The Legacy of Jacob Part 2 of 2

April 3, 2025

The Question of the Tribes

James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,To the twelve tribes who are dispersed abroad: Greetings. (James 1:1)

There may be some intended spiritual meaning in James’ address to “the twelve tribes,” but as a genre, epistles do not use typology or figurative meaning without assuming the believers understand what it means. Epistles are to be taken literally.

We know that in the Book of Luke, Anna was from the tribe of Asher (Lk. 2:36). Most Christians have the wrong idea that the ten northern tribes—all but Benjamin, Judah and the Levites—went into captivity. That is wrong; the faithful people in Israel came south to Judah. (Faithful people will always leave unfaithful churches before the judgment of God comes on them.) They kept their identities in the Second Temple period all the way to the time of Jesus.

In the UK there is a something which dates back to at least the last century called “Anglo-Israelism.” My grandparents were from the north of England, except my one grandmother was from Glasgow, and I saw some people who were into Anglo-Israelism in Speaker’s Corner. They had all this British stuff in Hebrew, one of them titled, A Covenant with Man. They said things like, “The lion of Judah is the lion of Scotland,” and insisted that the Aran Islands were named after Aaron. They had it all worked out. (When they found out my little daughter was born in Israel and her family was from Scotland and England, they thought she stepped out of a flying saucer.)

This stuff has absolutely no biblical or anthropological basis whatsoever.The Celtic peoples, anthropologically, are not one nation, but many: there are the Cornish, the Scottish, the Welsh, the Irish. These have certain things in common. But then the other inhabitants of the British Isles are Anglo-Saxons—Germanic people. Then come the Normans—Vikings who came to France and then to England. There are several strata of people who invaded Great Britain and were integrated into the British identity over a period of many centuries. The British are not one, pure stock—they never have been. So how do people come up with something like Anglo-Israelism? There are no Semitic features. Just go to the people with Semitic features: Yemenites, Jews, Sephardic Jews, Arabs, pure-blooded Bedouins—do they look like people from England? No, they do not. It is almost as ridiculous anthropologically as it is theologically.

The twelve tribes are the basis. In Revelation 4 we see the twenty-four elders, who would seem to be the twelve apostles and the twelve sons of Jacob. But there is all manner of spiritualizing away the literal basis of the twelve tribes.

If we were to go to the Domitian Abbey (a Roman Catholic place) in Jerusalem, we would see three concentric circles cut up like a pie into twelve sections. The innermost section contains the twelve names of the sons of Jacob, the twelve patriarchs of Israel, one for each tribe. The second circle, corresponding to the twelve sons of Jacob, represents the names of the twelve Apostles. Can you guess what is in the outermost circle? The Zodiac.

I get letters and email from people who think I have it all figured out. Believe me, I do not have it all figured out. I may know what people say about things like Revelation 7—I know the prevailing opinions, but I am not going to teach something unless I am sure that the Holy Spirit has shown me what it means. “What about the 144,000?” they ask. “How will God know which tribes modern Jews belong to? Do you think they are literal Jews?”Obviously the sealing of the 144,000 Jews replays the story of Ezekiel going into the city and marking the anointed of the Lord before the judgment came (Eze. 9:48).

The 144,000

And I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred and forty-four thousand sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel: From the tribe of Judah, twelve thousand were sealed, from the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand, from the tribe of Gad twelve thousand, from the tribe of Asher twelve thousand, from the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand, from the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand, from the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand, from the tribe of Levi twelve thousand, from the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand, from the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand, from the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand, from the tribe of Benjamin, twelve thousand were sealed. (Revelation 7:4-8)

Now let us look at Revelation 14:

Then I looked, and behold, the Lamb was standing on Mount Zion, and with Him one hundred and forty-four thousand, having His name and the name of His Father written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of loud thunder, and the voice which I heard was like the sound of harpists playing on their harps. And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders; and no one could learn the song except the one hundred and forty-four thousand who had been purchased from the earth. (Revelation 14:1-3)

I am not going to try to figure out every detail here because I do not know. I can tell what other people say about it, but I will say this: the first steps toward figuring it out is not Revelation 7, it is not Revelation 14, it is the final prophecy of Jacob in Genesis 49. We cannot even be positive, and there is good reason to believe, that these two groups of 144,000 are not even the same. One group seems to be in heaven; the other seems to be on earth. The description of one group is not even the same as that of the other. One would seem to be physical Jews, the other does not necessarily seem to be.

The Issue of Identity

Anthropologically, who knows? Arnold Fruchtenbaum is right: the main thing is the sign of the covenant in the giving of Jewish identity. Jews have intermarried for centuries. The entire Khazar Empire converted to Judaism. Arthur Koestler and others agree that the Ashkenazi Jewry came from the Khazar Empire converted to Judaism. There were massive conversions to Judaism in Morocco. The whole Yemenite Empire converted. The way that Constantine ostensibly converted to Christendom is the same thing that happened in the Jewish world. We would be hard pressed, anthropologically, to make a case. Jewish identity has to do with covenant.Yes, there is the issue of the sons of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but how does it define “sons”? Some of those sons of the twelve tribes were born of servants. We cannot even directly trace the genetic line in that sense. It has to do with covenant.

How do we determine what tribe somebody is from? My wife’s family name is “Segal.” They were a priestly family, assistants within the Levites. People with names like “Levine,” “Cohen” and such we can speculate go back to those priestly families, but who knows? I do not know, and I am very skeptical of people who say they have it all figured out. What I know is that in order to figure it out, it does not begin with Revelation; it begins with Jacob.

We looked at what Jacob meant personally, now we are going to look at what he means for Israel and the Jews as a nation.

Again, Jacob was someone always looking to attain the blessings and purposes of God according to his natural reason and ability. What have the Jewish people done? They have tried to attain the blessings and purposes of God according to their natural thinking. Talmudic Judaism, founded in Yavneh by Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai is not the Judaism of Torah, it is another Judaism. It is a product of the natural minds of rabbis, developed in the centuries afterward by rabbis like Akiva and others, ultimately redefined as an Aristotelian religion by Rambam, and even more on top of that.

Jews know they are different from other people, but they do not know why. It is amazing that Alan Ginsberg, the Jewish poet in America from the Beatnik era (I used to see him around New York), tells us that his religion is Buddhist. Jewish people do not believe in God and they go to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and begin crying even though they do not know why. They know something, but they do not know what it is they know and they do not even know why they know it. Think of unsaved Jewish people as a kind of backslider. The new covenant in Jeremiah 31:31 was not made with the Church, it was made with the house of Judah and the house of Israel. They have broken that covenant. Jewish people are backslidden.

When somebody is born-again and they fall away from Jesus and go back to the world, their life can never be normal or the same. They can never fit in because they know that something is wrong and it is eating away at their soul all the time, but they can know what it is; Jewish people have something eating away at their soul but they do not know what it is. The rabbis think they know, but the rabbis disagree with each other as to what it is. I was talking in Hebrew for a couple hours to the president of the Orthodox rabbis in Leeds, witnessing to him. He is a wonderful man with plenty of knowledge but so little understanding.

Jacob would always scheme to try to attain the purpose, the blessing, the heritage by his devices, and it always blew up in his face. The Jews are the same way. No matter what the Jewish people try, it will blow up in their face.

Their Return to the Land

There is only one place the Jews will be a secure people, and it is not in the land of Israel. The Jews were never secure in the land of Israel; it is a strategically vulnerable place. The biggest Jewish disasters before the Holocaust, undoubtedly, were the events of AD 70, and Bar Kochba’s Rebellion in the second century which were the equivalent of the Holocaust. Proportionately it was the same kind of mass extermination, and yet it happened in their own land. The only place the Jews will be secure is in the palm of their Messiah, Yeshua.

So much for these organizations claiming that the Jews can be blessed by bringing them back to Israel. The Jews are not going back to Israel for the blessing of God. There is only one way God can bless the Jew and it is the same way He can bless anybody: through faith in the Messiah. Because the Gospel was available to them first, the consequences for rejecting it are on them first (Rom.9-11). Jeremiah 30 talks about “the time of Jacob’s trouble” (Jer. 30:7). The Jewish people are back in Israel for “the time of Jacob’s trouble.”

The metaphor or figure of the night in Scripture is a metaphor for the Great Tribulation. Jesus said He is coming like a thief in the night (Rev. 15:15). “Watchman, watchman how far is the night?” (Is. 21:11). “Is he coming in the second watch of the night or the third?” (Lk. 12:38). “Work while you have the light for night will come when no man can work” (Jn. 9:4). The wise virgins have oil in their lamps to see at night (Mt. 25:1-13). When did Jacob get the blessing? At the end of the night (Gen. 32:24-32). The Jews are wrestling with God, and they will continue to wrestle until the end of the night.

“Jacob” vs. “Israel”

The Bible speaks of the difference between “Israel” and “Jacob.” Throughout Scripture we see “Israel” and “Jacob” used at various times. Why does God call them by both names? “Israel” has been broken. Galatians speaks about the Israel of God—even Gentiles are grafted into Israel by faith in some sense, but “Jacob” as the Jewish people is an unbroken state—their name has not been changed yet. The blessing is for “Israel,” the promise is for “Jacob.”

God cannot break His promises to the Jews, but they are never going to get it while they are still called “Jacob”; they are going to get it when they are called “Israel.” When God looks at Israel, what does He see? “Israel?” No, He sees “Jacob.” When God looks at Jewish believers He sees “Israel.”“Jacob” personifies and typifies the Jewish people. His whole, long life, in a sense, was in preparation for this one factor. It was not Abraham who began Israel, it was not Isaac who began Israel, it was Jacob—the twelve tribes came from him. Jacob gives a prophecy in Genesis 49 for the Jewish people whose ratifications encompass the whole of history and of God’s salvific plan for everybody, especially the Jews, extending all the way to Revelation. When we read through the Scriptures about the histories of the tribes of Israel and what they did, what happened to them and what they experienced, it winds up with what Jacob predicts. His whole life is a preparation for what he is going to do at the end of it, and the entire history of Israel is a preparation for what they are going to do at the end of it. His whole life was in preparation for this prophecy. Everything is a preparation for this one climactic event. It probably took him minutes. Imagine God preparing someone for ten minutes of ministry? But on that ten minutes of ministry hinges the entire future of prophetic history.

For the Jewish people it will be the same thing. The promises are for “Jacob,” the blessings are for “Israel.” At the very end it is all going to make sense to the Church and to them and then they are going to know why. The first Christians were Jews, and no matter what we hear, the last Christians are going to be Jews. God is going to bless the Church through Jewish people before He comes; everything is preparing the world for that. This is the framework for looking at Revelation 7.

Jacob’s Prophecy

Then Jacob summoned his sons and said, “Assemble yourselves that I may tell you what will befall you in the days to come.

“Gather together and hear, O sons of Jacob;And listen to Israel your father.“Reuben, you are my firstborn;My might and the beginning of my strength,Preeminent in dignity and preeminent in power.Uncontrolled as water, you shall not have preeminence…

(The first shall be last and the last shall be first.)

Because you went up to your father’s bed;Then you defiled it—he went up to my couch.

(The sins of the father are passed on to the sons; only the cross can break that.)

“Simeon and Levi are brothers;Their swords are implements of violence.

(This is because of what they did when they slaughtered those people, even though their anger had a good basis for it.)

“Let my soul not enter into their council Let not my glory be united with their assembly;Because in their anger they slew men,And in their self-will they lamed oxen.

(If they were people who were simply motivated by righteous indignation, that would be one thing, but when it is someone with a bad temper just looking for an excuse to do something, that is something else. They are just getting the excuse they need to go on the warpath. The great heroes of war are the people who prefer peace.)

“Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce;And their wrath, for it is cruel.I will disperse them in Jacob,And scatter them in Israel.

(And, again, the history of the tribes is played out.)

“Judah, your brothers shall praise you;Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies;Your father’s sons shall bow down to you.Judah is a lion’s whelp;From the prey, my son, you have gone up.He couches, he lies down as a lion,And as a lion, who dares rouse him up?

(It talks here about the lion of Judah.)

“The scepter shall not depart from Judah,Nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes,And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.He ties his foal to the vine, And his donkey’s colt to the choice vine;He washes his garments in wine,And his robes in the blood of grapes.His eyes are dull from wine,And his teeth white from milk.“Zebulun will dwell at the seashore;And he shall be a haven for ships,

(That is the land they received when the land was appropriated by Joshua.)

And his flank shall be toward Sidon. “Issachar is a strong donkey,Lying down between the sheepfolds.When he saw that a resting place was goodAnd that the land was pleasant,He bowed his shoulder to bear burdens,And became a slave at forced labor.“Dan shall judge his people,As one of the tribes of Israel.Dan shall be a serpent in the way,A horned snake in the path,That bites the horse’s heels,So that his rider falls backward.For Your salvation I wait, O LORD.

(It all points to Jesus.)

“Issachar is a strong donkey,“As for Gad, raiders shall raid him,But he will raid at their heels.“As for Asher, his food shall be rich,And he will yield royal dainties.“Naphtali is a doe let loose,He gives beautiful words.“Joseph is a fruitful bough,A fruitful bough by a spring;Its branches run over a wall.The archers bitterly attacked him,And shot at him and harassed him;But his bow remained firm,And his arms were agile,From the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob(From there is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel),From the God of your father who helps you,And by the Almighty who blesses youWith blessings of heaven above,Blessings of the deep that lies beneath,Blessings of the breasts and of the womb.The blessings of your fatherHave surpassed the blessings of my ancestorsUp to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills;May they be on the head of Joseph,

(He typifies the Messiah.)

And on the crown of the head of the one distinguished among his brothers.

(Again, he typifies the Lord.)

“Benjamin is a ravenous wolf;In the morning he devours the prey,And in the evening he divides the spoil.”

(The early Church somehow saw this as a prophecy about Paul, that in the morning he would be a ravenous wolf and devour the prey the way he first persecuted the Church, but in the end he would divide the spoil by bringing blessing and provision to God’s people after his conversion.)

All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father said to them when he blessed them. He blessed them, every one with the blessing appropriate to him.

(They play out the history of what he said.)

Then he charged them and said to them, “I am about to be gathered to my people; bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah, which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought along with the field from Ephron the Hittite for a burial site. There they buried Abraham and his wife Sarah, there they buried Isaac and his wife Rebekah, and there I buried Leah— the field and the cave that is in it, purchased from the sons of Heth.” When Jacob finished charging his sons, he drew his feet into the bed and breathed his last, and was gathered to his people. (Genesis 49:1-33)

Right at the very end of his life is when he puts it all together. Everything he experienced clicks at the very end. So it will be with the Jewish people. The Holocaust, the inquisitions, the Old Testament, the New Testament, the early Church; Genesis 49 will have its ultimate fulfillment somehow in Revelation 7 and 14. At the very end it comes together, but not until every prophecy is fulfilled in Genesis 49.

The Importance of Judah

The most important prophecy is Judah. Except for that situation with Tamar (Gen. 38), Judah was always unique and good. Judah led the tribes through the wilderness in the configuration around the Ark. It was Judah who asked the brothers to have mercy on Joseph the way Jesus asks for mercy on the Jews (Gen. 37:26). They said, “Let His blood be on us and our children” (Mt. 27:25), and Jesus says, “Father, forgive them” (Lk. 23:34).

“The scepter shall not depart from Judah,Nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet,Until Shiloh comes, (Genesis 49:10a)

Over and over the Talmudic literature tells us that “Shiloh” is the Messiah; Judaism understands it that way.

“Thus says the LORD,

‘Write this man down childless,A man who will not prosper in his days;For no man of his descendants will prosperSitting on the throne of DavidOr ruling again in Judah.’” (Jeremiah 22:30)

King David was from which tribe? Judah.

In Samuel it is promised to David that he shall never lack somebody to be on the throne of David (2 Sam. 7:16). Judaism has a big problem explaining how God is keeping this promise today. (Anglo-Israelism actually tries to say the throne of David is the royal throne of Great Britain and the monarchy. This came about when there was a Jewish prime minister; that is when this whole thing got going in the last century.) There was always some kind of Davidic line, even when it got interrupted during the Captivity. The Hasmoneans, who were the descendants of the Maccabees tried to make the High Priest John Hyricanus the king. But the king needed to be a descendant of David, priests the descendants of Aaron. The last person who by any claim could be a descendant of David had to end in the reign of Herod the Great. Herod’s mother was a Moabitess and he was some kind of convert to Judaism, but culturally he was basically a Roman rather than a Jew.“

The scepter shall not depart from Judah…until Shiloh comes.” Well, the scepter did depart from Judah—Shiloh had to come. The Messiah had to come before the end of the Davidic lineage.

God promised David he would always have a descendant on the throne. Is there one? No, unless in the heavenlies Jesus is reigning on the throne of David as the New Testament says (Heb. 8:12; 12:2). Either Shiloh—the Messiah—has come and is reigning on the throne of David spiritually (and He will reign again in the Millennium), or else the Bible is wrong and God has broken His promise. This is one of the passages where the Talmudic literature and the rabbinic commentaries go to great length to get around. They have a big problem, but we know there is a Lion of Judah, and He ison the throne of David right now, and the house of David will be restored to Jerusalem and Jesus will reign there.

The Tribes

Reuben, in Genesis 39:3-4 is the firstborn of Leah, but he gets last preference; the favored place goes to Joseph, the priestly privilege to Levi, the kingly right to Judah. He is “uncontrollable as water” which undoubtedly relates to his sin with Bilhah (Gen. 35:22). This is exactly what happened. The firstborn did not get the kingship, the favor, or the priestly lineage. “The first shall be last” (Mt. 19:30).

Simeon and Levi are the second and third sons of Leah. They killed repentant men near Shechem (Gen. 34), so they got no inheritance. The Levites were given none and the Simeonites were swallowed up by Judah: “I will disperse them in Jacob” (Gen. 49:7). Historically, that is what happened. It was literally and actually fulfilled just as predicted. The problem was that they killed men after the men repented. (When we find Christians holding grudges and not forgiving people who have genuinely repented, that is going to hurt them more than it is the people they are not forgiving.)

Judah is the fourth of Leah. Judah received praise and “Yehuda” has to do with that. He had birthrights and exceptional dignity, holding the kingship and the line of David before the scepter departed when Shiloh came. (This is referenced in Ezekiel 21:27.)

Then there is Zebulon, the fifth by Leah, who “will dwell as the seashore” (Gen. 49:13). Jacob mentions the Sidonians, and in Judges 5 we see this later being fulfilled in the Song of Deborah in the struggle against Sisera.Issachar is the sixth son of Leah and he is a “chamor”—a donkey: “a strong donkey” (Gen. 49:14). He is strong and stubborn, but submits to the yoke: “He bowed his shoulder to bear burdens” (Gen. 49:15). He is too lazy not to. He submitted to Canaanite invaders rather than fight; that was Issachar.Then there was Dan, the first son of Bilhah, a snake of poison causing terror (Gen. 49:16-18).

Then there is Gad, the first son of Zilpah, Leah’s maid. Jewish lineage was not just Abraham, Isaac and Jacob through their wives Leah and Rachel. The idea was of one having Levirate marriage or surrogate motherhood. God was not simply interested in physical lineage; He was interested in faith for all descendants of Abraham. Gad is a troop or military company meaning a mighty military company that trusts in the Lord.

Asher is the second son of Zilpah relating to wheat, wine and oil.Naphtali was the second son of Bilhah and “gives beautiful (or “godly”) words” (Gen. 49:21), as we see in Judges 5:18 in the character of “those who love not their lives unto death” (Rev. 12:11).

Then there is Joseph, the first son of Rachel, who is “a fruitful bough” (Gen. 49:22) and, like “Ephraim,” means “doubly fruitful.” “Joseph” means “God shall add or be added.” He has the characteristics of Jesus, a bubbling fountain that is a fountain of life. In verse 22 He is the Living Water; in verse 23 His words are like arrows; in verse 24 he is the Shepherd; in verse 25 He is helped by the Father—“El Shaddai.” And other things associated with Jesus happen to him. The things that happen to Joseph are played out in Jesus.

Again, the early church saw Benjamin as being fulfilled in Paul (Gen. 49:27). Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh, as it is hinted at, did not cross the Jordan. They wanted God’s blessing here. The tribes existed even after the ten northern tribes went into captivity.

Application of the Tribes’ Characteristics

Believers come in the characteristics of those tribes. There are believers who come in the characteristics of Joseph. Some people are so much like Jesus they are models for the rest of us. When we see Christians like that, their brothers do not like them. One reason why godly people are not very popular in the Church is because they are seen as wimps, which they are not, but when I see someone more like Jesus than I am, I get convicted.There are believers like Benjamin: they do not begin well, but they end well.There are believers like the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh: they want a good, comfortable life here and now in this world; they do not want to cross the Jordan and go to war, not realizing they are going to have to cross the Jordan and go to war anyway, but losing the blessing that they could have had if they did not want an easy ticket.There are so many believers who want an easy ticket.

These sons of Jacob teach about us. Jacob knew his sons. He was able to predict what they would be like—not just the Jews, but the other twelve elders, those descended from the Apostles in Revelation 4.

It is interesting what happens when we put together the names of these sons in Hebrew. Dan was left out because Dan worshiped the golden calf and acted in a judgment that was not of God, which is made up for because of Joseph having two sons to make the same twelve. “Judge not, lest you be judged” (Mt. 7:1).“

Judah”—“a confessor or praiser of God.”

“Reuben”—“looking at the son.”

“Gad”—“accompany.”

“Asher”—“blessed.”

“Naphtali”—“striving with or wrestling with.”

“Manasseh”—“forgetfulness.

”“Simeon”—“hearing or obeying.”

“Levi”—“clinging to or joining to.”

“Issachar”—“reward.”

“Zebulun”—“the home of the growing place.”

“Joseph”—“shall be added.”

“Benjamin”—“the son of the right hand.”

One of the differences between Hellenistic hermeneutics and Jewish hermeneutics is that Hellenistic hermeneutics has “a this or a that”; in biblical Jewish hermeneutics (not rabbinic), it can be both. Revelation 14 describes the character of these people. No matter what they are in terms of organization and anthropology, it describes the character and nature of these people: a company of praisers of God who are looking at the Son who are blessed by Him and striving with forgetfulness. The Jewish people have forgotten the covenant. They are “hearing and obeying” in the character of Simeon, clinging to the promised reward of an eternal home that shall be added to them by the Son of God’s own Right Hand. Somehow it describes the character of this 144,000. The Hebrew names describe their character as a corporate unit.

The End from the Beginning

All kinds of books will tell you “this,” “that” and “the other thing”; I am not telling anything beyond what I have told here: the key is in Genesis 49. “Seal these things up until the time of the end” (Dan. 12:4). At the appropriate time, the Holy Spirit will show exactly what these things mean, but so far I know what the Holy Spirit is saying. Look at Jacob, look at Genesis 49, forget about the Christian commentaries, go back to Genesis. What does it say in the Tanakh? “God declares the end from the beginning” (Is. 46:10).

Declaring the end from the beginning,And from ancient times things which have not been done,

Notice it is “from ancient times” He declares things which are not yet. He declares the end from the beginning.

Think of the Bible as a loaf of bread that has not been cut; it looks the same on both ends, does it not? Genesis and Revelation go together. There are the twelve sons of Jacob, the twelve signs in Genesis 49 and what do we have in Revelation 6? The blood of Abel calls out for justice. And the blood of the martyrs calls out for justice in Revelation 6:9-11. There is the woman in the sky in Joseph’s vision in Genesis and what do we have in Revelation 12? He declares the end from the beginning.

The creation and the new creation mutually illuminate each other between John and Genesis; so does the creation and the re-creation in Revelation. Genesis is “creation,” John is “new creation,” but Revelation is “re-creation.” The key is in Genesis. The whole Bible is in the Book of Genesis. The entire history of the Jews and the history of the Church is tied up in Genesis 49 in some way. “He declares the end from the beginning.” It all depends on this one guy, Jacob.

Why Choose Jacob?

Of all the great people in the world, of all the great men in the Bible, why does God take a schemer, a con-artist, a manipulator, a “shrewdy,” and hinge His entire plan of salvation and history for the world on this one guy? Why, of all the fine people in this country, who were born in this country, who could be standing up here giving a much better performance than I can, does God pick up a drug addict from the streets of New York and bring him to England? Who can answer those questions? The only way I can even begin to understand it is that losers have nothing to brag about except God’s grace.

And the Jews as a nation and a people are a nation of losers. They have lost everything but one thing: the promise of God. That is the one thing they have not lost. They lost their children and they have lost their hope. Go to Israel. Zionism was their dream. Today they get a visa to leave Israel to go to the United States or something. The Russians go there because they cannot get a visa to go to the United States or Canada. Everything the Jews try turns to garbage.

The 19th-century center of culture and science was Germany, but who was at its center? German Jews. For better or worse, Karl Marx was a German Jew, Sigmund Freud was a German Jew, the scientist Steinmetz was a German Jew. They thought they had it made, that they were the intellectuals and molders of modern science. Everybody was following their ideas, but it turned against them. They lost everything. Hitler came along and actually said, “There are only two kinds of superior races: Jews and Germans. We’re going to find out who is going to come out on top.” The Jews lost everything in the Holocaust, so they go to Israel, and now they are going to lose that.

They are losing the land, they have lost their hope, they have lost their idealism. The Antichrist will enter that country and be proclaimed the Messiah and they will be misled and betrayed by their own rabbis. They lose everything except the promise of God. God’s redemptive plan for the salvation of the world and the future of the Church is bound up with this prophetic and redemptive plan for the salvation of the nation of Israel.

Why would He choose a nation like that, a little nation? What do they have to brag about? Maybe that is why. There is so little. Even in the days of David and Solomon they were never a great power, they were only a regional power. They were never a great world power like Rome or Babylon or Persia. (They will be in the Millennium.) Intellectuals? It was not the Jews but the Greeks who were the intellectuals of the ancient world. They were nothing compared to the great powers. Yet God takes the insignificant things and that is what He uses.What happens to the Jews happens to us. Heads and tails are the Church and Israel. We can distinguish between heads and tails but we cannot separate them.

For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; (1 Corinthians 1:26)

God did not choose the Jews because they were the greatest nation; He chose them because they were the least. And He did not choose us because we were the greatest of people, He chose me because I was a drug addict in New York. I did not have anything. Most of my friends are dead from dope.

It Will Be Fulfilled

God’s whole working in Jacob’s life pointed to this one chapter, Genesis 49, and then He ends it. Genesis 49, Revelation 7—it is going to happen. That prophecy will be fulfilled. A time is going to come in some way when His purpose for the Jews to be lights to the nations is going to happen.

Ben-Gurion said the Jews must be lights to the nations, that they must have a model of socialism in their economy and government that the Gentiles will want to imitate. But a time will come when they are going to be lights to the nations, when they have the light of their Messiah. They lost it all except the promise. If God can break His promise to Jacob, give me one good reason He has to keep His promise to the Church.

Before Jesus comes, the sons of Jacob are going to proclaim Jesus to the nations. Before Jesus comes, the Church is going to be in very serious trouble. God is going to revive it, but do we know who is going to revive it?

For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? (Romans 11:15)

For who? For the Church.I do not know what to make out of it, but I am telling you, Genesis 49 has always been fulfilled, and Genesis 49 is going to be fulfilled. The Jews have lost everything, but they have not lost the promise of God.God bless.

< Older Post

Newer Post >

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).

Urgent Prayer request for Malcom Betts, his daughter and others

By David Passmore • April 9, 2026

Please keep brother Malcolm Betts from the New Life Pentecostal Church, Winsford in prayer. He is suffering from heart failure, valve problems and spinal stenosis. Your prayers for healing and intervention are coveted. Also, Malcom’s daughter Laura-Louisa is having complications with her pregnancy. Her baby boy is due on the 22nd of April and was in a breach position, however he is now moved to an oblique position which carries serious risk and possible surgical intervention. Laura is also at risk of postpartum haemorrhage. Please pray for the midwives and obstetricians skill and wisdom. Please also pray for Malcolm’s sister Susan who has sepsis in her leg. And please pray also for Sheila Carlisle. She is undergoing knee replacement surgery.