Sons of Zadok Part 2 of 2

April 3, 2025

Today the big philosophy in church growth is, 'find out what the people want and give it to them.' It is derived from the model of Bill Hybels church in Willow Creek. Do your market research, find out what the people want, and give it to them.

There are a lot of very unscriptural ideas and influences coming from people like Peter Wagner and others, on how to grow a church. Whenever you use a human discipline or management philosophy, it must always be subordinate to Scripture. It has been said that the bait you use to catch someone is the food you must feed him in order to keep him. The church will therefore become more and more like the world. 'Oh, they want Christian rock music and smoke machines, so we'll give it to them'. So instead of having worship services, you basically have rock concerts in church, based not on the worship of God but on the worship of worship. That's one example; there are others. There are churches that have food courts in them. There are pastors attending seminars at Willow Creek in Chicago to learn church growth.

One month ago, hundreds and perhaps even thousands of evangelical pastors met at Willow Creek Church with Bill Hybels, who interviewed President Clinton. In the Old Testament history of Israel, God's judgment was looming because of the genocidal atrocity of sacrificing children to demons. God put up with a lot of things; He put up with immorality, social injustice, and even idolatry. But once they began taking babies and sacrificing them to other gods in a cruel manner, God drew the line. Judgment must come; even if there were a revival, it would only delay the judgment, not stop it altogether. We see this in the days of Josiah. The revival only delayed the inevitable because of the blood of the babies under Manasseh.

God's judgment is looming over the Protestant democracies, including the United States, because of abortion. 35 million babies murdered, with less than one percent of them aborted for any clinical reason. Now we have partial-birth abortion; this procedure involves a suboccipital puncture -- puncturing the baby's skull -- and suboccipital insertion of a catheter into the baby's cranium, followed by suction of the baby's brain from his or her skull while he or she is still alive. This is partial-birth abortion, supported vehemently by the present administration.

What did Amos, Isaiah, and Jeremiah say to the national leaders about the immorality that was going to bring God's judgment? They openly confronted the king, knowing that they would be persecuted for doing so. But what did Bill Hybels say about partial-birth abortion -- or any abortion, for that matter? What did Bill Hybels say about militant and radical homosexuality, with lesbianism being promoted by Clinton and his wife? Not one word. He was 'politically correct,' and people are looking to him. What did Biblical leaders say to the national leaders when they were bringing God's judgment? We are talking here about little babies having their brains sucked out; yet not one word is said. "Give the people what they want."

But the righteous clergy give the people what they need. They were the minority. Let us look further, to understand how this works.

Ezekiel 44:11; God leaves them in place. Don't worry; God says in verse ten that they will bear the consequences of their iniquity -- they will not get away with anything. Yet God leaves them in place for a season, to be ministers in the sanctuary. In verse 11 it says that they shall stand before the people and minister to the people; but in verse 15, the Zadokites kept charge of the sanctuary when the Lord's people went astray. "They shall stand before Me." A Levite will always minister to the people; a Zadokite will minister to the Lord.

When the Levites give the people what they want, you don't see a real move of God. There are places in the United States which are having real moves of God; there is something of a genuine revival taking place in my native New York City, with the radical decrease in crime and so on. There is an incredible move of God in David Wilkerson's Times Square Church in Manhattan and in Jim Simbola's church, Brooklyn Tabernacle. I remember when that was a small group of people meeting in a YWCA; now it's a congregation of ten or twelve thousand. This has spread to other areas of the Northeast. Their growth is not based on people leaving one church for another; it is based on people being saved. I once taught a Bible study in David Wilkerson's church's rescue mission, called the Upper Room; every day we saw drug addicts, prostitutes, and homosexuals get saved. People are saved during every meeting in Wilkerson's church. I'm not saying he's perfect, but he is honest. The crime rate has plummeted in New York; the current murder rate is lower than that of 1964. This is opposed to places in which there has been no change and no growth, such as Pensacola, Toronto, and London, where instead things have gotten worse.

If I take money from my right pocket and move it into my left pocket, am I any better off financially? What kind of businessman, or any person, would do such a thing and think themselves richer? Much of this seeker-friendly stuff, 'give the people what they want', is transfer growth. People leaving one church for another to have their ears tickled, as Paul tells us. They find somebody who tells them what they want to hear. This is not people being saved; it's not the forces of darkness being challenged; it's not immorality being thrown back. It's people taking money from one pocket and transferring it to another. No businessman could run a business on transfer growth, taking money from one column and putting it into another. Only a Pentecostal preacher can get away with that. Believe me, I should know; I am a Pentecostal preacher. I am embarrassed to admit that the Pentecostal ministry has become a dumping ground for people who simply cannot do anything else. Do you really think that these guys could be electricians or plumbers and build up a good business? Could they be dentists or mathematicians? No, they're not intelligent enough. The Pentecostal ministry becomes for these people a ticket to the success they couldn't achieve in the world. I am not saying that they're all this way, but most of what we see today is like that. It's all hype artistry, psychological manipulation, and pop psychology, not the Bible. It's 'give the people what they want'; they're pandering to a market.

A lot of people knew Pensacola was not a revival. A lot of Assemblies of God ministers knew it was wrong, just as a lot of them knew that the PTL club was not of God. They went along with it anyway, why? Because the people liked it! 'If we don't have it,' they said, 'we'll lose members to the church up the street that does have it.' You see, they are no longer running a church; instead, they are running a business, an enterprise. Just as you have to give the customers what they want if you run a haberdashery shop, you have to give the customers what they want if you're running a church. They are ministering to the people and not to the Lord.

A Zadokite, however, a righteous clergyman, would rather teach the truth to 50 people than teach error to 50,000. He is ministering to the Lord, you see. The other guy, verse 11, he's ministering to the people.

There was no revival in Pensacola, and none in Toronto. No real revival like we see in New York City, with people really getting saved. That didn't happen in London at Holy Trinity Brompton with the Alpha Courses; the city has actually only gotten worse. All they do is get people leaving one church for another, and then say that the Lord is blessing them, for look how they've grown. But that's silly; it is sheer idiocy. We have men standing in pulpits today behaving like idiots. Not a nice word; but Paul uses the word idiotae in Corinthians.

I think that people should leave bad churches in order to come to good ones; yet the Gospel should be our focus. One danger that can happen in good churches is this: Because they will stand up for truth against the error, they wind up becoming hospitals for Christians who have been ripped off and abused in bad churches, and lose their own evangelistic focus. This shouldn't be allowed to happen; a balance should be kept. It can easily happen that a good church becomes a hospital for abused Christians rather than focusing on evangelistic outreach to the community.

What comes next? "It shall be that when they enter, they shall be clothed with linen garments; wool shall not be on them while they are ministering in the gates to the inner court of the house. Linen turbans shall be on their heads, and linen undergarments shall be on their loins. They shall not gird themselves with anything which makes them sweat." This refers to an elaborate Hebrew ritual for the Day of Atonement called the Mustafa. We read about this ritual in an ancient rabbinic tractate called yoma, which describes what the Day of Atonement was like in the day of Jesus. When you read the book of Hebrews in light of its background, you understand Hebrews a lot better. In this ritual, the high priest is of course a picture of Christ, as we are told in Hebrews. But when he went to the Holy of Holies once a year, he put on different clothes that the people could not see; all-white linen garments. He looked different from the way he normally looked when he went into the Holy of Holies; this is a picture of Christ as well, when Jesus went before the Father to make atonement for our sin. It was a mystery what happened behind the curtain while the high priest was behind it; when he went before the Father, he was different than when he was before the people. The apostles only had glimpses of this; the transfiguration, or later on when John saw Jesus in His manifest glory. And although John knew Jesus humanly, when he saw Him in His divinity, he was shocked in Revelation chapter 1. They saw one Jesus; but when He went in back of that curtain, as it were, to make atonement, they didn't see Him. Likewise the high priest had to change his clothes and put on these linen vestments once a year, that he would not transmit holiness to the people. After the final sacrifice on the Day of Atonement, he would again put on his ordinary clothes and come down the Temple Mount stairs on the south, to the City of David, and then he would make a right, turning west, and go up the stairs to the upper city where the high priest lived. As he attempted to come down the stairs and go up again to the upper city, the people would grab onto him and pull him, saying 'don't leave, don't leave,' and surrounding him. He would have to battle his way through the crowds in order to leave. After Jesus made the atonement for our sins, he said "I ascend now to My Father," and they did not want him to go; yet He said that it was to their (and our) advantage that He goes.

Notice that the high priest could not have a mixture. The Levites had a mixture, but the Zadokites had none. The Zadokites could also not wear anything that would make them sweat. Why? Let's begin by looking at the mixture: they were forbidden to make a garment of flax and wool. God hates the mixture; He despises the mixture. Two passages we will touch on briefly: 2 Peter 2:1: "False prophets arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you," Peter uses false prophets and false teachers synonymously and interchangeably, why? Because if someone's doctrines are wrong, their prophecies will also be wrong! The reason that Kim Clement, Paul Cain, Rick Joyner, and Gerald Coates get it wrong -- the reason their prophecies don't happen -- is that their doctrines are false. " . . . who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them." Joyce Meyer did this; she said in her book that if you do not believe that Jesus went to hell, you cannot go to heaven. Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth Copeland got their beliefs from E.W. Kenyan; they too deny the Master who bought them.

" . . . secretly introducing damnable heresies . . ." We translate it 'destructive', but a better word is 'damnable'. That phrase is man's best effort to translate this Greek word, parasaxousin. Para is the Greek prefix meaning 'next to'. It means that they put truth adjacent or next to error. In other words, they use truth to camouflage error. 'There is always real cheese in the rat trap.' What did Satan do when he tempted Adam and Eve? When the serpent beguiled the woman -- a figure of Israel and the church being seduced -- he took something the Lord said out of context. What did Satan do in Matthew chapter 4 when he tempted Jesus? The whole argument was from the book of Deuteronomy. Satan would quote from Deuteronomy, and Jesus would answer from Deuteronomy. Satan put truth next to error; he took verses out of context. Jesus answered in context.

When you see people taking verses out of context and making it a pretext -- Rodney Howard-Browne is a master at it, and Mike Bickle is another -- that is the signature of Satan; Lucifer manifesting himself as an angel of light. What does he do? He puts truth next to error. And Peter calls them 'damnable' heresies; some Bibles translate the word as "destructive"; the King James is more accurate in this case, and calls them 'damnable'. "Oh, there's some truth in Pensacola!" "Someone once was actually healed at a Benny Hinn crusade!" For one thing, we know of people who were pronounced healed by Hinn who are now dead, and we know that there is no medical documentation of true healings. But even if there was, Matthew 7:22 -- "Lord, we did miracles in your name --" "I never knew you." A true healing would not prove anything about Benny Hinn.

People so often defend these things by pointing out that there is some good in it, some truth in it. Yes, and by virtue of the fact that it is a mixture of truth and error, it is clearly not of God. "Oh, there's some good in it!" -- God has damned it. There is a false wisdom of man, which goes something like this: "Eat the meat and spit out the bones." Again, think of a three-egg omelet, in which two of the eggs are good but one is rotten. If you want botulism, bon appetit. God hates the mixture; His priests were forbidden to have a mixture.

Paul compares his own ministry and those of Timothy and Silvanus with the Benny Hinns and Kenneth Copelands of the day, saying this in I Thessalonians 2:3: "Our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit, but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the Gospel, so we speak not as pleasing men, but God, who examines our hearts. We never came with flattering speech, as you know, nor with a pretext of greed -- God is witness. Nor did we seek glory from men -- either from you or from others, even though as apostles of Christ we might have exerted our authority."

The true apostles were being compared to the false ones. What the false apostles did were flatter people with a motivation of greed -- in other words, to get money out of them. They went around flattering people, telling them what they wanted to hear, in order to get money from them. Today they're going around prophesying over people, telling them "You're going to do this and have that and the other thing", and then they take up a really big offering. The fact that none of it happens doesn't matter; the people go back for still more false prophecies.

Jeremiah 5 says that the prophets prophesy falsely and God's people love it so, but look at what God says through Paul: "Our exhortation does not come from error or impurity or by way of deceit . . ." Error, impurity, or by way of deceit. It begins with error; doctrinal error becomes mixed. That word for 'mix' is akatharis, mix or mixture of pure and impure. The whole thing is impure because some of it is; it's a mixture. Get a nice big glass of orange juice, and then pour in a few drops of arsenic; it becomes a homogeneous solution, doesn't it? Can you decide to swallow the juice and spit out the arsenic? When you hear people saying that we have to 'eat the meat and spit out the bones', they don't know the Greek language for one thing, but they don't know basic doctrine either. Those are the babbling words of foolish men. It is impossible to swallow the juice and spit out the arsenic; it's akatharis. That is how deception works. Error gets mixed with truth, leaving you with this mixture, which is an impurity; the result of which is spiritual deception. Deception works by mixing truth and error. It is ridiculous to try to spit out the arsenic and swallow the juice, yet that is what people will tell you to do: "We shouldn't reject all of it; there's some good in Toronto." At best a person who would say that is an ignoramus with no Biblical right to be behind a pulpit. If someone is unable to teach, unable to rightly divide the Word of God, that person has no right to be in the ministry. James says, "Let few of you be teachers," for teachers will be judged more strictly than the rest. When we stand before Jesus, your pastor and I are going to be held more accountable than most of you. And yet there are people who will teach you that you can swallow the juice and spit out the arsenic. But that's absurd; it's homogeneous! I don't mind that these people don't know Greek, but some of them don't even know English.

There is a mixture; now, the mixture will make them sweat. But the Zadokites were different; they would not perspire, because there was no mixture. Their garments were pure linen. Revelation 19:8: "It was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints." A Zadokite wore pure linen; his deeds were no mixture, so there would be no sweat. The Levite had a mixture, so there would be perspiration. In other words, a Zadokite would rest in the Lord, whereas the Levite would strive in the flesh. Again, if I only have 100 people in my church and they are the 100 that God has given me, I am going to teach them the truth and I will rest in the Lord. I will be content with what I have, and ask that the Lord may add to my numbers. I will do my evangelism, I will preach the Gospel, I will pray, I'll seek the Lord, I'll do all that I can do; but it is the Lord who gives the increase. I'm not going to sweat about it.

Today's Levites, by contrast, get one program after another. They are program-oriented, and become event-oriented. They have to put on one big event after another to bring in numbers in order to bring in money to pay for the program that has never been ordained of God. They are striving in the flesh; they sweat. They have to worry. There is some good in what they say and what they teach, of course, because it is a mixture. A Zadokite will strive to be in the Lord, for that is where his rest is. Remember Jesus as our Sabbath rest? A Zadokite will strive to be in the Lord. Anything he does will be a result of his abiding in the Lord. A Levite, however, will strive in the flesh. He'll have to get the latest gimmick, the latest program, the latest church-growth plan; and if those don't work, he'll have to get others. He'll always be a mixture. There's a mixture in what he preaches, a mixture in what he believes, and a mixture in what he does. It is impure; it is akatharis, because he is trying to please man instead of pleasing God.

Verse 23 of Ezekiel 44: "They shall teach My people the difference between holy and profane, and cause them to discern." A Levite and a Zadokite; a Zadokite will teach discernment. A Levite will be politically correct; he will not teach discernment. If your pastor is not teaching discernment, if he is not teaching the people to discern, he is not a faithful leader. Only a righteous leader will teach discernment. When you see churches that will not deal with error, will not teach the people what is wrong with what's being shown and espoused on popular 'Christian' television -- when you see people who will not take a stand and warn people when they go to a Christian book shop what kinds of books to keep away from -- when you find that discernment is not being taught in a church -- that is a Levite, not a Zadokite. He will always compromise. A Levite will always compromise truth. Once people begin compromising truth, it won't be long before they are compromising morality. Give them enough time, and the same guys will begin to compromise morality.

Finally, we're told, " . . . they will take their stand in a dispute, and judge according to My statutes." A Zadokite, a righteous minister, will take a stand in a dispute and judge Biblically. Again, a Levite will be politically correct. He will come down on the fence. In England we have a Baptist preacher whom I once respected, though I no longer can, by the name of David Pawson. He watched the videos of the laughing revival, and he was appalled; but when his followers began writing to him to ask whether it was of God or not, instead of telling them the truth, he called Toronto a 'yellow light'. It wasn't red, nor was it green; in other words, he said, proceed with caution; go into it cautiously. It's a mixture, he said; and he's a man who knows Greek as well as I do. By virtue of the fact that it is a mixture, it should not be gone into. He was told that by me and by another pastor, yet it did not change his mind. It was not politically correct to take a stand. Why would he not take a stand? Because he no longer ministers to the Lord, he ministers to the people. It is a tragedy, because he is a man who did take a stand in the past. He took a stand on a lot of issues; he stood against annihilationism, he said that leadership is male -- he took a stand in the past, but now he no longer takes a stand. Now he bails out. He will not take a stand in a dispute.

"It's a mixture," he says. Of course it's a mixture! That very fact tells you it is not God, that it is damnable. How can you try to defend something, which, according to Peter, God has damned? If God has damned something, it is indefensible. There's nothing more to be said.

Remember that Ezekiel prophesies not only for his own day or even for the first coming of Jesus, he also prophesied for now.

In whatever church you go to, does your minister give place to the secretly hostile alien? Will he fool around with the liberal Protestants or the Roman church, people with a stated agenda? Will he go down the road to Babylon? When that happens, true worship ends, the grain is no longer being shoveled out for the people, and the wine and oil are gone. Does your leader give place to the alien, or does he kick the alien out?

Does your pastor give the people what they say they want, or does he give the people what God says they need? In other words, does he minister to the people, or does he minister to the Lord?

Does your minister strive in the flesh? Does he allow a mixture of what is right and wrong, true and false, Biblical and unbiblical, spiritual and carnal? Does he allow for akatharis? Does he tell you to eat the meat and spit out the bones? And if there is a mixture, in the process of it is your minister always striving in the flesh for another gimmick, another program, and another 'celebration/praise' event? Or is he someone who has no mixture; what he teaches and what he does is purely Scriptural? Does he rest in the Lord? Would he rather have 100 people that he can teach the truth to than 5,000 to whom he can only give a mixture?

Does your pastor teach God's people discernment? Does he teach you to discern? Does he protect the sheep from the wolves? Or is he a hireling as described by Jesus in John 10, who is not a shepherd, who is out for his hire -- his job, his housing allowance, his credentials, his standing in the community? Is he a hireling or a pastor? Does he teach discernment, or does he compromise truth?

Finally, on a disputed issue such as seeker-friendliness, the Alpha courses, Promise Keepers, or the laughing 'revival', will he take his stand and judge Biblically? Or will he rather come down on the fence, refusing to take a stand and refusing to judge Biblically, even though he knows better, as so many of these guys do?

These are not questions for me to answer; these are only questions for me to ask. I don't know all of you, and I don't know what churches you go to. I am only asking the question: your leader -- is he a Levite or a Zadokite?

If your minister is a Zadokite -- if he is somebody who will kick the alien out, who will give the people what God says they need, who ministers to the Lord rather than to men, in whom there is no mixture in what he teaches, believes and does, who will rather rest in the Lord than strive in the flesh, who will teach people to discern, and who will take a stand in a dispute -- if that is your pastor, you stand by him. You pray for him, you support him financially, and you help him in any way you can. He may not be a perfect man, but he is a good man, and he is God's man. You stand by him, you pray for him, you support him, you be loyal to him so long as he is loyal to the Word of God. He needs your prayers, he deserves your support, and he is entitled to your help.

On the other hand, if your minister is a Levite -- if he will give place to the alien and walk down the ecumenical path to Babylon, if he'll give the people what they want, if there is a mixture in what he teaches, believes and does, if he will not teach discernment but rather is politically correct, will not take his stand in a dispute and does not want any controversy -- do not sit under that man's ministry, do not bring your family under his ministry. He is not a shepherd; he is at best a hireling or an incompetent. He is somebody who does not deserve your support. You can pray for him, but get away from him and get your family away from him, and take anybody else away from him that you can. He is leading the sheep to destruction. At best, he is an ignoramus who should not be behind a pulpit. Don't support his ministry, don't support him financially, don't stand by him, and don't be loyal to him, because if you are you are being loyal to something not of God. God has damned what he does. If he is not right, he is not and cannot possibly be righteous.

Again, I am not the one to answer this question, only the one to ask it. Is your minister a Levite or a Zadokite?

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Staying the course amidst isolation

By David Passmore • May 30, 2026

Staying The Course Amidst Isolation Rubin Rothler LLB, LLM Living in Israel one gets the feeling that the metaphorical walls are closing in. Israel's reputation is being tarnished all over social media and the mainstream media, and this is reflected in massive public disdain towards this country. We are constantly told that there is near consensus amongst academics and commentators that a genocide was committed in Gaza. The very legitimacy of the state is brought into question. The majority of Americans are now hostile towards Israel. There is real fear that the next U.S. administration will turn against Israel. Even if this were to happen passively, by the U.S. refraining from exercising its veto power towards Security Council Resolutions condemning Israeli actions this could be catastrophic. Internally it is a fractured society leaning increasingly right wing which further alienates Israel from world opinion. An example in point is how Ben Gvir mocked the most recent participants of a global aid flotilla to Gaza. Such conduct further agitates outrage at Israel. The left-wing media presents the ruins of Gaza as a mortal wound in Israel's side. When the world observes this level of carnage no degree of public relations can ameliorate the sense of indignation towards Israel. We can liken the situation of Israel to that of a depressed person. All he sees is hopelessness and gloom. But this isn't the first time that the Jewish nation has been faced with such darkness. Things change and we don't know how the geo-political map will reconfigure in the future. We need to ride out this storm and keep going. On a historical note, the situation is reminiscent of what our ancestors faced when we returned from the Babylonian exile to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. Nehemiah was faced with constant lies and conspiracies designed to entrap him by hostile actors: Sanballat the Horonite, Tobiah the Ammonite and Geshem the Arab. They employed deception, slander and ridicule in order to maintain their political eminence. There was also a certain sense of abandonment amongst the Jews in Israel then as in our own day. We read in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah about the anguish of the leadership in Israel concerning the lack of assistance from the Babylonian diaspora towards the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem and the Temple. Only 20% of the exiles returned to the land. It was largely the poor who returned. Most of the affluent, established Jews remained in Exile. This is a continuing theme in Jewish history. It is also important to observe that from its very beginnings there were bible believing Christians who spearheaded the return of the Jews to their land. The idea of organizing a return of the Jews to Israel began as a Protestant Restorationist objective that can be traced to 17th century Puritan England. The protagonists of the Cromwellian Republic viewed themselves as the new Israel fighting the Papist forces of Satan. Alongside this, interest grew in the notion that biblical prophecies pertaining to the return of the Jews to Israel were a necessary precursor for the return of Christ. The growth of the British Empire in the 19th century lent political clout to Christian Restorationism with specific missions to the Jews established. Although there had been a longing to return to Israel as written in the thrice daily Amidah prayer, Jewish Zionism arose in the midst of mid nineteenth century nationalism and was further fermented by European antisemitism. It was an altogether secular enterprise. Although Israel's situation appears rather stark, we can draw strength from the Providence afforded to our ancestors in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah when they too were faced with defamation. This is also an opportunity to grow closer to our natural allies in the evangelical world who from the beginning of Zionism were steadfast supporters of the project to establish a Jewish homeland in Israel. (Author is an Israeli American lawyer academically qualified in British and in U.S.A. law, and a graduate of the School of Oriental & African Studies, London. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus and is currently based in Israel).

Signs of the Times - Tony Pearce

By David Passmore • May 25, 2026

Signs of the Times Tony Pearce ‍ ‍ Left, right or center – is our democracy in danger “Things fall apart, the center does not hold. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.” W.B Yeats ‘The Second Coming. ’ ‍ ‍ Labour’s losses in the council elections and the battle for succession to their unpopular leader Kier Starmer have raised the possibility that we may soon have our seventh Prime Minister in ten years. Local elections saw Reform and the Greens make sweeping gains, leading Green Party leader, Zack Polanski to say that we are seeing ‘the end of the old two party system’. Maybe we are. In which case what comes next? Will we head to the far left, the far right or will the center hold on to power? Or will it end with ungovernable chaos as unqualified people take control of local and national government? Behind all this there are fundamental questions, ‘What is government for? Who does it represent and where is it going?’ ‍ ‍‍ ‍ According to the Bible (Romans 13) the purpose of government is to promote good and restrain evil. The government has the right to raise taxes for the common good of society and people should pay them. In 1 Timothy 2 Paul encourages us to pray for the government that ‘we may live a godly and peaceable life’. In other words, pray that the government will create an orderly and peaceful society and not interfere with our right to set up communities that teach and preach the Word of God. The situation becomes more difficult when we see government promoting things which are harmful and restraining things which are good and clamping down on freedom of speech with a threat to our ability to live a ‘godly and peaceable life’ ‍ Since becoming a Christian in my early twenties, I have wrestled with the question of how our faith applies to contemporary political issues. I started this quest on the left politically after leaving university and working as an English teacher with sympathies for Marxism. I then became a born again Christian in 1970, and joined my late wife Nikki in evangelizing the radical left, by handing out leaflets at their marches and demonstrations in London and attending their meetings to discuss matters of faith and politics with them. ‍ ‍‍ ‍ We had some good discussions with people and hope we made some consider the Christian alternative. However as we looked at Marxism from a Christian point of view and its practice in Communist countries, we understood that behind this ideology there is a strong anti-christian spirit. It denies the existence of God and promotes the idea of human perfectibility by our own effort. This is exemplified in the words of the Internationale, the socialist battle hymn, ‘No saviour from on high delivers, no faith have we in prince or peer, our own right hand the chains will shiver, chains of hatred, greed and fear.’ This Antichrist spirit led to the persecution of Christians in the Communist countries of eastern Europe, the Soviet Union and China. Far from creating the socialist paradise on earth that Lenin wrote about in ‘Socialism and Religion’, it created a society ruled by hatred, greed and fear, controlled by secret police, prison camps and responsible for the death of millions. ‍ ‍ In western society we have witnessed the growth of ‘cultural Marxism’ a movement aimed at infiltrating and changing society from within, rather than fomenting the workers’ revolution. Labour’s Fabian Society, with its (now discarded) logo of the wolf in sheep’s clothing, has been engaged in this process since the beginning of the 20th century. Social change really took off with the permissive society in the 1960s, which succeeded in changing traditional values, especially in the area of sex and the family. It replaced biblical values with a new ‘morality’ that is fundamentally anti Christian. These ideas have permeated large swathes of our society including the education system, the judiciary, the Civil Service, much of the media, mainstream political parties (including even the Conservative ‘wets’ and parts of the established church). ‍ ‍ Melanie Phillips describes the results of this in her book, ‘The Builder’s Stone.’ ‘Having decided that the West was rotten to the core, western elites set out to create a new culture that would usher in the brotherhood of man and eradicate hatred, prejudice, and war. Their Brave New World junked biblical religion with all its constraints on behaviour and revolved instead around self gratification. Everybody had the right to live as they wanted; nobody could say that their way of life was better or worse than anyone else’s; no one had the right to say that their culture was better than any other culture. That was ‘racism.’ At the heart of all this was the doctrine that there was no such thing as objective truth. Everything was relative; everything was a matter of opinion. Because there was no truth feelings became more important than facts. So the West abandoned the codes of morality, conscience, truth and lies, personal responsibility, and duty to others in favour of a culture of the self. In the process it junked its inherited traditions and biblical codes on which western culture was based.’ ‍ Britain changed from being a society that respected values based on the 10 Commandments and the teaching of Jesus Christ to one that discarded them for relative values. Ideas of ‘diversity, inclusion and equity’ became the norm, together with and a form of ‘tolerance’, that is really very intolerant if you oppose it. This ‘tolerance’ means accepting the virtues of multiculturalism and humanism and believing that all gods are equally valid or true (or none are). We must also accept that all lifestyles and family arrangements including homosexual and transsexual ones are just as valid as traditional two parent heterosexual families, with a father and mother committed to each other in lifelong matrimony looking after their own children. ‍ As society accepts this radical change in how we view culture, morality and religion, we are told not to criticize other cultures and world views or imply that they are anything less than equal to the culture, morality and faith derived from the Bible. ‍ All this has not improved society. Instead we have a collapse of values with no central idea to hold it together, just a group of competing ‘communities’ which are often only united in opposition to the traditional values and culture of Great Britain. A good example of this is the ‘red – green alliance’ of radical leftists and Islamists who come together to denounce Israel and campaign to ‘globalise the Intifada’. In practice this means a world wide war against Israel and Judaeo-Christian society and a desire to replace it with their version of either Islamism or Communism. However if one of them were to come to power, you can be sure that the Islamist’s would get rid of the leftists or vice versa. In fact that happened in Iran’s 1979 revolution, when Islamist supporters of Khomeini and Communists came together to get rid of the Shah. Then the Islamists seized power, turned on the Communists and wiped them out. ‍ Alisteir Heath wrote in the Daily Telegraph: ‘Ruined by decades of political vandalism, the Britain we knew and loved, a land of stability, pragmatism, and ancient freedoms, is no more. Today’s UK is uglier, impoverished, volatile and disorderly. We’ve lost our level-headedness. Anger and frustration have become our defining emotions. Our institutions have wasted away, and we have been taught to despise our history. The decline of family, community and faith have led to alienation, dependence on welfare and the rise of novel ideologies, mostly secular but also sectarian, turbocharged by social media. While the state becomes unnervingly authoritarian, the air reeks of insurrection and every variety of extremism. The British public’s sense of betrayal is as well-founded as it is dangerous. The machinery of state is incompetent and self-serving, a vehicle for social engineering in the global interest.’ ‍ ‍ ‍ Criticism of this process now risks being classed as ‘hate crime’ with a growing authoritarian society monitoring social media posts and public teaching of alternative ideas in ways which risk shutting down free speech in our society. A Christian teacher Enoch Burke is currently in prison in Dublin after he was suspended from his job and jailed after refusing to accept and teach transgenderism in the school. ‍ ‍ ‍ Nick Timothy, Shadow Secretary of State for Justice, got into trouble when he questioned mass Muslim prayer in Trafalgar Square. He wrote: ‘Mass ritual prayer in public places is an act of domination. The adhan – which declares there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger – is, when called in a public place, a declaration of domination. The domination of public places is straight from the Islamist playbook.” He is right in this. Allah hu Akhbar actually means Allah is greater, greater than your God, Muhammad is greater than Jesus and the Koran is greater than the Bible. ‍ ‍ ‍ Tim Dieppe of Christian Concern for our Nation wrote: “The fact that we have mass Islamic prayer in Trafalgar Square at all is indicative of the massive culture change that we have seen in the last few decades. A culture change that was not voted for or ever agreed to by the British people. And, a culture change that can hardly be described as having been entirely beneficial to our culture as a whole. I only need to mention grooming gangs involving mostly Pakistani Muslim men , sharia courts, honour crimes, terror attacks, the assassination of an MP, an attempt to blockade Parliament, mass antisemitic marches through London, a convicted terrorist standing for local elections, sectarianism, and many other examples to make the point. Earlier this month, the Government gave Muslims special protection with the adoption of an official definition of anti-Muslim hostility .” ‍ ‍ ‍ You are not really supposed to question this in public life today. A message circulating on social media is an apt commentary on all this. ‘First they overlook evil, then they permit evil, then they legalise evil, then they promote evil, then celebrate evil, then persecute those who call it evil.’ Soviet dissident Solzhenitsyn wrote: ‘A Communist system can be recognised by how it spares criminals and criminalises its opponents.’ ‍ ‍ ‍ The root cause of all this is the rejection of God and biblical values. The 18th-century French philosopher Joseph de Maistre coined the phrase "people get the government they deserve." David Pawson followed up on this idea, arguing that in democratic societies like ours, the moral and spiritual condition of a nation's citizens is directly reflected in the leaders they elect. If the general public abandons moral truths, they will inevitably vote for governments that reflect those same compromises. David Pawson taught that God may use governmental leadership to judge or bless a nation, depending on the people's obedience. He noted that Hebrew prophets saw wicked rulers as a form of divine judgement on a society that has strayed from God's laws. Therefore a nation's ultimate hope rests on repentance rather than just political change. His conclusion is that Christians should actively stand for moral truth in society. He believed that the church is meant to influence culture upward, and that a decline in national morality inevitably leads to deteriorating governance. ‍ ‍ ‍ Sadly much of the church today has become the ‘salt that has lost its savour’ through compromise with antichristian forces in society and government. It may be too late to save our country and western democracy as social and economic pressures create a collapse of democracy and push us either towards anarchy or dictatorship. ‍ ‍ ‍ Yeats’ poem quoted at the beginning of this article ends with the enigmatic line ‘Some rough beast slouches towards Bethlehem to be born.’ Most likely he is referring to the coming anti-Messiah who is labelled the Beast in the book of Revelation. Many believe his is now waiting in the wings to replace the true Messiah (born in Bethlehem) and bring in the dictatorship prophesied in Revelation 13. The Bible indicates that the Beast or Antichrist will have power for a moment, but it will be short lived and doomed to destruction at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to the earth. Then the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdom of our God and of His Messiah and He shall reign forever and ever (Revelation 11.15) and the ‘government shall be on His shoulder’ (Isaiah 9.6). ‍ ‍ ‍ Maranatha come Lord Jesus. ‍ ‍ ‍ Water, water nowhere and not a drop to drink. (Apologies to the Ancient Mariner) ‍ ‍‍ ‍ While nations worry about supply of oil and gas as a result of the war in the Gulf and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a much more vital commodity for human survival is water. And it is in short supply in a growing number of nations. ‍ ‍ As of 2026, over 25 countries face extremely high water stress, with the most severe crises located in the Middle East and North Africa. This region is home to the world's most water-stressed nations, including Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Yemen, and Libya. India and Pakistan face critical water scarcity due to overexploitation of aquifers and population density. Much of Africa , Somalia and Ethiopia in particular are facing severe shortages due to drought and climate change. Mexico and parts of the United States (particularly Texas and the west coast) are experiencing significant water shortages and declining groundwater levels. ‍ ‍ ‍ Iran is facing a severe, multi-year water crisis as of May 2026, with major cities like Tehran, Mashhad, and Karaj approaching the point where taps could run dry due to depleted reservoirs. Groundwater is depleted across most of the country, and nineteen provinces are experiencing severe drought. The crisis is driven by a combination of climate change and decades of poor water management, including excessive dam construction and inefficient, water-intensive agriculture. China is facing a severe, multi-faceted water crisis defined by extreme scarcity in the north, widespread pollution, and mismanagement, threatening its food supply and economic growth. ‍ ‍ ‍ Several countries are significantly affected by upstream dam construction that reduces downstream water flow, causing, environmental, and diplomatic crises. These countries include Iraq, heavily impacted by dams built on the Tigris and Euphrates rivers by Turkey and Iran, leading to reduced water for agriculture, destruction of forests, and increased sandstorms. Egypt and Sudanface significant water security risks due to the Ethiopian Grand Renaissance Dam on the Blue Nile. Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Laosare affected of dams built by China on the upper Mekong River ‍ ‍ One country which bucks this trend is Israel. Israel manages its water resources by transforming a chronic shortage into a surplus through large-scale desalination, extensive wastewater recycling, and a centralised national water carrier system. The agriculture sector has shifted away from freshwater, using treated effluent instead. Advanced drip irrigation technologies are widely used to minimise waste. Israel has exported its water technologies to countries around the world, particularly Africa where it has given advice on how to use limited water resources to great effect. ‍ ‍ ‍ Without water no society on earth can survive. Bible prophecies indicate that water shortage and pollution will be a global problem in the last days. Most obviously no water equals no food, so famine is an inevitable result of water shortages. Jesus warned of this as a sign of the last days in Matthew 24.7. Revelation 8.10-11 speaks of something called ‘Wormwood’ falling on rivers and springs of water causing it to become bitter and many to die from drinking it. ‍ ‍ Prophecy speaks of the two great rivers of the ancient world, the Nile and the Euphrates, being affected by a crisis causing the Euphrates to dry up (Revelation 16.12) and the Nile to become contaminated and its waters turn foul (Isaiah 19.5-11). Isaiah 24 speaks of a curse devouring the earth in the last days causing the earth to be ‘defiled (or polluted) under its inhabitants.’ ‍ ‍ ‍ According to the New Scientist, there are massive amounts of water hidden deep beneath the Earth's surface. Scientists have found evidence of a reservoir of water three times the volume of all surface oceans combined, located roughly 250–400 miles underground within the mantle. ‍ ‍ ‍ It may be that the Lord will release this water to replenish and clean up the earth in the Millennial kingdom when ‘waters shall burst forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert. The parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water.’ Isaiah 35. Zechariah 14.8-9 says, ‘In that day it shall be that living waters shall flow from Jerusalem, half of them toward the eastern sea and half of them toward the western sea; In both summer and winter it shall occur. And the Lord shall be King over all the earth.’ Zechariah 14.8-9. See also Ezekiel 47. ‍ Rethinking Russia ‍ Things are not going well for Vladimir Putin in his ‘special military operation’. Four years after invading Ukraine in February 2022, Russia is not making advances and actually losing ground. Russia is losing as many as 25,000- 35,000 casualties a month and over 1.2 million have been killed and wounded since the war began. Ukrainian skills in drone warfare have destroyed large quantities of Russian equipment, tanks, armoured personnel carriers, artillery and rocket systems, helicopters, and naval vessels. ‍ ‍ Russia is spending an estimated 40% of the entire federal budget on the war effort. As a result of this and western sanctions, Russia is increasingly unable to fix chronic infrastructure problems at home. During the bitter Russian winter thousands of people were left without heat, light, or even water. All forms of transport, trains, trucks and planes, are facing logistical problems, making it difficult to transport goods and people across the vast Russian regions. Russia is on the way to an infrastructure collapse that will likely take decades to recover. ‍ ‍ Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov warned the State Duma that Russia's faltering economy risks stoking a 1917-style revolution. He demanded urgent financial and economic measures by autumn to avert a potential economic collapse. This raises the danger of the Russian Federation fracturing. The Caucuses are restive, the far east is looking to China and Siberia is facing an acute problem as a result of melting permafrost, causing buildings, bridges and pipelines to collapse. ‍ ‍ In the present circumstances it is hard to see how Russia could lead the Gog and Magog invasion of Israel (Ezekiel 38-39). Some have said that it is more likely that Turkey is the lead power in the War of Gog and Magog. They say that Meshech and Tubal are not Moscow and Tobolsk, but regions of modern Turkey. Erdogan’s Turkey is backed by an Islamist world view hostile to Israel, seeking the recovery of its Ottoman Empire. He has his eyes on taking control of Jerusalem. Turkey is possession of a large land army already stationed in the region, some of it occupying part of Syria. ‍ ‍ The alternative is that the War of Gog and Magog is some way off, possibly part of Armageddon, giving time for Russia to recover from its present distress. We wait and see, but meanwhile spare a thought and a prayer for the people of Ukraine and Russia, suffering as a result of Putin’s futile war, oppressed by his corrupt dictatorship and facing an economic and social collapse caused by his failed policies. ‍ ‍

Trumps visit with Xi

By David Passmore • May 25, 2026

Trump's Visit with Xi Rubin Rothler LLB, LLM The tempest path of Sino-U.S. tensions came to a head during Trump's first term in office with the outbreak of Covid. Many commentators believed that the deterioration in relations was in terminal decline and that a major confrontation in the straits of Taiwan was fast looming. Trump held China responsible for the spread of Covid, insisting that he would pursue reparations. The election of Biden halted this commitment. Biden sought a non-confrontational policy towards Beijing. In the aftermath of the disastrous premature withdrawal from Afghanistan handing that country over to the Taliban and the Russian invasion of Ukraine under his watch, Biden became too preoccupied to assertively engage with China. Chinese State media portrayed Trump's visit as being rather unremarkable in the context of other foreign dignitaries lining up to meet Xi, pointing out that just a week later Putin would arrive in Beijing. China manifests that it is winning the trade war that Trump began in 2018, beating America at its own game of capitalism. They frame the U.S. as being in a position of weakness because China is able to source whatever products they buy from the U.S. elsewhere like oil from Canada, and soybeans from Brazil. The oil, soybeans and 200 Boeing's Xi agreed to purchase from Trump were presented as a mere gesture to placate Trump as China has already bought 350 Air Buses in the last year. China would have the world believe that it is only semi-conductors where America has the edge. Here China hints that it is not likely to buy H200 Invidia Chips because it would mean that China will always lag behind the U.S. in building their AI tech. China's major contention and concern is that the U.S. may impose export controls to contain China. China's strategy instead is to invest massively on indigenous innovation. China wants to become an innovation powerhouse that will export its own Chips to the Global South. China is fast catching up with America's lead in AI with the launch of Deep Seek and they claim similar progress with Chip making. China is now ostensibly only eight months behind the U.S. on Large Language Models. Running contrary to this narrative Trump insists that China is desperate to trade with America. China's economy has now peaked. Emblematic of this stagnating growth is rising youth unemployment. China is no longer America's biggest trading partner. Trump has shifted manufacturing back to the U.S. and Trump believes that China can't revive its economy without America. Lined up to meet Xi with Trump were the heads of some of America's biggest Tech Corporations. Corporations like nvidia seek a relaxing of export controls for Chips as they want short term profits, ignoring the risk that China will reverse engineer this technology. More broadly, China and the U.S. are playing a geopolitical chess game spanning the globe. Trump outmaneuvered China in Latin America with the removal of Maduro from power in Venezuela. China is exploiting its influence on Iran in order to get Trump to refrain from taking more active steps towards the defense of Taiwan. Indeed, Trump didn't say anything about Taiwan during his visit. Trump's instincts are of a transactional approach towards alliances, where he is only willing to underwrite defense assistance if allies pay up as an insurer would. It is also important to note that saber rattling the Taiwan card also serves the CCP agenda to distract internal dissent concerning the state of the Chinese economy. Most imminently Trump needs China to pressure Iran to open the Straits of Hormuz and get oil prices down before the midterm elections. China has largely insulated itself from the Gulf energy impact due to stockpiles. Trump would also like China to stop providing Iran with GPS for its missiles. Other Chinese weapons systems and technology sold to Iran have failed to perform well against U.S. and Israeli military hardware. Matters boil down to a leverage between whatever Trump can do on Taiwan, China can do on the strait of Hormouz with Iran. Human Rights concerns, espionage and the alarming rate of Chinese acquisition of U.S. land have been placed on the back burner for the time being. (Author is an Israeli American lawyer academically qualified in British and in U.S.A. law, and a graduate of the School of Oriental & African Studies, London. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus and is currently based in Israel).

Prayer request for Phil Malone

By David Passmore • May 17, 2026

Moriel & Jacob Prasch request prayer for Phil Malone and family “Please keep me and my family in prayer. My mum passed away on 13th May at the age of 93. It's a time of mourning, but may it be a time for the Gospel of Christ to be preached to my unbelieving family, especially my brother.”

Please Pray for Joanne Rizzetto, Pastor Dave Rizzetto's wife

By Mea Fredrickson • May 13, 2026

Moriel & Jacob Prasch request prayer for Sister Joanne Rizzetto, wife of Pastor Dave Rizzetto of Church of The Open Door in New York City. Joanne has developed painful complications and adverse side effects from medications following knee surgery. May The Lord intervene for healing and give guidance to her physicians. Lord, we humbly ask you to intervene in the life of our dear sister. We know you can do all things and that you hear our prayers and consider your servants. Please put a stop to the adverse reaction. Restrain and reverse its effects and restore our sister so that she can continue to serve you in the ministry that you have called them to. We do glorify Your Name. We don't ask as those who treat you as our debtor, but as those who have tasted your goodness and found such mercy and compassion at your feet. Grace and peace and mercy be with Joanne and Pastor Dave.

Will Lebanon miss its golden opportunity?

By David Passmore • May 5, 2026

Will Lebanon miss its golden opportunity? Rubin Rothler LLB, LLM Converging new facts on the ground have transformed the political landscape in Lebanon. With Assad removed from power in Syria, a vital lifeline of arms supplies for Hezbollah originating in Iran has diminished. Hezbollah suffered considerable losses in its last round of fighting with Israel. The decapitation of its leadership with the targeted pager attack inflicted a severe blow. Hezbollah's new leader Naim Qassem is a weak substitute for the charismatic Nasrallah who was assassinated by Israel in 2024. Hezbollah in its frail state foolishly fell into line with Iran's instruction to join the fighting against Israel following the recent American-Israeli war with Iran. This was contrary to the wishes of the Lebanese government which was fearful of the inevitable destruction that would be wreaked by the Israeli response. The differing attitudes to Israel amongst Lebanon's population is reflective of its ethnic composition. The predominant groups in order of plurality are Christians, Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslims with a smaller minority of Druze. The major concern of most Christians in Lebanon is the dire state of their economy. They have no appetite to further their plight by invoking Israel's rage. During the colonial inter war period the French envisaged the demarcation between Lebanon and Syria as carving out enclaves for Christian and Druze control. Within Lebanon there would be a shared government that by convention would have the Executive power split between a Christian President, a Sunni Prime Minister and Shia Speaker of Parliament. The Christians in southern Lebanon (particularly Maronite Catholics) saw themselves as being anthropologically descendants of ancient Phoenicians as opposed to an Arab identity where the Arab Christians were largely Eastern Orthodox. The schism between the Maronites and the Arab Eastern Orthodox dates back to the time of the Crusades. The Maronites were culturally French, speaking French as their main language and held precedence in much of the Lebanese economy. The first threat to Lebanese stability and cohesion was settled by the U.S. Eisenhower administration in 1958 which landed Marines in an amphibious operation. A repeated attempt at this by the Reagan administration in 1983 ended in a military disaster for the U.S. due to suicide bombings by Iranian controlled terrorists. Israeli efforts to bring in stability during the Lebanese Civil War in conjunction with its Lebanese Christian allies led by Major Saad Haddad likewise came to calamity when the Sabra and Shatila revenge attacks took place following the assassination of Lebanese leader Bashir Gemayel. The ''Good Fence'' policy of an Israeli friendly free Lebanon zone in Southern Lebanon eventually ended badly following Menachem Begin's second incursion into Lebanon called ''Shalom HaGalil'' aimed at stopping the PLO rocket attacks on Israeli border communities like Metulla, Kiryat Shmona, Naharya, Rosh Hanikra, Tzfat and Carmiel. The proxy Israeli occupation from the Israeli border to the Litani river became an imbroglio that many in Israel viewed as Israel's Vietnam with widespread domestic protest and a collapse of morale within the IDF. Eventually Israel absorbed Christian war refugees from Lebanon, while the Vatican and most of the Christian world turned their backs on the Lebanese Christians. Lebanon was then saddled with two states within a state. The first was in the aftermath of Black September in 1970 when King Hussein of Jordan defended his Hashemite throne and government from Yasser Arafat's attempt to take over Jordan due to Jordan having a 70% Palestinian Arab demographic majority. The Jordanian legion drove tens of thousands of its pro Arafat Jordanian citizens into Lebanon, creating a population base for the first state within a state under Arafat. However the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and other factions had their niche interests. Courtesy of the Israeli Air Force Arafat relocated what he saw as his government in exile to Tunisia. This was a missed opportunity by the Lebanese government to assert its autonomy and full territorial control by making a Camp David type peace with Israel inclusive of economic and mutual security provisions. Instead an Iranian backed Syrian intervention replaced Arafat's state within a state with a new one that morphed into Hezbollah. The fall of the Assad regime and the Israeli counter-offensive against Hezbollah re-presents Lebanon with the opportunity that it once lost. The predominantly Christian controlled Lebanese military could and should operationally coordinate with the IDF, to obliterate and remove Hezbollah as the Israelis relieved Lebanon of Arafat's state within a state. Such a rapprochement would likely have strong American and possibly French and British support, allowing Lebanon to be at a non-combative peace with Israel along the lines of Egypt and Jordan, and now some of the Emirates. The natural comradery of the Lebanese Druze community with the Israeli Druze and the pro-Israeli Druze of Syria would additionally re-enforce a regional harmony, as would the Maronite Christian community in Israel with their co-coreligionists in Lebanon. (Author is an Israeli American lawyer academically qualified in British and in U.S.A. law, and a graduate of the School of Oriental & African Studies, London. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus and is currently based in Israel).

Pastor John Angliss

By David Passmore • May 5, 2026

PASTOR JOHN ANGLISS It is with profound sadness that we learned of the temporary separation from our friend and brother Pastor John Angliss. We look forward to being reunited with John in the millennial reign of Christ and indeed in God's Eternal Kingdom. Jacob Prasch visited John a few weeks ago in the UK while John was in hospice care having been diagnosed preterminal in his illness. While medically correct, it was of course a misdiagnosis. John is now cancer free and is alive and well in the presence of Jesus awaiting us in glory while his mortal body is being renewed for resurrection and immortality. In the meanwhile, during this temporary season of bereavement we do request prayer for his beloved wife Mary and for his congregation, The Ark Fellowship in England near Reading, England. Because he has recently arrived in the USA and is scheduled to address the Moriel Canada branch conference in Winnipeg, Jacob Prasch will regrettably not be able to attend the memorial service in Britain. Our condolences however are very much with Mary and our brethren in the UK who like us knew and loved Pastor Angliss. John was one of a minority of faithful voices who upheld a traditional biblically based Pentecostalism in the era of counterfeit revivals and apostasy that overtook most of British Pentecostalism. John was a faithful friend of Israel & The Jews standing on the prophetic purposes of God for Israel and the salvation of the Jews. John was a loyal friend to Moriel and Jacob Prasch and a colleague of David Pawson and Derek Prince, both of whom likewise stood by God's promises to Israel. John was also a founding leader of CMFI - the Christian Ministerial Fellowship International, former pastor of Three Mile Cross fellowship , and former board member of Focus On Israel (a Pentecostal Ministry to the Jews). While this separation is temporary, John's eternal gain will be our temporary loss. O GRAVE - WHERE IS THEY VICTORY, O DEATH WHERE IS THY STING ? Hosea 13:14 / 1 Corinthians 15: 55-57

We made it this far: Israel at 78

By David Passmore • April 28, 2026

We made it this far: Israel at 78 Rubin Rothler LLB, LLM Since the last anniversary milestone of Israel at 75, we have been embroiled in relentless wars. Citizens had little respite to enjoy this year's festivities, coming on the heels of a lull in fighting on the Iranian and Lebanese fronts. We are constantly waiting for a breakthrough on the horizon that will normalize our relations with our neighbors and secure our position on the world stage. It is acutely exhausting to be the focus of the world's attention. But also there is a sense of inevitability accompanying the Zionist project. Specifically that Israel is destined to be central in the wider region and global affairs. Why is this? Is it due to it being a western transplant? Being geographically positioned on the crossroads of three continents? Religious believers would point to prophetic fulfillment. It is short sighted to only look at how our problems are rooted in today’s' reality. Greater forces are at work that will dictate the direction that Israel is heading. The Jewish diaspora will likely find itself in a growing precarious position that will lead to increasing Aliyah (immigration to Israel) and will perhaps ferment the emergence of a second Jewish commonwealth that will not need to heed international pressure in the same way that todays' polity finds itself doing. In this light it is interesting to ponder how our posterity would view our predicament and gains. And I frame matters in these terms with intentionality. We are enmeshed in a seemingly intractable conflict with the Palestinians, and yet Israel has made great gains particularly in the technological fields. There is a current of thinking that perceives Israel's way out of its quagmire is by making itself indispensable to technological advancements. We don't know how tomorrows' world will be shaped by the rapidly advancing AI revolution but so far Israel has proven to be uniquely adaptable and innovative to technological change. This has proved to be a boon to Israel's economy, as have offshore natural gas discoveries being developed in concert with Greece, Greek Cypriot and American energy interests that are geographically and strategically removed from any Straits of Hormuz shipping impediments that strangle the Persian Gulf deposits shared by Qatar and Iran. On another note we should contextualize the situation. How different are Israel's challenges from other nations? Is Israel any less stable than other countries (particularly in the region)? Israel doesn't find itself uniquely challenged to define its identity (most European countries do also, particularly in light of immigration). Nor does the government experience any more volatility than other comparable democracies. Israel's real problems lay in the nature of how its Jewish citizens desire to govern themselves. It is arguable whether the judicial reform protests that occupied public discourse in pre-October 7th Israel would have led to serious civil strife. But it is without doubt that this impasse was allayed by the external attack. The underlying tensions remain unresolved and there are many ways that they could play out. It has been framed as a battle for Israel's soul. Israel's enemies predict that Zionism is imploding and that the State won't survive another 5-10 years. Supporting this claim, they point to Israel's increasing alienation and growing pariah status on the international stage. Our Prime Minister has been indicted for war crimes at the International Criminal Court. Even public opinion in our staunchest ally the U.S. has turned sharply against Israel. With 80% of the Democratic Party being anti-Israel in a growing climate of anti-semitism we have even witnessed the shift of Alan Dershowitz to the Republican Party which must be seen as emblematic of a trend. There is apprehension in Israel of a post-Trump America dominated by the Democrats. However, these seeming incontrovertible facts may be offset by other measures of fortitude. This may be partially countered by the high investment by Silicon Valley in the Israeli Hi-tech sector, making Israel an asset for purposes of Research and Development in America's AI race against China. New opportunities for economic relations have also been opened with Arab nations through the Abraham Accords and with the powerhouse India. Furthermore, it is difficult to imagine a world in which Israel's technological prowess will not carry the sway of western decision makers in the long run. Israel's 78th anniversary is a moment to take pause and not catastrophize what the future may behold. The entire world is currently in a state of transformation and Israel is not an outlier in this context. (Author is an Israeli American lawyer academically qualified in British and in U.S.A. law, and a graduate of the School of Oriental & African Studies, London. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus and is currently based in Israel).

Council attempts to shut down and censor local church’s evangelism efforts.

By David Passmore • April 23, 2026

Please click this link:https://mailchi.mp/christianconcern.com/action-alert-street-preaching-22-04-26?e=f1df30be3f

A critical juncture in NATO's future

By David Passmore • April 14, 2026

A critical juncture in NATO'S future Rubin Rothler LLB, LLM NATO was originally established in 1949 to keep the Russian hordes at bay from toppling those European countries not forked over to the Soviet sphere of influence at the Potsdam conference. Europe lay in ruins. Britain had passed on the torch of global hegemony to the U.S. by tacitly acquiescing to the decolonization of its Empire when Churchill and Roosevelt agreed terms of the Atlantic Charter for the post-war new world order in 1941. So from its start NATO was very much an American driven endeavor. American money with the Marshall plan was propping up western European economies and its military might was forming the bulk of their defensive capabilities. The lopsided nature of this dynamic has informed how tensions have persisted and recently erupted in the Alliance. During the Cold War the U.S. felt obligated to shoulder the costs of underwriting Europe's security in light of the broader interests to keep the Soviet's in check. Following the fall of the Iron Curtain European complacency became a sticking point with the 'peace dividend' further exploiting American largesse. European NATO allies spent ever smaller percentages of their GDP on defense expenditure at U.S. expense. Now in a multi-polar world U.S. and European perceived threats are less aligned. This was first tested in the aftermath of September 11th when for the first time NATO elected to trigger its article 5 collective defense protocol. And since then the U.S. has sought to continue to expand the traditional theatre of operations beyond Europe's borders. No longer is Russia perceived by America as being a proximate existential threat to its interests, but rather containing Chinese expansion in the Pacific arena. Parallel to NATO a discrete 'five eyes' intelligence sharing alliance comprising the Anglo-sphere (the U.S., U.K., Canada and New Zealand) emerged. This stands at the center of the U.S. – U.K. 'special relationship'. A relevant question would be can this signals intelligence (NSA-GCHQ) partnership persist should the U.S. withdraw from NATO? Conventional thinking would have led one to believe that with Brexit the U.K. would naturally pivot towards closer U.S. relations but under Starmer the U.K. is distancing itself. European powers misrepresent the present conflict as an aggressive, rather than defensive U.S. adventure while they themselves are more likely to be at risk. In this the Starmer government resembles the Labor party led committee for nuclear disarmament in the 1980's. It opposed the Thatcher supported deployment of U.S. cruise missiles in response to the Soviet SS20's pointed at Britain's cities. The British left branded their response to Soviet strategic escalation to U.S. aggression. This time however there is for the moment no Thatcher to bring common sense into an equation dominated by emotionally driven ideologies in the face of an aggressor with definite aims. In terms of the Russian-Ukraine conflict we are reverting to the old question dating back to the Napoleonic war era: to what extent is London happy with the European nations fighting it out alone for dominance of the continent. Britain was never willing to accept a single power in control. Many variables will dictate what kind of world emerges from the current conflicts in Ukraine and Iran. How will power be extracted from potential gains? What will be the strategic impact of this? What is sure, in the age of Trump this pattern of reliance on U.S. muscle is becoming quickly exhausted. Dating back to the Roman Empire, a factor in the decline of major powers has always been astronomical military spending, a budgetary demand that the U.S. under Trump is no longer willing to shoulder alone. (Author is an Israeli American lawyer academically qualified in British and in U.S.A. law, and a graduate of the School of Oriental & African Studies, London. He is a Jewish believer in Jesus and is currently based in Israel).