Matthew 24:6-8 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled, for all these things must occur; but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in different places. All these are the beginning of sorrows.
With everything happening in Israel, I’m often asked what I think will happen with the latest political situation in the holy land. Right now, we're getting ready to have the 5th election in the past 4 years. And, it may very well turn out to be another stalemate, as there appears to be no way to form a coalition according to the latest polls.
But the situation in Israel is typical of what’s happening all across the world. Within many nations around the world – Great Britain, France, China, India, Iran, Chile, Bolivia, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and even the United States, internal crises are either brewing or have already exploded into varying degrees of violence, armed conflict and/or civil war.
In the Olivet discourse recorded in Matthew 24, Yeshua prophesied that "... nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom." The word "nation" in Greek is the word "ethnos", from which we get the English word "ethnic". All of this polarization and ethnic warfare which the media feed upon and incite is the work of the enemy as he stirs up the sinful nature of men.
Israeli politics are as vulnerable to this as any other nation since we are not yet under the loving and just authority of our true King. Yet, of course, we do need a government; but just maybe, the Lord is speaking to our nation through this political impasse; maybe He wants to remind us that, on our own, we are hopelessly doomed to conflicts and strife, and that we need to look to Heaven for His prophesied reign.
So, of course, we pray for the Lord's will in our political situation; but as we remember who we are, sons and daughters of the Most High from every tribe, nation and tongue we must resolve NOT to participate in the spirit of division, conflict, strife, violence, and hatred that is proliferating across the globe.
Our mandate as a kingdom of priests is to pray and let the world be blown away by our love. Crisis is everywhere, but the Chinese character for this word "crisis" also means "opportunity". Our opportunity in all this crisis is to stand out, stand apart and demonstrate faith, hope, and love which the Holy Spirit gives us through Yeshua. Amen?
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]Once upon a time, there was a prince who received a very rare and beautiful bird. He named her Goldie and placed her in a lovely, 14K gold cage. But the poor creature was not impressed by the gold at all. She pleaded for her freedom but the prince loved her much too much to part with her. Still, she continued to beg. In final desperation, she asked that he at least allow her go to her relatives and tell them that, though captive, she was still alive.
Charles Swindoll wrote about these men who bring in animals from Africa for American zoos. They say that one of the hardest animals to catch there is the ringtailed monkey. For the Zulus of that continent, however, it’s simple. They’ve been catching this agile little animal with ease for years.
When I teach about “understanding the will of God,” I’d like to talk about a story that is told in all the synoptic gospels, except that Luke’s account gives a significant nuance. (Many skeptical Bible “critics” point out differences in the gospels to argue that they can’t be reliable — yet it’s actually the differences that support the validity of these accounts because they reveal that the events recorded were simply experienced and told from slightly different viewpoints, a very common circumstance when people are telling a story.)
This is a story relayed by Corrie Ten Boom, “It was Christmas, 1944. My sister, Betsie, had died. I was in a hospital barracks in Ravensbruck, a Nazi prison camp. Dark it was in my heart, and darkness was around me. There were Christmas trees in the street between the barracks. Dead bodies of prisoners had been thrown under the Christmas trees. I tried to talk to the people around me about Christmas, but they mocked and sneered. At last I kept quiet.
Over the past few days, one of our servers that hosts roughly 20 different web sites was breached and used to send SPAM. While there was no real damage done, the thousands of bounced messages literally caused the server to shut down. There was no personal information stored on the server, however, the hours spent setting up a new server in the midst of a speaking tour created chaos which we really didn’t have the time to deal with. However, the worst of it is all over, and we’re back! Just as we’re getting ready to launch another website (https://worthy.bible) for the Kingdom … we get attacked from all sides!
From the beginning, we anticipated a time when we would need to produce all our news content. Over the past month, as many of you are aware, we’ve fully shifted to generating articles exclusively through our dedicated in-house writing team. We’ve also expanded as we continue to freely syndicate our news to any online Christian ministry. Operating on faith and independent of advertising revenue, our ministry’s content is driven not by external factors but by a deep commitment to fulfilling the Lord’s will.
I came across an old legend about three cowboys crossing the desert on horseback by night. Suddenly, as they reached a rocky spot, a voice came from heaven and commanded them: “Friends, pick up some pebbles, put them in your pockets and do not look at them till morning.” The men looked at each other in astonishment and began to do as they were told. The voice went on to promise that if they obeyed, they would be both glad and sad. The perplexed men put a few pebbles each in their pockets and went on their way.