What the Reformers Forgot Part 1 of 2

April 3, 2025
For the days are coming, saith the Lord, when I will make a New Covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah - not like the Covenant that I made with their fathers. (Jeremiah 31:31).

Two thirds of Scripture is comprised of the Hebrew and Aramaic Old Testament writings called in Judaism by the acronym TENACH, meaning a combination of Torah (Pentateuch), Neviim (Prophets), and Ketuvim(literally "Writings", such as Psalms, certain histories, and wisdom literature.)

Born again Christians generally accept that the primary aim of the Old Testament is to point to the coming New Covenant that would be implemented by the promised Messiah.

Romans 11 tells us that the invisible root of the church is Israel, so we can understand that the two thousand years of Old Testament history under the Law was laying the foundation for what would become the church.

Romans and Galatians tell us that the chief (but not only) purpose of the Law was to teach that we cannot be saved by it and so point us to the Messianic redeemer who would fulfil the law on our behalf and make atonement for our inability to uphold God's standards by His own sacrifice on the cross for our sins.

Hebrews tells that the Levitical priesthood and temple system is a typology of Jesus our High Priest. Read in light of the gospels, the Patriarch Isaac and every prophet of Israel from Moses to John the Baptist is a prophetic type of Jesus, with their ministry, words, or life experiences foreshadowing Yeshua in some way.

The entirety of the Old Testament from Genesis 1:1, the non-canonical Jewish apocryphal writings, and a total of three thousand years of history, at least, from Abraham onward (but actually from the creation onward), all point to Jesus and the New Covenant He would give.

A cursory reading of Jeremiah 31:31 and it surrounding context reveals this passage to be the clearest prophetic prediction in the Old Testament that a New Covenant would be given and that it would be unlike the then existing old one.

 

What the Reformers forgot about Hermeneutics

Jeremiah 31:31 is the clearest prophecy in the Tenach that God would one day make a New Covenant.

In western Protestantism we have a very western perspective of Christianity and its historical development. Yet when we read the Book of Revelation, we see that Jesus shows us the church and its history not from a western or indeed any earthly perspective, but from an eternal heavenly perspective.

Hence, however important the lessons of church history, we need to observe and contemplate that history in a spiritual context from the viewpoint of scripture and not from a Hellenistic or occidental culture, nor through the prism of a Hellenistic or occidental concept of history and how to interpret it.

Revelation reveals to us the church and its role in a salvation history that theologians call Heilsgeschichte, as Christ sees it and chooses to reveal it to us.

The first thing that Jeremiah 31:31 tells us is that the New Covenant was made (literally "cut") not with the predominantly western church, but with Israel and the Jews. The Hebrew term here for covenant is brit, meaning both "covenant" and "testament". Thus, the New Testament is a Jewish covenant document for a new covenant, the same as Torah is a Jewish covenant document for the Old Covenant.

The New Covenant as a covenant was never made with the per se church to begin with, and its covenant document was similarly never given to or through the Gentile church, but through the faithful remnant of Israel whom at that time constituted the primitive Jewish church.

The Reformers failed to redress and correct the replacement theology of Roman Catholicism; instead they wrongly replaced Israel with a Protestant church instead of a Roman one.

They also, like Romanism, began to treat a Jewish covenant document as a Greco-Roman one in the manner in which they understood and interpreted it.

While the Book of Revelation, for instance, is in the apocalyptic genre that evolved through combining both Hebraic and Hellenistic literary forms during the intertestamental period, its imagery and typology are strongly Judaic.

The appearance of Yeshua as High Priest in Chapter 1, in a Levitical setting, gives us a pictorial revelation of Jesus as High Priest that Hebrews gives us as a doctrinal revelation. Later in Chapter 3 in the message to the Church of Philadelphia we see Yeshua in a Davidic role.

Throughout Revelation we see thematic and typological replays of the creation motif from Genesis, and motifs from Exodus, Joshua, Daniel, Ezekiel and other Old Testament Books.

As with John's Gospel, Matthew, James, 2 Peter, and Hebrews - Revelation is a book with a Hebraic literary orientation, although the church is predominantly Gentile.

In other words, God relates His final message to the church through Hebrew eyes.

This relates to Paul's description of our salvation to both Jew and Gentile believer as a recapitulation of the Hebrew Exodus (1 Corinthians 10:1-3), and to Paul's teaching on the final state of church as rediscovering its Jewish root (Romans 11:18 & 25).

The Scriptures also describe Christ's relationship to, and coming for, the church as a Jewish matrimony (Revelation 20, Song of Solomon, Ephesians 5, Matthew 25).

Repeatedly, God in His Word reveals the essential truths of His relationship to the Church within a Judaic frame of reference, and God's revelation of the eschatological destiny and history of the church as seen in Revelation is no exception.

The problem we address here is that, with a few exceptions, the mainstream Christian traditions that sprang from the Reformation depart from scripture and do not do this; they simply ignore the Judaic content and treat it as Hellenistic literature. While we can appreciate some of Luther's reasoning (as Revelation's message was partially for an appointed time), he rejected the book of Revelation as use-less and uncanonical.

The Swiss Reformers largely were radical preterist historicists seeing Revelation as having had a total, instead of partial fulfillment in the early church and a continuous meaning throughout church history, simply spiritualizing away the elements which had no parallel or historical fulfillment in the early centuries of Christian history.

It is both ironic and contradictory that since a cornerstone of Reformed theology (due to influences of 16th century humanism) was a stoic hermeneutical approach to biblical interpretation taking a strict grammatical-historical line, Re-formed theology departs from its own principles and automatically 'spiritualizes' anything about Israel as being for the church.

It does so moreover, not seeing the text applying additionally to Israel as well as to the church, or by a qualified application to the church by way of principle or figure, while retaining the original meaning for the Jews in theSitz im Leben (the cultural and historical setting a text is addressed to and written in) of the text.

It rather does so in the stated replacement of Israel and the Jews by a mainly Gentile church owing little or nothing to its biblically stated Jewish roots - in direct contravention to Romans 9-11. This becomes particularly strange since Luther regarded Romans to be the very heart of scripture and its message, yet his thinking virtually omitted the plain teaching of chapters 9 to 11.

It is also strange that - in their proper reaction against the medievalscholasticism of the Roman Church with its peculiar form of papalgnosticism (later defined as "Sensus Plenior"), where typology and allegory were used to illustrate and illuminate doctrine and not base doctrine on it - the medieval church formulated doctrines to please itself by wild allegorization.

Indeed, we see the same practices continuing today not only in Roman Catholicism, but in the neo-gnosticism employed by the Vineyard Movement and by such New Age influenced pseudo Christian groups as 'Promise Keepers' who build their case not on exegesis (reading fromScripture) but eisegetical (reading into Scripture) allegorization.

So, reacting against these abuses of typological and allegorical method, many upright conservative evangelicals today will act in the same manner as the Reformers did - they simply throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water.

Consequently a Jewish Bible is divorced from its own cultural roots and interpreted outside of the framework in which it was given by methods devised in the 16th century by humanists.

These grammatical-historical methods are adequate for reading the epistles as letters.

The epistles provide the apostolic prism through which other scripture is to be read. But the epistles themselves use Midrash, typology and allegory in commenting on other scripture such as narrative, apocalyptic and Hebrew poetry.

Grammatical-historical methods are essential and adequate to comprehend basic biblical truth such as the way of salvation and Christian conduct, but in-adequate to grasp the deeper things contained in the Word of God such as Ezekiel, Revelation, Zechariah, and the invisible thread of eschatological undertone that runs through the gospels when viewed from an ancient oriental Jewish perspective instead of a Hellenistic western perspective.

Understanding the complete meaning in these texts will be increasingly important as we approach the parousia with more and more overt signs of the return of Jesus on the horizon.

This has nothing to do with the Alexandrian or even Antiochan schools of the early church, or the writings of Philo, or the Christianised gnosticism ofOrigen. Nor have Midrashic "Pesher" interpretations anything to do with a papal Sensus Plenior.

It has to do with interpreting the Word of God within the parameters in which God gave it.

Strict models of adherence to grammatical historical exegesis was designed by the reformers as a safety mechanism to protect us from deception. Too often, the instrument of protection has become an instrument of deception in itself.

We must remember that the reformers were humanists and their exegetical approach is humanistic, meaning it is man centered.

While we do ask God to guide us in the our interpretation of His Word by His Spirit, grammatical-historical exegesis applied in isolation from Second Temple Period Jewish hermeneutics has reduced understanding the Bible to a mere intellectual exercise.

Utterly atheistic liberal scholars, who are secular humanists (unlike the reformers who were Christian humanists) misuse these same grammatical-historical methods to construct Satanically inspired apostasy.

Shall we reject grammatical-historical apostasy because James Barr uses it to demonstrate what he sees as the folly of evangelicalism (which he derogatorily labels "fundamentalism")? Of course we should not.

The epistles should be read as letters and no other method would be valid for interpreting the epistles. Even in handling other forms of biblical literature, while we must use Midrash, midrashic method does not invalidate grammatical-historical method; it simply sees it as the first step.

We should not reject the validity of the grammatical-historical method because of its misuse by apostates. By the same token, neither should we reject Jewish hermeneutics.

As with the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Satan only corrupts things worth corrupting. Despite its limitations, we should not reject the grammatical-historical approach of interpreting the Bible handed down to us by the Reformers simply be-cause unbelievers corrupt and misuse such methods to engineer heresy, and neither therefore should we reject Jewish hermeneutics because cults, or Romanism, or liberal higher critics, or latter day gnostics like John Wimber or Promise Keepers misuse allegory and typology to engineer error and deception.

While the problem has its origins in the Reformation, we still see it currently with other-wise good evangelical scholars such as Dr. Walter Kaiser (who is not even a replacementist), and various Reformed theologians (most of whom are replacementists).

These brethren, to their credit, strive to uphold biblical orthodoxy against heresy and unbelief, but in the process, like the Reformers, treat a Jewish book as a Hellenistic one, losing sight of the root and missing the depth of content which is found when the texts are read through a more Hebraic understanding of the Christian Faith.

Like certain messianic writers in the Mishkan theological journal, I have always found the ideas of Roy Blizzard and David Bivin implausible and the amount of attention their work receives as being out of all proportion to what it warrants. Others in the Jerusalem School, such Joseph Frankovicwho (while admittedly having a very long way to go in the use of Jewish hermeneutics in the New Testament) is at least asking the right questions.

Other messianic scholars such as Dwight Pryer and Arnold Fruchtenbaum, while not focused on Jewish hermeneutics, are well focused on Jewish Sitz in Leben and are finding parallelisms between early rabbinic and early Christian thought, and viewing the New Testament in that light. Hence, we see some bona fide progress in rediscovering the Jewish roots, and not just a lot of the nonsense that transpires on the extreme axis of the messianic movement, where an attempted repackaging of Hebrew Christianity in the wrappings of "yitishkeit" (Ashkenazi diasporic Jewish culture) is attempted - lifting up Jewishness, instead of 'Yeshuaness'. Yitishkeit is anyway but one expression of Jewish culture.

While a proper messianic synagogue "siddur" liturgy, led by a proper messianic rabbi and kantor(such as Stuart Dauerman in Los Angeles or atNetiv Ya in Jerusalem), may be of missiological value in recontextualizing the gospel message to see Jews saved, Yitishkeit is not the original culture of the Bible and is of very little value in rediscovering the Hebrew roots of our faith.

Yitishkeit is no substitute for a Holy Spirit directed scholarship to unveil the Jewish character of the Word of God, and our capacity to properly understand it as its divine author intends it to be under-stood. The mysteries that the faithful church are intended to understand concerning the Last Days, and how to prepare for them, are in the Apocalyptic books of the Bible and are sealed up until the appointed time (Daniel 12:4).

They will never be unsealed until the Hebraic roots of our faith, the Hebraic character of scripture, and the Jewish hermeneutics used by Jesus and the apostles are rediscovered.

Astonishingly and impressively, it was actually Reformed theologians - the Puritan fathers, such as John Lightfoot and John Robinson who at least began to realize these truths over three centuries ago.

In Reformed thinking, correct biblical exegesis is a matter of God using human intellect through the grammatical-historical exegetical method, which shuns spiritualization in reaction to the gnosticism of medieval Roman Catholic scholasticism (which often constructed doctrines out of wild allegorical interpretations resembling Philo, but having little in common with the Hebrew allegory and typology of scripture or the clear uses of Jewish Midrash in the New Testament's handling of the Old).

Yet, when it comes to Israel and the Jews, Reformation theology winds up doing the very things it set out to correct - they spiritualize the meaning, allegorically reading into the text what is not in there; Israel becomes the church to the negation of what the text literally says. Instead of Christians being spiritually grafted into Israel as the New Testament teaches (Romans 11), in this error the church replaces it.

Instead of applying what the text says to the church in addition to applying it to Israel, like the super-cessationist Roman church with its replacementism, they simply allegorize it in violation of t heir own principles.

Curiously however, they do not do this consistently (another flagrant violation of their own principles as grammatical-historical exegesis in theory demands consistency in approach); they will only do it where it pleases them. For instance, to them the curses of the Old Testament remain literally for Israel, while the blessings are spiritualized for the church - despite the fact that most of western Christianity is as backslidden and rejecting of the true Christ as Israel and the Jews ever were.

God is a God of justice who hates unjust scales (Proverbs 11:1).

If He is finished with the Jews, I would like to know just one reason why He should not also be finished with the church.

Fortunately for Israel and the church, the validity of a divine covenant depends not on the infidelity of man, but rather on the fidelity of God.

True, God turns His grace for a season away from Israel towards the Gentile nations (Romans 11:19-20), but this is both partial and temporary (Romans 11:25-29).

A time comes, and is already arriving, when God turns His grace away from the nations back towards His ancient people Israel (Romans 11:25); yet who would ever suggest on this basis that Israel will replace the church?

What the Reformers forgot about Covenant and Ecclesiology

Jeremiah 31:31 tells us the New Covenant will not be like the one God made with the Patriarchs of Israel or Moses.

Jeremiah was up against the problem of a theocratic state gone wrong. People were circumcised as babies and because they were incorporated into the national covenant, assumed that they were in a right relationship with God.

Other prophets like Amos were up against similar problems - people brought their sacrifices to the temple forgetting that these needed to be accompanied by genuine faith and repentance for their offerings to be accepted.

John the Baptist was up against the same situation of certain people thinking that, because they were biological descendants of Abraham and the fathers and circumcised into the covenant, they were automatically included in a right covenant relationship.

The New Covenant to be inaugurated by the Messiah would correct these is-sues because it would not be a covenant of automatic corporate inclusion based on national, ethnic, or cultural identity, nor on the faith of one's parents - but rather individual response to the gospel.

Hence, New Birth would not be of man's will. Regeneration would occur as a result of the sovereign grace of God drawing someone to Jesus personally and their individual response to Him, by which God's Law would be written on their heart.

Anglican errors

Yet, as one example, we see that in the old Anglican Book of Common Prayer in the baptismal liturgy, a baby is pronounced "Born Again", and his or her parents told that the baby is a Christian because of the parent's decision and being born English into the English National Church.

Contravening what the New Covenant was to be, baptism is wrongly equated with circumcision, and a child is pronounced a Christian through the actions of his parents - that is, being reborn by the will of man instead of by the will of God, in direct rejection of John 1:13.

Thomas Hooker proclaimed "A member of the Church of England is a citizen of the Commonwealth, and a Citizen of the Commonwealth is a member of the Church of England", equating a state church with its monarch as head, to Israel and the House of David.

What we in fact have is a Regal Papacy where the next titular head of the Anglican Church, Prince Charles, is a divorced New Ager with a combination of Buddhist, Hindu, and Islamic beliefs. For all of its errors, the Continental Reformation was the result of Christian conviction.

In England however, it is an historical fact that the Church of England was born out of the whoredom of a despotic womanizing king who murdered 70,000 of his own subjects.

The English Reformation began as a result of the ambitions of Henry VIII. Absurdly, the British Monarchy still retains for itself the title "Defender Of the Faith", a title awarded by the pope for the persecution of Protestants.

Today, members of the British Royal family convert to Catholicism, the Arch-bishop of Canterbury marches in a pro-cession to Mary in Walsingham calling for reunion with Rome, while the Queen has appointed a Roman Catholic priest as Court Chaplain. Indeed, with the mass martyrdom of Evangelical Anglicans (such as Nicholas Ridley, Hugh Latimer, John Hooper, and Thomas Cranmer) by Queen Mary at the behest of the Roman Clergy after the death of Henry VIII, a doctrinal reformation in Anglicanism took place.

But the institution began for political and not theological or moral reasons. And now, with the theological and moral erosion of the Royal family, it is becoming politically expedient to return to Rome, as it appears there are no longer any doctrinal or ethical reasons not to do so.

Anglicanism was born from Rome (and not from scripture), it doctrinally and ecclesiologically never fully broke with Rome, and to Rome it is now returning. The root of this dates back to the shallow doctrinal foundation laid by the reformers that finally caved in.

Many errors result from this for Anglicans, and other mainstream Protestants, that non-conformist churches holding to believer's baptism avoid.

When a young Anglican who is pronounced "Born Again" as a baby actually becomes "Born Again" and able to accept Jesus personally, which new birth proclamation does his church wish him to believe is valid?

Was his vicar telling the truth when he told him he was a Christian and born again as a baby, or rather when he actually became a new born believer?

Telling people they are Christians when they are not (and actually still need to become Christians) is a sure barrier to seeing souls saved.

The mainstream Protestant churches founded by the reformers all have this structural dilemma.

British Israel?

Another error deriving from not recognizing that the New Covenant is made with Israel is the deception among Anglo Saxon and Anglo Celtic Protestants of British Israelism, which has no biblical or ethnological basis whatsoever, and where, once again the throne of David is linked with a British Crown.

James McConnell (who comes from a Sabellian heresy background with a 'Oneness' view of the Trinity, instead of an Athanasian view of Three Persons in One God - it is unclear if he believes in the Trinity biblically, or if he believes that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all Jesus) is a case in point.

McConnell, pastor of Whitewell - the largest Elim church in Belfast, openly challenged anyone to publicly debate him on his doctrine that the Bible teaches that the British are the ten Lost Tribes of Israel. This idea was accepted by Elim's founder, George Jeffries, but rejected by Elim as a movement, even though the teaching came from Jeffries. Now Elim's current leadership - courtesy of McConnell - gives place to it.

State Religion & False Doctrine

Anglicanism is but one expression of the errors of the Reformers. Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Reform churches all have the same built-in error - a state church where people become members, not by new birth, but by being born into a state church and culture, and having an initiation ritual performed as babies.

The precedent was not established by Hooker, but by Luther.

In order to genuinely reform the church along biblical lines, the first thing the reformers would have needed to do was dissolve the unscriptural Erastian marriage of church and state, and condemn as false Augustine's Cyprianic Doctrine of the Church, which sought to justify it.

Along with this, they would have needed to restore a biblical understanding of believer's baptism as the Baptist sects (who the Protestants normally hated) did.

Luther instead taught Cuis Regio Eius Religio ("What your government is, so your religion is") - if your government is Roman Catholic, so are you, and if Protestant, so are you, and continued sprinkling infants, pronouncing them "Christian" by the will of man instead of by the New Birth through the Will of God. The Reformers failed to reform beyond a very correct but inadequate level.

Where does this error originate?

"The church", by Greek definition ecclesia, means "the called out ones", who may have to leave their culture, family, etc., to become Christians and thus members of the true church (Matthew 10:35-37).

The church is not those born into a national cultural-religious identity, but Born Again, quite possibly, out of their temporal, cultural and religious identity - even when that identity is nominally Christian.

The error has its source with the Emperor Constantine when he made Christianity into a religion of the state, and the false doctrine of Augustinecalled "The Visible and Invisible Church", which sought to justify turning biblical Christianity into a national and cultural Christendom. Augustinedrew many unbiblical and unfortunate mistakes together to rewrite Christianity as a hierarchical and Platonic religion. He drew on the errors of his mentor, Ambrose, the mistaken influences of Cyprian of Carthage, and even imported certain gnostic influences into western Christianity from Alexandria, and embraced Alexandrian ideas of Christology and Pneumatology from the Council of Chalcedon which, although not heretical, were plainly wrong and problematic.

This doctrine said the church was made up of the saved and unsaved, instead of an exclusive fellowship of those personally professing a saving faith through the new birth. It did this by twisting the parable of Matthew 13:38-42 out of context to say that the field where both were planted was the church, when in fact Jesus said it was the world.

Thus, instead of allowing the saved and unsaved to grow up together in the world for Jesus to sort out upon His return, true and false Christians would be together in the church for Jesus to sort out upon His return.

This is not to suggest there were not false believers in the pre-Augustinian church, but rather entrance was to be the result of personal regeneration of which baptism was to be the emblem.

There are two types of biblical passages dealing with baptism: those supporting believer's baptism and those which are ambiguous.

Instead of interpreting the ambiguous passages in light of the unambiguous, the illogical practice of casting doubt on the clear meaning of the unambiguous by seeking to interpret the unambiguous in light of the ambiguous becomes wedded to eisegesis (reading into the Bible what is not in there) as a means to construct an argument which amounted to going back under the Old Covenant.

We must remember Satan's first at-tempt to destroy the church was to Judaize it (see Galatians).

By making the church the new Israel (Romans 11 speaks the language of incorporation, not replacement) and equating baptism with circumcision, the church is Judaized.

What Jeremiah and John the Baptist say Christ would come to undo, and what Paul says Christ did undo in Romans, Constantine and Augustine put back. From here, the medieval papacy evolved into the debacle that the Reformers re-acted against.

Yet, instead of truly reforming the church by removing the error, they too put it back.

Thus, in order to truly reform the church and restore biblical Christianity, the first thing the Reformers would have needed to do was to break the unscriptural marriage between church and state, reject the Augustinian error of the visible and invisible church designed to accommodate this illicit marriage, and reject the baptism of unregenerate babies (whose sins anyway God does not take into ac-count) that was its emblem.

By failing to understand the Jewish root of the church and failing to understand the new Covenant as a Jewish Covenant, with the New Testament as a Jewish Covenant document, the Reformers failed to restore biblical Christianity.

They did restore justification by faith and the supremacy of scriptural authority against tradition, but by no means could they have restored the church to its actual Apostolic foundations without re-discovering that the foundations of the church in Christ are Jewish.

Consequently, nominal Protestantism is as much a problem as nominal Old Testament Judaism ever was.

Liberal Protestantism is also as much a problem (and a heresy) as Roman Catholicism ever was.

While the news media accurately reveals the Roman Catholic priesthood as a flood with criminal homosexual paedophiles and dangerous perverts of every description, even the Roman Church as an institution would not sanction a Homosexual and Lesbian service in one of its cathedrals as the Anglicans have done, or officially sanction sodomite clergy like the Methodists.

Howbeit, for their own self-serving reasons, the Roman Church for decades, formally at least, refused to tolerate Free-masonry, while masonic membership ran wild among the Reformed and Presbyterian clergy, and often still does.

 

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).