Neville Chamberlain, September 30, 1938:

This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, HerrHitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine…we regard the agreement signed last night…as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again… I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.

Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Husseini Khamenei of Iran talks in depth, and often, about Israel; openly describing her as a “cancerous tumor.” He is clear that his own hopes rest in a future Middle East without this great “enemy” or “foe” as part of it. In his opinion, Israel has no right to exist as a nation state and should be destroyed.

Khamenei talks with regularity of Israel being wholly illegitimate and often characterizes the tiny Jewish State as a merciless occupier who is crushing the beloved Palestinian Muslims in Gaza and West Bank. Apparently he weeps over the Palestinian people regularly. Khamenei views the Jewish nation as a bastion of American influence in the region and it is destined to soon be removed (or so he believes).

Khamenei genuinely believes that Israel, the right arm of the “Great Satan America,” will soon be erased from existence and this American sphere of influence will be replaced by an Iranian one. Khamenei is working hard to make this aspiration a present day geopolitical reality.

His publicly announced time scale for this whole scale slaughter is said to be within the next twenty years. Khamenei’s public statements about Israel, America and the Middle East reveal an expansionist foreign policy that has clear references and an intent to a future genocide against the Jewish people of Israel.

Khamenei is blatant and he is bold. He is also clear, “…it is the mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to erase Israel from the map of the region.” This is genocide he is referring to and as a statement of intent, it doesn’t get much clearer from a national leader.

Yet the world says nothing.

The EU, so forthright in its constant harassment and condemnation of Israel for any and all perceived infringements or violations, remains in the main, utterly silent. What short memories the Europeans have. It wasn’t more than seventy short years ago that Europe was spilling the blood of its youth all over the world in defense against this same type of tyranny. How soon they seem to have forgotten…to their shame.

America, under the current administration not only stays quiet on this issue but worse still, is allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons. It will be these same nuclear weapons that Khamenei will to use as leverage to ultimately try to destroy tiny Israel.

These nuclear weapons will ensure Iran’s future regional hegemony. America, under Obama, by allowing these weapons to be developed is guaranteeing his own loss of power and influence in the Middle East.

There is no equivocation about Khamenei’s intent regarding Israel or America, as Barack Obama and John Kerry often subtly imply. Khamenei describes the tiny Jewish state using the most specific language possible.

When he uses the terms “annihilation,” “fading out” and “effacement,” what other conclusion is to be drawn other than that he genuinely wants to destroy Israel. When he calls America “The Great Satan,” what other conclusion can be drawn other than that he genuinely hates the United States of America?

Yet in negotiations, Obama and the rest of the world continue to deal with Iran as a moral equivalent to the United States. Never once has Iran been held to account for the abhorrent statements made by its supreme leader, its presidents or her prime ministers.

The Ayatollah Khamenei’s vision for a future annihilation of the Jews in the Middle East is every bit as vicious and brutal as anything to which Adolf Hitler ever aspired. To Khamenei, Israel’s very existence necessitates its need for destruction. In the eyes of Islam, any land once conquered, remains Islamic land, and the existence of a Jewish state on land formerly conquered and controlled by Islam is a deep offense to Islam itself.

Israel’s control of Jerusalem is another thorn in Islam’s side, according to Khamenei. Indeed, it   is one of his “most cherished wishes” to one day pray in Jerusalem. That is not going to happen while Israel exists as she does today.

Crucial to the fulfillment of these horrific aspirations of removing Israel and replacing current American influence in the region with an Iranian one— is the development and acquisition of Iran’s independent nuclear capability. It is the very backbone of Khamenei’s entire strategy. Without nuclear weapons and the deterrence they provide, Iran and Khamenei can achieve nothing.

Enter President Barack Hussein Obama, the single biggest gift to Iran since its “Glorious Revolution,” in 1979.

Khamenei’s strategy against Israel to this point has been one of low intensity warfare. He uses continued sustained threats and asymmetrical warfare through proxy groups like Hezbollah, to force as many Jews as possible to simply give up and leave Israel. His strategy is to scare Israelis to go and live in other safer countries, such as the United States. To this end, Iran’s support of terror in the Middle East and the world in general—is guaranteed.

“From now on, in any place, if any nation or any group confronts the Zionist regime, we will endorse and we will help. We have no fear expressing this… The Zionist regime is a cancerous tumor that must be removed, and God willing it will be.” (Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei)

The acquisition of nuclear weapons on Iran’s part is crucial in dissuading any type of strike or punishment against Iran from Israel or the West. In the eyes of Khamenei this strategy is already paying huge dividends.

In distancing America from Israel, Obama is playing straight into Khamenei’s hands by giving a tangible demonstration that this strategy is working. Comprehensively out maneovered and out played at every point, the U.S. president is being used as pawn in the Ayatollah’s long term strategy of Middle East conquest.

Khamenei is pursuing a strategy of engendering “Israel fatigue” in the Middle East and in the world. Khamenei wants a state of continued and ever increasing agitation to exist between Israel and his beloved Palestinians—with occasions of outright war. He wants this because it serves his long term strategic purpose of generating ever-increasing Israel fatigue amongst the traditional allies of Israel.

Ultimately he hopes that Israel will become so alienated that a long term solution or mechanism for removing Israel for the Middle East will either arrive and/or be acquiesced by the world at large. This outcome itself sounds ominously similar to a entire raft of biblical end times, and yet to occur, prophecies.

Despite all these public statements and vitriol, Barack Obama and the administration he leads think it is still appropriate to negotiate and initiate a nuclear deal with Iran. A nuclear deal that Iran is holding America to account to, for alleged American breaches of the deal, despite the fact that they are still yet to sign the actual deal itself.

Madness. Or worse.

Many people today are familiar with Neville Chamberlain’s infamous, misguided and wholly inappropriate impromptu speech, at the head of this article, delivered on the tarmac at Heston Aerodrome on 30th September, 1938 in which he declared, “Peace for our time!”

Few though are familiar with his last words, spoken on his death bed two years later on  November 9, 1940. His dying words are much more of a warning to posterity than his previous unfortunate statement of two years before. His dying words are a sad testament to a broken man:

“It would have all been okay, if only Hitler hadn’t lied to me…” (Neville Chamberlain, deathbed,  November 9, 1940)

Hitler deceived and lied to Chamberlain. Although history has judged him for this error, most now acknowledge that Chamberlain was a good man overcome and overwhelmed by the magnitude of the situation in which he found himself, and the level of threat he stood against.

Barack Obama and John Kerry have no such excuse. They have sought to make a nuclear agreement, which will enable Iran to acquire nuclear threshold status—even when Iran is openly announcing that it intends to use those same weapons against America and Israel in the future.

“Today, you are hated throughout the world. If you don’t know this, you should. The peoples burn your flag. The Islamic peoples all over the world chant: ‘Death to America’” (Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, 2009)

And for those poorly informed enough to immediately suggest that Hassan Rouhani is more of a moderate, consider this recent statement from the “moderate” president of Iran,

“Former President Ahmadinejad was stupid enough to be a wolf in wolf’s clothing, to expose his teeth and nails and alert the west. I can be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I have all the diplomatic and rhetoric skills to do so.”

Barack Obama and John Kerry are being disingenuous. They know full well that Iran has no intention of complying with the deal they made or any other. They are placating Iran and in so doing, they place America in harm’s way. Worse still, they are putting Israel into a position equally, if not more dangerous, than any time since the Nazi Holocaust.

Unlike Chamberlain, this will in the end be to their everlasting shame.

wardmatt1977@gmail.com

“Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; the one who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere child; the one who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed” (Isaiah 65:20).

The global situation for Israel becomes more dire by the day.

Opponents are becoming increasingly emboldened and outrageous in their demands of the tiny Jewish state. Many within the West, including those within the Church, see her days as numbered; in the eyes of these people, Israel’s end is a mere inevitability.

Yet this is not so. In a recent article titled, “God will not abandon Israel” [1], I discussed how the covenants established between God and mankind, through Abraham and then later confirmed with his children, ensured Israel’s eternal future. I discussed how these covenants were not conditional covenants, dependent upon the actions of both parties for their eventual fulfillment, but how they were unconditional in their nature.

Israel has an eternal future and the fulfillment of any of the four main biblical covenants has nothing at all to do with the actions of Israel. The responsibility for the fulfillment of these covenants rest entirely upon the Lord, upon God Himself.

To question the right of Israel to the land they currently occupy, or worse—to teach that Israel has been cast away by God because of past disobedience, is to question the integrity of God. It is a blasphemy, because in doing so one is testifying to his or her belief that God is a liar. This is absolutely contrary to the character of God,

“God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?” (Numbers 23:19).

Paul affirms this core truth in the New Testament,

“…in the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time…” (Titus 1:2)

Instead of seeing the rejection of Israel, her dispersal around the world in a global Diaspora that lasted nearly two thousand years, and then her subsequent re-gathering from the four corners of the earth, is an amazing fulfillment of Bible prophecy. A large number of people today, and in the Church, are willfully accepting a lie. Many have been deceived.

The modern western Church, fast growing into one of Israel’s greatest critics, should in fact be her greatest ally and defender. Instead of the vitriol that is spewed from pulpits about Israel’s lack of so-called “legitimacy,” we should be witness to Israel’s robust defense, week after week, in sermon after sermon in the churches we attend.

This abandonment of Israel is one of the clearest signs of the times and a crystal clear indicator that the apostasy spoken of by Paul is already here. We are deeply enmeshed in this apostasy already. It will soon get much, much worse.

This apostasy, borne out of an almost complete biblical illiteracy, growing apathy from the body of Christ and blatant false teaching from pastors who should know better, is leading a multitude of “Christians” down a path of outright rebellion against God.

False teachers who seek only to collect for themselves followers to influence, are wolves in sheep’s clothing, “…for whom the blackest darkness is reserved forever” (2 Peter 2:17).

It is ironic and utterly shameful that the position the church should be occupying today, defending Israel against a hostile world, will be the exact same position that the Antichrist himself will come to occupy. He will appear as the great defender of Israel against an overwhelmingly an anti-Semitic, hate filled world.

He will assume the position the Church should be standing in right now. It is the Church’s abdication of this role that has created this necessary void and will allow the Antichrist himself to come in and fill this role after the Rapture has occurred.

In the signing of his seven-year peace treaty, on the face of it defending Israel and her legitimacy for a time, Antichrist will no doubt—even cast a reproachful glance across at the church that remains and exists in that time post-Rapture, for their incessant antagonisms toward Israel.

What a perverse juxtaposition that will be. It is a mark of just how deep the current apostasy is becoming. There is not much falling away that has to happen now, beyond this point.

Homosexuality is now of no consequence. Members who are LGBT within the church, instead of being seen as those who need our help, patience and prayers are being celebrated as freedom fighters.

Transgender ministers stand in the pulpit and declare that, “…an angel of reason” showed them that the Bible was wrong and they in fact were right, and they are lauded as an example by the church. Some churches even have avowed atheists as their ministers. The blind leading the blind.

This falling away has inevitably led to anti-Semitism within our own ranks. The social gospel preachers teaching in conferences like Christ at the Checkpoint 2016 are all wrong. Dead wrong. Israel is not an apartheid nation and they most certainly have not been abandoned by God, as many subtly imply in their messages.

Three of the most important chapters in the entire Bible are found in Romans 9, 10 and 11. These three chapters are so important that without a clear understanding of them and their implications, any Christian’s worldview is open to being manipulated and warped.

These are the three main chapters in which the apostle Paul, not a disciple but an apostle because he was taught personally by revelation from Jesus Christ, reveals God’s will for his holy inheritance, Israel.

Any professing Christian who has doubts about the validity of Israel in God’s eyes should spend some time alone with these chapters. In them Paul encourages the Jews in Rome that Israel still has a future, even if as a nation they had just at that time rejected Jesus Christ as Messiah. Paul maintained a great love for his own people,

“I am telling the truth in Christ, I am not lying, my conscience testifies with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh, who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen” (Romans 9:1-3)

Throughout all of Romans Paul is entirely consistent. He is consistent about the key truth that God is not partial, that God judges all men equally,

“…there is no difference between Jew and Greek (gentile)…” (Romans 10:12)

The main theme in Romans is how the only hope for mankind is through the gospel of Jesus Christ,

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written:

“The righteous will live by faith” (Romans 1:16-17).

In Chapter 9, Paul asserts that the Jews as a nation are the chosen people of God, (vv. 1-5), but that they fell when they failed to recognize their Messiah because they were seeking salvation through works found in the Law, not righteousness through faith alone,

“What then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it, a righteousness that is by faith; but the people of Israel, who pursued the law as the way of righteousness, have not attained their goal. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as if it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone” (Romans 9:30-32)

The Jews fell because they were seeking salvation through works, not the righteousness that comes through faith alone. Like many in the modern social justice gospel, then? Or am I wrong about this?

Chapter 10 of Romans continues this discussion by explaining and clarifying that salvation for Jews and Gentiles is exactly the same; it is a matter of faith in Jesus Christ, not works or the law, (Romans 10:4-17).

Chapter 11 rounds the argument off by explaining that God has not abandoned Israel but that ultimately the nation currently, “…set aside…” by God will then find the salvation they have so desperately sought,

“…in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob” (Romans 11:26).

All Israel will be saved, Paul could not be clearer.

During the soon approaching Tribulation period when the people of Israel have, “…been refined in the fire,” they will call out to God in desperation as all their other hope at that point will be gone,

“This third I will put into the fire; I will refine them like silver and test them like gold. They will call on my name and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are my people,’ and they will say, ‘The LORD is our God’” (Zechariah 13:9)

They will cry out to their God for their salvation, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” God will hear their cries and rescue them.

It will be at this time that, “…they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only son…” (Zechariah 12:10), as they recognize that the person currently known derogatively in Israel as, “…that Man,” was and is their Messiah and King, sent by God and promised in Scripture from Abraham onward.

He is Jesus Christ, God’s Anointed One, promised eons ago as the Deliverer of all in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3).

Israel will, at this point, turn en masse back to God and accept Jesus as her Messiah, Lord and King. They will accept Jesus on a personal and a corporate level. Jesus will then come with His Bride, “…with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones (Jude 1:14), and He will personally save Israel and deliver them from the hand of Antichrist and all the worlds armies gathered against her.

Ominously, the text also states that when Jesus comes at this time he will also be coming to,

“…execute judgment upon all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him” (Jude 1:15).

A new and glorious era will then begin for Israel and the world! A new era where Israel becomes, as God initially planned and intended, the preeminent nation of this world.

It will be a time when, “…In those days ten people from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, ‘Let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you’” (Zechariah 8:23).

Israel will no longer be despised or despoiled, but honored and reverenced as the chosen Holy nation of God, the nation through whom salvation came to the very ends of the earth and whose King, Jesus, will rule those nations, “…with an iron sceptre and shatter the nations like pottery,” (Revelation 2:27).

His rule will be from his capital Jerusalem, the City of the King, and it’s knew name will be, “The Throne of the LORD’” (Jeremiah 3:17).

This will be the time spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when the streets of Jerusalem will teem with the young and the old, at ease and finally at peace, “Old men and old women will again sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each man with his staff in his hand because of age. ‘And the streets of the city will be filled with boys and girls playing in its streets” (Zechariah 8:5).

Deliverance and restoration will have finally come to Zion! Amen.

A concluding word of warning though, to those who believe Israel to be abandoned of God. As Paul so clearly pointed out,

“If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this:

You do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but tremble. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.” (Romans 11:17-21)

Israel is so very precious to God. Believe that and be on the right side of history.

wardmatt1977@gmail.com