from places including restaurants, hotels, theatres and ski lifts…

“Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said there will be thorough police checks and fines of up to 1,450 euros ($1,660) for breaches, and all interactions with the police will include checking people’s vaccination status. ‘As of tomorrow, every citizen, every person who lives in Austria must be aware that they can be checked by the police,’ Nehammer told the news conference… As of Monday non-essential shops… will be off-limits to the unvaccinated…”

If this does not remind us of the Gestapo in Nazi Germany and the persecution of the Jews and other minorities, nothing will. It almost appears as if Austria under Schallenberg is becoming more of an autocratic dictatorship than it had been under Sebastian Kurz. And what about Germany? Note the next article.

Duty to Get Vaccinated in Germany?

Deutsche Welle reported on November 12:

“German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the unvaccinated have a duty towards society to get inoculated… ‘You have the right to get vaccinated. But, to a certain extent, you also, as a member of society, have the duty to be vaccinated to protect yourself and to protect others,’ she said.”

Where does this incredible “revelation” come from, given the fact that vaccinations do not even protect the vaccinated in far too many cases? And if they did, what then do they have to fear from the unvaccinated?

Huge Earthquake to Come

Express wrote on November 15:

“Earthquakes happen every day… there are around 20,000 of them around the globe each year, amounting to approximately 55 quakes each day. Many of these are small and go unnoticed, mere tremors.  Others, more than a seven on the Richter scale, cause utter devastation. On average there are about 15 earthquakes every year with a magnitude of seven or more.

“The Richter scale is not a linear but logarithmic. As the numbers go up by one the magnitude of the quake increases by a factor of ten… the scale of an earthquake is related to the length of the fault on which it occurs: the longer the fault, the larger the earthquake. To produce a magnitude 10.5 earthquake, there would need to be a fault line with a length of around 80,000 km. Given that the Earth’s circumference is only about 40,000 km, this would be highly unlikely. And so an earthquake with a magnitude of 20 seems impossible.

“Yet… there is one way that such an event could take place… [It] would be due to a massive asteroid impact… Tsunamis and volcanic eruptions would be taking place, more earthquakes would likely be triggered and the whole world would be falling apart [and] destroy the planet..”

“The largest earthquake ever recorded is the 1960 Valdivia earthquake. Various studies have established that it measured somewhere between a 9.4 and 9.6 on the Moment Magnitude Scale…”

This does not mean, of course, that much larger earthquakes did not happen before which were not recorded. In Revelation 16:18, we read about a future “great earthquake, such a mighty and great earthquake as had not occurred since men were on the earth.”

Creating Humanzees?

The Sun wrote on November 12:

“… during Russia’s Soviet era Josef Stalin poured money into sensational experiments which involved injecting human sperm into female gorillas – and, even more shockingly, inseminating human women with the seed of primates. Stalin ordered renowned scientist Ilia Ivanov to create an invincible breed of Red Army soldiers… the Kremlin chief demanded these mutant warriors be ‘resilient and resistant to hunger’. He said they should be of ‘immense strength but with an underdeveloped brain’…

“Scientist Ivanov had made his name at the turn of the century by perfecting artificial insemination in horses proving that the sperm of one male stallion could impregnate up to 500 females. He then… tried to create a super-horse by crossing the animals with zebras.

“The term ‘humanzee’ was coined later in the 20th century and refers to a human-chimp crossbreed…

“In 1924, Ivanov… managed to secure support from the Pasteur Institute in Paris who let him use a research station in Guinea, West Africa, for ape-breeding research… He managed to inseminate three chimps with human sperm but none of the beasts fell pregnant. Ivanov reported that African women had been seized to be impregnated with ape sperm, but no pregnancy resulted.

“Female gorillas were set to receive human sperm as well before the experiments were shut down. Ivanov then headed back to the Soviet Union where he set up an ape nursery with 20 chimps in the subtropical republic of Abkhazia, near Georgia. When his project failed, Ivanov was arrested in 1930. He became one of millions rounded up by paranoid Stalin and died in a labour camp in 1932….”

This is just SO sick! According to some reports, Hitler also tried unsuccessfully to create “humanzees.” Especially the experiments in Russia were conducted in the name of science to “prove” the accuracy of Darwin’s ungodly evolution theory.

Divisions within the Catholic Church

Thomson/Reuters wrote on November 14:

“U.S. Roman Catholic Bishops this week are expected to revisit whether President Joe Biden’s support for abortion rights should disqualify him from receiving communion, an issue that has deepened rifts in the church since the Democrat took office…

“Biden, the first Catholic president since John F. Kennedy, has said he personally opposes abortion but supports a woman’s right to choose. He has vowed to protect abortion rights in the face of increasingly restrictive laws enacted by states; last month, his administration called on the Supreme Court to block a Texas law that bans abortions after six weeks. The issue has divided the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and pitted more conservative Catholics against those who support the president’s views. Some 55% of Catholics believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases, compared to 59% of the general population…

“The debate has sown further discord as the church struggles to retain a fractured membership. Nearly 20% of U.S. Catholics have left the church in the past two decades… as sexual abuse scandals involving predatory priests have emerged and members have increasingly disagreed on social issues.”

It is truly appalling that the majority of members of the biggest professing Christian organization believe abortion should be allowed in most cases, even though their leadership is opposed to it. What are they even doing in the Catholic Church?

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.

Exodus 32:15 reads:

“And Moses turned and went down from the mountain, and the two tablets of the Testimony were in his hand. The tablets were written on both sides; on the one side and on the other they were written.”

The two tablets of the Testimony refer to the two tablets of stone, containing the Ten Commandments, which Moses carried in his two hands (cp. Exodus 32:19; Deuteronomy 9:15). But what is meant with the statement (only found in Exodus 32:15) that the two tablets were written on both sides?

Much confusion exists regarding this statement. This confusion is somewhat related to the confusion regarding the correct numbering of the Ten Commandments.

In chapter 3 of our free booklet, “The Ten Commandments,” we say the following about the different ways in which people have been numbering the Ten Commandments:

“There is… much disagreement as to HOW to number the Ten Commandments…  It was Augustine, a Catholic bishop of Hippo in North Africa, who, in the fourth century, combined the First and the Second Commandment as ONE commandment… In order to reach the number ten, he divided the last or the TENTH Commandment into two… the reason Augustine renumbered the Ten Commandments (by counting the First and the Second Commandment as just one commandment) was a strictly ‘political’ one. It was done for the purpose of allowing the worship of images and statues as part of the worship of God. But… THAT is EXACTLY what the Second Commandment prohibits. While the First Commandment prohibits the worship of anything else BUT God, the Second Commandment prohibits the worship of statues in connection with the worship of God…

“Augustine’s renumbering of the Ten Commandments, which has been adopted today by so many professing Christians, is in DIRECT CONTRADICTION to God’s inspired Word!…”

Regarding the connection between the numbering of the Ten Commandments and the question as to which commandments were written on each of the two tablets,  Rienecker, Lexikon zur Bibel, “Gebote, Zehn,” points out on page 439:

“Nothing is said about the size of the tablets with the words which were written on both sides; however, we know from findings that 2 tablets not yet 10 cm high would have been enough to include the text. … Philo, Josephus, the Talmud, Irenäus and others were of the opinion that each tablet contained 5 commandments, later the border was placed behind the 4th commandment … Corresponding to the different numbering, the tablets for Augustine contained 3 and 7, for Calvin 4 and 6 commandments…. However, [for the Sabbath commandment], only the words of Exodus 20 [not the words of the version of Deuteronomy 5] were written on the tablets.”

The reason for Calvin’s decision to place the first four commandments on one tablet, and the last six on the other tablet, was that the first four commandments, correctly numbered, describe our relationship with God, while the last six commandments describe our relationship with our neighbor. But as we saw, this division, as far as the two tablets is concerned, came rather late (under Calvin), while originally, each tablet was thought of containing five commandments.

The question then arises as to what is meant, precisely, with the statement that the “tablets were written on both sides, on the one side and on the other.”

Friedman, Commentary on the Bible, p. 282, writes:

“Does this mean: written on both tablets? Or written on both the front and the back of each tablet? The former seems too obvious to require this mention: of course it is written on both sides; otherwise, why have two tablets? So the point is precisely that they are written on both sides of each tablet. For pictural purposes (in art and film), it is preferable to put the commandments all on the same side of each tablet, but the text suggests otherwise. And we know of numerous ancient royal inscriptions and statues that were written on both sides, front and back.”Gill’s Exposition of the Bible adds:

“… the letters were written on both their sides, on the one side and on the other were they written; some think that the engraving of the letters was such, that it went through the stones, and in a miraculous manner the letters and lines were in a regular order, and might be read on the other sides… others think that the letters were written both within and without, like Ezekiel’s book of woes; that the same that was within side was written without, that so, when held up, they might be read by those that stood before and those that stood behind; but rather so it was that the whole was written within, some of the commands on the right, and some on the left, and so the tables [sic] might be clapped together as a book is folded.”

Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary agrees with the last suggestion, saying:

“[God] wrote the ten commandments on these tables [sic], on both their sides, some on one table [sic] and some on the other, so that they were folded together like a book, to be deposited in the ark.”

However, this explanation does not seem to correspond with the plain text of Exodus 32:15, as quoted above.

Accordingly, Adam Clarke’s Commentary writes the following:

“‘The tables [sic] were written on both their sides’ — If we take this literally, it was certainly a very unusual thing; for in ancient times the two sides of the same substance were never written over. However, some [rabbis] suppose that by the ‘writing on both sides’ is meant the letters were ‘cut through’  the tables [sic], so that they might be read on both sides, though on one side they would appear reversed… We may conceive the tables [sic] of stone to have been thin slabs or a kind of slate, and the writing on the back side to have been a continuation of that on the front, the first not being sufficient to contain the whole… Or the same words were written on both sides, so that when held up, two parties might read at the same time.”

Calvin’s Commentary on the Bible seems to agree, elaborating:

“… therefore, lest men should annex anything of their own inventions, God filled both sides, so that nothing remained unwritten upon.”

Further comments can be found on the Internet, as follows:

“The question arises whether the commandments were divided between the tablets (as has generally been assumed) or whether the two tablets were identical copies of all Ten Commandments… since it was conventional to make duplicate copies of the treaty document for the suzerain and vassal respectively, and it is arguable that the sanctuary would be the appropriate place to deposit both the copy for God and that for the people.

“However, while it would make good sense to make duplicate copies and keep them in separate places for security, making duplicates and then keeping them in the same place (which is clearly what happened, if they were indeed duplicates) seems to be a rather [strange] procedure. Moreover, while it would be logical to keep God’s copy in the ark, and thus in the most holy place, keeping the people’s copy there as well would make it inaccessible to them and of little practical use. It would seem more probable that the pair of tablets kept in the ark were viewed as God’s copy of the covenant, and that one or more accessible copies were made for reference by the people and their leaders…

“The OT itself does not give any indication whether the two tablets were thought of as identical copies, or whether the material was divided between the two…”

As we can see, we cannot be sure as to what is meant with the statement in Exodus 32:15. What we do know is that God gave us Ten Commandments which He Himself wrote on two tablets of stone; and that the first four commandments regulate our worship of God, while the last six address our relationship with our neighbor.

It appears however that the two tablets did not just contain four or five commandments on their front side, while nothing was written on the back of the tablets (but so Matthew Poole’s Commentary, without explanation), as it says that the two tablets were written “on both sides, on the one side and on the other they were written.” The Authorized Version says: “…the tablets were written on both their sides; on the one side and on the other were they written.” So also the JPS Tanakh 1917 rendition. The New International Version says, “…they were inscribed on both sides, front and back.” The revised Luther Bible 2017 says: “…die waren beschrieben auf beiden Seiten, vorn und hinten waren sie beschrieben.“ [“…they were written on both sides, they were written on the front and back.”] So the Neue Lutherbibel 2009; the Schlachter Bibel; the Elberfelder Bibel; the Zürcher Bibel; and the Menge Bibel.

Beyond this, insofar as the precise way is concerned in which the Ten Commandments appeared on the two tablets of stone, we are left to a large extent with assumptions, imaginations and speculations.

Lead Writer: Norbert Link

compiled by Dave Harris

“Sterbehilfe – ist sie bei Gott erlaubt?”, the sermonette presented last Sabbath in German by Jens Herrmann, is now posted. Title in English: “Euthanasia – Is It Permitted by God?”

“Stepping Into The Ring,” the sermonette presented last Sabbath by Kalon Mitchell, is now posted. Here is a summary:

As Christians we have to fight. We have to choose with what attitude we are going to face the never ending battles. It is never easy to spend time in the ring, but it is absolutely essential in our growth.

“The Two Trees in the Garden of Eden,” the sermon presented last Sabbath by Norbert Link, is now posted. Here is a summary:

God placed Adam and Eve in a beautiful garden (Paradise) which had two special trees—the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. While the LORD (Jesus Christ) told them that they could eat freely of the Tree of Life, He ordered them not to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Why? When they disobeyed, they hid from God. Why? Because of their sin, God did not allow them any longer to eat from the Tree of Life. Why? What did these trees stand for? Are the principles, symbolized by those two trees, still applicable to us today? What kind of a world would we have today if Adam and Eve had eaten from the Tree of Life? Why is there a Tree of Life in heaven? And what do we know about the existence of Paradise in heaven long before the creation of man?