The Death of Absalom

April 3, 2025
Civil War

2 Samuel 18:1:

“David numbered the men who were with him, and set over them commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds. 

And David sent the people out, one-third under the command of Joab, one-third under the command of Abishai the son of Zeruiah, Joab’s brother, and one third under the command of Ittai the Gittite. And the king said to the people, ‘I myself will also go out with you.’ But the people said to him, ‘No, you should not go out, for if we indeed flee, they will not care about us – even if half of us die, they will not care about us. But you are worth ten thousand of us, therefore now it is better that you be ready to help us from the city.’”

This was a terrible situation: Hebrew was not fighting Philistine, Hebrew was not fighting Canaanite, Hebrew was not fighting Amalekite – Hebrew was fighting Hebrew. There was the war between Israel and Judah, and the war in the last chapter of the book of Judges, which was a civil war, that broke out when a man’s concubine was gang-raped and her body hacked up and sent throughout the nation. (Judges 19) That was the worst of all the wars in Judges. Here we see it happening again.

In the same manner, the worst battles that we as Christians will have to fight will not be against unbelievers; rather, they will be part of civil war. The worst battles are against your own kind where believer, as it were, raises his sword against believer. Now, I am of course not referring to a physical sword like the Puritans used, but rather to the spiritual sword, the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. Fighting Canaanites, Philistines, no problem; fighting Moslems, Freemasons, Roman Catholics, no problem. But what happens when brother fights brother – or, in this case, when father fights son.

Rebellion in the Camp

Jesus said plainly that he came to bring division, to turn parents against their children. (Luke 12:41-53) This certainly happens when someone from an unbelieving family becomes a believer. It happens to an extreme point among Jewish families, Moslem families, and sometimes Catholic and Gypsy families. However, it also happens in this case with people who theoretically already did believe, but went into rebellion. We live in an age and in a time when there is a major rebellion in the camp of the Lord and families are divided. For example, look at the division brought by the Toronto phenomenon.

The rightful leadership which God appointed was usurped by Absalom and an awful lot of people – in fact, in some places most of the people – followed Absalom. I will not go into it at great depth now, but Absalom is one of the people in Scripture who typify the Antichrist. In the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem is the alleged place of Absalom’s Pillar (though the archaeologists are by no means convinced that it is the actual Pillar of Absalom), and to this day you can see Orthodox Jews throwing stones at it. (2 Samuel 18:18) 

A Counterfeit Christ

A division has occurred in the camp. Verse 9:

“Now Absalom happened to meet the servants of David, for Absalom was riding on his mule, and the mule went under the thick branches of a great oak.”

If you can follow the typology, the fact that he is riding on a mule indicates that he is counterfeiting Christ.

“And his head caught fast in the oak, so that he was left hanging between heaven and earth,”

He was hanging on a tree; do you see here how he counterfeits Jesus?

“While the mule that was under him kept going. And when a certain man saw him, he told Joab, and said, ‘Behold, I saw Absalom hanging in an oak.’ Then Joab said to the man who told him this, ‘Behold, you saw him; why then did you not strike him there to the ground? I would have given you ten pieces of silver and a belt!’ And the man said to Joab, ‘Even if I should receive a thousand pieces of silver in my hand, I would not put out my hand against the king’s son, for in our hearing the king charged you and Abishai and Ittai, saying, “Protect for me the man Absalom.” Otherwise, if I had dealt treacherously against his life – and there is nothing hidden from the king’”

David here is a type of the true Christ – “nothing hidden from the King”.

“’Then you yourself would have stood aloof.’ Then Joab said, ‘I will not waste time here with you.’ So he took three spears in his hand and thrust them through the heart of Absalom while he was yet alive in the midst of the oak.”

“Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree” (Gal 3:13) – Absalom’s death was one thing; but the manner in which he died would have carried a particular connotation for the Jews because of that quote from the Torah. Haman was hanged from a tree, and in the same way the Messiah was cursed for our sin and hung on a tree. So, Absalom is pierced through while he is hanging on a tree. Again, whom does this look like? He is a counterfeit of Jesus.

The Worst Crisis

Let me tell you about the most difficult thing that you will ever face as a Christian if you have not faced it already. It is the most difficult thing that I have ever faced as a Christian. There is no trial, no crisis, nothing in your Christian life that will be more difficult than this: the death of an unsaved loved one. Nothing is more difficult to face up to than the death of an unsaved loved one.

I get anguished letters from women with unsaved husbands. I have never known a Christian woman with an unsaved husband who was happily married – even if he’s a good guy, I have never met a single Christian woman who is not miserable over it and whom it does not torment every day. Any Christian who gets married to an unsaved person is simply out of his or her mind; it is begging for trouble.

My father died, as far as I know, unsaved. To the extent of my knowledge, my father is in Hell; no hope, no way out. Ultimately, only God knows what transpires in that fleeting moment between life and death; yet in the entire Bible – the entire New Testament – there is only one deathbed conversion, so to speak: the good thief that was crucified with Jesus. What could be worse than having unsaved or backslidden children? Nothing.

The worst situation that you or I or any Christian will ever face will be when we have unbelieving loved ones who die. They die in rebellion.

Loved Ones: Saved and Unsaved

My mother is unsaved. She has had two heart attacks and one stroke. She has cataracts and is battling cancer in both extremities and she was recently diagnosed with arthritis though she is only 62 years old. I am quite concerned because I love my mother and I desperately want her to be saved; but the fact is she is not saved. She has been witnessed to many times and it only ends in arguments. Anything that my sister or I could say to her has been said to her. She sees the change in my life – she knows that when I got saved I stopped sleeping around and taking cocaine, but she is still not saved. I think about this every day and all that I can do is pray for her. Do you have an unsaved mother, father, husband, wife, or child? What is it that you think about every day and what is your worst fear? We must be honest.

You may go to churches where they sing the hymns and bring in the guest speakers who hype people up, claiming victory and all that – that’s rubbish. This is reality. All the hype and froth is not going to see you through this kind of a crisis when you are confronted with it.

It is a wonderful thing when you have a physical relative who is also a believer in Jesus – thank God for my wife, for my son, for my daughter, for my sister. I thank God for these people who are physically related to me, who will also be with me forever in eternity. It’s wonderful, but then there are the others: the ones whom I love no less, and whom Jesus loves no less. My wife’s parents are Holocaust survivors and ex-Refuseniks. My children witness to their grandparents; they went through so much with so-called Christians telling the Gestapo where they were hiding and having a grandfather machine-gunned in the street – terrible, terrible things. What could be worse? Only one thing: if they did not get saved at the end of it all. There is nothing worse than that.

Let’s face the facts for what they are: we all have unsaved loved ones. People we love and care about deeply – may God in His mercy save every one of them, but the fact is that the likelihood is that some of them will not be saved.  God is willing; I only wish that they were. Moreover, it is nothing but God’s grace that makes me any different.

The Two Messengers

Let us continue in verse 15:

“And ten young men who carried Joab’s armor gathered around and struck Absalom, and killed him.”

It is interesting that the basic contingent of Roman legionnaires was ten men. I think it probable that it was one of these basic contingents of ten who escorted Jesus to the Cross and there crucified Him.

“Then Joab blew the trumpet, and the people returned from pursuing Israel, for Joab restrained the people.”

The entire north of Israel went out against David with Absalom.

“And they took Absalom and cast him into a deep pit in the forest; and erected over him a very great heap of stones, and all Israel fled, each to his tent.”

Their hero came to nothing; a horrible story.

“Now Absalom had in his lifetime taken and set up for himself a pillar, which is in the Kings’ Valley, for he said, ‘I have no son to preserve my name.’ So he named the pillar after his own name, and it is called Absalom’s Monument to this day. Then Ahimaaz the son of Zadok said, ‘Please let me run and bring the king news, that the Lord has freed him from the hand of his enemies!’ But Joab said, ‘You are not the man to carry news this day, but you shall carry news another day. However, you shall carry no news today, because the king’s son is dead.’ Then Joab said to the Cushite,”

– a “Cushite” in Hebrew is a person of black skin, basically an Ethiopian –

“’Go, tell the king what you have seen.’ So the Cushite bowed to Joab and ran.”

The first non-Jew, it is worth noting, was a Cushite – an Ethiopian. The first person to embrace the Christian faith was a black man.

“Now Ahimaaz the son of Zadok said once more to Joab, ‘But whatever happens, please, let me also run after the Cushite!’ And Joab said, ‘Why would you run, my son, since you will have no reward for going?’ ‘But whatever happens,’ he said, ‘I will run!’ So he said to him, ‘Run.’ Then Ahimaaz ran by way of the plain and passed up the Cushite.”

Boy, he must have had one good pair of trainers to outrun a soul brother! They win all the medals at the Olympics.

“Now David was sitting between the two gates, and the watchman went up to the roof of the gate of the wall, and raised his eyes and looked, and behold, a man running by himself. And the watchman called and told the king, and the king said, ‘If he is by himself, there is good news in his mouth!’ And he came nearer and nearer.”

The term in Hebrew for “good news” is “bissorah”; its Greek equivalent is “evangelion”. What does it mean? It means “gospel”. “How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings bissorah – the gospel of peace.” (Is 52:7)

“Then the watchman saw another man running, and the watchman called to the gatekeeper and said, ‘Behold, another man running by himself!’ And the king said, ‘This man also is bringing bissorah – good news.’ And the watchman said, ‘I think the running of the first one is like the running of Ahimaaz, the son of Zadok.’ And the king said, ‘This is a good man, and he comes with good news.’ And Ahimaaz called and said to the king, ‘All is well!’ and he prostrated himself before the king, with his face to the ground, and he said, ‘Blessed is the Lord your God, who has delivered up the men who lifted up their hands against my lord the King!’ And the king said, ‘Is it well with the young man Absalom?’ And Ahimaaz answered, ‘When Joab sent the king’s servant and your servant, I saw a great tumult, but I did not know what it was.’ Then the king said, ‘Turn aside and stand here,’ so he turned aside and stood still.”

Ahimaaz knew very well what had happened, but he only wanted to give the good news. He did not want to bring the bad news, only the good. However: if you do not know the bad news, you won’t know how good the good news is. We have a tape on the Law; on it we explain that unless you know you are condemned, you cannot understand what good news the Gospel really is. What makes the good news so good? The bad news.

Grace: Cheap or Priceless?

“You know, there’s a cure for your ailment!”

“Oh, I didn’t know I was sick.”

“Well, here’s the x-ray of your chest; there’s the bad news that makes the good news so good.”

We live in an age when what is being preached most of the time is cheap grace. The Bible says, “Buy without price,” because it is free to us. However, that does not mean it is free altogether: it cost God everything when He gave His only Son. There is no price, but it will cost us our lives in this world, and it cost God His Son’s life.

“Just put your hand up and accept Jesus . . .” “God loves you . . .” “The Lord is here tonight to bless you . . .” “The four spiritual laws . . .” “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life . . .” Did Peter ever preach this way? It’s no wonder Bill Bright has signed up with the Roman Church, taking Campus Crusade down the tubes. “God loves you and wants to bless you; put your hand up and accept Jesus into your heart”. Is that not what we have normally heard over the past twenty, thirty years? Look at the book of Acts – did Peter preach that way? No – it was “Save yourself from this accursed generation!” Read Charles Spurgeon, John Wesley, D.L. Moody, George Whitefield – the people whom God used to bring revival to Britain. Did they preach that way? No! Today, however, it’s all about positive thinking and pop psychology. We want a positive image, so we have everything from smoke machines to strobe lights to rock bands in order to look just like the world. This is cheap grace.

Love and Justice

Look at the Charismatic “renewal” – what was it? “Oh, the love of Jesus, the love of God, the love of Christ”. Unless you understand the justice of Jesus you cannot understand just how much love it actually took for Him to go to that Cross for us. God became a man to take the rap for what I did - ?!!? Wow. But today we have churches that want a positive thrust that reject justice and God’s wrath as being too negative.

Any number of people will run with the good news – “God loves you!” “There’s victory, there’s blessing, there’s salvation!” – no problem. But my son, my mother, my father are dead without Christ? I don’t want to tell people that. This is what you get very often in Jewish evangelism. Often a Jewish person will say something like this: “My grandfather was a holy Jewish man, a rabbi – and when you Christians arrested him and put him into an oven in the name of Jesus Christ, do you know what he was saying in Auschwitz as he died in the name of Christianity? “Sh’ma Yisra’el Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad” – those were his last words and you want to tell me that because he would not accept this Christ in whose name he was murdered he is now in Hell?” It sounds difficult, does it not?

Yes, we must tell them that about their Jewish grandfather, but we must also say it about our Polish, Italian, or Irish grandfathers, or anyone who died rejecting Jesus Christ. A good response to this protest from a Jew is this: “There is only one God – the God of the Jews; there is only one salvation – the Messiah of the Jews. Gentiles must accept your God and your Messiah; if you reject your own God and your own Messiah, you must face the consequences just as they must.”

The First Messenger: No Reward

But we only want to give people the good news; no one wants to bear ill news. But what happens to those who only want to give the good news? What does it say? Verse 22:

“’You will have no reward’”.

In other words, why bother? The wise man delivers souls. (Prov 11:30) Those who turn many to righteousness, Scripture tells us, will flicker in eternity with glory. (Dan 12:3) This does not include cheap grace, however. If you are preaching cheap grace, you are preaching no grace. They will have no reward no matter how many altar calls or celebration praise meetings they have. Those who preach such a message will have no reward. Thank God by His grace He saved me. Why, I have no idea, and I do not expect I will ever know, at least on this side of eternity. I had friends who were less crazy than I was who are dead without Christ. Why me instead of them? I don’t know. I do know that it has nothing to do with me; whatever the answer is, it will not be found in me. But the good news is that I am saved. The bad news is that so many people whom I love and care about are not.

The Second Messenger

Along comes the black man – he’s a lot more honest, straightforward, and down-to-earth. He does not play games or mince words or try to finagle his way out of giving the bad news along with the good. Verse 31:

“Behold, the Cushite arrived, and the Cushite said, ‘Let my lord the king receive good news, for the Lord has freed you this day from the hand of all those who rose up against you.’ And the king said to the Cushite, ‘Is it well with the young man Absalom?’ And the Cushite answered, ‘Let the enemies of my lord the king and all who rise up against you for evil be as that young man.’ And the king was deeply moved, and he went up to the chamber over the gate and he wept. And thus he said as he walked: ‘Oh, my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom!’”

In the Hebrew text David’s words are much more emotive: “Oi, Avshalom, beni beni Avshalom, beni!” “’Would that I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!’”

King David/King Jesus

“I wish it was me hanging on that tree, who was pierced through, instead of you, my son.” We must understand once more the typology here: King David could only wish that he could have hung on the cross and been pierced through in place of someone he loved; but praise God, Jesus the Son of David could actually do that. What King David could not do, King Jesus did. When King Jesus hung on that tree and was pierced through, He was pierced through for me and He was pierced through for you, if you are saved. If you are not saved, you need to get saved.

This illustrates the difference between the two covenants of Law and Grace. The Law could point us to our need for salvation, but it could not step in and save us; only the Messiah could save us. What the Law could not do, the Messiah did. What the first Davidic king could not do – die in the place of those he loved – the second Davidic king, Jesus, actually did.

In Deep Mourning

“Then it was told to Joab, ‘Behold, the king is weeping, and he mourns for Absalom.’”

David mourned as so many of us have mourned: My son died in sin, he is dead in rebellion, unsaved. “Yeah, but he broke your heart,: the reply comes. “He went astray; you brought him up in the truth, and he knew God’s ways from the earliest days of his youth and he rebelled against God as well as against you, and he became a reprobate!” Yes, but he is still my son. “But he tried to kill you!” He is still my little boy; that’s my little boy in that tree. David did not love him any less.

This is no day of victory; it is one of mourning. Oh, I will give you the good news, but I will also give you the bad news.

“So the people went by stealth into the city that day, as people who are humiliated steal away when they flee in battle.”

In other words, they had won, but they behaved as if they had lost. Oh, thank God I have been saved and thank God for the victory in Jesus that He gives us! That’s the good news. I praise God and thank Him for my salvation every day, but I also mourn the death of those whom I love who did not gain the victory, who did not gain salvation.

“And the king covered his face, and he cried out with a loud voice, ‘O Absalom, my son! My son, my son Absalom!

Oi, Avshalom, beni! Beni, beni, Avshalom, beni!

Then Joab came into the house to the king and said, ‘Today you have covered with disgrace the faces of all your servants, who today have saved your life and the lives of your sons and daughters, the lives of your concubines, by loving those who hate you and by hating those who love you. For you have shown today that princes and servants are nothing to you, for I know this day that if Absalom were alive and all of us were dead today you would be well pleased.’”

There is a truth in that: at least when saved people die they do not go to Hell. I would always rather see saved people die than unsaved people die. That is the sentiment: it is right, yet wrong, wrong, yet right. It’s ambiguous, is it not? There is a tension.

But Joab continues:

“’Now, therefore, arise; go out and speak kindly to your servants, for I swear by the Lord, if you do not go out, surely not a man will pass the night with you, and this will be worse for you than all the evil that has come upon you from your youth until now.’ So the king arose and sat down in the gate, and when they told all the people, saying, ‘Behold, the king is sitting in the gate,’ all the people came before the king.”

Once again, it is a wonderful thing when your loved ones and mine are saved. However, the fact is that there are people I have never known who will read this, some of you whose faces I have never seen who, if you are born again and you love Jesus, I am closer to in the eternal sense than I am to my own mother. Although I am closer to her in the physical and emotional sense, I am closer to you in the ultimate sense. The good news, and the bad news.

Biblical Hatred

The Gospel uses the Greek word “miso”, and I suppose that Jesus might have used the Hebrew-Aramaic word “sina”: If you don’t hate your parents, and even your own life in this world, you are not worthy of the Lord. (Luke 14:26) The word in Greek here is what our word “misogyny” is derived from; it is a strong word meaning “hate”. This does not simply mean that you are using the term “hate” as relative to your love for God because your love for God is so great as to make your love for all else seem like hate. That is some of the explanation, yet not all of it. The word is indeed “hate”. The key here is “life in this world”. I love my mother; but because I love her, I hate her life in this world. My wife’s parents are nice Jewish people whom I love; but I hate their lives in this world. I even hate my own natural life in this world. You cannot love people who have cancer if you do not hate cancer. In the same way, you cannot love people who are on their way to Hell because of sin if you do not hate the sin.

There is nothing but the grace of God that gives us a position any different or any better. There is only one verse in the Bible that I disagree with, and that is where Paul claims to be the chief of sinners; he’s muscling in on my racket there.

Good News and Bad News

Let us continue: the good news and the bad news. Romans 1:16: 

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of salvation to everyone who believes – to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”

Is that not good news? The gospel is the power of salvation to everyone – Jews and non-Jews alike. Since my family is a mixture, I get it both ways. That is the good news; now let’s look at the bad news: Romans 2:9 

“There will be tribulation and distress for every soul of man who does evil; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”

Since the Gospel is available to the Jew first because of covenant, the consequences of rejecting it are upon them first also. Deuteronomy 18 states that God would raise up a prophet like Moses and put His words in His mouth, and whoever did not listen, God would require it of him. In John 5 Jesus said that if the Jews had believed Moses, they would believe Him also. As I have said many times: the issue is not that Jews reject Jesus; that is not their problem. It is the result and the consequence of their problem. Their problem is that they reject Moses and the Torah.

Yet the fact remains that there is bad news as well as good. God loves Israel, Jesus loves Israel – that is true. But they are under the curse of the Law – Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 28. Why the Holocaust? Why the Inquisition? Why the Pogroms? Because of the Curse of the Law – either Yeshua takes the curse and becomes the curse on the tree or they are still under it.

My wife will tell you that it was a tragedy when the pogromists pulled the trigger and killed her grandfather in Romania, but she will tell you that it was an even bigger tragedy that he did not know Yeshua as his Messiah when they did it. The good news? Yes, salvation is for the Jew first, and God loves Israel. The bad news? The consequences for rejecting Him are also on the Jew first, says Rabbi Shaul of Tarsus under inspiration of God in His Word.

Christian Anti-Semitism in Its Worst Form

It is something like this: There is salvation in no other name under heaven save Jesus. (Acts 4:12) I have stood and stood and stood against anti-Semitism perpetrated in the name of Christianity. I did a video in Northern Ireland against British Israelism. I knew what that was and how ludicrous it was, but I had no idea how anti-Semitic in character it is. When Elim began teaching that Jesus Christ had no Jewish blood I hit the roof and have been banned from Elim ever since. I am someone who has stood time and time again at the expense of my own ministry and livelihood against anti-Semitism in the church. But the worst form of anti-Semitism is to tell a Jew the good news without the bad.

Jewish rejection of Jesus precedes Christian anti-Semitism. In the book of Acts, the Jewish establishment was persecuting Messianic Jews before any Christian ever persecuted a Jew. Jews were persecuting Jewish believers before there was any Christian anti-Semitism. In the 2nd Century, during the time of Justin Martyr, the rabbis were even going so far as to incite the Roman authorities against Gentile believers in Jesus.

I received a tape from Israel along with a number of phone calls and letters which were unbelievable. I and all those who heard it with me were shocked – this tape says that Jews who died in the Holocaust do not go to Hell even though they rejected Jesus. Rather, because God loves them and they were persecuted, they went to Heaven without Jesus. The Bible says, however, that there is salvation in no other name. 9Acts 4:12) I don’t like to think of Jews being in Hell – I don’t like to think of anybody being in Hell. But the fact remains.

This tape goes on to say that the Bible does not mean now what it meant when it was originally written. So although Paul says that their blood will be required of your hands if you do not preach the Gospel to the Jews, because of anti-Semitism that is no longer true. It was true only for the 1st Century. Because of the anti-Semitism that has occurred since then, this tape claims, we no longer have the right to preach the Gospel to the Jews.

Witness vs. Vision

This tape then goes on to say that although many Jews are being saved, they are not being saved through the witness of Christians – we should not be preaching or witnessing to them. I am expected to believe that Jews for Jesus and Helen Shapiro and CWI and OM are all wrong. This tape claims that the vast numbers of Jews that have been saved were saved because Jesus appeared to them personally or because they had a vision. I have been an evangelist to the Jews for over twenty years. By the grace of God, I have led dozens of Jews to Christ in many countries. I have heard or read the testimonies of hundreds of Jewish believers. I know exactly one – a guy in New York whose name is Jay Edelstein – who was saved because of a personal appearance of Jesus.

So the odd one did have a vision, but this vision was in collaboration or in connection with people bearing witness of the truth to him. Most Jews were saved in the way that Helen Shapiro or Stan Telchin were saved. Moriel sells four books of testimonies of Jewish believers in Jesus. According to what is on this tape, most of those people had to have been saved because they had a vision of Jesus. But not one of those testimonies actually claimed a personal apparition of Jesus to the people involved.

Feminist theologians and women pastors are among those who want to say that the Bible does not mean now what it meant then, along with homosexuals who are trying to justify the gay clergy. Liberals and heretics are the ones claiming that the Bible no longer means what it did when it was written. The idea that we should not witness to Jews, but rather just pray to the Lord to save them by granting them a vision, is a lie.

The good news and the bad news. The bad news is that anybody who does not accept Jesus is damned to eternal judgment; the good news is, many people – including many Jews – are hearing the good news with the bad news, repenting, and accepting Jesus as their Messiah. I will tell you all the news – the good and the bad.

The king’s son is dead; my wife’s grandfather was shot dead by the Nazis; her family perished in the Holocaust. Yet I can show you Holocaust survivors who accept Jesus and who have been saved – why? Not because true Christians were afraid or ashamed to witness to them because of what false Christians did in the name of Christ, but because true Christians loved them enough to tell them that those persecutors were not Christians.

The Danger of Seeking Solitude

Let us continue: “’Something worse will befall you,’” the king is told. “If you stay up here and mourn continually by yourself, something worse will befall you.” There is one thing that is worse than the death of an unsaved loved one – only one thing. What is it? It is getting into a closet to suffer by yourself. What does the Lord say in this situation? Let’s look at Matthew 12: 46-48 

“While He was still speaking to the multitudes, behold, His mother and His brothers were standing outside seeking to speak to Him. And someone said to Him, ‘Behold, Your mother and Your brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to You.’ But He answered the one who was telling Him this, and said, ‘Who is My mother, and who are My brothers?’ And stretching out His hand toward His disciples, He said, ‘Behold My mother, behold My brothers. Whoever does the will of My Father in Heaven, he is My brother, and sister, and mother.’”

I hope that my mother comes to the Lord. I hope my brother gets saved and I hope that my wife’s parents accept Jesus. I hope your parents and unsaved husband and loved ones get saved. But if they don’t, you and I will find ourselves in the situation in which David was. Jesus spoke directly of many falling away and betraying one another, did He not? (Math 24:10) He said that in the Last Days that would happen within families. I can promise you this: It will hurt now, and that pain is something that you and I must live with. But there will be a time when it will not hurt anymore; as impossible as it is for us to fathom’ the Lord can take that pain and loss away. God can do anything.

Revelation 21:4:

“He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will no longer be any death, there will no longer be any mourning or crying or pain. The first things have passed away.”

If you have recently lost a loved one who was unsaved, you have my condolences; a time will come when it will no longer hurt.

Conclusion

In the meantime, there is good news and there is bad news. We know the bad news, but this is the good news. There is something I must face as I think of my sick mother. There is something you have to face as you think of your unsaved aging parents, or your unsaved husband, or your unsaved wife: what is the way to cope with this? What did Jesus say? All I can say is what He said: You are my mother, you are my sister, my brother; he or she who does the will of my Father. (Math 12:48-50) You are not alone in what you are going through.

Let us take a few minutes to pray for the salvation of our unsaved loved ones – there is nothing more important. 

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).