On August 3, 2013,  Norbert Link will give the sermon, titled, “Just Called Or Also Chosen?”

The services can be heard at www.cognetservices.org (12:30 pm Pacific Time; 1:30 pm Mountain Time; 2:30 pm Central Time; 3:30 pm Eastern Time). Just click on Connect to Live Stream.

On the 7th July 2005 (often referred to as 7/7 in the UK) there were a series of co-ordinated suicide attacks in London which targeted civilians using the public transport system during the morning rush hour.   Four Islamist terrorists detonated bombs aboard London Underground trains across the city and, later, a fourth on a double-decker bus in Tavistock Square.   The outcome was that fifty-two civilians and the four bombers were killed in the attacks, and over 700 more were injured.   It was a horrendous day.

On the 7th July 2013  the news was completely different and the British nation rejoiced in an event, not mourned as they had eight years before.    Andy Murray, the British tennis player became the first “Brit” to win the Wimbledon singles championship since Fred Perry in 1936.  Now you may not be interested in tennis in particular, or sport in general, but a huge television audience were glued to their screens in addition to those at the event and there were some very interesting principles at work.

 (Andy Murray) is a 26 year old Scot from Dunblane, a small, affluent cathedral town with a population of less than 8,000 people, and he was just eight when a killer stormed into his school to shoot dead 17 people, mostly children, before turning a gun on himself – and so he is no stranger to atrocity.

Mr. Herbert Armstrong produced a booklet some years ago entitled “The Seven Laws of Success” and Andy Murray used six of these to produce his stunning triumph.   The Wimbledon authorities said that on the centre court, a sun trap,  the heat approached 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) and in such heat, Andy and his Serbian opponent, the world’s number one player, Novak Djokovic, produced an epic game with both men showing skill, stamina, determination, the will to win, guts, strength, courage, precision, judgment, fitness and much more.

Mr. Armstrong listed seven laws of success with the 7th being “contact with, guidance and continuance help of God.”    Whilst it is not for me to comment on Andy’s belief or otherwise in God, perhaps that may be the one law that he didn’t use?   If he did, he would have used all the laws but he certainly used the other six.   These, as written about by Mr Armstrong were:

·having the right goal, which Andy had from a very young age

·education or preparation – he spent years preparing to win at the highest level

·good health – he and his team ensured that he ate well and stayed in peak condition

·drive – he had this in abundance and there was nothing half-hearted in what he did; otherwise he would be found out at the highest level of his sport

·resourcefulness – as Mr Armstrong wrote, “when complications, obstacles, unexpected circumstances appear to block your path, you must be equipped with resourcefulness to   solve the problem, overcome the obstacle, and continue on your course”.   In his career, Andy had to be resourceful and even in a single game it is often necessary to be resourceful and to “think outside the box” as the modern saying goes, in order to succeed

·perseverance – he persevered, having lost four finals of Grand Slam competitions but in the last year through sheer determination and perseverance he won the gold medal at the Olympics, the US Open championship and then Wimbledon.

Perhaps without even knowing it, he did what needed to be done to achieve his goals, and six of the seven laws of success were utilised in order to succeed at the highest level.

What can we, as Christians, take from this?   If someone can dedicate his life to achieving a temporal goal by using these principles, how much more is this true for those of us whom God has called to be in His Family for eternity?   Can we do any less than Andy did?   Of course not!

The loser’s parents both gave Andy’s mother a big hug, and Novak Djokovic was very sportsmanlike, giving all the credit to his opponent, and he was very gracious in defeat.   Perhaps we could also learn from such outstanding examples of excellent and heart-warming behaviour.

It was a tennis match, albeit a very high profile one and certainly one where many important principles were shown by those involved.   Just a tennis match – no, it was much more than that for those with eyes to see.

We report on the ongoing und unresolved controversy in the USA and overseas pertaining to the American NSA spying debacle and the Bradley Manning conviction. While the US government is attempting to re-write history or belittle serious scandals as “phony,” further startling events were revealed regarding the “largest offshore oil disaster in US history.”

We continue reporting about the mysterious deaths of dolphins and bees, as well as an unexplained “hum” in America and Britain.

Focusing on Europe and the Middle East, we ask whether Europe is going to rise or fall; and speak on the deteriorating relationship between Europe and Israel; the real goal of the Palestinians; and the ongoing turmoil embroiling Egypt.

We ask whether Angela Merkel’s re-election is in jeopardy; introduce you to Prinz Franz von Bayern, Duke of Bavaria, who, according to some, is entitled to the British throne; and conclude with a series of articles on Pope Francis and the Vatican, and on Archbishop Tutu.

German President Speaks Up

The Local wrote on July 26:

“German President Joachim Gauck said on Friday he had been so deeply troubled by the NSA spying revelations that he had wondered whether it was still safe to send emails and talk openly on the phone. ‘I never thought that the fear that secure communication was no longer possible could ever arise in Germany again,’ he told the paper. But he said this was exactly what had happened in the past weeks. ‘The scandal has really troubled me,’ President Gauck told the Passauer Neue Presse regional newspaper on Friday… The state had a duty to protect citizens from the threat of terrorism, which Gauck conceded means sometimes limiting their freedom in order to keep them safe. But this must always be done with respect for the right to private communication guaranteed in Germany’s constitution, he said…

“It was up to Germany, he said, where strict data protection and privacy rules developed as a bullwark against the abuses of the Stasi and Gestapo secret services, to pass on these lessons to the rest of the world. ‘It could be that the Americans and the Germans have different perceptions of data protection. But we Germans have had to live through abuse of state power with secret services twice in our history,’ said Gauck, who himself came to prominence as an anti-communist civil rights activist in East Germany. ‘That’s why we’re particularly sensitive on this issue, and that’s something our American friends, among others, are going to have to put up with.’

“The president also subtly sent a message of support to fugitive whistleblower Edward Snowden, whose revelations over the past weeks had brought the scandal to light. ‘Whoever brings [information] to the public and acts on grounds of conscience deserves respect,’ he said. In a further rare intervention into politics, Gauck demanded Angela Merkel’s government enter into binding agreements with Germany’s allies to secure these freedoms. ‘We have to make sure that even our allies’ secret services respect the boundaries we find necessary here,’ said the president…”

Understandably, many German are concerned. The position of Governor Christie (see below) would be met with consternation, and views from Libertarians such as Rand Paul or Thomas Mullen (see below) would accurately reflect how most Germans feel.

Unconcerned… Esoteric or Reckless?

Breitbart wrote on July 26:

“Sen. Rand Paul’s office shot back at criticism from New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie over the government’s sweeping surveillance operations. Christie had said Paul’s concerns over NSA spying and the government’s use of drones was ‘esoteric’…

“‘If Governor Christie believes the constitutional rights and the privacy of all Americans is “esoteric”, he either needs a new dictionary, or he needs to talk to more Americans because a great number of them are concerned about the dramatic overreach of our government in recent years,’ Doug Stafford, Senior Advisor to Sen. Paul said in a statement provided to Breitbart News. ‘Defending America and fighting terrorism is the concern of all Americans, especially Senator Paul,’ Stafford continued. ‘But it can and must be done in keeping with our constitution and while protecting the freedoms that make America exceptional.’… 

“Christie recklessly said that those who oppose the government’s broad surveillance of all Americans should talk to widows and orphans from the 9-11 attacks. Christie’s implication is that keeping track of every cell phone call and every internet interaction by average citizens would prevent another tragedy like 9-11. Maybe it would. With the steep cost of our privacy, though, what would be the point?”

Government Security Measures Did Not Prevent One Single Terrorist Attack

On July 27, Thomas Mullen wrote the following in the Washington Times:

“Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) introduced an amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill [which did not pass] that would have defunded the NSA’s blanket collection of metadata and limited the government’s collection of records to those ‘relevant to a national security investigation.’ It terrified New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who lashed out at those who supported the bill and libertarianism in general…

“[Libertarianism] is dangerous to the bloated national security state, which tramples the liberty and dignity of every American under the pretense of protecting them from what Charles Kenny recently called the ‘vastly exaggerated’ threat of terrorism. Chris Christie shamelessly invoked the image of ‘widows and orphans’ of 9/11 in an attempt to discredit any resistance to the federal government’s complete disregard for the Bill of Rights…

“The Fourth Amendment forbids the federal government from running programs like the NSA’s. Only an amendment that revises or repeals it can change that… Let’s not forget that none of the… security measures established since 9/11 have prevented a single terrorist attack… Flight 93 on 9/11, the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber were all foiled by private citizens, the latter two after the perpetrator walked right past the government’s garish security apparatus.

“The truth is that no security measures will ever be able to make Americans 100% safe from harm. There is absolutely nothing the U.S. government could do right now to prevent Russia or China from launching a nuclear attack on the United States… the government can’t stop the next terrorist attack any more than it has stopped any previously. What it can do is continue to erode American liberty. This country is already unrecognizable as the same one that ratified the Bill of Rights…”

How Our Willingly Ignorant Mainstream Media Lost

The Guardian wrote on July 27

“Edward Snowden is not the story. The story is what he has revealed about the hidden wiring of our networked world. This insight seems to have escaped most of the world’s mainstream media, for reasons that escape me… The obvious explanations are: incorrigible ignorance; the imperative to personalise stories; or gullibility in swallowing US government spin, which brands Snowden as a spy rather than a whistleblower… Without him, we would not know how the National Security Agency (NSA) had been able to access the emails, Facebook accounts and videos of citizens across the world; or how it had secretly acquired the phone records of millions of Americans; or how, through a secret court, it has been able to bend nine US internet companies to its demands for access to their users’ data.

“Similarly, without Snowden, we would not be debating whether the US government should have turned surveillance into a huge, privatised business, offering data-mining contracts to private contractors such as Booz Allen Hamilton and, in the process, high-level security clearance to thousands of people who shouldn’t have it. Nor would there be – finally – a serious debate between Europe (excluding the UK, which in these matters is just an overseas franchise of the US) and the United States about where the proper balance between freedom and security lies…

“It was always a possibility that the system would eventually be Balkanised, ie divided into a number of geographical or jurisdiction-determined subnets as societies such as China, Russia, Iran and other Islamic states decided that they needed to control how their citizens communicated. Now, Balkanisation is a certainty… no US-based internet company can be trusted to protect our privacy or data…”

US influence in the world is bound to diminish in just about every aspect of human life…

Senators Accuse NSA and Obama Administration of Breaking the Law

The Huffington Post wrote on July 31:

“The National Security Agency’s massive collection of all Americans’ phone records breaks laws without making the country safer, two members of the Senate Intelligence Committee argued Tuesday night, saying the practices must be reformed. Taking to the Senate floor, Sens. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) called on the White House to act on its own to rein in the programs. The senators criticized the administration’s intelligence leaders for ‘misleading’ the public on the controversial NSA programs and accused the administration of breaking the law.”

The Manning Conviction—a Dangerous Precedent

Der Spiegel Online reported on July 30:

“The first and most serious charge against Manning was that of aiding the enemy. In theory, the death penalty can be applied in such convictions, but the government only demanded life imprisonment for Manning, without the possibility of parole. Just life imprisonment… In the end… Manning [was convicted] on a total of 20 out of 22 charges. Guilty of espionage, guilty of theft, guilty of computer fraud…

“Responding to the conviction, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said, ‘This is the first ever espionage conviction against a whistleblower. It is a dangerous precedent and an example of national security extremism. It is a short sighted judgment that cannot be tolerated and must be reversed. It can never be that conveying true information to the public is “espionage”’…

“The messages the judge in this trial of the largest betrayal of secrets in American history is seeking to send are already clear though. The first is that no mercy will be shown for whistleblowers. The United States is pursuing and treating whistleblowers as traitors… The second is that [the judge] stopped short of creating a precedent for the erosion of press freedom in the US.  If the court had convicted Manning on charges of aiding the enemy, it would have equated publishing stories about the documents in the media with aiding the enemy…

“Still, the fact that Manning wasn’t convicted of aiding the enemy in no way diminishes the massive pressure that US President Barack Obama has applied on the media and potential future whistleblowers…”

In the past, left-liberal German magazines like Der Spiegel spoke very highly about President Obama. Such “sympathy” and “admiration” have been considerably reversed.

Newsmax and Reuters added on July 30:

“‘This is a historic verdict,’ said Elizabeth Goitein, a security specialist at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. ‘Manning is one of very few people ever charged under the Espionage Act prosecutions for leaks to the media. … Despite the lack of any evidence that he intended any harm to the United States, Manning faces decades in prison. That’s a very scary precedent,’ she added.”

Banning Exposed Obama

Deutsche Welle wrote on July 31:

“For journalist James Bamford, well known for his books on the recently heavily criticized National Security Agency, Manning’s actions did not amount to aiding the enemy. Bamford said Manning may have released many, many documents, but they were not very sensitive. Indeed, most of the documents should not have been classified as secret by the government in the first place, he said.

“Bamford told DW that in his view, Manning did a great service to the public at great personal risk. ‘The most important piece of information that I saw shows how the Obama administration, how Obama himself, lied to the American public numerous times about our attacks in Yemen…[where] the US fired cruise missiles that were loaded with cluster bombs. These cluster bombs killed many, many civilians,’ he said.

“Bamford said due to their devastating destructive force, cluster bombs are outlawed in 109 countries. ‘And when it was discovered that [the bombs] killed many women and children and destroyed a village, Obama actually denied that the US had anything to do with it,’ he added.”

“Reaffirming to the World Who We Really Are”

Michael Moore wrote the following comments in the Huffington Post, dated July 31:

“Today Bradley Manning was convicted on 20 of 22 counts, including violating the Espionage Act, releasing classified information and disobeying orders. That’s the bad news. The good news is he was found not guilty on the charge of ‘aiding the enemy.’ That’s ’cause who he was aiding was us, the American people. And we’re not the enemy. Right?…

“When you hear about how long Manning – now 25 years old – will be in prison, compare it to sentences received by other soldiers:

“Col. Thomas M. Pappas, the senior military intelligence officer at Abu Ghraib and the senior officer present the night of the murder of Iraqi prisoner Manadel al-Jamadi, received no jail time. But he was reprimanded and fined $8,000…

“Sgt. Sabrina Harman, the woman famously seen giving a thumbs-up next to al-Jamadi’s body and in another photo smiling next to naked, hooded Iraqis stacked on each other in Abu Ghraib, was sentenced to six months for maltreating detainees. Spec. Armin Cruz was sentenced to eight months for abusing Iraqis at Abu Ghraib and covering up the abuse.

“Spc. Steven Ribordy was sentenced to eight months for being accessory to the murder of four Iraqi prisoners who were ‘bound, blindfolded, shot and dumped in a canal’ in Baghdad in 2007. Spc. Belmor Ramos was sentenced to seven months for conspiracy to commit murder in the same case…

“Marine Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich received no jail time for negligent dereliction in the massacre of 24 unarmed men, women and children in 2005 in the Iraqi town of Haditha. Seven other members of his battalion were charged but none were punished in any way.

“Marine Lance Cpl. Jerry Shumate and Lance Cpl. Tyler Jackson were both sentenced to 21 months for the aggravated assault of Hashim Ibrahim Awad, 52, a father of 11 and grandfather of four, in Al Hamdania in 2006. Awad died after being shot during the assault…

“No soldiers received any punishment for the killing of five Iraqi children, four women and two men in one Ishaqi home in 2006. Among the U.S. diplomatic cables leaked by Bradley Manning was email from a UN official stating that U.S. soldiers had ‘executed all of them.’ When Wikileaks published the cable, the uproar in Iraq was so big that the Nouri al-Maliki government couldn’t grant any remaining U.S. troops immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts, thus forcing the Obama administration to abandon its plans to keep several thousand U.S. soldiers in Iraq permanently. All U.S. troops were removed at the end of 2011.

“My guess is Bradley Manning will spend more time in jail than all of the other soldiers in all of these cases put together. And thus, instead of redeeming ourselves and asking forgiveness for the crimes that Spc. Manning exposed, we will reaffirm to the world who we really are.”

The Bradley Manning conviction and sentencing will further decrease the world’s respect for America.

Communist Ho Chi Minh Inspired by US Constitution and Thomas Jefferson?

Canada Free Press wrote on July 26:

“Talking to reporters as he stood beside Vietnamese President Truong Tan Sang yesterday, Obama [said], ‘we discussed the fact that Ho Chi Minh was actually inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson.’… Truth is Ho Chi Minh was about as inspired by the U.S. Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and the words of Thomas Jefferson as Obama is…  Obama has about as much credibility in white washing Ho Chi Minh as he has in trying to portray Benghazi, Fast and Furious, the IRS and NSA as ‘phony’ scandals…

“Following Ho Chi Minh’s death in 1969, over a million Viet Nam people, many of whose relatives were put to death as dissidents by the brutal dictator fled to North America and elsewhere becoming forever known as ‘The Boat People’.  The number of people who died at sea trying to find freedom is recorded somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000…

“Chris Stirewalt, of Fox News writes, ‘But his [Obama’s] connection between the American founders and Ho shows either a massive lack of historical knowledge on the part of the president or a remarkable degree of moral flexibility.’”

With ridiculous comments like these, America is becoming more and more a laughing stock in the world.

Aftermath of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig Disaster

AFP wrote on July 26:

“Halliburton Energy Services has admitted destroying evidence relating to the devastating 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico… Halliburton — which constructed the cement casing of the well at the center of the disaster — had carried out its own internal investigations following the accident in April 2010. However, results of computer simulations carried out in May and June 2010 were ordered to be destroyed and were unable to be recovered, the Justice Department said.

“In addition to a guilty plea for destruction of evidence, Halliburton has agreed to pay the maximum statutory fine and also made a separate and voluntary $55 million payment to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. Eleven people died and some 4.9 million barrels of oil were sent gushing into the Gulf over a three-month period after the explosion at the offshore oil rig. It was the largest offshore oil disaster in US history, wreaking havoc on the region’s environment and economy.”

Man-made catastrophes and subsequent “denials” or “justifications” will continue and increase.

Mysterious Death of Dolphins

On July 24, wired.com reported the following:

“At least 54 bottlenose dolphins have died mysteriously in Florida’s Indian River Lagoon since January… In a normal year, that number would be closer to 22. On July 24, NOAA declared the mass die-off an ‘Unusual Mortality Event’… It’s the lagoon’s worst dolphin die-off on record, and the cause is mysterious… It’s the second time this year that NOAA has declared an Unusual Mortality Event for marine mammals in the lagoon, a 156-mile-long estuary that runs along Florida’s Atlantic coast. In April, a mass manatee die-off received the same designation. This is the third time a UME has been declared for dolphins in the lagoon. What caused the others, in 2001 and 2008, is still a mystery…”

The Bible prophesied the demise of many animals in these last days.

Man Kills Bees through “Harmless” Pesticides and Fungicides

On July 24, Quartz wrote the following:

“… the mysterious mass die-off of honey bees that pollinate $30 billion worth of crops in the US has so decimated America’s apis mellifera population that one bad winter could leave fields fallow. Now, a new study has pinpointed some of the probable causes of bee deaths and the rather scary results show that averting beemageddon will be much more difficult than previously thought.

“Scientists had struggled to find the trigger for so-called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) that has wiped out an estimated 10 million beehives, worth $2 billion, over the past six years. Suspects have included pesticides, disease-bearing parasites and poor nutrition. But in a first-of-its-kind study… scientists at the University of Maryland and the US Department of Agriculture have identified a witch’s brew of pesticides and fungicides contaminating pollen that bees collect to feed their hives. The findings break new ground on why large numbers of bees are dying though they do not identify the specific cause of CCD, where an entire beehive dies at once.

“… bees that ate pollen contaminated with fungicides were three times as likely to be infected by the parasite. Widely used, fungicides had been thought to be harmless for bees as they’re designed to kill fungus, not insects, on crops like apples… Bee populations are so low in the US that it now takes 60% of the country’s surviving colonies just to pollinate one California crop, almonds. And that’s not just a west coast problem—California supplies 80% of the world’s almonds, a market worth $4 billion.

“In recent years, a class of chemicals called neonicotinoids has been linked to bee deaths and in April regulators banned the use of the pesticide for two years in Europe where bee populations have also plummeted. But… the new study shows that the interaction of multiple pesticides is affecting bee health… the solution does not lie in just banning one class of product…

“The study found another complication in efforts to save the bees: US honey bees, which are descendants of European bees, do not bring home pollen from native North American crops but collect bee chow from nearby weeds and wildflowers. That pollen, however, was also contaminated with pesticides even though those plants were not the target of spraying…”

Man’s ignorant and dangerous actions are causing the death of many animals and human beings.

Mysterious “Hum” in New Mexico, England and Scotland

Life Science wrote on July 26:

“It creeps in slowly in the dark of night, and once inside, it almost never goes away. It’s known as the Hum, a steady, droning sound that’s heard in places as disparate as Taos, N.M.; Bristol, England; and Largs, Scotland. But what causes the Hum, and why it only affects a small percentage of the population in certain areas, [remains] a mystery, despite a number of scientific investigations…

“Reports started trickling in during the 1950s from people who had never heard anything unusual before; suddenly, they were bedeviled by an annoying, low-frequency humming, throbbing or rumbling sound. The cases seem to have several factors in common: Generally, the Hum is only heard indoors, and it’s louder at night than during the day. It’s also more common in rural or suburban environments…”

“Bedevilled” is an interesting choice of words.

Europe’s Rise or Fall?

On July 26, Der Spiegel Online published an interview with British-American historian Walter Laqueur (92). Even though Laqueur incorrectly predicts the decline of Europe, he also makes some interesting, albeit contradictory comments with which we would agree. The following are some [correct] excerpts from the interview:

“Europe will likely remain influential in the future as an economic power and trading partner. But the continent still isn’t standing on its own feet politically and militarily today… the conflicts have not decreased… Keeping a low profile is easier for most Europeans than coming up with the political will to become a major political power once again… The Europeans haven’t quite understood that trying to stay out of the fray offers no protection against the consequences of global policy… I don’t think that the economic, political and military problems Europe faces are insurmountable by any means… Thanks to the short-sighted, arrogant and aggressive US foreign policy of those years, a European anti-Americanism flared up, which has remained latent on both the left and the right… 

“The collapse of the monetary union is not unavoidable. In fact, if one considers the consequential costs, I think it’s somewhat unlikely in the foreseeable future. Perhaps a rapid decline would be even better, because it would raise awareness of the need for a general overhaul of the European structure. Crises bring about solidarity, as Jean Monnet, one of Europe’s founding fathers, knew all too well… Europeans have lost the sense of clear and present danger. Once again, European leaders believe that they are out of the woods. Well, miracles happen… The rise and fall of empires are constants in history. Historians have been searching for explanations since antiquity…”

For a short time and in the not-too-distant future, Europeans will play a leading role in the entire world… and most people will be surprised when that happens. But Europe’s lead will have devastating consequences. For more information, please read our free booklet, “Europe in Prophecy.”

Israel vs. Europe

Reuters reported on July 26:

“Israel has blocked the European Union from aiding tens of thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank, in retaliation for an EU ban on financial assistance to Israeli organizations in the occupied territories. The EU imposed its restrictions last week, citing its frustration over the continued expansion of Jewish settlements in territory captured by Israeli forces in the 1967 Middle East War. The new guidelines render Israeli entities operating there ineligible for EU grants, prizes or loans, beginning next year…

“Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon had decided to suspend contacts with the EU in the West Bank… [He] has ‘frozen projects, canceled meetings, curtailed coordination and permits for Europe’s operations’ for Palestinians living in what is known as Area C, a West Bank area fully administered by Israel…  A Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that due to the Israeli measures, several European humanitarian aid staff had failed to receive permits to enter the Palestinian-ruled Gaza Strip.”

The relationship between Europe and Israel will deteriorate more and more.

Palestinian Vision of “Final Solution”

JTA wrote on July 30:

“Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas told Egyptian journalists that no Israelis, civilians or soldiers, will remain in a future Palestinian state. Reuters reported that Abbas made the statements on Monday night in Cairo, where he was meeting with interim Egyptian President Adli Mansour. ‘In a final solution, we would not see the presence of a single Israeli — civilian or soldier — on our lands,’ Abbas said… The statements flew in the face of efforts by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to keep the terms of the peace talks under wraps, according to Reuters.

“Abbas insisted that ‘East Jerusalem is the capital of the state of Palestine’… Abbas also said that he would not approve of a settlement-building freeze in which Israel halted building in isolated settlements but continued to build in settlements in the blocs that likely will remain part of Israel under a peace agreement.”

These extreme and radical views only show that the idea that the USA could broker a “peace treaty” is just totally unrealistic.

Violence in Egypt

Reuters reported on July 27:

“Egyptian security forces shot dead dozens of supporters of ousted Islamist President Mohamed Mursi on Saturday, witnesses said, days after the army chief called for a popular mandate to wipe out ‘violence and terrorism’… The bloodshed, near the military parade ground where President Anwar Sadat was assassinated in 1981, has rocked a country already struggling with the transition to democracy two years after Hosni Mubarak was swept from power…

“Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians had poured onto the streets on Friday in response to a call by army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi for nationwide demonstrations to give him backing to confront the weeks-long wave of violence. His appeal was seen as a challenge to the Brotherhood, which organized its own rallies on Friday calling for the return of Mursi…

“European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said she ‘deeply deplores’ Saturday’s deaths and urged all sides to halt the violence. There was no immediate comment from the United States, which provides Egypt with some $1.5 billion dollars of aid a year, mainly military hardware. Washington has delayed delivery of four F-16 fighters because of the turmoil. However, officials have indicated they do not intend to cut off aid to a country…”

The Times of Israel wrote on July 27:

“It’s not a civil war yet, but Friday night’s events underline the level of strife in Egypt between the Muslim Brotherhood’s supporters and the military. For now, the army still enjoys the backing of many secular groups… But as the body count rises, that impressive support will slowly, inevitably erode… The Egyptian divide is bitter…

“…it is apparent that Defense Minister Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi cares little about the honor of Egypt’s citizens. Unlike former president Hosni Mubarak, who could not order the army to fire on protesters, el-Sissi not only can, but is more than willing to do so. The order came down and, on Friday, we could see a change in the army’s attitude towards the protesters. The government, the new president Adly Mansour, everyone, has decided to take off the gloves and put an end to the protests in favor of ousted president Mohammed Morsi…

“The Islamist movement is determined to flood the streets of Egypt with its people, and gradually turn all those who supported the second revolution against the military… The battle is far from over. ‘Iron Man’ el-Sissi is out to crush the Muslim Brotherhood, while the Islamists are convinced that they can topple the general. If Egypt doesn’t get back on track — economically and administratively — in the next few weeks, even the army’s strong-handed policy toward the Brotherhood will not produce stability. Tensions will rise further, and the danger of full-fledged civil war will draw ever closer.”

Egypt’s future is prophesied in Scripture. Please read our free booklet, “Middle Eastern and African Nations in Bible Prophecy.”

Senate Supports Ongoing Further Assistance to Egypt

The Washington Times wrote on July 31:

“The Senate on Wednesday… rejected Sen. Rand Paul’s push to temporarily halt foreign assistance to Egypt and his argument that the nation no longer qualifies for aid in the wake of the military takeover earlier this month. Mr. Paul, a likely 2016 presidential contender, said President Obama and his congressional allies are openly flouting the law by continuing to send money to the Middle Eastern power and said those taxpayer funds should be redirected to the nation’s crumbling infrastructure until Egypt holds new elections. ‘When there is a military coup, the aid must end,’ the Kentucky Republican said, citing the Foreign Assistance Act…

“A bipartisan group of lawmakers… defended the Obama administration’s decision to keep sending roughly $1.5 billion in annual assistance to Egypt after the July 3 military ouster of President Mohamed Morsi, the leader of the Muslim brotherhood who had been democratically elected in June 2012.”

This was to be expected. Politics reigns, while the law is being ignored, re-interpreted or circumvented.

Merkel’s Re-Election in Jeopardy?

Deutsche Welle wrote on July 31:

“The failed Euro Hawk drone project has cost German taxpayers tons of money, and the Defense Ministry sympathy – but the biggest loser could be Chancellor Merkel, who may lose re-election…

“The opposition has been calling for Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere to step down for a long time… [He] admitted that [the government] had invested more than half a million euros into the project, only to realize after 10 years of research and development that there are ‘problems that can’t be solved.’ … The political responsibility for this surely lies with the minister himself – who should therefore step down together with his close aides.

“A few gently critical words about his poor handling of the situation and his crisis management are not enough for a scandal of such scope… Moreover, stepping down would also do Angela Merkel a favor. The general election is looming on September 22 and Merkel hopes to win her third term in office. Thomas de Maiziere clinging to his job could easily turn into a dangerous risk for that ambition.”

Duke of Bavaria Entitled to British Throne?

The Local wrote on July 25:

“All eyes were on the British royals this week, while in Bavaria a direct descendant of Stuart King Charles I turned 80 in relative privacy. Yet our German of the week Franz Herzog von Bayern’s blood runs as blue as little Prince George’s… Franz is the elder brother of Prince Max of Bavaria and inherited the title of Duke as head of the Wittelsbach family– once rulers of the Kingdom of Bavaria – when his father died in 1996.

“What is still hotly-contested in some quarters of Britain is whether the Duke’s direct blood line connection to 17th-century Stuart monarch King James II of England means he has a legitimate claim to the British throne. Franz is James II’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson. The Duke’s branch of the royal family lost the throne after the Catholic James II was deposed by William of Orange in England’s Glorious Revolution. James’s elder son, also a Catholic, was passed over for the succession in favour of his daughters, Mary II and Queen Anne…

“The… aristocrat was born in Munich in 1933 to Duke Albrecht of Bavaria and his wife, the Croatian Countess Maria Draskovich, as Franz Bonaventura Adalbert Maria Prinz von Bayern. His parents disapproved of the Nazi regime and left Germany in 1939 for the relative safety of Hungary. They lived in Budapest until Hitler invaded in 1944 and had the family arrested – along with 11-year-old Franz, forcing them to spend the rest of the war in concentration camps – until they were liberated by US troops in 1945…

“The aristocrat never married and lives alone in the large Nymphenburg palace. Around 2,500 of Bavaria’s richest, most powerful and influential guests [were] on hand to pay tribute to the Duke at his birthday party at Schleißheim palace outside Munich on Monday, an event surpassed only in pomp by the royal birth taking place in Britain.”

Pope at War with Vatican

Newsmax reported on July 29:

“The pope’s recent visit to Rio de Janeiro underscores how wildly popular he is among the faithful. But an inside Vatican source says Francis will face a continuation of his war with the Holy See’s curia — and he has ambitious plans to expose corruption and dramatically change the Church’s image.”

Pope Won’t Judge Homosexuals…

Der Spiegel Online wrote on July 30:

“‘If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?’ Pope Francis asked during an unexpectedly candid in-flight news conference on Monday. ‘We shouldn’t marginalize people for this. They must be integrated into society.’ ‘Pope Francis used a different and more benign tone than his German predecessor when he was talking about homosexual people,’ said Boris Dittrich, advocacy director of the LGBT program at Human Rights Watch. ‘I read his view … as a call to Roman Catholic clergy in many countries to speak up and protest when gay men or lesbian women are arrested or discriminated against by the authorities in their countries.’…

“The German wing of the international Catholic reform movement ‘We are Church’ also praised the pope’s remarks. ‘This is a major coup for gay priests who have had to cover up their sexual orientation,’ said spokesman Christian Weisner…

“By contrast, Francis’ predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, signed a document in 2005 that said men who had deep-rooted homosexual tendencies should not be priests. Francis distanced himself from this position in his first news conference as pope, when he said that gay clergymen should be forgiven and their sins forgotten. But Francis still stopped short of rejecting the Catholic Church’s principle that homosexual acts are a sin. ‘Basically, what he said was obvious,’ wrote Germany’s center-left daily Süddeutsche Zeitung. ‘In his press conference, the pope skillfully avoided the truly thorny issue of whether gays and lesbians can only be equal before God (as others) if they are celibate.’”

Pope Not as Liberal as He May Seem

Der Spiegel Online wrote on July 31:

“Pope Francis has sparked enthusiasm with his call for greater tolerance toward gays. But it’s too soon to celebrate, says [homosexual Catholic] theologian David Berger… ‘It is incredibly naïve to liken it to a dam bursting. What are gays or lesbians to think when someone tells them: I don’t want you to be discriminated against, but you are not allowed to live out your “tendency” anyway? According to doctrine, the homosexual act is still a sin…

“‘The notion that gays shouldn’t be discriminated against is already in the catechism… Take Francis’ categoric[al] rejection of the ordination of women. “This door is closed,” he said. This shows that when it comes to liberality, the pope is committed to the old gender roles… It is common knowledge in the Catholic Church that supervisors put pressure on gay priests in order to exploit them for their own interests…

“‘While John Paul II and Benedict XVI could be gauged, that’s not possible with Francis. His theology is rather a kind of folk Catholicism of Latin American origin. Much of what is currently fascinating believers is really the Catholic version of the rites of popular evangelical sects. For example, when he asks people at his discretion to bless him before he does it himself, he is acting out a blessing rite of the Pentecostals…

“‘Benedict XVI spoke as he would have written. Almost everything he said was well thought out in every detail. Francis’s statements often contradict each other. So he first said that atheists are devils, only to say shortly later that they are just as good as Christians. Then it was up to his spokesman to correct the statements and put them into perspective accordingly. From an intellectual perspective, the election of Francis is a fiasco for the Catholic Church. But the general public is presumably already won over by his charisma.’”

Archbishop Tutu Rejects God of the Bible

The Daily Mail wrote on July 27:

“The South African Nobel peace laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu says he will never worship a ‘homophobic God’ and would rather go to hell than find himself in a ‘homophobic heaven’. The retired archbishop said the fight against homophobia in South Africa was similar to the campaign waged against racial apartheid in South Africa.”

God created marriage as a union between a man and a woman. This would exclude, for instance, marriage relationships between two men, or two women; nor would it allow polygamy.

In the booklet,  “‘In the Beginning…’ Answers to Questions from Genesis,” by the Worldwide Church of God, copyright 1980, the following is stated about polygamy:

“God never approved or sanctioned the practice of polygamy. He did permit it in the law of Moses–just as He allowed divorce because of the hardness of man’s heart (Matt. 19:8). Nevertheless, according to the Bible, the ideal marital state is one husband and one wife who become one flesh in marriage for life. God gave Adam one wife (Gen. 2:24). Jesus also said that from the beginning it was God’s will that a man leave his parents and cleave to his wife–not wives–and the two of them would become one flesh (Matt. 19:4-9). In the New Testament, a minister or a spiritual leader is to set the right example and have only one wife (I Tim. 3:2). In addition to the scriptural admonition, polygamy is against the laws of the United States and most other countries. Romans 13:1-7 states that Christians are to obey the laws of the land.”

You should also compare our Q&A on polygamy.  

The outdated concept of polygamy sometimes included concubines. As Gill’s Commentary explains in regard to Genesis 22:24, a concubine was “not an harlot, but a secondary wife, who was under the proper and lawful wife, and a sort of a head servant in the family, and chiefly kept for the procreation of children; which was not thought either unlawful or dishonourable in those times such as was Hagar in Abraham’s family.”

But the fact that God designed marriage as a union between one man and one woman does not mean that just any man-woman union is approved by God. For instance, God did not intend religiously-mixed marriages (when a “believer” marries an “unbeliever”), see our Q&A,  or interracial marriages (see our Q&A).

In addition, as we will explain, the Bible prohibits today marriages between brothers and sisters or between a man and his niece. This then poses the question, Where did Cain get his wife after he had murdered his brother Abel?

In the booklet “In the Beginning…” the following answer is given:

“Cain married one of his sisters. There simply wasn’t any other female for him to marry. In Genesis 5:4-5 we read: ‘And the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years: and he begat sons and daughters: and all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years: and he died…’ These brothers and sisters would have had to marry each other in order to obey God’s command to propagate the human race (Gen. 1:28).”

The commentary on the Torah by Richard Elliott Friedman agrees, stating that Genesis 5:4 gives us “the presumed answer to the question of where Cain’s wife came from.”

Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible elaborates:

“… he [Adam] begat sons and daughters; not only after the birth of Seth, but before, though we have no account of any, unless of Cain’s wife; but what their number was is not certain, either before or after; some say he had thirty children, besides Cain, Abel, and Seth; and others a hundred. Josephus says the number of children, according to the old tradition, was thirty three sons and twenty three daughters… the families listed in this chapter must have been large by today’s standards. Given their long life, this is not at all unusual.”

Regarding Genesis 4:17 (“And Cain knew his wife…”), Gill states:

“Who this woman was is not certain, nor whether it was his first wife or not; whether his sister, or one that descended from Adam by another of his sons, since this was about the one hundred and thirtieth year of [man’s] creation…”

We addressed this issue at length in our Q&A, “Where Did Cain’s Wife Come From?” We stated that “Cain married a female descendant of Adam–perhaps one of Adam’s daughters, or even one of Cain’s nieces.”

The booklet “In the Beginning…” continues:

“Today, there are biblical laws which forbid marriage between those who are closely related. But, it was not wrong for brothers and sisters to marry at that early time in human history. However, in Abraham’s day it was permissible to marry only one’s half-sister. Abram married his half-sister, Sarai (Gen. 20:12). Nahor married his brother Haran’s daughter (Gen. 11:29). There was then no genetic harm to the children. When men and women over the centuries continued in sin, it became genetically harmful for close blood relatives to marry (see Leviticus 18), and for the sake of future generations it is forbidden.”

In the book of Leviticus, at the time of Moses, we find clear instructions regarding prohibition of marriages between partners “near of kin” (Leviticus 18:6). In our above-mentioned Q&A on Cain’s wife, we wrote:

“Apparently, certain laws governing incest did not become established until the time of Moses. Any such requirement of God is not revealed until Leviticus 18:6-17, where God described–from that time forward–those type actions as ‘wickedness.’ Verses 9 and 11 specifically forbid marriage with one’s step-sister, or with one’s half-sister, and verse 6 forbids incest between father and daughter and between a brother and his full sister (compare The Nelson Study Bible, comments to verses 6, 9 and 11).”

The Pulpit Commentary explains regarding Leviticus 18:6-18:

“In the code before us, confirmed by that in Deuteronomy, marriage is forbidden with the following blood relations: mother (verse 7), daughter (verse 17), sister (verse 9…), granddaughter (verse 10), aunt (verses 12, 13…); and with the following relations by affinity: mother-in-law (verse 17…), daughter-in-law (verse 15…), brother’s wife (verse 16…), stepmother (verse 8…), stepdaughter and step-granddaughter (verse 17), uncle’s wife, or aunt by marriage (verse 14…)… incest is intercourse with a brother’s wife. Yet this is commanded under certain circumstances in the Book of Deuteronomy, and was practiced in patriarchal times.”

However, this law is no longer binding for us today (see our free booklet, “And Lawlessness Will Abound…”, pages 52-53).

Regarding Leviticus 18, verse 17, Gill explains:

“Thou shall not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter,…. That is, if a man marries a woman, and she has a daughter, which is the man’s daughter-in-law, after the death of his wife he may not marry this daughter…” Verse 17 continues to state that he is not to marry her son’s daughter or her daughter’s daughter either.

However, as will be explained below in regard to the prohibition against marrying two sisters, the prohibition against marrying a woman and her daughter from a prior marriage should be viewed in the light of polygamy. Even though God had allowed polygamy in Old Testament times, He made clear that a man could not marry a woman and her daughter at the same time. The Soncino commentary states that “a legal marriage with both is not possible.”

A similar prohibition is expressed in verse 18: “Nor shall you take a woman as a rival to her sister… while the other is alive.”

The Jamieson, Fausset and Brown commentary states, quoting verse 18 from the Authorized Version: “Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her”:

“The marginal construction involves an express prohibition of polygamy; and, indeed, there can be no doubt that the practice of having more wives than one is directly contrary to the divine will. It was prohibited by the original law of marriage, and no evidence of its lawfulness under the Levitical code can be discovered, although Moses—from ‘the hardness of their hearts’ [Mt 19:8; Mr 10:5]—tolerated it…”

“The second interpretation forms the ground upon which the ‘vexed question’ has been raised in our times respecting the lawfulness of marriage with a deceased wife’s sister. Whatever arguments may be used to prove the unlawfulness or inexpediency of such a matrimonial relation, the passage under consideration cannot, on a sound basis of criticism, be enlisted in the service; for the crimes with which it is here associated warrant the conclusion that it points not to marriage with a deceased wife’s sister, but with a sister in the wife’s lifetime, a practice common among the ancient Egyptians, Chaldeans, and others.”

Gill disagrees, stating:

“… some have concluded… that a man might marry his wife’s sister after her death, but not while she was living; but the phrase, ‘in her lifetime’, is not to be joined to the phrase ‘thou shall not take a wife’; but to the phrases more near, ‘to vex her in her lifetime’, or as long as she lived… for that a wife’s sister may be married to her husband, even after her death, cannot be lawful…”

This concept, as expressed by Gill, does not seem to be convincing, especially since verse 18 says: “Nor shall you take a woman AS A RIVAL to her sister… while the other is ALIVE.” A marriage is binding as long as the partners are alive, and it ends, when one of the two partner dies. At that time, the surviving sister could not be looked upon as a rival of her deceased sister; therefore, God expressly stated that polygamy, which was not God’s Will to begin with, should most certainly not be extended to two women who were sisters. It is true that Jacob, being deceived by his uncle, was married to two sisters, Leah and Rachel, but many serious problems were the consequence.

In considering the prohibitions of certain marriages, as listed in Scripture, we find that the Bible nowhere specifically prohibits marriages between cousins. In the past, marriages between cousins were not that unusual. Some have even concluded that Mary and Joseph were first cousins, compare http://www.abecedarian.org/Pages/Lineage.htm . Today, it is considered illegal in many countries. For instance, in the US, half the states declare it to be illegal, and as Christians, if we are living in a country or a state which declares marriages between cousins to be illegal, we are to obey the law of the land.

Some claim that a prohibition of marriages between cousins is included in the Bible, as the list in Leviticus 18 only contains some examples, without mentioning every single relationship by name. Others disagree, stating that God is very specific in His prohibitions, which are not only addressing blood relationships, and that the fact that marriages between cousins are not prohibited means that they are permitted.

The Associated Press concludes in an article, dated April 20, 2002, that marriages between cousins are not biblically prohibited, stating:

“Must first cousins be forbidden to marry? In the Bible, and in many parts of the world, the answer is no. But the answer is yes in much of church law and in half the 50 United States. This issue became news when the April issue of the Journal of Genetic Counseling said risks have been exaggerated for serious birth defects, retardation or genetic diseases among children of first-cousin marriages.

“Generally, an unrelated couple has a 3 percent to 4 percent risk of having a child with such problems, while marriages of close cousins add 1.7 percent to 2.8 percent to the risk. Genetic problems are considerably higher with the forms of close inbreeding that the Bible forbids and secular culture abhors as incest.

“First cousins cannot marry under the age-old laws of the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches, covering much of world Christendom. But in the Reformation, the Church of England followed Protestantism’s ‘sola scripture’ (Scripture alone) principle and returned to biblical law, which also binds traditional Jews. Under Queen Elizabeth I, Anglicanism decreed that ‘no prohibition, God’s law except, shall trouble or impeach any marriage outside Levitical law’… This ‘Levitical law’ is found in Leviticus 18:6-18, supplemented by Leviticus 20:17-21 and Deuteronomy 27:20-23. Among the forbidden couples are parent-child, sister-brother, grandparent-grandchild, uncle-niece, aunt-nephew, and between half-siblings and certain close in-laws…

“The idea of moving beyond the Bible to ban first-cousin marriages… was promulgated as Catholic canon law by a church council in 1215. The Orthodox Church’s prohibition dates from a council in 692.”

We are also informed that Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin married their first cousins, but that cousin marriage was banned by the Roman Catholic Church under Pope Gregory I in an attempt to prevent the accumulation of wealth and power within families.

To summarize, the Bible is very specific regarding prohibitions of certain marriages. When in doubt about entering a particular marriage relationship, which might be perceived as being against scriptural injunctions, counsel with one of God’s true minister would be highly recommended.

Lead Writer: Norbert Link

Norbert and Johanna Link, along with Mrs. Margaret Adair, will be visiting the Oregon brethren for Sabbath services on August 3, 2013.

Our newest booklet, “The Ten European Revivals Of The Ancient Roman Empire,” has now been sent to the printer. We anticipate distribution of this publication in September–at the Feast of Tabernacles and then to those on our mailing list.

We are also in the process of printing the German booklet on human suffering (“Human Suffering, Why…and How Much Longer?”). This will be distributed at the German Feast site and mailed to others following the Feast of Tabernacles.

“What Man Should (Not) Do,” is the title of last week’s sermon presented by Norbert Link, and it is now posted. Here is a summary:

The Bible gives us many examples as to how men should and should not act towards their present or future wives. What would you do if you were to find out that your bride had betrayed you? How would you respond if your mate were to ask you to forsake God? How does the Song of Solomon describe the love between husband and wife? Why did God punish Ananias and Sapphira so severely? In what way did Lot, Samson and David sin? Why are we warned not to follow the beast—a man in Europe to arise very soon on the world scene?

“Where is the Throne of David?,” is the title of a new StandingWatch program presented by Evangelist Norbert Link. Here is a summary:
 
The Bible says much about David and his throne. But does the throne of David really exist today? Will Jesus occupy that very throne when He returns? If so, where is it today, and who is sitting on it?
 
On July 28th, we conducted our monthly ministerial meeting via SKYPE. Of special note was a review by Rene Messier of his recent trip to Kenya to visit brethren and others who have contacted us.

By Louise Amorelli

A few weeks back, with all the rain we had, I knew it was time to mow the lawn. It is definitely NOT one of my favorite things to do, living out here in the country, with about one-two acres, utilizing all my energies with our push behind mower. I try to synchronize darting low-overhead tree branches while making sure to remove peach tree pits lying on the ground and fallen limbs before the mower blade runs them over.  Ready for an “encounter” with ticks and flying insects of all sorts, I proceeded to outfit myself with what I believed was a well thought-out attire, along with bug spray armor. Long heavy pants, a long sleeve shirt, boots and tall socks pulled up around the bottom of my pant legs, were the garb of the day.  A large brimmed hat was my head gear.  Needless to say, I have bug phobia!

A few minutes into my mowing agenda, I was swarmed by a cluster of yellow jacket wasps! I frantically ran in every which way to get them off me! I felt them starting to sting, and so I ran into the house, trying not to let them follow me. I was quite terrified! After disrobing on the back porch and trying to calm myself down, I had four sting bites along with a pounding heart! It was my worst nightmare!  I refused to continue mowing, knowing they might still be lurking about.

After about an hour of reviewing the situation, I realized that if I did not go back out there, I would never be mowing again! I would NOT let them win the battle!  I HAD to break my fear and continue. I prayed that God would protect me, while staying away from the area where I knew they were. God answered my prayer, and I made it through.

I started to think about the spiritual and physical areas in my life, where I am fearful and need to overcome with God’s help, sometimes challenging myself. I know that fear is not of God, and I am not perfected in love if I am fearful. Of course, I need to use Godly wisdom when dealing with each situation and with individuals, always asking for His strength, guidance, protection and peace. But if I don’t stand up in faith to situations or people I fear in this world, then I will not overcome my battles. I know since God is for me, who or what can be against me?… all the while giving glory to God and growing in God’s perfect love and peace that only He can give!

On July 27th, 2013,  Norbert Link will give the sermon, titled, “What Man Should (Not) Do!”

The services can be heard at www.cognetservices.org (12:30 pm Pacific Time; 1:30 pm Mountain Time; 2:30 pm Central Time; 3:30 pm Eastern Time). Just click on Connect to Live Stream.

It is no secret to us that the god of this age, Satan the devil, has been very active, causing havoc all over the world, as he has been doing, in principle, since the beginning of mankind. It is also no secret to us that Satan has been trying everything he can to destroy God’s Church, and each and every one of us. We ought to be aware of that, stand guard and not let Satan persuade us to forsake God’s Way of Life and to follow the devil’s lead.

History has shown just how busy Satan is, especially in respect to God’s Church and at times when we prepare for the Feast of Tabernacles, which is quickly upon us, less than two months away.  We can expect increasing difficulties, as Satan is very angry, knowing that he only has a short time left until Jesus Christ returns.

There is much work ahead of us as we prepare for the upcoming Feast, and we must be aware of our weaknesses that can cause us to lose our focus. We must not allow them to rule over us; rather, we must conquer them.  One such weakness is laziness, which can be very addictive if we are not careful.  If we let it get out of hand, it can wind us down more and more until we don’t have the desire to do anything anymore, or at least to the point when we have to force ourselves somehow to get back on track. We cannot let that happen as we ALL have a job to do. As true Christians, we are a part of God’s Church, which is a spiritual organism, and if we neglect or refuse to fulfill our individual responsibilities within the Church, or if we think we are not really a part of it or that there is no need for us to be a part of it, then we are in trouble, as we are probably not going to survive, especially in light of what is prophesied for the near future. 

Satan wants us to be lazy and unfruitful, because he knows that if we give in to laziness, we will lose out. We read in Proverbs 13:4 that “the soul of the lazy man desires and has nothing, but the soul of the diligent shall be made rich.”  We also read in Proverbs 10:4: “He who has a slack hand becomes poor, But the hand of the diligent makes rich.” If we are diligent, zealous and “on fire,” we will be productive. Laziness bears no fruit, and it could even be considered a sin. Now, if we think that laziness by itself is not a sin, it can definitely lead to sin.

How serious is it then if we start to lack in our efforts? In Matthew 25:14-30, we read about the parable of the talents, referring to the Kingdom of God, and how easy it can be to miss out.  It requires no effort to become lazy;  it is so easy not to work hard; but this is dangerous, and we shouldn’t let it get that far.  The lazy servant was also wicked (verse 26) and unprofitable (verse 30). He did not accomplish anything. We can apply this parable to any given situation in our lives, whether it be our work, our marriage, family relationships, childrearing, prayers and studies, tithes and offerings, or involvement in the Church in general. We will not profit in anything, if we are lazy. And we will not qualify to enter the Kingdom of God and eternal life, if we become and remain lazy. 

Diligence is the key. We must work hard physically and spiritually. In this physical life, when we are diligent in our work, we will profit from it.  But the most important thing is how we do spiritually.  If we are diligent in that respect, we will profit in the most important gift which is offered to us–eternal life in the Family of God (compare Hebrews 4:11; 2 Peter 1:10-11).

We begin with reports on the hypocritical conduct of leading German politicians who condemn America’s NSA spying activities, while they themselves were apparently “proactive partners” with an “eagerness and desire” to aid the NSA. We report on Germany’s drone disaster, blaming America for it—at least in part. At the same time, we point out that the NSA activities and the government’s justification of the same might aid and abet dictatorial and freedom-restricting countries to follow America’s lead, while America’s policy of non-intervention in Syria is condemned by the BBC. We also report on Washington’s fight against journalists and the free press, and show the unrealized connection between Obamacare and the country’s spying activities.

In focusing on the Catholic Church, we report about another big scandal of the Vatican bank; the unbiblical, but, historically, very lucrative practice of indulgences and the false belief in the concept of purgatory; and the somewhat declining Catholic membership and the pope’s activities in Brazil.

High-ranking American politicians and influential moderators are still desperately trying to create a connection between the death of Trayvon Martin and racial profiling—in spite of the lack of any shred of evidence—while cases with reversed roles are conveniently ignored. We report on the erroneous thinking of most Americans regarding the evolution theory; politically incorrect crimes in Britain; and the birth of a new British prince.

We report on Japan’s warning to the UK not to leave the EU; ongoing uproar in both Turkey and Bulgaria; Poland’s ban on kosher slaughter and the underlying feelings of anti-Semitism; the deteriorating relationship between the USA and Israel; and the declaration of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church that same-sex marriages are one sign of the end of days or the apocalypse; and we conclude with an article about the occurrence of several major earthquakes in New Zealand and China.

Germany Proactive Partner in USA Spying Activities

The Verge wrote on July 20:

“Reports that the US National Security Agency is spying on European allies and bugging embassies have been met with strong condemnation in Germany, where chancellor Angela Merkel angrily denounced the agency’s activities earlier this month as ‘unacceptable.’ But new documents obtained by Der Spiegel reportedly show that German intelligence services actually make significant use of a powerful NSA spying program used to monitor internet communications…

“The NSA’s spying programs have struck a nerve in German citizens, many of whom still hold memories of the East German Stasi, the infamous secret police force that spied on countless innocent civilians before the fall of the Berlin Wall. But Der Spiegel says the new documents reveal that the German government has been a proactive partner in the mass-surveillance efforts…”

NBC News added on July 20:

“Der Spiegel reported that documents reviewed by its writers said Germany has shown an ‘eagerness and desire’ to aid in U.S. global intelligence gathering efforts. Another document describes Germany’s foreign intelligence service as the NSA’s ‘most prolific partner’ in its intelligence gathering efforts.”

This had been suspected for quite a while, but the hypocrisy of those involved German politicians is still dumbfounding.

German Drone Disaster

Deutsche Welle reported on July 22:

“Within a period of just days, German parliamentarians hope to conduct an investigation into the failure of the 600-million-euro Euro Hawk drone project, a process that would normally take months or even years. Nineteen witnesses will be called to testify before a special committee, which will conduct its work during parliament’s summer break, from July 22 until July 31. And with Germany’s federal elections just two months away, the planned testimony by Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere could prove politically explosive for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right coalition government.

“The investigative committee wants to know how the defense ministry could invest 12 years and hundreds of millions of euros in an aircraft that is not even allowed to fly in German airspace due to security concerns…

“In 2005, the Euro Hawk company was established, a joint venture between the European aerospace firm EADS and America’s Northrop Grumman. The American defense company manufactured the Global Hawk, the brother of the Euro Hawk…

“The problems, which ultimately led to the Euro Hawk failure, arose out of this business arrangement. The American airspace permit for the Euro Hawk – the prototype was built in the US – was not valid in Germany and could not be obtained… And according to the German defense ministry, the American side withheld documents detailing the technical specifications of the Euro Hawk. As a consequence, it could not be proven beyond doubt that the Euro Hawk would not pose a danger to civilian air traffic…

“But regardless of what de Maiziere tells the investigative commission in his defense, he already has the reputation of not having his house in order.”

This is in addition to the fact that many Germans reject drone warfare as immoral and as being in violation of national and international law.

Further Developments in US Spying Activities

Ubergizmo reported on July 25:

“In the PRISM saga, big companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Google and Yahoo were named, though all of them denied knowing about the program. CNET now reports, citing people familiar with the matter, that the federal government is demanding ‘major internet companies’ to hand over their users’ passwords. The report doesn’t say exactly which companies have received such requests. If we were to consider, for the sake of argument, that the government is indeed asking for passwords, what would it do with them? The obvious answer is to spy on user data such as emails, messages and other private data. It would also have full access to users’ accounts, impersonating users will become very easy.

“The report also says that the government has demanded that internet companies hand over encryption keys, a process that is used to strengthen encrypted information such as passwords. The FBI reportedly did not comment on this report, whereas Microsoft and Google are said to have declined to mention if they have received any such requests. Spokespersons of both companies said that they don’t turn over users’ passwords.”

Deutsche Welle reported on July 25:

“The US House of Representatives has rejected an attempt to limit a phone surveillance program… the White House, several senior members of Congress, and senior intelligence officials, all came out in support of the surveillance program… House Democrats and Republicans alike were split over the proposed amendment. A majority of 111 House Democrats voted for the Amash amendment while 83 were against. Among Republicans, 94 were for it and 134 against.

“In a heated debate ahead of the vote, Amash argued the Obama administration was using fear to help justify its ‘violation of rights.’ ‘The government collects the phone records, without suspicion, of every single American in the United States,’ Amash said… According to a recent poll by The Washington Post and ABC News almost three-quarters of respondents believe the NSA programs were infringing on some Americans’ privacy rights.”

But contrary to the clear mandate of the American citizens not to do so, the government will continue to spy on innocent people…

Is US Becoming the World’s Leader for the Restriction of Freedom and Liberty?

On July 21, the website rferl.org stated the following:

“Internet experts say Washington’s covert program to track the online activity of foreigners by tapping into the servers of Facebook, Google, Skype, and other U.S. companies could play directly into the hands of repressive regimes. The revelation could provide them with potentially powerful justification for existing programs that restrict online freedoms — as well as cover for implementing new measures.

“Ronald Deibert, the director of the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, one of the world’s foremost research centers on how cyberspace, global security, and human rights interrelate, says the United States has now largely ceded the moral high ground on Internet freedom. ‘As countries realize that a lot of the structural power conferred on the United States and other countries comes from their ability to essentially coerce domestic telecommunications carriers into colluding with their intercept and wiretap programs, countries around the world will quickly look to rectify that by building and encouraging their own national networks and subjecting them to their own territorialized controls,’ Deibert says… ‘It is really a kind of perverse set of unintended consequences that we’re nurturing.’

“‘National Internets’ already exist in North Korea and Cuba and are reportedly being developed in Iran… In an interview with ‘The New York Times’ on July 14, Ruslan Gattarov, a lawmaker in Russia’s upper house of parliament, said, ‘We need to quickly put these huge transnational companies like Google, Microsoft, and Facebook under national control.’… U.S. Internet companies operating in Russia and a host of other countries already face pressure from governmental bodies or law enforcement to share data. Experts say such pressure is now likely to intensify…

“Some have also expressed concern that the U.S. government’s explanation for its surveillance program — legitimate or not — could be manipulated by repressive governments: Washington has defended the program as a legally authorized method of helping to guard the country against terrorist attacks. Countries ranging from China to Belarus to Uzbekistan have previously rationalized pervasive online censorship under the banner of national security….”

It is indeed a bleak day in America’s history when the worldwide defender of liberty and freedom is now perceived as the main violator of the same and as the country, which justifies restrictions of such freedoms under the guise of national security, thereby enabling authoritarian regimes to do the same.

America’s Politics of Non-Intervention

BBC News wrote on July 23 about a letter by “the top US military officer [Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen Martin Dempsey] [who] has outlined the costs, risks and benefits of possible American military involvement in the Syrian conflict… including limited strikes and establishing a no-fly zone. But he said using force in Syria would be ‘no less than an act of war’ and could cost the US billions of dollars.”

In their analysis, BBC News wrote this:

“This is the first time the US has explicitly laid out options for using force in Syria – a glimpse of what military leaders are, presumably, advising US President Barack Obama. And the advice seems to come down on the side on non-intervention. The letter does not even attempt to address the wider challenges – of how to win UN authorisation when Russia seems dead set on blocking it; of how to secure support of war-weary Americans or reluctant allies; of the danger of further destabilising fragile neighbours; or of finding the US at war not just with Syria, but Iran and Russia.

“So, aside from quietly arming Syria’s moderate opposition, what would it take to make US intervention more likely?

“Perhaps a catastrophic clash or massacre on an extraordinary scale might shift calculations. So might the danger of Lebanon or Jordan imploding, or a large-scale use of chemical weapons, which also threatened, say, Israel or Turkey. And if a new status quo were to emerge which essentially partitioned Syria, then buffer zones in areas Assad forces no longer seemed likely to attack might seem more feasible.”

What most Americans and many others do not realize is that America has been losing its political influence and will-power to act. And as we have proclaimed for a long time, America will not win any more wars.

“Is Washington Turning Its Back on Freedom of the Press?”

Der Spiegel Online wrote on July 24:

“President Obama is cracking down on leakers. Both Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning face prosecution under the Espionage Act, while a New York Times reporter [James Risen] was ordered to reveal his sources or risk jail time. Is Washington turning its back on freedom of the press?…

“A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that Risen would receive no First Amendment protection safeguarding the confidentiality of his sources… The ruling could not have come at a more volatile time. In the midst of the revelations by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the Risen trial sheds further light on the Obama administration’s unparalleled clampdown on official leakers. The 118-page judgment, which sets a precedent that could create significant hurdles for investigative journalism, has dealt a further blow to First Amendment protections for reporters in the US.

“President Obama’s war on the whistleblower is now being fought on multiple fronts — in the Russian capital, where Snowden has been given temporary documents and is soon expected to leave the airport he has been holed up in for weeks, and in South America, where the American hopes to be granted asylum. The battle is also being waged in Maryland, where Bradley Manning, a former US Army private, currently faces military trial for passing documents to WikiLeaks. And last week it took hold in Virginia’s fourth circuit appeals court, where Risen is likely to be compelled to give evidence [in a case involving activities of the CIA]…

“If Risen continues to ignore the subpoena, he could face jail time… The legal landscape now facing US journalists appears to be a bleak one… The Justice Department… expressly supported the decision, with a spokesperson announcing that the next steps in the prosecution of the case were already being examined. Ironically, the statement comes shortly after the Justice Department published new guidelines for leak investigations designed to protect the interests of reporters. The revision was a response to public outcry over the department’s aggressive investigative tactics, including subpoenaing Associated Press reporters’ phone records.

“Despite the ruling, Risen has pledged to uphold his decision not to testify…”

Our respect for those who make a promise and do not break it, even if it hurts…

The Obamacare Big Brother Database

rare.us wrote on July 20:

“Would you trust thousands of low-level Federal bureaucrats and contractors with one-touch access to your private financial and medical information? Under Obamacare you won’t have any choice. As the Obamacare train-wreck begins to gather steam, there is increasing concern in Congress over something called the Federal Data Services Hub. The Data Hub is a comprehensive database of personal information being established by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to implement the federally facilitated health insurance exchanges. The purpose of the Data Hub, according to a June 2013 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, is to provide ‘electronic, near real-time access to federal data’ and ‘access to state and third party data sources needed to verify consumer-eligibility information.’ …

“They certainly should be; the potential for abuse is enormous. The massive, centralized database will include comprehensive personal information such as income and financial data, family size, citizenship and immigration status, incarceration status, social security numbers, and private health information. It will compile dossiers based on information obtained from the IRS, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the Veterans Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, the Social Security Administration, state Medicaid databases, and for some reason the Peace Corps. The Data Hub will provide web-based, one-stop shopping for prying into people’s personal affairs.

“Not to fear, HHS says, the Data Hub will be completely secure. Really? Secure like all the information that has been made public in the Wikileaks era? These days no government agency can realistically claim that private information will be kept private, especially when it is being made so accessible. Putting everyone’s personal information in once place only simplifies the challenge for those looking to hack into the system…

“Given the slap-dash, incoherent way Obamacare is being implemented the prospect for quality control is low. And the Obama administration’s track record of sweetheart deals, no-bid, sole-source contracting and other means of rewarding people with insider access means the Data Hub will be firmly in the hands of trusted White House loyalists. So if you think the IRS targeting Tea Party groups was bad, just wait for the Obamacare Navigators to be unleashed. ‘Trust us,’ the administration says, no one will abuse the Data Hub…”

The country is indeed in DEEP trouble.

“Vatican Bank Again at the Center of a Financial Scandal”

IB Times wrote on July 21:

“The Vatican has once again been rocked by scandal as Italian prosecutors press ahead with a money-laundering investigation of three of its top former officials that threatens the Holy See’s Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), or as it’s commonly known, the Vatican bank.

“Following the arrest of Monsignor Nunzio Scarano, who was head of analytical accounting, for allegedly attempting to smuggle $26.5 million from Switzerland to Rome; Giovanni Maria Zito, a former agent who is now a Carabinieri police officer; and Giovanni Carenzio, a financial broker, in June, two more top Vatican officials have been accused, prompting their resignations. The news comes at a bad time for Pope Francis as his plans to bring the bank into line with other European banks, even agreeing to forgo the Vatican’s infamous secrecy laws, look to have taken a hit…

“This is not the first time the Vatican Bank has caused controversy in the financial sector. From 1971 to 1989, Archbishop Paul Marcinkus was involved in the higher echelons of the Vatican Bank. He was allegedly involved with Mafia-linked Sicilian banker Michele Sindona and Italian banking executive Roberto Calvi, president of Banco Ambrosiano, which collapsed with massive debts, including around $250 million to IOR, one of Banco’s main shareholders.

“After a number of investigations by the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the U.S. Justice Department, including his alleged involvement in the delivery of $14.5 million worth of counterfeit bonds to the Vatican in July 1971, Marcinkus was cleared of wrongdoing. Calvi, on the other hand, was found dead, hanging from a rope under Blackfriars Bridge in London, victim of a faked suicide. Marcinkus was wanted for questioning on the murder but sought diplomatic immunity by taking refuge in the Vatican, although not over the murder of Calvi, but instead over huge losses that the Vatican incurred by setting up fake offshore shell companies in the Bahamas. The murder was later found to have been committed by the Mafia.

“The case against the Vatican officials is still in its infancy, but formal charges are expected to be brought in the coming weeks and months by Rome prosecutors. The bank was established in 1942 by Pope Pius XII to handle the Vatican’s finances that were held in different countries — then embroiled in World War II — by religious orders, cardinals, bishops and priests. The bank is estimated to hold around $7.5 billion in assets.”

The Bible has much to say about the riches of the Catholic Church in these last days. In addition, in his remarkable book, “Secrets of the Freemasons,” Michael Bradley claims on pages 150 and 151 that “Many people feel that Calvi’s death was symbolically Masonic… The Vatican’s role in the Banco Ambrosiano scandal has been used as evidence that Pope John Paul I was murdered for attempting to root out financial and Masonic corruption in the Holy See.” Bradly also says that the Vatican Bank is “personally owned by the Pope and loans money to religious projects worldwide.” 

Catholic Purgatory and Indulgences

The Guardian reported on July 16:

“In its latest attempt to keep up with the times the Vatican has married one of its oldest traditions to the world of social media by offering ‘indulgences’ to followers of Pope Francis’ tweets. The church’s granted indulgences reduce the time Catholics believe they will have to spend in purgatory after they have confessed and been absolved of their sins. The remissions got a bad name in the Middle Ages because unscrupulous churchmen sold them for large sums of money. But now indulgences are being applied to the 21st century.

“But a senior Vatican official warned web-surfing Catholics that indulgences still required a dose of old-fashioned faith, and that paradise was not just a few mouse clicks away… Indulgences these days are granted to those who carry out certain tasks – such as climbing the Sacred Steps, in Rome (reportedly brought from Pontius Pilate’s house after Jesus scaled them before his crucifixion), a feat that earns believers seven years off purgatory. But attendance at events such as the Catholic World Youth Day, in Rio de Janeiro, a week-long event starting on 22 July, can also win an indulgence.

“Mindful of the faithful who cannot afford to fly to Brazil, the Vatican’s sacred apostolic penitentiary, a court which handles the forgiveness of sins, has also extended the privilege to those following the ‘rites and pious exercises’ of the event on television, radio and through social media… In its decree, the penitentiary said that getting an indulgence would hinge on the beneficiary having previously confessed and being ‘truly penitent and contrite’. Praying while following events in Rio online would need to be carried out with ‘requisite devotion’, it suggested.”

This is so unbiblical, but people are willing to believe just about anything, and even act upon their beliefs, as long as they are not the truth.

Catholicism in Brazil

On July 17, Al Jazeera reported:

“Pope Francis will be in Brazil starting on Monday… expected to bring over a million Catholic pilgrims, mostly youth, to Brazil. It will be historic for all the obvious reasons: The first Latin American Pope, the first trip as pope to South America, neighboring his native Argentina… Brazil is ‘the world’s largest Catholic country.’ … But what exactly does that mean?…

“The total population of Brazil is 198.4 million, as of last year. Of the total population, 169.3 million identify themselves generally speaking as Christian, and of those, 123 million strictly identify as Roman Catholic (123,280,172 to be exact), while another 42 million Protestant. But it’s the fast growing evangelical/Pentecostal religions that seem to be the biggest challenges to the Catholic Church in Brazil… In short, the Vatican can still rely on Brazil to be the place of the largest pool of ardent Catholics anywhere in the world. But it’s not the absolute numbers that should concern Pope Francis, it’s the trend lines.”

And so, the Catholic Church will do something about this, trying to reverse the trend lines in its favor.

Revolution in the Catholic Church?

Deutsche Welle reported on July 24:

“Many Catholics hope Pope Francis will strengthen laymen and women in church, who have been taking on responsibilities of priests in some rural areas. That might trigger a revolution, experts say.  The Catholic Church in Latin America has a way of dealing with contradictions: Instead of discussing whether women should be allowed to be ordained to the priesthood or debating the celibate, laymen go ahead and create precedents in their religious communities. They’ve come up with new forms of church services – services without a priest. Hopes are high during this year’s World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro that Pope Francis will give more power to ordinary people in the church: the laypersons. That would ultimately change the Catholic Church…

“Many laypersons have already come up with their own solution: they simply hold church services without the support of the clerics. They pray together, break the bread, administer wine, and care little about Catholic regulations, which specify that only priests are allowed to administer the sacrament of the Holy Communion… Rebellion and revolution – that’s nothing new for Latin America: In the 1960s and 70s, Latin American liberation theologians such as Gustavo Gutierrez and Oscar Romero inspired clergymen and believers all over the world. One of them was Ludwig Gerhard Müller, who now heads the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith…”

The Pope in Brazil—as If It’s Jesus?

The Washington Times wrote on July 24:

“Thousands of Catholic Church faithful crowded for a glimpse of Pope Francis on Wednesday, as he visited small town Aparecida, venerated Brazil’s patron saint and delivered his first public Mass on his visit to the country. ‘I have been up for almost 24 hours, most of that time on my feet and in the rain and the cold. But I don’t feel any pain. I feel bathed in God’s glory and that’s because of the pope,’ said Nacilda de Oliveira Silva, 61, in The Associated Press. ‘For me, it’s the same thing as seeing Jesus pass by. That’s how moved I feel.’”

Zenit added on July 24:

“Yesterday afternoon, Tuesday, July 23, Archbishop Orani Joao Tempesta presided over the opening ceremony of Rio’s WYD [World Youth Day] with thousands of young people and hundreds of Bishops who defied a subtle and persistent rain… In his homily, Archbishop Tempesta… invited young people to come out of themselves and be ready to respond to God’s plan… Several times the archbishop addressed young people as ‘morning watchmen.’”

The Bible warns of religious deception and especially of those who proclaim to be servants of Christ, speaking on behalf of Christ, or pretending to be Christ, while rejecting His words. It is also interesting that young Catholics are being referred to as “watchmen,” while the true watchmen are proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ—the good news of the Kingdom of GOD—for instance, in our “StandingWatch” programs.

Obama: “Trayvon Martin Could Have Been Me.”

IB Times wrote on July 20:

“President Barack Obama made a surprise visit on Friday to the White House briefing room, where he reflected on comments made last year in the George Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin case. When Martin, 17, was shot and killed in Florida last February by Zimmerman, a former neighborhood watch volunteer, the president had said the teen could have been his son. Reflecting upon the statement more than a year later, Obama said, ‘Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.’”

Breitbart added on July 19:

“President Obama strongly implied that George Zimmerman profiled Trayvon Martin due to Martin’s race, despite the utter lack of evidence that Zimmerman did so. In fact, an FBI investigation into Zimmerman turned up no evidence of racial bias, and the Department of Justice has been utterly unsuccessful in providing evidence of any racially-based federal crime committed by Zimmerman…  ‘I think, to a sense that if a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario that, from top to bottom, both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different,’ Obama stated.

“Obama provided no evidence for that contention. Such evidence would not include the case of Roderick Scott, a black man acquitted for the killing of white 17-year-old Christopher Cervini. Scott shot Cervini after confronting him and two others robbing a car; Cervini apparently charged Scott, who shot him. Scott was acquitted. Cervini’s aunt said, ‘How can this happen to a beautiful, sweet child like that? All he wanted to do was go home. And then for them to say, he was saying, ‘Please don’t kill me. I’m just a kid,’ and he just kept on shooting him.’ No word from President Obama on [that] case.”

Rather than unifying the country, unproven allegations of racial profiling only divide the country even more.

Ignorant Americans

CBS wrote on July 23:

“A new poll finds that a majority of Americans believe that God played a part in the evolution of humans… 62 percent of Americans believe God helped create humans. Thirty-seven percent of those believe God created human beings in their present form within the last 10,000 years while 25 percent believe human beings evolved from lesser life forms over millions of years but God guided the process. Only 21 percent believe that God did not play a part in human evolution.

“Seventeen percent of those polled were not sure if God played a part in the existence of humans… more people favored having creationism taught in schools than those that opposed. Forty percent of those polled believe that intelligent design – the belief that God created the universe – should be taught in public schools, while 32 percent opposed such teachings. Twenty-nine percent of Americans were not sure if creationism should be taught. The poll also found that those who say God played no part in human evolution rose from 13 percent in 2004 to 21 percent in 2013, an 8 percent increase.”

The truth is, the evolution theory is completely wrong, whether one believes in random chance or God’s “direction” during the alleged evolution process. But creationism is also wrong, as it does not believe in the clear teachings of the Bible either. For a better understanding, please read our free booklet, “The Theory of Evolution—a Fairy Tale for Adults.” 

Politically Incorrect Crimes in Britain

Gatestone Institute wrote on July 17:

“Great Britain is in the throes of a rape and pedophilia epidemic unlike anything the country has experienced in living memory. Many of the sex crimes are being perpetrated by Muslim child grooming gangs responsible for drugging, raping and torturing hundreds and possibly thousands of British girls. But another wave of sex crimes involves predatory Muslim taxi drivers who are raping female passengers. The number of so-called taxi rapes is snowballing to such an extent that a British judge has issued a warning that no woman can expect to be safe while traveling in a cab…

“Apart from a few high-profile cases, taxi rapes are rarely reported by national newspapers in Britain, apparently because the politically incorrect crimes are not deemed to be newsworthy. But a survey of stories buried deep inside local newspapers shows that taxi rapes are occurring in all parts of England, Wales and Scotland on an almost daily basis.”

Cameron’s Pride At Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage in Britain

The Telegraph wrote on July 25:

“The Prime Minister spoke of his pride at legalising same sex marriage, just a year after explicitly giving a personal guarantee to do it by 2015 to a reception for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans-sexual community at 10 Downing Street. Mr Cameron told guests… that Britain was now ‘the best place to be gay, lesbian or transgender anywhere in Europe’.  He added: ‘That is a great achievement…’ He said that he wanted to ‘export’ same sex marriage around the world so other countries could follow suit… In his speech he told guests four times how proud he was to have been Prime Minister when same sex marriage was legalised in Britain… Although the Queen could hardly not have given her assent to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill, [Cameron]  promised… that he intended to thank her ‘personally’ for signing it at his audience with her [on Wednesday evening]…”

Britain’s New Prince Third in Line to the Throne

The Associated Press reported on July 22:

“Prince William’s wife, Kate, has given birth to a prince [George Alexander Louis] who is now third in line to the British throne… No one can tell what political and personal changes the intervening years will bring, but the baby can be expected to become the head of state of 16 countries, including Britain, Australia and Canada. The child will also eventually become Supreme Governor of the Church of England. The little prince represents a living link to Britain’s imperial history – the infant is the great-great-great-great-great-grandchild of Queen Victoria, who ruled at the peak of British power.”

In light of the signs of the time, it is highly unlikely that the new-born prince will ever sit on the British throne.

Japan Urges the UK Not to Leave the EU

BBC News wrote on July 21:

“Thousands of jobs with Japanese firms could be at risk if the UK leaves the EU, the Japanese government has hinted… Japan said its firms were attracted to the UK because it offered a gateway to the European market. ‘If the UK leaves the single market… that is not good news,’ the Japanese embassy told the Sunday Times… Japan said it was ‘committed to making its relationship with the EU stronger than ever before.’ It added: “’In this context, it expects that the UK will maintain a strong voice and continue to play a major role in the EU…’

“But Conservative MP Julian Brazier dismissed Japan’s concerns. He told the newspaper: ‘It’s kind of the Japanese to give us guidance on our national destiny but at a time when the eurozone is in a crisis unseen for nearly a century I’m not sure they are well qualified to see the way forward for Britain. In deciding on our national interest we may have to disappoint their expectations.’”

Although it may make sense to the UK to leave the EU, this is a prophesied development which will lead to the UK’s downfall.

Turkey in Uproar

Der Spiegel Online wrote on July 23:

“Following mass anti-government protests in Turkey, Ankara is now taking revenge on its critics. Activists and demonstrators are being investigated and intimidated, while journalists are getting fired and insubordinate civil servants transferred far afield… The demolition of the park in downtown Istanbul was only the initial cause of the protests, which have continued and are now directed against the government. The protesters’ numbers have dwindled from the hundreds of thousands who had been attending the mass protests, though. Many are exhausted, but many are also afraid.

“Largely unnoticed by the public, a big cleanup has begun, in which those who opposed Prime Minister Erdogan and his administration in recent weeks are now being punished. Activists are being locked up, journalists bullied and demonstrators persecuted. The Turkish parliament has deprived the chamber of architects and engineers of its voice in urban planning projects. The Turkish education ministry has ordered schools to provide it with the names of all teachers who took part in the protests, who could now face adverse consequences…

“According to Turkish human rights organizations, the police have arrested at least 3,000 people, including children. Although some have been released, no one knows how many are still in prison… Turkish journalists have suffered from repression for years. No other country in the world has as many journalists behind bars… For the first time, the policy of intimidation is also directed against foreign journalists…  But the government’s attempts to intimidate are only fueling a spirit of resistance among some people…”

Bulgaria in Uproar

Der Spiegel Online wrote on July 24:

“Forty days of anti-government protests culminated Tuesday night in an eight-hour blockade of Bulgaria’s parliament in Sofia. Police ended the siege on Wednesday morning, escorting more than 100 officials out of the building amid ongoing unrest… The blockade was the culmination of weeks-long protests and clashes with the police, triggered by a government decision to name media tycoon Delyan Peevski as head of the National Security Agency. The move was seen as evidence of private interests controlling public institutions. The government’s subsequent withdrawal of the appointment was seen as too little, too late in the European Union’s poorest country, and crowds took their outrage to the streets, demanding the cabinet’s resignation.

“An angry mob estimated by French news agency AFP to include 2,000 people surrounded the parliament building on Tuesday evening chanting slogans like ‘Mafia!’ and ‘Resign!’ as lawmakers took part in a late-night sitting to discuss a controversial budget adjustment that would raise the deficit and state borrowing limit… President Rosen Plevneliev asked both demonstrators and police to remain ‘peaceful and civilized.’… The Socialist-led government came to power in May, following the resignation of the previous cabinet amid heavy anti-austerity protests.

“Protesters in Bulgaria have now taken to the streets for some 40 days to demonstrate against the Socialist-led government and its junior coalition partner, the Turkish minority DPS party. The protests are an expression of outrage over corruption, nepotism and impoverishment in the country.”

Ban on Kosher Slaughter and Anti-Semitism in Poland

JTA wrote on July 16:

“Hundreds of comments calling on Jews to leave Poland have appeared beneath news articles in the days since the country’s parliament defeated a bill that would have reversed a ban on kosher slaughter, or shechitah, first imposed in January. ‘The ban is bad enough because it’s the result of disinformation, but it opened the door to anti-Semitism that’s very evident in these comments,’ said Piotr, who with his wife is a founding member of Czulent, an association of young Krakow Jews.

“The shechitah ban and ensuing anti-Semitic outbursts come as painful reminders that despite years of government-led projects celebrating Jewish tradition, Poland still has a long way to go…

“In January, a constitutional court, responding to a petition filed by animal welfare activists, outlawed religious slaughter in Poland. A law that would have reinstated shechitah was rejected by the Sjem, the Polish parliament, on July 12 by a vote of 222-178. On Tuesday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said he had no plans to reintroduce legislation to lift the ban.

“The Polish ban is not the first time a European country has put animal welfare concerns above the religious freedom of its Jewish and Muslim minorities. In 2011, a large majority of the lower house of the Dutch parliament passed a bill banning the practice, but it was scrapped by the Dutch Senate. Laws banning kosher slaughter also are on the books in Norway, Switzerland, Latvia, Sweden and Iceland…

“[Poland] is the sole European country that does not offer private property restitution to [Holocaust] survivors and their heirs… Last month, a prosecutor in the northern city of Bialystok called swastikas ‘symbols of prosperity’ in explaining the refusal to investigate the painting of Nazi symbols on municipal property. Earlier that month, a Polish official said the courts were ‘powerless’ to stop a declaredly anti-Semitic political party from running in elections. In April, a survey found that 44 percent of 1,250 Warsaw teenagers polled said they would rather not have Jewish neighbors. More than 60 percent said they did not want Jewish spouses…

“Jews and Muslims are not the only ones affected by the ban, which has shut down the country’s robust export industry of kosher and halal meat. Estimates place the value of the ritual slaughter industry at more than $500 million…”

On July 23, JTA wrote the following:

“A Polish government minister asked Jewish and Muslim representatives to petition the country’s Constitutional Court to sort out conflicting laws that have led to a ban on ritual slaughter. According to a statement Monday by the office of Michal Boni, the Polish minister responsible for religious affairs, the minister asked the representatives to petition the court with regard to the 1997 Act on the Relation of the State to the Jewish Communities in Poland, which states that ritual slaughter may be performed in accordance with the needs of the local Jewish community.

“The law appears to conflict with Article 34 of the 1997 Law on the Protection of Animals, which states that ‘vertebrate animal in a slaughterhouse may be killed only after being knocked unconscious by qualified personnel.’ Muslim and Jewish religious laws require animals be conscious before their necks are cut. ‘The matter can only be settled by Constitutional Court,’ read a statement sent from by Boni’s office. According to the statement, Boni asked Piotr Kadlcik, president of the Union of Jewish Religious Communities in Poland, and Poland’s chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, to petition the court on the issue…”

Anti-Semitism in Europe is prophesied to sharply increase and grow. But not just in Europe… see the next article.

America vs. Israel

JTA reported on July 23:

“A federal court upheld the State Department’s refusal to list ‘Israel’ as the country of birth for Americans born in Jerusalem. The 42-page decision released Tuesday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia delved into constitutional law in finding that Congress, in passing a 2002 law mandating the listing of ‘Israel’ should Americans born in Jerusalem request it, impinged on the executive branch’s foreign policy prerogative.

“President Obama and his predecessor, George W. Bush, have refused to implement the law, saying it violates longstanding policy that does not recognize any nation’s sovereignty in the city and leaves its status to be decided in peace talks. The request to list Israel ‘runs headlong into a carefully calibrated and longstanding Executive branch policy of neutrality toward Jerusalem,’ the court ruled.”

Same-Sex Marriages Sign of End of Days

The website rferl.org reported on July 21:

“The head of the Russian Orthodox Church has said that the legal recognition of same-sex marriage is ‘a very dangerous sign of the apocalypse.’  Patriarch Kirill told a congregation at Kazan Cathedral in Moscow’s Red Square on July 21 that such recognition ‘means people are choosing a path of self-destruction.’ The patriarch criticized the states that have legalized same-sex marriage, saying that ‘some countries approve their choice in favor of sin and justify it by law.’

“Kirill also said he supports a ban on ‘homosexual propaganda’ recently signed into law by President Vladimir Putin. Homosexuality was decriminalized in Russia in 1993 but remains stigmatized in a country where the Orthodox Church still holds considerable influence. Gay-rights parades are forbidden…”

Even though it is very unpopular to voice this, Kirill’s statements and warnings are in line with the teachings and prophecies of the Bible.

Major Earthquakes Hit New Zealand and China

The age.com.au reported on July 21:

“A large 6.5 earthquake has hit central New Zealand, sending people diving for cover in the capital of Wellington. The quake was felt widely across the country… It is the latest in a sequence of major earthquakes that have been hitting Wellington and wider areas around central New Zealand since Thursday… Quakes measuring 6.8 on the Richter Scale, 5.5 and 6.9 have all hit the Wellington area.”

CNN reported on July 22:

“Rescue teams are scrambling to reach the site of Monday morning’s strong and shallow earthquake in northwestern China that has killed at least 89 people, according to state media. Another 593 people were injured and five were believed missing after the quake tore through Gansu Province, China Daily reported… The original quake and powerful aftershocks caused roofs to collapse, cut telecommunications lines and damaged a major highway linking the provincial capital of Lanzhou to the south, according to the China Daily newspaper… According to the Gansu Provincial Seismological Bureau, the quake registered a magnitude of 6.6, however the U.S. Geological Survey said it was a 5.9-magnitude tremor, which struck at the relatively shallow depth of about half a mile (1 kilometer).”

Christ warned of major earthquakes here and there, just prior to His return.

In Exodus 6:2-3, God states the following to Moses:

“And God spoke to Moses and said to him: ‘I am the LORD [YHWH or Yahweh; some translate erroneously as Jehovah. The expression “Eternal” is perhaps the best rendering in the English language to convey the correct meaning]. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty [El Shaddai], but by My name LORD [YHWH] I was not known to them.” The Authorized Version says: “… but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them.”

Compare also Exodus 3:14,-15, where God reveals Himself for the first time to MOSES as “the LORD [YHWH] God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, And the God of Jacob.”  He identifies Himself as “I AM WHO I AM,” and adds that “This is My name forever.”

The passage in Exodus 6:3, as translated in the New King James Bible, poses a big problem, as God was most certainly known to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as well as others, by His Name LORD (ETERNAL) or YHWH.

We read about ABRAHAM (then still called Abram) in Genesis 12:8: “… there he built an altar to the LORD [YHWH] and called on the name of the LORD [YHWH].” Also, in Genesis 13:4: “And there Abram called on the name of the LORD [YHWH].” Note also Genesis 14:22, where Abram refers to God as “the LORD [YHWH], God Most High, the Possessor of heaven and earth.” In Genesis 22:14, we read: “And Abraham called the name of the place, The-LORD-Will-Provide [YHWH Yireh]…”

In Genesis 26:22, 25, we read about ISAAC: “So he called its name Rehoboth, because he said, ‘For now the LORD [YHWH] has made room for us…’ … So he built an altar there and called on the name of the LORD [YHWH]…”

When God spoke to JACOB in a dream, He revealed Himself in this way, as Genesis 28:13 reports: “And behold the LORD [YHWH] stood above it [ a ladder] and said, ‘I am the LORD [YHWH] God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac…’” Compare also Genesis 28:21; 32:9. Even prior to his dream, Jacob had already referred to God as LORD or YHWH in Genesis 27:20.

In addition, the first human being who is reported as referring to God as YHWH is Eve. She said in Genesis 4:1: “I have acquired a man [Cain] from the LORD [YHWH]…” Later, at the time of Adam and Eve’s son Seth, “men began to call on the name of the LORD [YHWH]” (Genesis 4:26). We also read in Genesis 9:26 that Noah referred to God as “the LORD [YHWH], The God of Shem…” Finally, both Rachel and her father Laban knew God’s name, LORD or YHWH (Genesis 30:24, 27).

From the foregoing examples, it is obvious that the name LORD or YHWH was known to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as well as to others, prior to Moses.

The Pulpit Commentary states the following:

“The explanation of this passage is by no means easy. God himself, according to Genesis 15:7, revealed himself to Abraham as Jehovah [YHWH] before declaring his name to be El-Shaddai (God Almighty); and again revealed himself to Jacob as Jehovah [YHWH]-Elohim (Genesis 28:13). Abraham named the place where he had been about to sacrifice Isaac, ‘Jehovah [YHWH] –jireh’ (Genesis 22:14). That Moses regarded the name as known even earlier, appears from Genesis 4:1. It was probably as old as language. The apparent meaning of the present passage cannot therefore be its true meaning. No writer would so contradict himself…”

Many commentaries and scholars have attempted to provide an “explanation” for this apparent inconsistency, but many, if not most, of these explanations are unconvincing.

For instance, the Ryrie Study Bible says that “The name Yahweh was known to the patriarchs… but its significance as the One who would redeem Israel from Egyptian bondage was not known until this time.” Apart from the fact that God does not associate the meaning of His name with Israel’s freedom from Egyptian bondage, Abraham DID know about Israel’s future slavery and release (compare Genesis 15:13-14).

The Nelson Study Bible is also incorrect in stating that even though the patriarchs knew God’s name, YHWH, they did not know God in an intimate way. But they most certainly did, as can be seen, for instance, in the moving dialogue between God and Abraham regarding the coming destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Others have tried to explain Exodus 6:3 by saying that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob knew God’s name, but not His character. This is equally nonsensical. In order to enter the Kingdom of God, we must strive to become perfect, as God is perfect. This means, that we have to acquire and develop God’s holy and righteous character. The Bible tells us that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will be in God’s kingdom. Therefore, they knew God’s character, and they were successful in developing it in their lives.

How, then, are we to understand the statement in Exodus 6:3 that God had not revealed His name YHWH to them?

The commentary of Jamieson, Fausset and Brown points out that God’s statement is not one of affirmative confirmation, but is to be understood as a self-evident rhetorical  question:

“… but by my name, etc.,—rather, interrogatively, by My name Jehovah [YHWH] was I not known to them? Am not I, the Almighty God, who pledged My honor for the fulfillment of the covenant, also the self-existent God who lives to accomplish it? Rest assured, therefore, that I shall bring it to pass…”

The New Scofield Reference Edition offers five explanations, the last four of which can be ruled out right away. But the first one is interesting and in harmony with the Jamieson, Fausset and Brown commentary. It says the following: “The statement, ‘By my name JEHOVAH [YHWH] was I not known to them,’ can also be translated as a rhetorical question, ‘By my name JEHOVAH [YHWH] was I not known to them?’”

Clarke’s Commentary offers this explanation as well as one of several “possibilities” (“The words should be read interrogatively, for the negative particle …..  not, has this power often in Hebrew. ‘I appeared unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by the name of God Almighty, and by my name Jehovah [YHWH] was I not also made known unto them?’”)

The Ed Nelson Commentary agrees, explaining:

“Sometimes the way the Hebrew text is translated into other languages causes mind-puzzling questions in the minds of readers. Such is the case with Exodus 6:2-3 with its puzzling statement in English that contradicts the Book of Genesis… In our English Bibles, typically the name Yahweh is rendered as ‘LORD’—usually with all letters capitalized…Virtually, all [English] translations agree that God withheld the revelation of his Name Yahweh until He revealed it to Moses… In the final analysis, we [are] posited with the view that either Exodus 6:3 is right—that God did not reveal Himself as Yahweh before the time of Moses, or, if He did as Genesis claims, then Exodus 6:3 [is] wrong, or corrupt.”

The latter is indeed the conclusion of many biblical “scholars.” They claim that the “contradiction” is explained by the [false] concept that the book of Genesis and the book of Exodus were written by different “sources,” which do not always harmonize. Or, they offer the equally false idea that the writer of Exodus placed God’s name YHWH into the mouths of the fathers and others, in anticipation of the revelation of God’s name in the book of Exodus. This would mean, however, that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob did not really know God’s name YHWH and that they did not really speak of and pray to God as YHWH—and that the Bible would contain misstatements and lies. This absurdity must be rejected.

Nelson went on to state:

“In reading the Hebrew Bible, often we do not know if a question is being asked or not until we read the whole context of the passage. Does the sentence make sense without it inferring a question is being asked? Then it is likely a statement. Does the sentence make sense only by understanding it to be a question? Then it is probably a question. Often an interrogative statement, that is, a question, will include a negative word like ‘not’ to offset it from the rest of the declarative statements. If we find a negative in a sentence that translates as ‘not,’ we should consider if the negative is to be understood as a flag to alert us that a question is being asked.

“This is the case with Exodus 6:2-3. It has a negative ‘not’ in it, whereas the other sentences around it do not. So this is how the text ought to read in English:  ‘God spoke further to Moses and said to him, “I am Yahweh. And I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as El Shaddai. And by my name, Yahweh, did I not make myself known to them?”’ The answer is a resounding yes.

“By adding the interrogative, ‘And by my name Yahweh, did I not make myself known to them?’ the sons of Israel should recognize the higher authority of Moses over Pharaoh amidst the troubles they face as slaves… The Hebrew slaves should understand that Moses was sent by Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Divine help and deliverance was on the way. They should not be afraid, but be hopeful and supportive. Their time of tribulation was ending soon.”

This explanation appears to be the only logical and convincing one, which is consistent with and takes into account all pertinent Scriptures—and it is also compelling in light of the fact that there is no punctuation in the original Hebrew text. Further, the original does not use the words “but by” (in “BUT BY My name [YHWH] was I not known…”) rather, it says: “as to”, in “AS TO My name [YHWH] (compare Young’s Literal Translation) was I not known…” The misuse of the word “but” could signify a difference in God’s statement (“I revealed Myself to the fathers as El Shaddai, BUT not as YHWH”), but the original wording “as to…” does not contain the thought of such a difference (“I revealed Myself to the fathers as El Shaddai, and as to My name YHWH, was I not (also) known by that?”).

Whether a sentence is meant to be an affirmative statement or an interrogatory, can only be determined by the context. Here, it appears that Genesis 6:3 contains indeed a self-explanatory rhetorical question (“Did I not make Myself known to them as YHWH?”), which does not need or deserve an answer: God had revealed His name YHWH to the fathers, as well as others, and now He is revealing it again to Moses. He is the all-powerful, ever-living and never-changing God who will keep His promises to Abraham and lead the Israelites out of slavery.

Lead Writer: Norbert Link

Norbert and Johanna Link, along with Mrs. Margaret Adair, will be visiting the Oregon brethren for Sabbath services on August 3, 2013.

Rene Messier has returned from Kenya and submitted the following report:

“While in Kenya, I had three meetings with several members, prospective members and visitors. On Friday, I met with 9 people. We discussed various topics and I fielded questions.

“On the Sabbath, there were 17 in attendance–13 men, 3 women and one child. We opened our services with three hymns and I gave the opening prayer. I showed the StandingWatch program on hell, gave a sermon about the Sabbath, and closed with prayer.

“We then took a break with tea and coffee and some goodies that I had brought from  Canada—chocolate-covered almonds, wrapped candies and assorted nuts. In the afternoon, I talked about church government and organization; requirements for baptism and commitment to God.  I also answered questions at the end of the session.

“On Sunday morning, I conducted a session on leadership, with three men in attendance.

“All were very friendly. Some of the prospective members had experienced former Worldwide Church of God association or fellowship.”

“Neu! Versammlungen am Sabbat und Gottes Jahresfesten,” is the title of a new German sermon which discusses the requirement of appropriate Church attendance on the Sabbath and the Holy Days, with special focus on the Feast of Tabernacles. The title in English is:  “Assemblies on the Sabbath and God’s Annual Feasts.”

“Is Pope Francis Really Changing the Catholic Church?,” is the title of a new StandingWatch program presented by Evangelist Norbert Link. Here is a summary:
 
Recent developments within the Catholic Church should not go unnoticed. It appears as if Pope Francis “truly wants to change the Catholic Church,” and some of his decisive actions are of great concern to the “Vatican apparatus.” However, his changes do not address core Catholic teachings, such as the unbiblical beliefs in purgatory, indulgences or dead Catholic “saints” who are supposed to work now miracles from heaven. The Vatican is once again “rocked by scandal,” pertaining to corruption within the Vatican Bank. What does all of this mean in the light of biblical prophecy?

“Sex between Angels and Women?,” is the title of another new StandingWatch program presented by Mr. Link. It will be posted this weekend. Here is a summary for this program:

Many believe that at the time of Noah, angelic beings had sexual intercourse with women and produced giants. Is this the teaching of the Bible? If not, what are the origins of this concept? And how are we to understand the biblical statement in the book of Genesis, chapter 6, that “sons of God” “took wives for themselves” from the “daughters of men” who “bore children to them”?

 As we announced in the last Update, Brian Gale has begun recording audio programs for the UK, promoting our literature and StandingWatch programs. Johanna Link is adding visual components and posting the programs on YouTube. For this purpose, we have opened a local YouTube account in the UK, under the designation globalchurchsw BG

We have so far posted three programs on this local channel, namely “The Gospel of the Kingdom of God” and “The StandingWatch program”; “Have You Been Born Again?’” is the title of the third StandingWatch program presented by Mr. Gale. Further programs will follow.

We have recently learned that Mrs. Win Cartwright died peacefully in her sleep at her home on the 7th July. She lived in North Lincolnshire in England and was in her 103rd year.  Although not a baptized member of the Church of God, she supported her son who was a member of the Global Church of God and who preceded his mother in death in 2009 at the age of 64.

Win, as she liked to be called, was very positive about the church and members and attended weekly local Sabbath services and the Feast of Tabernacles until both the death of Peter and her advancing age precluded her from continuing to do so. She was a very postive and cultured lady who will be missed by her family and friends.

RADIO TIME CHANGE: We are going to move our StandingWatch radio program from 10:45 to 11:00am Saturday on KCNW (Kansas City). The program will begin airing at 11:00am on August 10th. In addition, we will add a play time at 6:00pm every Saturday beginning July 27th.

by Joan R. Pope

In 1960 I drove to Florida from Pittsburgh and moved in with my parents. Later–the year was 1965–I was working five days a week at the local newspaper. My boss, the Senior Vice President of our department, called me into his office and said: “This young man here would like a proper introduction to you.” We started dating later that week, and soon he took me to meet his family.

His mother worked daily. All her children (other than her son) were in high school… and, they needed the money. Her husband was my young friend’s stepfather and worked as a day cook…

My new friend’s mother was quite attached to her only son, and she was keenly aware of his interest in me… She told me one day that she frequently visited a local fortune teller and asked whether I would accompany her soon.  I deliberated what I should do. I was not yet a baptized member of the Church of God, although I listened to Mr. Armstrong on the radio as frequently as I could. At the same time, I was receiving the Plain Truth and Good News magazines and the various booklets published by the Church. I was aware of most, but not all of God’s judgments, commandments and precepts. However, I still was not sure what to say to my new friend’s mother without hurting her feelings.

One day my friend dropped me off at her house as she had again invited me to lunch. Afterward she said: “While you’re here, we may as well go see my dear friend the ‘fortune teller.’” We got in her car and drove the short distance to the fortune teller’s small home to get my fortune told.  She knocked on the door several times and declared to me that she had an appointment and wondered why there was no answer to her knock.  While standing on the porch, I noticed a curtain move in the front window. Still, no one came to let us inside. So we went back toward her house, and she conveniently dropped me off at the newspaper office.

The following week, she again invited me to her home for lunch. Afterward, she once more said she had another appointment with the “fortune teller.” I was afraid that I was going to have to go through with it this time.  However, when we arrived at the fortune teller’s home, the same thing occurred; we knocked, and we knocked, and no one ever came to the door.  I was soooooo relieved as in the meantime I was discovering more and more in the Bible as to what GOD says about staying away from sorcerers, palm readers, fortune tellers and the like.

To this day I’m firmly convinced that GOD prevented me from a situation that was seemingly out of my control; though it really wasn’t, as I could have begged off. But, I was still learning and cognizant of the fact that my friend’s mother wanted to find out what I was all about. We did become friends, and she never mentioned the situation ever again.  I still thank GOD for His divine protection from the demons I might have encountered behind that unanswered door.

Points of reference help us navigate our lives. For some it is a matter of noting age, education, career development, where home is or many other benchmarks of life.

But where are we in terms of the Bible? Can we relate to guidelines in the Word of God in a personal way? There is precedence for doing so:

“And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts” (Romans 13:11-14).

Jesus spoke of end-time events which would herald His return to the earth, and He very specifically stated that we should be watching these as signs of prophetic fulfillment:

“‘Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near. So you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near–at the doors!’” (Matthew 24:32-33).

The danger we face is that we really don’t believe what our eyes are seeing! There is a tendency to accept the downfall of society as the norm, but that attitude will prove to be terribly wrong!

Do you diligently study and watch biblical prophecy, or do you leave that to others to worry about? Are you growing as a Christian? Is your commitment to the Church of God reflected in real, dedicated participation?

Where we are in our lives has everything to do with the criteria of God’s Will. Keeping that unwavering point of reference before us will faithfully guide us—both now and into the fearful times that are descending upon us.

The Week in the News

We begin reporting on the rising tidal waves and tsunamis of Anti-Americanism smashing through the countries of Germany and South America, following the continuous earthquakes of ongoing revelations about the atrocious behavior of US worldwide spying activities—coupled with the realization, especially by German citizens, that their German government is unwilling to confront the US—perhaps because of passive or even quite active participation. We also report about Hungary’s warning against German leadership in Europe.

We continue reporting on the trial and acquittal of George Zimmerman, following the untimely death of Trayvon Martin. We are focusing on the fabricated story of the mass media and radical commentators pertaining to the myth of racial profiling, while most are ignoring the real, but uncomfortable crux of the matter.

We point out America’s apparent repeated and ongoing unwillingness to obey its own laws prohibiting military aid to Egypt (notwithstanding that America CLAIMS to be a nation of laws); speak of European anti-Semitism; Israel’s repeated announcements that it might attack Iran militarily; Israel’s desire to build a Third Temple; and a possible collaboration between Iran and North Korea.

We report on gay marriages in Britain and Wales; and conclude with France’s celebration of its Bastille Day on July 14, 2013, showing that the French people might be in error regarding the origin and nature of their national holiday.

Anti-Americanism on the Rise…

The Financial Times wrote on July 12:

“Outside the US, [Snowden’s] revelations have revived a narrative about the dangers of a world dominated by an untrustworthy superpower that had been dormant as debate raged instead about American decline. Already criticised for its extensive use of drones, the international image of the administration has taken another heavy hit by the documents about extensive US surveillance.

“Many Latin American governments were angered when the plane carrying Evo Morales, Bolivia’s president, was diverted to Vienna airport on suspicion that Mr Snowden was on board – a tip that Spanish officials said this week came from the US. The disclosures about US surveillance in Brazil have prompted a new round of indignation in a region with a strong anti-US sentiment…”

Anti-Americanism is prophesied to increase—some, if not much of it, is due to America’s own conduct.

A Flop and Total Disaster

Deutsche Welle reported on July 13:

“German Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich says he is satisfied with US assurances about spying activities. Weeks ahead of a federal election though, the opposition are not about to let the issue go.

“Neither of Germany’s main opposition parties was satisfied with the assurances Friedrich… said he received during his meetings with senior US officials in Washington on Friday. Thomas Opperman, the parliamentary floor leader of the Social Democrats, said Friedrich’s trip had not achieved much. ‘Minister Friedrich is returning empty-handed,’ Oppermann said in an interview published in the Saturday edition of the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper: ‘We have not moved a single step forward on any of the key points.’ Konstantin von Notz, the Green Party’s interior affairs spokesman described Friedrich’s trip as a complete flop…”

In a related article, dated July 13, Deutsche Welle quoted opinions and statements from German politicians and newscasters, as follows:

“The election campaign has officially begun, and the NSA surveillance scandal is emerging as a key issue along the way. Now… it will fall to the opposition parties to come up with clear proposals on how they intend to treat the matter. Furthermore… the federal government has not yet comprehended what is at stake with respect to the data scandal… the governing coalition has put too much emphasis on the fact that official German delegations were potentially the victims of surveillance, whereas the core of the issue… is that 80 million German people’s communication was being monitored.

“… what’s at stake in the NSA affair is the balance of political power between the US and Germany… Germany is letting itself be lulled by ‘security nonsense’ – a reference to claims that the NSA’s surveillance activities have been able to stop terrorist attacks… Although German media have featured much discussion and criticism of the NSA’s activities, there have yet to be any major public demonstrations in response to the disclosures in recent weeks… this ‘lethargy’ [is blamed] on the fact that, due to the nature of the intelligence agencies’ surveillance, people remain unaware of the act as it is occurring…”

Friedrich’s “results” won’t satisfy the German people. Their distrust of America and their own governmental leaders is growing. And if the “lethargy” of the Germans in this matter is criticized, what word should be used to describe the deafening silence and the appalling lack of interest of a majority of the American people? One is reminded of ancient Rome before its fall—as long as the government provides some bread and a lot of games or distractions to the people, they can be kept in ignorance and a fragile state of “happiness.”

“America Is Sick”

Der Spiegel Online wrote on July 16:

“America is sick. September 11 left it wounded and unsettled — that’s been obvious for nearly 12 years — but we are only now finding out just how grave the illness really is… The global spying scandal shows that the US has become manic, that it is behaving pathologically, invasively. Its actions are entirely out of proportion to the danger…

“An American government that gives its blessing to a program like Prism respects nothing and no one. It acts out its omnipotence, considers itself above international law — certainly on its own territory and even on foreign ground… Did Obama, the Harvard Law student, even believe what he was saying in his speeches about the return of civil liberties? Can someone be so cynical that they promise to heal the world, then act in such a way all the while giving the xenophobic explanation that only foreigners would be monitored?…

“The German government has shown devastating weakness. Merkel should say, ‘You are manic, and what you are doing is sick’… Instead she weighs every word to avoid annoying the Americans…”

In an accompanying article, Der Spiegel Online wrote on July 16:

“The United States has massively and systematically violated the civil rights of people who have no possibility of voting against its practices in elections. After all, the NSA and CIA and whatever the other organizations are called aren’t operating under German laws when they’re supposedly protecting the security of the free world… Europe and Germany aren’t powerless against American encroachments. The European Union’s data protection directive includes provisions to force US firms to adhere to our rules…”

The expression, “America is sick,” is quite interesting in light of an end-time prophecy about the modern house of Israel—including the USA—in Isaiah 1:5-6.

America’s Worst Nightmare

Reuters reported on July 12:

“Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian journalist who first published the documents Snowden leaked, said in a newspaper interview published on Saturday that the U.S. government should be careful in its pursuit of the former computer analyst. ‘Snowden has enough information to cause [more] harm to the U.S. government in a single minute than any other person has ever had,’ Greenwald said…

“‘The U.S. government should be on its knees every day begging that nothing happen[s] to Snowden, because if something does happen to him, all the information will be revealed and it could be its worst nightmare.’… Greenwald said… that documents Snowden has tucked away in different parts of the world detail which U.S. spy programs capture transmissions in Latin America and how they work. ‘One way of intercepting communications is through a telephone company in the United States that has contracts with telecommunications companies in most Latin American countries,’ Greenwald said, without specifying which company.”

Did German Government Know?

Der Spiegel Online wrote on July 17:

“The German government has so far claimed that it knew nothing of the United States’ Prism spying program, revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden last month. But parts of a confidential NATO document published by daily Bild on Wednesday show that the German military, the Bundeswehr, was probably already aware of the National Security Agency’s operations in 2011.

“The document, reportedly sent on Sept. 1, 2011 to all regional commands by the joint NATO headquarters in Afghanistan, gives specific instructions on working together with the foreign data surveillance program. According to Bild, the document was also sent to the regional command in northern Afghanistan, for which Germany was responsible at the time under General Major Markus Kneip.  Should the media report be confirmed, Berlin’s claims of ignorance will prove to have been false… if it turns out that Berlin knowingly tolerated and participated in the NSA activities, many would see it as a betrayal by the government.”

The Local wrote on July 17:

“The news reports add to pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel ahead of September 22 elections because she has said she only learnt through the media of the US online and telecom surveillance programme. Many Germans are angry that their emails, phone calls, web searches and other data have been captured and stored under the NSA programme, details of which were leaked by fugitive intelligence contractor Edward Snowden.”

Hungary Warns Against German Leadership in Europe

Der Spiegel Online wrote on July 17:

“The latest remarks by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán are unlikely to improve his fractured relations with Germany or the EU. Speaking on Tuesday, he invoked the memory of World War II to warn against German leadership of the European Union. ‘When a person reads about a rapprochement between Russia and an EU led by Germany, he looks out to see whether his children are still in the yard,’ Orbán said…

“Many people in Central and Eastern Europe are wary of any signs of closer ties between Moscow and Berlin because they remember the Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact which carved up much of Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence… In May, Orbán had made a remark about Nazi tanks in the context of Germany’s policy towards Hungary, drawing an unusually sharp rebuke from German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle.”

Our Lying Media on “Racial Profiling”—The “Trial” of George Zimmerman

On July 13, the jury of six mostly white women found Hispanic George Zimmerman not guilty of murder or manslaughter of black 17-year old teenager Trayvon Martin. The mainstream media and radical proponents had created a nationwide circus and resorted to falsehoods and lies in order to invent and create a case of racial profiling to be able to convict Zimmerman in the eyes of the public.  Sadly, the real crux of the matter—whether we should have laws allowing us to have and use guns to shoot and kill others who are unarmed, when we are not in fact threatened, but feel that we might be (“Stand Your Ground” law)– took back stage in view of the hype and hysteria of unsupported allegations of racial discrimination and profiling. 

Breitbart wrote on July 13, before the verdict had come in:

“As we await the verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman, the Florida man who claims to have shot and killed teenager Trayvon Martin in self-defense, this seems the perfect time to reflect on the media’s cynical and dishonest role in turning a local crime into a national obsession… the mainstream media did everything in its still-potent power to not only push for the prosecution of Mr. Zimmerman (the police originally chose not to charge him) but also to gin up racial tensions where none needed to exist.

“It all started with the [black] anchor of a major television network (Al Sharpton) inserting himself in the story to spread division and hate; it continued straight through to the closing days of the trial when another major news network, desperate to keep a fabricated racial narrative alive, propagated the portrayal of Zimmerman as part of a racial group that doesn’t exist — the ‘white Hispanic.’ In-between, there has been an astonishing amount of malicious fraud and lies, all in an effort to serve a president, stir racial hatred, and influence the justice system… A small detail that the Obama administration and the media apparently missed was that the white versus black racial narrative they were preparing to invest so much into was missing just one thing: a white person…

“In their venomous zeal, the media and Democrats likely assumed that someone with the last name Zimmerman had to be white. But they were wrong, as Zimmerman is Hispanic. Never [once] to back off a good narrative, rather than use this revelation to tamp down tensions or correct their reporting, the media simply made up out of whole cloth a new racial category: the ‘white Hispanic.’… [On March 19] CNN went to extraordinary lengths to claim Zimmerman had uttered the racial slur ‘coon’ when he had not… CNN wouldn’t officially retract their defamation until April 5th, long after it was too late…

“President Obama made huge news when he stepped before the cameras, demanded action in the Zimmerman case, and famously said, ‘If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon.’ In just two days, a network news anchor [Sharpton] and an American president had blasted the Zimmerman case into the nation’s top story and did so based on a racial narrative without a shred of evidence to support it. Almost every other major news outlet would now commit every journalistic sin imaginable to fabricate evidence… By late March it was widely known that George Zimmerman was Hispanic. This did not stop the Boston Globe from using its pages to describe him as ‘a white neighborhood watch captain’…

“Even though Zimmerman is Hispanic and there was no evidence of any racial motivation behind his actions, the media’s racial-hysteria was, at this point, in full bloom… Desperate to keep a non-existent racial narrative alive, during a broadcast of the PBS Newshour Gwen Ifill falsely stated: ‘Martin, who was black, was on his way to a convenience store in a mostly white gated community when George Zimmerman, who is white, shot and killed him after a disputed altercation…’ After the arrest, and as the trial date neared the following year, NBC would allow Al Sharpton to turn his primetime MSNBC show into a platform dedicated to convicting Zimmerman…”

The myths of “racial profiling” in this case continues. As Fox News reported on July 13, 2013: “‘Today, justice failed Trayvon Martin and his family,’ said Roslyn M. Brock, Chairman of the NAACP in a statement. ‘We call immediately for the Justice Department to conduct an investigation into the civil rights violations committed against Trayvon Martin. This case has re-energized the movement to end racial profiling in the United States.’ ‘We are outraged and heartbroken over today’s verdict,’ said Benjamin Todd Jealous, President and CEO of the NAACP, in another statement… ‘we will not rest until racial profiling in all its forms is outlawed.’”

Al Maurer of The Washington Times agreed with the sentiments expressed in the article of Breitbart, quoted above, and stated on July 14:

“From the beginning the media sought to play the story as white-on-black violence. It fits the narrative of the white man oppressing the black man. The only problem is that Zimmerman isn’t ‘white’; he’s Hispanic. Alter the facts… The media creates a new racial category, ‘White Hispanic.’

“For the story to work, however, the black man as victim must be innocent. Trayvon Martin was pictured as an innocent young teen. Youthful pictures of him were released; more recent ones suppressed. To fill the role of oppressor, Zimmerman had to be made to look like one. While flattering pictures of Martin were used, the most unflattering ones of Zimmerman accompanied them. Zimmerman was portrayed in the popular press as a vengeful vigilante just looking for the opportunity to shoot someone.

“As time wore on, Zimmerman didn’t appear so menacing. Martin didn’t appear so innocent… In contemporary America it is not just the media who push the narrative. The president himself commented on the case well before all the facts were known. But facts don’t matter, after all. The narrative does. Recent press reporting indicates that the Justice Department has been involved as well.

“The race-baiters Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have been prominent in pushing the narrative too. Ominous warnings of riots in case of an unfavorable (i.e., ‘not guilty’) verdict were sounded… Six women had the courage to decide ‘not guilty’ when the mob screamed ‘guilty.’”

If one repeats a lie often enough, it will finally be believed as being the truth. So be careful when you are confronted with statements which are not based on proven evidence, and if you want to receive fair and objective accurate news reports from our mainstream media. In all likelihood, you will not get it.

Jury Duty and Questionable Law the Real Issue

According to the New York Post of July 14, 2013, Donald Trump made these statements: “Zimmerman is no angel but the lack of evidence and the concept of self-defense, especially in Florida law, gave the jury little other choice.” Similar sentiments were expressed by Piers Morgan, according to Beitbart, dated July 14: “I don’t critisize the jury—I critize the law that enabled them to find George Zimmerman not guilty of anything.” He added: “If George Zimmerman had not had a gun, he’d never got out of his car that night, and Trayvon Martin would still be alive.”

Maybe. But here we are getting to the crux of the matter: While the focus is detracted from the essentials and placed on concocted non-existing issues of race and racial profiling, we are really dealing here with questionable laws and the jury’s duty under the legal system to uphold these laws during their deliberations and decision-making. That is one of the many reasons why true Christians should not sit on a jury under any circumstances.

Why It Is Unlawful to Give Military Aid to Egypt

On July 12, The Washington Post published the following editorial by Senator Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations and Homeland Security committees:

“Egypt has undergone a coup, deposed its leader and the military has installed a new president. The situation is unpredictable, unstable and volatile. The country remains in a state of unrest… U.S. law states that we can’t send military and other types of aid to any country whose duly elected head of state is deposed by a coup. U.S. law clearly says that we cannot send such aid where the military plays a decisive role in the coup. This law allows no presidential waiver. Aid cannot be reconsidered or restored until a democratically elected government is elected.

“Yet, as President Obama has so often done with other laws and even the Constitution, he ignores it. The Obama administration has refused to acknowledge that the military takeover in Egypt is a coup. When asked directly to spell out the State Department’s definition of a coup, spokeswoman Jen Psaki refused… we have a president who denies a coup has taken place in Egypt when, by any conventional definition, it most certainly has. The president of Egypt was placed under house arrest. The military took over the television stations. The military took control of local police and all forms of local and national government.

“Still, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN, ‘If this were to be seen as a coup, then it would limit our ability to have the kind of relationship we think we need with the Egyptian armed forces.’ Thursday morning, it was reported that this relationship included delivering four F-16 fighter jets to Egypt in the next few weeks in addition to the eight we sent in January. Another eight are scheduled to ship later this year… In January 2011, some of the jets we gave to President Hosni Mubarak were used to intimidate protesters — the same people whose protests helped to overthrow Mr. Mubarak and replace him with Mohammed Morsi. Not surprisingly, Gallup reported in February 2012 that 71 percent of Egyptians opposed U.S. foreign aid to their country. When both Mr. Mubarak and Mr. Morsi were overthrown, protesters held signs criticizing U.S. aid to ‘dictators.’

“It should also be noted that when the Egyptian military helped oust Mr. Mubarak — the classic definition of a coup d’etat — the Obama administration also declined to acknowledge even then that a coup had taken place. When we continued giving F-16s to Mr. Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood after Mr. Mubarak, I offered an amendment to stop military aid to Egypt. It was defeated 79-19.

“The United States has cut off weapons aid in the past after military officers overthrew civilian governments in the Ivory Coast, the Central African Republic, Fiji, Honduras and Mali. In Egypt, however, where the regimes are constantly changing, our foreign-aid policy never does. This week, I introduced legislation again that would cut off foreign aid to Egypt. We either have a nation of laws, or we don’t. If we are a nation of laws, foreign aid to Egypt should immediately end. If instead, we are now just governed by popular prejudice and unlimited executive ability to contravene the law, then perhaps we should be looking at Washington to determine whether or not a coup has occurred.”

To predict the outcome, U.S. military aid to Egypt will most likely continue… even though a coup has CLEARLY occurred WITHOUT ANY DOUBT… which, with the words of Senator Paul, would mean that ours is not (any longer) a nation of laws. This is almost ironic as, following the verdict in the Zimmerman case, President Obama issued the following statement, according to CNN, dated July 14:

“The death of Trayvon Martin was a tragedy. Not just for his family, or for any one community, but for America. I know this case has elicited strong passions. And in the wake of the verdict, I know those passions may be running even higher. But we are a nation of laws, and a jury has spoken…”

Egypt Might Become Even More Radical

Der Spiegel Online wrote on July 16:

“After the massacre last Monday of more than 50 Muslim Brotherhood supporters, Egypt has become all but ungovernable. The new unity government in Cairo is already crumbling, and now it’s the ultra-conservative Salafists who stand to benefit… Muslim Brotherhood supporters have been filled with anger and frustration. The bloody clash between Brotherhood supporters and the military destroyed any hope that a peaceful settlement could be reached…

“In this overheated mood, precisely what the military sought to prevent with its coup could in fact happen: The Islamists could become radicalized. Last week, Egyptians experienced a taste of what that could mean, when a 60-year-old Coptic Christian was beheaded and a priest was shot on the Sinai Peninsula. In a village in Upper Egypt, a mob beat a Christian supporter of the Tamarud movement to death, while other Copts were stabbed to death and about 20 houses owned by members of the religious minorities were torched…”

Europe’s Anti-Israeli Wares and America’s Silence

Al Jazeera wrote on July 16:

“Guidelines revealed on Tuesday make clear that, from next year, Israeli ‘entities’ operating in the territories will not be eligible for EU grants, prizes or loans. The measure will apply to Israeli companies, universities or other bodies operating in areas occupied by Israel since the 1967 war, including the Golan Heights, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. ‘The EU has made it clear that it will not recognise any changes to pre-1967 borders, other than those agreed by the parties to the Middle East peace process,’ a copy of the guidelines seen by the Reuters news agency said… The guildelines say that all Israeli groups applying for financial assistance, scholarships and funding must prove they do not operate in the occupied territories.”

The Washington Post wrote on July 16:

“Europe… never miss[es] the [chance] to display their anti-Israeli wares. The Wall Street Journal reports: ‘Israel reacted angrily Tuesday to an effort by the European Union to keep EU funds from flowing to Israeli organizations operating in the occupied territories, the latest bump in the sometimes-rocky relationship between Israel and Europe.’… Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the EU should focus on the ‘more pressing’ issues of Syria’s civil war and Iran’s nuclear program rather than Israeli settlement activity… The EU already charges customs duties on Israeli imports that originate in the occupied territories that would otherwise enjoy free-trade exemptions…

“The EU has long sought to play a role in Middle East peace talks… This is an old story for the European Union — it strives for relevance but its anti-Israeli tendencies make it particularly unsuited to play any constructive role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict… If the United States made clear that such behavior is entirely unacceptable, some of the Israel bashing might stop. Whether at the United Nations or in direct conversations with our European ‘friends,’ this should be a topic of conversation. It is evidently not…”

The global influence of the USA is diminishing. Even when America speaks, not too many listen any more. It will indeed be Europe which will speak loudly, and nations will listen and heed. It is prophesied that Europe will play a decisive role in Middle Eastern politics.

Israel May Have to Address Iran Before USA Does…

Bloomberg wrote on July 14:

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Iran is moving ahead toward nuclear weapons capability and warned that his country would act by itself if necessary to prevent that from happening. ‘We’re closer than the United States,’ Netanyahu said Sunday… ‘We’re more vulnerable. And therefore, we’ll have to address this question of how to stop Iran, perhaps before the United States does.’…

“Netanyahu has said Iran is seeking to develop nuclear weapons that would pose an ‘existential threat’ to Israel and ‘all options are on the table’ to stop it, including a military strike… Netanyahu dismissed speculation that [Iran’s new political leader] Rohani’s victory last month signals a possible change in Iranian nuclear policy… Rohani’s strategy ‘is [to] be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Smile and build a bomb,’ the Israeli leader said…”

Building the Third Temple

JTA wrote on July 9:

“No praying. No kneeling. No bowing. No prostrating. No dancing. No singing. No ripping clothes.These are the rules that Jews must abide by when visiting the Temple Mount, the site where the First and Second Holy Temples once stood, located above and behind the Western Wall in the heart of Jerusalem’s Old City.

“Although the area is under Israeli sovereignty, the mount — known to Muslims as Haram al-Sharif — is controlled by the Islamic Wakf, a joint Palestinian-Jordanian religious body. As the site of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, whose golden dome overlooks the city, the Temple Mount attracts daily crowds of Muslim worshipers…

“Rabbi Chaim Richman… is the international director of the Temple Institute, an organization based in the Old City with a singular goal: to rebuild the Holy Temple in Jerusalem… Following the Second Temple’s destruction in 70 C.E., most rabbis adopted the position that Jewish law prohibits reconstructing the Holy Temple prior to the age of messianic redemption, or that the law is too ambiguous and that the messiah must come first.

“The Temple Institute takes a different position. ‘There are no Jewish legal barriers’ to rebuilding the temple, Richman says, only political ones. The institute isn’t shy about advocating what many see as a radical goal: replacing the mosque at the Dome of the Rock with a new Jewish Holy Temple… The organization has formulated a program for where the temple will stand and what its vessels will look like, aided by 20 men who study Temple law full-time. The products of this research — 40 ritual objects — are on display in Plexiglas cases at the institute’s headquarters in the Old City.

“Silver trumpets to be blown by priests and a wooden lyre are perched next to two deep pans with long handles — one for collecting blood from small sacrificial offerings and another for large sacrifices like the Passover lamb. In another room, mannequins with beards wear the respective vestments for deputy priests and the high priest. The high priest’s outfit, with azure weaves, gold thread and a breastplate with 12 precious stones, took 11 years of research and $150,000 to complete…

“The institute’s crowning achievement — the Temple’s golden, 200-pound, seven-branch menorah — stands outside in a case overlooking the Western Wall. Unlike art or history museums, the institute’s goal is to remove the objects from their cases and bring them to the mount for use as soon as possible… Though observant Jews pray thrice daily in the Amidah prayer for the Temple to be rebuilt, few do anything about it…

“Richman says support for the institute’s goals is growing. For him, the issue involves far more than politics, archaeology or even Jewish legal research. The Temple Institute, he says, is doing God’s work. ‘The point is that we can’t live without the Temple,’ Richman says…”

In regard to Tisha B’Av, a Jewish fast day in memory of the destruction of the Second Temple, Times of Israel wrote on July 15:

“The Talmud in Sukkah tells of the beauty of the Second Temple that Herod rebuilt. It is hard to imagine such beauty when we see the above ground Western Wall today. Erosion and time have taken its physical beauty. But underground the stones are a pristine white and appear good as new… What we see of the Wall today, is a fraction of the size of the original Wall… There is a section of floor from the Second Temple era that has been excavated… walking and sitting on the floor where our grandparents sat 2000 years ago is very powerful…

“On this Tisha B’Av, remember that we are not crying over a dead Temple. If it were so, we would have stopped crying eons ago. The stones are alive. They are kept alive by the promise that we will see a Third Temple. They are kept alive by the souls of the Jewish people yearning for their Temple to be rebuild. And they are kept alive by the tears we cry on Tisha B’Av every single year.”

North Korea’s and Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Programs

Reuters wrote on July 17:

“Stanford University’s Siegfried Hecker… said the North had ‘everything in place’ for what would be the fourth [nuclear] explosion since 2006. The impoverished country conducted its third nuclear test in February, prompting stiffer U.N. sanctions against it… Hecker said North Korea ‘needed additional tests in my opinion to miniaturize’, referring to the effort to develop a bomb small and robust enough to fit onto a delivery vehicle such as a missile…

“But China’s displeasure was an important reason ‘why I think they are hesitating now…’  China is North Korea’s most important economic and political backer, but the two are uneasy allies and tensions have grown. Some Chinese banks have frozen out North Korea’s main foreign exchange bank amid frustration in Beijing over the North’s continued pushing of its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs…

“Hecker… said he was concerned about the possibility of cooperation between North Korea and Iran… Any sharing of the North’s test data would be dangerous, he said, adding: ‘That would be very, very troublesome and indeed could give the Iranian program a significant boost’… Hecker said he believed Iran had developed a nuclear weapon option. ‘Iran … has put all the things in place to be able to develop the bomb should it decide to do so,’ he said.”

“Gay Marriage” Legal in Britain and Wales

Salon.com reported on July 16:

“Britain’s lower house of parliament voted Tuesday to pass a measure legalizing gay marriage in England and Wales… ‘It’s impossible to express how much joy this historic step will bring to tens of thousands of gay people and their families and friends,’ Ben Summerskill, chief executive of Stonewall, a gay rights group, said in a statement. ‘The bill’s progress through Parliament shows that, at last, the majority of politicians in both Houses understand the public’s support for equality, though it’s also reminded us that gay people still have powerful opponents.’”

The Associated Press reported on July 17:

“The French like to make fun of the British, joking about their repressed ways in matters of the heart. But when it came time to debate same-sex marriage, it was France that betrayed a deep conservative streak in sometimes violent protests — while the British showed themselves to be modern and tolerant. With little fanfare or controversy, Britain announced Wednesday that Queen Elizabeth II — hardly a social radical — had signed into law a bill legalizing same-sex marriages in England and Wales. France has also legalized gay marriages, but only after a series of gigantic protests attracting families from the traditional heartland that revealed a deeply split society.

“Official word that the queen had approved the bill drew cheers in the usually sedate House of Commons. ‘This is a historic moment that will resonate in many people’s lives,’ Equalities Minister Maria Miller said in a statement. ‘I am proud that we have made it happen and I look forward to the first same sex wedding by next summer.’ There were British political figures and religious leaders vehemently opposed to gay marriage but the opposition never reached a fever pitch, in part because the same-sex marriage bill had broad public support and the backing of the leaders of the three major political parties. In fact, it was Prime Minister David Cameron, leader of the tradition-minded Conservatives, who proposed the legislation in the first place.

“The public seemed to take it for granted that gay marriage should be a part of British life… The law was also written in a way that allowed the Church of England — which is opposed — to sidestep the controversy since it is explicitly barred from conducting same-sex marriages.”

The French Bastille Day—Truth And Error?

BBC wrote on July 13:

“When the French parade on Sunday [July 14] for their national day, they will be marking the fall of the Bastille prison-fortress on 14 July 1789. Everyone knows that. Or do they? In fact there is a surprising twist in the story of this proud Republican anniversary. Without realising it, what the French may technically be celebrating is not the storming of the Bastille but an event that took [place] exactly one year later, on 14 July 1790: the Fete de la Federation…

“There was Napoleon; then the restored Bourbons after Waterloo; then King Louis-Philippe; a brief republican interlude starting in 1848; and then the second empire under Napoleon III. Not until 1870, after defeat in the Franco-Prussian war, did France establish a lasting republican system. And even then, in the Third Republic’s first elected Assembly, there was a clear majority of members who actually favoured a return to monarchy. The forces of anti-revolutionary conservatism remained strong…

“By the end of the 1870s, the situation had moved. Most monarchists had become reconciled to the Republic; there was a Republican majority in the Assembly; so now was the time to anchor the new order with a set of national symbols. And one of the first questions was the choice of national day. After looking at various options, the left settled on 14 July. They reasoned that the taking of the Bastille was what triggered the French Revolution – the moment an angry people began to throw off its chains. But the trouble was that 14 July was also a day of bloodshed. The governor of Paris had his head cut off with a pen-knife…

“For the ex-monarchists – now late converts to the Republic – this was all too much. A national day should be a day of reconciliation, they argued, not a celebration of class hatred. And so eyes turned to the Fete de la Federation… And to mark it, the authorities organised an extraordinary outdoor event on the Champs de Mars – where the Eiffel Tower now stands… On 14 July 1790, it poured with rain. But delegations of the newly-created national guard from across France paraded through the city, led by the Marquis de Lafayette… On the Champs de Mars there was military music; oaths were made to the King, who in turn swore to uphold the decrees of the National Assembly; Mass was celebrated. And in a scene straight out of today’s celebrity culture, there was a roar of excitement as Queen Marie-Antoinette held up the baby dauphin – heir to the throne – to the crowd.

“In the words of historian Georges-Henri Soutou, it was a moment when ‘it was still possible to imagine that a new regime could be established – one that did not offend the religious sensitivities of the majority and had the support of the King.’ It did not last, of course. Within a year, the revolution was on course towards its bloody conclusion. But a century later, the Fete de la Federation had the huge distinction of being an occasion on which just about everyone – from Bourbon loyalists to proto-Socialists – could agree. For the Senator Henri Martin – who drew up the National Day law – ‘14 July 1790 is the most beautiful day in the history of France, possibly in the history of mankind. It was on that day that national unity was finally accomplished.’ Passed in 1880, the law was deliberately ambiguous. It did not say which 14 July was being celebrated. And today, of course, everyone thinks of it as Bastille Day.”

As it is so often the case with human traditions and the celebration of humanly devised holidays, we see in the observation of the “Bastille Day” a mixture between perhaps some truth and a lot of error and misconceptions.

In our Update #479 (dated 11th February 2011; Q&A: “Are You God’s True Church?”), the specific question was asked: “Every splinter group or offshoot of the Worldwide Church of God claims to be God’s true Church. What do you say of yourselves?”

The answer concluded with this statement: “We believe that we are part of the Church of God—the body of Christ—which is a spiritual organism. We do NOT believe that we are the ONLY group comprising the Church of God. At the same time, we would like to encourage you to study our literature in order to determine whether we belong to the remnant of the Philadelphia era, or whether we are part of the church of the Laodiceans. You may want to review our Statement of Beliefs at: www.eternalgod.org; www.churchofgodacf.ca; www.globalchurchofgod.co.uk; and www.aufpostenstehen.de.”

There does seem to be a lack of understanding when a leader, members, or both, claim that their particular Church of God fellowship or group is the only true Church of God and that one has to belong to that particular Church organisation to be protected from harm during the Great Tribulation and to inherit eternal life. Let us first of all realise the following:

A true Christian is someone who is called by the Father (John 6:44, 65) and must repent and be baptised (Acts 2:38). The Holy Spirit must dwell in a true Christian because “if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His” (Romans 8:9). Acts 5:32 clearly tells us that God only gives the Holy Spirit to those who obey Him. Therefore, a true Christian must be called, repent, be properly baptised and continue to obey God – nothing less will do according to God’s Word. Our Update # 237 (dated 31st March 2006) covers this thoroughly in the Q&A, “What is a True Christian?”

We know that there is no other way to God the Father except through Christ: “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12; also see John 14:6). The apostle Paul writes in Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh by faith in (better “of”) the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

The Church comprises those in whom the Spirit of God dwells, irrespective of their affiliation, and we know that the Church is comprised of ministers and members. We read in Ephesians 4:11-13: “And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

In the Good News magazine, dated October 1976, the following remarks from a reader were quoted: “You have stated: ‘The true church is (today) small, and its people are scattered. But remember, no organisation is the body of Christ. Rather, the church is an organism often composed of scattered individuals (see 1 Corinthians 12).’ The Bible completely disagrees with you! The Church of God is most definitely the body of Christ!”

The article continued to respond as follows: “We must not confuse the Church of God, the body of Christ, with the configuration into which members of that body organise in order to achieve the goal of preaching the gospel in an orderly fashion. It is quite correct to say that the Church is the body of Christ. This body is a spiritual organism composed of those individuals who have been given the Holy Spirit by and from God.   But these individuals may at different times in history organise into groups of people (the Greek word ekklesia, translated ‘church’ in the New Testament , means ‘a group of people’) dedicated to a common set of purposes. Organisation, in this sense, is what the church has, not what it is. The Church of God today has an organised ministry, deacons, deaconesses and various other leaders or ‘governments’ (see 1 Cor. 12:28).

“In 1 Corinthians 12 the apostle Paul likens the Church to a human body which has many members or parts. But this is only an analogy. The structure of the Church, in the physical sense, is merely a tool for doing a job. God has used various structures in different ages. Today the Church may have a corporate structure for the purpose of dealing with the world on its own business terms. But that corporation is not Christ’s body – it is something that the body of believers uses to get the job done.”

That response was written over 36 years ago and was a concept that was known, understood and believed years before that. In fact, Church members [apart from Directors or Board members] were never even members of the Worldwide Church of God, a California corporation, nor were they members of other Church of God corporations; and the same can be said today. The Church of God, the spiritual body of Christ, works through legal entities, but it is not, by itself, a legal entity. This lack of understanding as to what the Church is explains one of the reasons (but by no means the only one) why those are in error who still feel that they must remain to be a “part of” the Worldwide Church of God (operating now under a different name) to remain members of the body of Christ.

Unfortunately, since the true Church of God started going through its modern difficulties, particularly in the 1990’s and on into the 21st century, some have taken the incorrect position that one does not need to belong to ANY Church organization. We address this fallacy in our Update #213 (dated 30th September 2005, in the Q&A, “Will ‘Independents’ Be Saved?”).

The opposite partisan approach is also incorrect; namely, to believe and teach that the group or fellowship to which they belong is the ONLY true Church, and that physical protection and spiritual salvation can only be obtained if one is a member of that particular group. This is simply a lack of understanding of a basic Scriptural principle. It is also an attitude of “exclusivism” which the Word of God does not endorse (1 Corinthians 3:1-8, 21-23). Such an approach can bring about a “superior” attitude which is not pleasing in God’s sight; neither would it be an application of esteeming others better or “superior” than self (Philippians 2:3), and of many other Godly principles.

On the other hand, it is true that we must grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18), the Head of the Church of God (Ephesians 4:15; 1:22-23; 5:23; Colossians 1:18). We can do this most effectively when we are in the best possible spiritual environment that is available to us. We are admonished to have fellowship with brethren of like mind (Hebrews 10:23-25; see our Update #596, dated 5th July 2013, in the Q&A on “Required Regular Church Attendance”), and to separate ourselves from those who are lacking in zeal; who are lukewarm and unrepentant; or who are being led by a different spirit (2 Timothy 2:20-21).

We are sometimes asked whether we believe that ours are the organisations closest to God’s truth. It is natural and logical that we believe this; otherwise, why would we exist as separate organisations and not simply join with another Church group? But it is not for us to tell YOU… it is up to YOU to find out for yourself, searching the Scriptures daily to ascertain whether the things we teach are so (Acts 17:10-11).

Those who have the Holy Spirit and are obedient to God’s Word are members of the Church of God, the spiritual body of Christ, irrespective of affiliation. We cannot second guess who and where they all might be, as only God knows His own (2 Timothy 2:19) and their hearts (Acts 15:8-9). But insofar as we ourselves are concerned, we are to prove or test all things and hold fast what is good (1Thessalonains 5:21); we are to test the spirits, whether they are of God (1 John 4,1); and we are to listen to and follow the voice of our Shepherd, Jesus Christ (John 10:1-5, 14).

Lead Writers: Brian Gale (United Kingdom) and Norbert Link

We discussed at our recent Church Conference the possibility of producing British and Canadian SW “advertising” programs. The first one has been produced, targeting the United Kingdom. In this British StandingWatch presentation, Mr. Brian Gale covers some of the intriguing questions about the Gospel of the Kingdom of God along with offering listeners more information for obtaining our free booklet on this subject. Johanna Link, our Video Production Manager, added visual componets to make this inaugural program very appealing. This program can be viewed at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCEChFr_Dx4.

Mr. Rene Messier departed for Nairobi, Kenya, on Wednesday to visit brethren and interested parties in that nation. Mr. Messier will spend several very active days in which he will conduct Sabbath service, hold a leadership meeting, counsel potential candidates for baptism and deal with a series of questions we have received from this area. Once again, we ask that you pray for Mr. Messier.

“Race No Issue in the Zimmerman Case,” is the title of this week’s StandingWatch program presented by Evangelist Norbert Link. Here is a summary:

On July 13, 2013, the jury of six mostly white women found Hispanic George Zimmerman not guilty of murder or manslaughter of black 17-year old teenager Trayvon Martin. The mainstream media had created a nationwide circus and resorted to falsehoods and lies in order to invent a case involving race. Sadly, the real crux of the matter took back stage in view of the hype and hysteria of unsupported allegations of racial profiling. 

“Sex zwischen Engeln und Menschen?,” is the title of this week’s German sermon. In this sermon, Mr. Norbert Link presents information which was also covered in our recent Q&A on alleged sexual intercourse between angels and women (See Update 597).