Enough Already

I waited until Friday evening to write this.

On March 25, someone posted the following on Facebook (I reproduce it as is):

“I believe that the sacrifice will take place on Friday 29 March 2024 in Jerusalem. The ashes of the heifer will then be mixed with the ashes of the heifers kept by Moses, Joshua and other I think it will be 7 stand corrected. This will be used to cleanse the temple mount and the Cohanim.

Soon after this they can resume the building of the Third Temple. Then the tribulation will start.”

This evening, March 29, a pro-Israel person posted the following on X:

Temple Mount tonight, they scream: “Pull up the sword, “ “We are all Dief”(head of Hamas), “Blessings for Sinwar.” These are the filth that Biden wants Israel to make peace with?

A short video clip was attached, showing Muslims near the Dome of the Rock.

The first poster was completely wrong. No sacrifice of red heifers took place in Israel this week, certainly not on March 29. I knew Monday it wouldn’t. Why? Because I’ve heard predictions like this for decades. “The boy crying wolf” has happened so many times, it has turned a lot of people off and makes Bible prophecy teachers and students look foolish—collective punishment due to the irresponsible date-setting by a few.

There were other reasons for being sure this was just another dumb prediction. Israel is in the middle of an existential war against Hamas. The terror group has cited the red heifers as one reason for the October 7 massacres. This is not so different from Herod murdering Jewish boys at the time of Jesus’s birth. Pagans hate the Lord and His purposes, and want to “thwart” Him. They can’t of course, but their hearts are far from God and they think that somehow they can.

No Jewish ritual on or near the Temple Mount is going on right now. The whole situation is too volatile. Israel can handle it, but doesn’t need another war front opening up literally in the middle of their capitol city.

This week too was posted a piece from Israel365News:

“The Temple movement held a conference in ancient Shiloh on Wednesday concerning the red heifer. While the conference focused on the complex theoretical aspects of the esoteric Torah commandment to burn red heifers, the five crimson creatures who were the focus of the debate were off to the side, calmly chewing their cud.”

The article went on to explain some finer points of the red heifers, and ended with this sentence:

“It should be emphasized that performing the red heifer ceremony is unrelated to building the Temple.”

Even though a group wants to sacrifice a heifer on a platform on the Mount of Olives, that hasn’t happened yet. But that hasn’t stopped quite a few people from speculating wildly that all this is going down now.

Will it happen?

Of course it will! The Temple is going to be rebuilt. But I know that because I read Scripture, not the speculations of modern men.

In Numbers 19:2 we read—

“This is the ritual law that Hashem has commanded: Instruct B’nei Yisrael to bring you a red cow without blemish, in which there is no defect and on which no yoke has been laid.”

Since the time of Moses, only nine red heifers have been sacrificed. When the 10^th one will be sacrificed is beyond our scope of knowing right now.

Why can’t we be content with the prophecies that have already been fulfilled, such as the final ingathering of the Jewish people? Or to the Messianic prophecies that Jesus fulfilled? There is plenty to dazzle us as we wait for the final prophecies to be fulfilled. If you predict that the Rapture us going to happen by September, or next Wednesday, or if you speculate when the Tribulation is going to happen…you are doing a disservice to your circle of family and friends.

Israel365News has reported facts. As did the X poster showing what happened on the Temple Mount today. All other “news” is junk speculation.

I’m aware this column will upset a lot of people. I also posted an article this week on my Patreon page, outlining why wild speculations on the Shroud of Turin are off-base. That has upset people. Despite that, I have to speak out about those teachers that are making bold predictions, dogmatic that several end-times events are imminent. That is irresponsible. As I’ve written before, I believe the new “competition” among prophecy teachers—due mainly to speaking engagements drying up in churches that no longer want to hear it—is driving the wild speculations and fringe topics. Let me be blunt: I am not interested at all in a new book about the Pope being the antichrist or false prophet. I’m not interested in yet another presentation about the Nephilim and transhumanism and all the rest. I’m interested in reading Isaiah again. And Jeremiah. Etc.

If I am marginalizing myself, so be it.

My purpose is to implore all of us to stick to what Scripture says. Please stand firm until the end. Be content with God Himself orchestrating the events He wants to orchestrate, on His own timeline. We don’t have to be titillated by speculations that don’t pan-out. We are living in momentous times. Huge things are unfolding in Israel.

The Bible alone is amazing. That’s all we need. Not ridiculous speculation.

Let’s be content with that, and watch and pray.

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Israel Alone

A couple years ago at Calvary Chapel Appleton Wisconsin, I spoke on the subject, “Israel Alone.” My point was that, yes, Israel is now being isolated internationally as never before. This includes the official U.S. position, which has now abandoned God’s People in their ancestral home. Make no mistake, America’s Regime in Washington is evil, and every bit an enemy to Israel as Hamas, et al. But if we believe the Bible, we know that in the end, Israel will indeed end up alone.

But for God.

Yesterday, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer, posted a comment for the ages on Twitter/X:

“When I was Israel’s Ambassador to Washington, I must have met more than 160 other Ambassadors. I never met the Ambassador of Babylon, never met the Ambassador of Imperial Rome and I didn’t meet the Ambassador of the 1,000-Year Reich. But there is an Ambassador of Israel. We will survive this enemy.”

That is beautiful.

Today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had to issue a statement after meeting with Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. Netanyahu stated the obvious, that Israel has no choice but to eradicate Hamas.

If necessary, he said, “We will do it alone.”

In the latest issue of The Economist, we see the cover story:

“Israel Alone”

The image is simply an Israeli flag blowing in the wind. I know many people are worried about Israel. If enough people talk about the possibility of Israel disappearing, everyone begins to believe it’s possible.

It is not possible.

God has promised that He will preserve His people, and through the most difficult circumstances. He was with them in ’48 and ’67 and ’73. He was with them when Yasser Arafat rejected a Palestinian state on 98 percent of the West Bank. He was with them when Israeli jets destroyed Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor at Osirik in 1981.

On and on.

Only a handful of Hamas’s original 24 battalions exists, thanks to the IDF. The remaining ones are in Rafah, and I am elated that Netanyahu defied that demon in the White House. Israel knows this is an existential war and they cannot afford to lose it. They won’t lose it.

Only three days ago, the IDF’s shock and awe descended on Shifa Hospital, where hundreds of Hamas terrorists were holed up. Israel killed 170 and took 800 prisoner. Reports are that Hamas was stunned by the covert operation. This is but one indication of how good the IDF is, and how far ahead they are of their enemies.

Southern Command commander, Yaron Finkelman, said at Shifa that “We will end this operation only when the last of the terrorists is in our hands – dead or alive.” This is Israel’s answer to the corrupt Western diplomats and Media goons.

What makes this period different is the sheer number of attacks on Israel, from all sides. Don’t forget, Jordan’s King Abdullah is not all that strong, and agitators in Jordan make his tenure shaky. Iran is back of all this, and thirsts to gain a foothold at Israel’s doorstep. Can you imagine if that happened? If Jordan was a launching pad for terror? But though we can’t see the end of all this, we know that Israel will survive.

The Iranian octopus is at work everywhere. According to a report this week from the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center:

“Reuters reported that in February 2024, Qods Force commander Esmail Qaani had met with Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah to discuss the existing risk if Israel attacked Hezbollah. According to the report, Nasrallah told Qaani that if war broke out against Israel, Hezbollah would fight by itself and that he did not want Iran to be dragged into a war with Israel or the United States. According to Reuters, this was the third meeting between the two since October 7, 2023. The report further stated that the meeting between Qaani and Nasrallah had been preceded by a two-day meeting in Tehran attended by IRGC commander Hossein Salami, the Qods Force commander, and representatives from the ‘resistance front’ from Yemen, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. At the end of the meeting, all the participants agreed that Israel was interested in expanding the war and that it was necessary to avoid falling into the trap because it would lead to another American presence in the region. Following the meeting, Qaani instructed the Shiite militias in Iraq to stop their attacks against the American forces in the region. Two sources told Reuters that Iran and Hezbollah were aware of the difficult implications of an all-out war in Lebanon, including the possibility that Iran’s nuclear facilities would be attacked as a consequence of the expansion of the war.”

The point I want to make is that with all this firepower, all these terror tentacles, aided by the corrupt West, God is in control. He is in control of your life, too, so meditate on that this week.

Our Great God is above everything and everyone else!

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