The Burning Bush - Hineni

April 3, 2025
Introduction

“Now it came about in those days, when Moses had grown up, that he went out to his brethren and looked on their hard labors; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren.

So he looked this way and that, and when he saw there was no one around, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. He went out the next day, and behold, two Hebrews were fighting with each other; and he said to the offender, "Why are you striking your companion?" But he said, ‘Who made you a prince or a judge over us? Are you intending to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?’ Then Moses was afraid and said, ‘Surely the matter has become known.’

 

“When Pharaoh heard of this matter, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian, and he sat down by a well. Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters; and they came to draw water and filled the troughs to water their father's flock. Then the shepherds came and drove them away, but Moses stood up and helped them and watered their flock. When they came to Reuel their father, he said, ‘Why have you come back so soon today?’ So they said, ‘An Egyptian delivered us from the hand of the shepherds, and what is more, he even drew the water for us and watered the flock.’ “He said to his daughters, ‘Where is he then? Why is it that you have left the man behind? Invite him to have something to eat.’ Moses was willing to dwell with the man, and he gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses. Then she gave birth to a son, and he named him Gershom, for he said, ‘I have been a sojourner in a foreign land.’

“Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God. So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them.”

“Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. So Moses said, ‘I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.’ When the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, ‘Moses, Moses!’ And he said, ‘Here I am.’ Then He said, ‘Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’ He said also, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.

“The LORD said, ‘I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite. Now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them. Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.’

“But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?’ And He said, ‘Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain.’ Then Moses said to God, ‘Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, “'The God of your fathers has sent me to you.'” Now they may say to me, “'What is His name?' What shall I say to them?’" God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM,’ and He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, “'I AM has sent me to you.'” Exodus 2:11-3:14

Moses as a Type of Christ

So we have this famous story of Moses and the burning bush. The first thing we have to understand is that Moses typifies Christ. According to Deuteronomy 18:18 the Messiah would be a prophet like Moses. Remember, it’s trying to show this. A wicked king was determined to destroy all the Jewish children. Moses was protected through the faith of his parents in Egypt for a season and then he comes out of Egypt and goes to the promised land. So Jesus faced the same prospect. A wicked king was going to destroy all the Jewish male children and Jesus was protected in Egypt for a season through the faith of his parents and then he comes out of Egypt and returns to the promised land. It’s showing Moses as a type of Christ.

But in Hebrew you have a word play: “Moshe” – “to draw out”-- and he lives up to his name. He was drawn out of water and so you see the same word in the Hebrew text. He drew out the water for us and always his name is being played out in the text of Exodus. These things don’t come across well or they don’t come across at all virtually in the translations. Now remember, just like Jesus, the first time he comes to save his Jewish brothers, they reject him. They accept him the second time when their anguish and their suffering has become excruciating and they’re desperate, and so it is with the Jews; the Jews don’t accept Jesus at His first coming, they’ll accept Him at His second coming. Initially they looked upon Moses as an Egyptian, the same as they would look upon Joseph as an Egyptian.

Remember, Joseph’s brothers didn’t recognize him at the first coming either, they recognized him at the second and wept bitterly. And so it is with the Jews – they look upon Moses not the first time but the second. The way they saw him was as an Egyptian, while Jews think of Jesus as a Gentile. They think of Him as a Gentile. Moses -- he’s an Egyptian -- that’s how people see him. Similarly, with Jesus, give him blonde hair and blue eyes. They thought Moses was an Egyptian. They thought that Joseph was an Egyptian, a Gentile; well Jews think that Jesus was virtually a Gentile. Now this is not true, they objectively know He’s a Jew, but subjectively they relate to Him as a Gentile. This conditioning was to look upon Him as a non-Jew. It’s the same with Moses, same with Joseph. He looked like an Egyptian, he talked like an Egyptian – you know he was an Egyptian prince – He’s an Egyptian; he’s not one of us.

It’s showing Moses here as a type of Christ. But also with what we see with Moses is what you see with Jesus. He tries to save his own people and they reject him but the Gentiles accept him. Remember? When he tries to stand up for his own people they reject him. So he goes to Midian and to the Midianites and when he stands up for them, they accept him. Then his own people turn to him. And so it is with Jesus. At first they reject Him, the Gentiles accept Him, and then His own people turn to Him. It’s showing Moses as a picture of the Messiah.

An Old Testament Manifestation of Christ

Another feature is “The Angel of the Lord”, the definite article. Not an angel but the Angel as we talk about on the Vow of the Nazarite tape and as we talk about on the Judges 1 & 2 tape. The Angel of the Lord with the definite article, Ha Malak Adonai, is a Christophony, an Old Testament manifestation of the Messiah. It’s not an angel because it is God Himself. The text says that God spoke to Moses from the bush but “the Angel’”spoke as God from the bush to Moses. In Judaism the Angel of the Lord is called the Metatrone, the one who dwells at the center of the throne. Now the Metatrone is here – the Angel of the Lord is here – He’s talking to Moses and He’s identified as being God.

The Hebrew word for angel, like the Greek word “angelos,” means “messenger”. So the Metatrone, the Angel of the Lord, is God’s messenger yet He is God Himself. The idea of God becoming a man is unfathomable in popular Jewish thinking, however Jacob wrestled with the Metatrone, the Angel of the Lord, an embodiment of God. Adam heard God walking in the garden. The incarnation of Jesus, while important, was not in the absolute sense a precedent. God had come in incarnate form before. He walked in the garden with Adam but He was also the Angel of the Lord. Hence we see this is a Christological passage. It talks about the Messiah, God’s messenger who would come and dwell with His people. Even the idea of the bush not being destroyed even though it burned. Remember in Isaiah Jesus was incorruptible: “He will not suffer His Holy Ones flesh to see decay.” His corpse did not rot in the earth.

Moses is a good picture of anybody who really wants to serve God. In fact, he’s one of the best pictures. The first thing we see about Moses is this: Moses as a prince of Egypt, grandson of Pharaoh, was educated in the wisdom of Egypt before he was educated in the wisdom of God. He had the best education anyone in the world could have had, but when he encountered the God of his fathers he realized what Egypt had amounted to nothing. Somebody can be totally uneducated and once they meet the true and living God, among other repercussions, they will become smarter. Moses was trained in the wisdom of Pharaoh before he was trained in the wisdom of God. Now the Egyptians deified Pharaoh. Pharaoh was a divine being to them. Egypt in the Bible taught in 1 Corinthians is a metaphor for the world and whenever you see a man worshipped as God other than Jesus Himself it typifies the Antichrist who is coming. Pharaoh was worshipped and deified as God. Moses could have been in that family but we are told in Hebrews that he chose the reproach of Christ instead of the pleasures of this world. He was a prince of Egypt, he had the best Egypt had to offer in terms of position, power and education, but he chose the reproach of Christ. Moses already knew about the Messiah, and it was the Angel of the Lord he would meet.

So, he tries to help one of his own people and his own people reject him and he has to flee for his life. He flees to the wilderness and winds up where the law would eventually be given – Mt. Horeb.

So here we have Moses, in figure like Christ. He takes a Gentile bride, the church. He comes to save his own people and he is rejected. He goes into the wilderness and is accepted by the Gentiles, by the non-Jews who think he is an Egyptian. It is an amazing thing that not only Jews look upon Jesus as a non-Jew, but even a lot of so-called Christians look upon Jesus as a non-Jew.

Into the Wilderness

This pattern of being forced into the wilderness as a result of rejection is a recurrent characteristic of those whom God calls. We think of King David. The prophet Samuel anoints him and instead of him assuming the throne he has to leave town in a hurry to the cave of Adullam and then out into the wilderness.

Then there is Rabbi Saul of Tarsus. A Pharisee of the Pharisees from the Rabbinic school of Hillel, disciple of Rabbi Gamaliel, and grandson of Rabbi Hillel. Whereas Moses had the finest education Egypt had to offer, Paul was educated in the best Yeshiva. He was an educated Roman citizen and a Rabbinic well-versed in Greek philosophy, fluent in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Latin, and had been an enemy of the Gospel. But he spent years in the wilderness just like David and Moses.

As Moses fasted 40 days and 40 nights, Jesus fasted 40 days and 40 nights; Jonah gave Nineveh 40 days to repent; it rained 40 days and 40 nights when Noah was in the ark; and the children of Israel sojourned 40 years in the wilderness. It is always 40.

As a new believer, I had a naive idea. I said “Lord I’m educated in science and Lord I make a few thousand a week. And Lord now I’m going to give it all to you.” I wind up in Israel thinking I’m going to be an evangelist to the Jews in Israel in the Last Days. I had a miserable, rotten job filling prescriptions because it was the only thing I knew how to do. I thought when I got saved my days of selling drugs was over. I’m trying to explain to old ladies in Yiddish how many to take because they didn’t know Hebrew but I didn’t know either at the time, not well. I’m out in the middle of nowhere. So I looked out the window and there was sand. Why was there sand? Because I was in the desert. Literally, there were Bedouins with camels. I left New York to live in a wilderness? I gave up a high paid position for this? This is what You brought me here for? The wilderness, this? I thought You brought me here to use me! “Oh no, that comes later. I didn’t bring you here to use you in Israel, I brought you here to use Israel in you!”

Rejection. I discovered that much like the Jews in New York, a lot of the Jews in Israel didn’t want to hear about Jesus either. Only in New York sometimes they would throw rocks. In Israel some of them weren’t beyond throwing hand grenades, at least the Yeshiva boys. We got stoned on the promenade in Haifa. We were actually chased by mobs with rocks. I used to give out tracts for Jews for Jesus in New York and old ladies used to spit on me, and sometimes the JDL, (Jewish Defense League) would come and harass me.

I was on a kibbutz trying to improve my Hebrew and I began teaching evangelistic Bible studies to small groups of Israelis. A lot of people didn’t get saved. What did You bring me here for? I used to be able to write checks and send money away to missions and evangelism. Now I’m broke all the time. I was the prince of Egypt, now I’m nothing. I thought You said You were gonna use me. Nope. Rejection. Wilderness. Moses didn’t know why this happened to him. Alright, You’re the God of my fathers and I tried to stand up for my people and I tried to do what was right and I tried to use my position, my power, my education for You, Lord and I just wound up rejected and exiled to the desert. Something was happening in that wilderness that he didn’t understand at the time. How was he able to lead the children of Israel 40 years through that same wilderness? He was able to lead the children of Israel, a nation of 1.5 million adults plus Egyptian stragglers plus children through that wilderness for 40 years because he had spent 40 years in it himself. Wilderness is a place of death, scorpions, cobras, and vultures swarming overhead. No water -- unless you find an oasis. One here, one there. How do you survive in the wilderness? Well, that’s what you must learn, Moses. 

After I taught you how to survive in the wilderness, then I can use you to lead a whole nation through the wilderness.

You see, we’ve come out of the domain of Pharaoh when we got saved, we’ve come out of Egypt but we have yet to enter the promised land that flows with milk and honey. We’ve come out of the world but as 1 Corinthians 10 says we haven’t entered heaven. We are sojourning in the wilderness.

The reason Moses was able to do it was because he spent so many years in that wilderness. There are things that no university, no seminary, no Bible College can ever teach you. The finest theological institutions in the world can teach you about the Bible but its only in the wilderness where you can be taught what the Bible is about. To know about the Bible is good, an academic knowledge of Scripture is helpful, it’s practical. I’m not demeaning learning Greek and Hebrew, literary criticism and Biblical history and archeology. It is good to know about the Bible but it’s not good enough. It is important but it’s not what is most important. Learning about the Bible is necessary but what comes first is learning what the Bible is about. That, no man can teach you. That is something only God can teach you. How can you lead people through wilderness? Let the leaders be tested! How does this person handle this appointment? Crisis in health? Marital struggles? Problems in ministry? Financial setback? How does this person handle those things? Once this person has handled those things in the strength and wisdom of the Lord then and only then is that person equipped to be God’s vehicle to encourage others through that same wilderness. Only then does God say “go” to Pharaoh.

After You've Been Through the Wilderness

Only once we’ve been through the wilderness will an academic education be of any practical value. I’ve seen people with the silly notion that they’re going to go to university or Bible college then they’re going to go into the ministry. It doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t even work that way in secular profession. Take a defense contractor in the States like Boeing or Macdonald Douglas. They’ll try and recruit people with Masters Degrees or Doctorate Degrees from the best engineering schools. They’ll go to Imperial College in London or they’ll go to MIT or something like that. They’ll get the best people. And then they’ll say; “Now we’re going to train you to be an engineer!” “But I graduated MIT!” “No, you work for us five years because it will take five years before we get any real use out of you!”

You graduate with a degree in Medicine in the States; you become an intern and then a resident. In Britain you become an assistant Registrar and then a Registrar. “But I’ve already been to medical college!” “No, no, no, no.”

You finished Law School, now you have to do your articles and go clerk. Do Paralegal work. Then you become an assistant Solicitor, then you become a Junior Solicitor. Five years from now you can call yourself a Lawyer. “But I have a degree!”
It doesn’t work that way in Engineering, it doesn’t work that way in Medicine, it doesn’t work that way in Law; much less does it work that way in Ministry. Only after you’ve been through the wilderness will the education do you any good. Now go to Pharaoh. Now you’re qualified.

You can become very disoriented in the desert; everything looks the same. Because of dehydration you become prone to see things like mirages. You don’t know where you’re going! You can see which way the sun rises and the sun sets and that will give you some bearing but the best way to navigate through the wilderness is at night. The Bedouins use the stars. It’s quite a skill to learn how to survive in the wilderness but to see a whole nation survive in the wilderness. Never despise the day of small things. When God calls you, and everyone of us has a ministry, the first thing to expect is rejection because we can only be the Lord’s ministers in the character of Christ. The first thing Christ experienced was rejection.

“Who hath believed our report, to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed, he grew up before him like a tender shoot out of dry ground, he had no form or comeliness that we should look upon him, we esteemed him not.”

That’s what Isaiah said about the Messiah in Isaiah 53:1-2. Before God can use you, you have to experience rejection.
God prepares people for the extraordinary in the ordinary. Only after you are no longer in the wilderness -- only in retrospect -- do you see what God was doing in that wilderness. When Moses was in the wilderness he didn’t know that his own people who rejected him were going to be brought to a place of desperation where they would accept him. His mission field wasn’t ready yet.

Similar Examples

The same can be seen in the life of David after Samuel anointed him to be king. “Well, David you’re gonna be king. Saul is pursuing you, he’s going to kill you.” Rejection -- the outcasts of Israel joined themselves to David. Everyone who was in debt; every loser; every nobody. But we read later on about David’s mighty men -- the commanders of his army; the generals of the Israeli armed forces. Who were these generals in the Israeli armed forces? Who were the commanders of the army of the Lord? 

Who are David’s mighty men? The same losers! The same outcasts! The same down and out people who joined him at the cave of Adullam. God took these losers and made them into David’s mighty men. God took these nobodies and made them into the commanders of the armies of the Lord in the wilderness. First they learned how to outfox Saul, then they learned how to outfox the Philistines. Then they conquered the Philistines. Where did they learn it? David taught them.

David’s a type of Christ, the Son of David, Ben David Yeshua. The Lord himself, the Son of David will teach you things in the wilderness you’re never going to learn anywhere else -- how to outsmart the enemy. But it wasn’t pleasant out there. Just think of Moses -- “I was a prince of Egypt, I had all this money, power, position, privilege, I’m an educated man and I’m out in the wilderness. ‘God, you said you called me, I was drawn out of the water for this?’”

Rabbi Saul of Tarsus: “I’m going to be an apostle to the Gentiles, I have to sneak out of town in a basket at the wall?” Something happened to Paul though in Arabia. Paul was actually able to write about the last supper in 1 Corinthians 7 in a way that’s almost mysterious. He said, “I received from the Lord that which I also delivered unto you”. He wasn’t at the last supper. How did he receive it from the Lord if he wasn’t there? Where did he get it? He got it out in the wilderness! He got it out in the desert. It may have been in the desert where he was caught up into the third heaven in 2 Corinthians whether in body or in spirit he didn’t know but he saw things that he couldn’t tell you about because they were too unspeakable, too amazing, too incredible. So it is with Rabbi Saul of Tarsus. So it was with King David; so it was with Moses. So it is with anybody who really wants to serve the Lord.

The Purpose of the Wilderness

But after a long time, almost out of the blue, something happens to Moses in that wilderness. At some point, David came in from the cold. He returned from the wilderness he’s in, at some point Paul came back from Arabia. At some point God is going to call you back in from the wilderness, after he’s taught you everything you need to know to be prepared for what lies ahead. In this fallen world there is no other place and no other way to learn it and those things are essential.

When God has you in the wilderness, not only is He preparing you for your mission, he’s preparing your mission for you. Things are going to be tough but now we begin to understand what God is really doing. And out of nowhere God speaks to him from a burning bush and says, “Here is the sign. When you lead these people out, you’re going to come right to the same mountain. This is where I’m going to give you the covenant, the Law, the Torah.”

In other words, in the ministry you can never lead someone to a place where you haven’t already been yourself. After you’ve been there, after you know what it’s like to encounter the living God then He can use you to bring somebody else there. But unless you’ve been there yourself, you’re not bringing anybody else.

Moses was eighty years old when he encountered God in the burning bush. One of the lies of the world is the idea of retirement. The only thing retirement should mean for a Christian, if their health permits, is now you are able to serve God full-time instead of part-time. The world says your prime is when you are middle-aged. But God says your prime is when you are old-aged. It’s just the opposite of what the world says. Somehow the church has allowed the world to put its perverse model on us. God however, doesn’t see it that way. God sees all the other stuff as preparation for old age. He doesn’t see it the way the world does.
Unfortunately, the church listens to the mentality of the world, more than it does the mentality of the Lord. Your secular career in business is over now. You no longer have to hustle to make a living and put the kids through University because that’s done. The testosterone and estrogen levels have depleted. The lusts of the flesh are not going to wax as heavily against you. The world says youth, middle age. God says, no youth/middle age, that’s preparation for old age. The Hebrew word for “elder” means somebody who’s older. Do not allow the world’s idea to come into your thinking as a Christian. The Apostle John wrote the book of Revelation when he was in his 90s, an incredible age in his time in history.

The Result of the Wilderness

The man or the woman who God brings into the wilderness will be entirely different than the man or the woman who God brings out. The one who goes in know their strengths, the one who comes out knows their weakness. Then they know God’s strength! His strength is always magnified in our weakness. The man or woman who God brings into the wilderness is one person, the man or the woman who God brings out although itss the same person are completely different in character, in perspective, in demeanor.

When he goes in, he knows all about his abilities, when he goes in he’s confident. When he goes out he has no confidence in himself. Then God can use his background. Once we learn not to trust our education, our cleverness, our background, our position, once we learn not to trust those things, once we learn our insufficiency, then God will use those things. Our strength has to be in Him. The person who goes into the wilderness knows their strength, the one who comes out only knows their weakness that they may experience God’s strength.

And so it happens, the pattern gets clearer. You want God to use you? The first thing to anticipate is rejection. You will be rejected by your own brothers, your own sisters, and your own people. That’s the rejection that hurts. Jesus was rejected by His fellow Hebrews, Moses was rejected by his fellow Hebrews and Joseph was rejected by his fellow Hebrews. Joseph, Moses, Jesus, Paul, you, me get rejected by their own people. All that education, all that experience, all that money, power, position, prestige goes into the wilderness with you where it means nothing. It means absolutely nothing until God speaks from the burning bush. And speak He will. “How can I go?” Because, I’m sending you! “Who are you?” I am who I am! You see when Moses was a prince of Egypt Moses knew who he was. What he needed to find out was who God is.

You never find out who God is until you meet Him in the wilderness. Anybody can be spiritual when things are good. Something will happen to you in the wilderness. You won’t know what it is; in the beginning it will intrigue you. Let me get a closer look at this. For then you’ll quickly realize you’re standing on holy ground. It is on holy ground where God wants to use you to bring others to Him. Bring them to the holy ground. “Lord that’s why you brought me out here?” Yeah! “But they rejected me.” They weren’t ready and you weren’t either. Now they’re ready and so are you. “But how can I do it, I can’t talk there, I can’t do this.” Oh yes you can, you could always do it; if you couldn’t have done it you wouldn’t have been here, I wouldn’t have wasted my time bringing you to the wilderness if you didn’t have the capacity to do it. Then, you thought you had the capacity to do it, now you realize you only have the capacity to do it in My strength. Go do it, go do it. From the burning bush he hears the voice of Jesus and he responds with “Hineni,” (Here I am, what would you have me to do?)

There is not one of us that God doesn’t have a calling in our life for some ministry. I don’t know what it is. It may be something to do with leadership; it may be in a mission field or evangelism. If God has really called you to something, step one will be rejection; step two will be a wilderness; step three will be a burning bush.

And I promise you, that man or that woman who comes out of that wilderness is going to be very, very different than the one who first went in. 

(1) It is usually believed that the Tetragrammaton Yahweh, YHWH is He who was, He who is and He who is to come, I am who I am. And in Simcha Torah and in John Chapter 8, they picked up stones to stone Jesus because He said “before Abraham was in Greek Ego Ami, I am!” Jesus identifying Himself as God.

 

Urgent prayer request - India

By David Passmore • June 10, 2026
MAJOR PRAYER REQUEST - STEVE MITCHELL MORIEL ORPHANAGE (Andar Pradesh, INDIA) Please read the enclosed missions report from Moriel Missions Branch India: Our children need us and we put a lot of money into buying and then expanding the Moriel orphanage to take in more children. These precious orphan children are coming to Christ and the devil is angry. Until now we had opposition from radical Sheikhs at the Moriel Horeb church we built in Punjab, but the Hindu Authorities in Andar Pradesh have largely until now left us alone. The BJP government is however as wicked as Hamas or Hezbollah - only Hindu (I was in India when radical Hindus burned the Australian missionary family alive in their car; these are the ones who wanted to murder Steve Mitchell when Moriel helped to quickly get him out of the country some years ago). Some pastors have been murdered again in West Bengal. (Samuel, who oversees the Moriel orphanage went to Bible College with one of them). Because our orphan children are Dalet (treated as subhuman 'out casts' by the Hindu caste system), or from Muslim backgrounds, we have largely been been left alone and some of the local officials liked us. This is obviously not a good situation. Prayer is urgently requested. Please pray for Mark Masih particularly that they will not cancel his visa. They are now forbidding us from bringing any more bibles into the country. What would happen if Britain, Australia, or America outlawed Hindus from bringing the Bhagavad Gita into England, Oz, or the USA? MARANATHA Come Quickly Lord Jesus  "You Will Be Hated By Men For My Name's Sake" Matthew 10:22

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