“The days have gone down in the West, behind the hills, into shadow. How did it come to this?” (Théoden’s soliloquy before the Battle of Helm’s Deep, www.councilofelrond.com/subject/the-two-towers-2/).
As the light fades in the West, as the world totters on the cusp of darkness, it is imperative that we understand the times and be prepared for the challenges coming quickly down the pike. It was said of the warriors in Issachar’s ancient tribe, that they were “men who understood the times, with knowledge of what Israel should do” (see 1 Chronicles 12:32) (וּמִבְּנֵ֣י יִשָּׂשכָ֗ר יֹודְעֵ֤י בִינָה֙ לַֽעִתִּ֔ים לָדַ֖עַת מַה־יַּעֲשֶׂ֣ה יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל ).
As some rage against the dying of the light, it helps to remember Gandalf’s words of wisdom:
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us” (J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring page 50).
The shadow of “that hyddeous strength”
C.S. Lewis once referred to the satanic power behind the Tower of Babel rebellion (using an Old English phrase) as “the shadow of that hideous strength.” Today that shadow casts its pall over Western society, advocating a new and darker world vision. The sleight-of-hand transmogrification of traditional and biblical marital relationships has led to a rapid unwinding of the social fabric. The strident dictatorship of politically correct perspectives on subjects as diverse as Islamic jihad (on one hand) and homosexual practices (on the other) has brought about a dumbing down of intelligent discourse, a slavishness among the intelligentsia, and a castrating of intelligence services.
The simultaneous mushrooming of anti-Semitism, anti-Israel activities and anti-Christian attacks (especially in the Muslim world, though also in the West) is unparalleled in recent years. The last few times these have been manifested with such coldness of heart would be during the eras of Hitler and Mohammed.
The road ahead may be less travelled, but it also has some dramatic bumps. Here are some thoughts from Bob Dylan and other Jewish men carried along by the spirit of prophecy:
- “Well, the howling wolf will howl tonight, the king snake will crawl. Trees that’ve stood for a thousand years suddenly will fall. Wanna get married? Do it now! Tomorrow all activity will cease. You know that sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace” (“Man of Peace” – words & music Bob Dylan © 1983 by Special Rider Music)
- “You have not gone up into the breaches, nor did you build the wall around the house of Israel to stand in the battle on the Day of YHVH” (Ezekiel 13:5)
- “The sons of Ephraim were archers equipped with bows, yet they turned back in the day of battle” (Psalm 78:9)
- “So it came about on the day of battle that neither sword nor spear was found in the hands of any of the people who were with Saul and Jonathan, but they were found with Saul and his son Jonathan” (1 Samuel 13:22)
The importance of speaking clearly and not of stuttering is paramount today, especially concerning Israel and the Jewish people. Unfortunately, the transformation of significant swaths of Evangelicalism reveals that, in this regard, not all is well in Protestant Christianity.
Making way for Hitler
In the 1920’s and 1930’s Western industrialists quickly became aware of the ability to make a killing by investing in the ascending Nazi military-industrial complex. Such notables as Wall Street attorneys Allen and John Foster Dulles (later of FBI and CIA fame), Standard Oil king Nelson Rockefeller and other magnates bet heavily on Hitler, creating massive financial pipelines to supply the Nazi juggernaut.
An exhaustive analysis of these activities is found in “The Secret War against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People” (John Loftus and Mark Aarons, St. Mark’s Griffin, 1997; www.amazon.com/The-Secret-War-Against-Jews/dp/0312156480). Even after World War II was joined, arrangements were made to continue oil and financial connections through shell companies in other non-aligned countries. As Germany began to lose the war, alternate arrangements were made to transfer investments to South American dictatorships, and then after a hiatus of ten or so years, to reinvest in the rebuilding of modern German industry.
The window panes of ethical considerations involved in trafficking with the enemy were obscured by the greasy film of greed and power. Though the Jewish people were the first casualty, the blowback of terrifying world war soon became the portion of the entire Western world.
Today similar dynamics are occurring in broad daylight, detailed on the internet and international media. Western countries have flocked, pushed and shoved to be first in line, drooling to invest in oil-rich Islamic countries. Former CIA case officer Robert Baer’s observations as an insider in this world made a good book (“Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold our Soul for Saudi Crude”; Three Rivers Press, 2004), which was later reworked into a less accurate movie (Syriana, starring George Clooney and Matt Damon, 2005).
Once more with feeling
Whereas Western bankers once supported Hitler, today they support many of the prime bankrollers of world terrorism. One of many examples is Qatar. The following link details this involvement (www.stopqatarnow.com/p/letters.html?m=1).
Jihadi terror armies like Hamas, Boko Haram, ISIS and al-Nusra receive generous and open support from this Islamic country. News organizations Al Jazeera (founded by Qatar) and CNN have rather chummy relationships here as well. Companies such as ExxonMobil, Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are prime trading partners with this regime. American universities and Foundations such as Harvard, Georgetown, Cornell, Texas A & M, the Brookings Institute are much involved with Qatar and Qatari funding. Miramax and Bank of America have also received significant funding from Qatar. At least one American ex-President, one ex-Vice-President and one perhaps future President have all garnered significant financial benefits from their post officio connections with Qatar. The USA has two massive military bases in Qatar: al-Udeid, the home of CENTCOM for the region, and as-Sayliyah, the largest pre-positioning base outside the continental United States. Qatar supports the main preacher of the Muslim Brotherhood (Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi) and grants him a weekly television audience of 80 million viewers in the Islamic world, where he calls for jihad against Israel.
And Qatar is not the only country involved at this level. Baer’s book reveals extensive and nearly incestuous connections between Islamic oil kleptocracies, the US “oil bidness”, the US State Department and US intelligence agencies.
At this moment significant pressure is being brought to bear on Western governments to open up profitable financial markets and spheres of influence in Iran and so achieve a new “Munich agreement” with her. One trifling by-product of such a “Chamberlain Agreement” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Chamberlain) would be allowing the Shi’te Islamic Republic to rapidly actualize nuclear weapons and target them jihad-style at Israel and the Jewish people.
As in the days of Adolf, so in our day pressure is being brought to bear to cut out the tongues of the warning shepherds, while paving the contingencies for a new Jewish Holocaust.
- The parallels between the Western world in the 1930’s and today’s military-industrial-university complex is striking. The situation is quite serious. Pray for God to frustrate the plans of the enemy here, for revelation and clear thinking and courage to be given to all the middle-men in this process, and for God’s heart for the Jewish people to be made manifest by those believers who want to obey His word.
Evangelicals aping the world
The spiritual malaise described above is not limited to wealthy power-brokers. There are manifestations of a similar and serious spiritual sickness in some streams of the Evangelical world. As Isaiah remarked in another context, “The whole head is sick and the whole heart is faint. From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is nothing sound in it – only bruises, welts and raw wounds” (Isaiah 1:5-6).
The same cup of poison already drunk by the Western world regarding the abandonment of traditional and biblical views of marriage and human life is being proffered to church-goers by many Christian church leaders. We have witnessed the rise of a movement within Evangelicalism which sneers, scorns and smirks at Israel while advocating Replacement theology and BDS (Boycott, divestment and sanctions against the Jewish state).
Back in the 1930’s there were official Evangelical movements in Nazi Germany (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Christians) which advocated boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses, and called for Germans to divest themselves of the Jews as equal citizens. The Deutche Christen group called for Jews to be forced to wear yellow stars, to be ghettoized, and for Jesus to be recreated as an Aryan. Gerhard Kittel (of Theological Dictionary of the New Testament fame; www.christianbook.com/theological-dictionary-the-new-testament-volumes/9780802871428/pd/2324) was one of their outstanding spokesmen and theologians.
The Palestinian Christian dimension of the anti-Israel spirit
In recent years Liberation theology (violent Marxist revolution in Christian drag) has been openly embraced by Arab Palestinian theologians like ex-Anglican Canon Naim Ateek (www.sabeel.org/), while a spokesman connected to supposed reconciliation groups in Israel as well as to a Palestinian Bible college speaks unreservedly of the “resistance,” using the same Arabic word (al-Muqāwamah) as does Hamas to describe their own terrorist attacks (الاسلامية or Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah, or “Islamic Resistance Movement”).
A large seeker-sensitive church in the American Mid-West has leadership which publically advocates anti-Israel positions. A large youth ministry in England recently canceled the yearly participation of a Christian pro-Israel organization’s booth out of concern about appearing too friendly to the Jewish people and state during the recent Gaza War. Boycotting Jews and the Jewish state is once again in vogue, even in polite company.
It is grievous to see a recent book written in Israel but published elsewhere, which depicts the restoration of the Jewish people to their Promised Land not as a fulfilment of prophecy, but as simply a problematic narrative which runs afoul of the Palestinian Islamist narrative. This downplaying of Israel’s restoration because it does not fit in with PC (political correctness) is a sign of things to come. Under the guise of advocating tolerance and allowing freedom of speech to ‘conflicting narratives,’ these writers have given the works and words of YHVH equal billing to Middle Eastern idols in the Temple of Dagon (1 Samuel 5:2-7).
It is worth remembering that in Judges 11:12-18 Jephthah the Judge simply did not accept or tolerate the Ammonite anti-Israel “narrative.” Instead, he gave Israel’s enemies a history lecture – and this as a prelude to Middle Eastern war. Though modern PC tolerance has no room for biblical Jephthahs, let us remember that “victory belongs to YHVH” (Proverbs 21:31).
- When Evangelicals proclaim their commitment to a biblical heart for Israel, while simultaneously giving place to the narrative of Israel’s enemies and allowing them a platform to influence believers, this indicates that a political spirit has been given permission to influence the counsel of godly men
No compromise
In these days of compromise, false dealing and outright anti-Semitism, it is important that prophetic voices speak out.
“Yet even lifeless things, either flute or harp, in producing a sound, if they do not produce a distinction in the tones, how will it be known what is played on the flute or on the harp? For if the bugle produces an indistinct sound, who will prepare himself for battle? So also you, unless you utter by the tongue speech that is clear, how will it be known what is spoken? For you will be speaking into the air” (1 Corinthians 14:7-9)
Some challenges to those who affirm that they stand with the Jewish people, yet distance themselves from a full, open-hearted and unfeigned embrace of Israel:
- “Take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously, says YHVH of armies” (Malachi 2:16)
- “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12)
- “Take heed, keep on the alert; for you do not know when the appointed time will come” (Mark 13:33)
Now is the time to recommit to being a brave heart for God, a friend faithful to Israel even unto death – like Ruth was to Naomi and her people (Ruth 1:16-18).
“No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier” (2 Timothy 2:4).
Bob Dylan reminds us in his inscrutable way that, on the battlefield, embracing the cross can be the key to winning the battle: “There’s a lone soldier on the cross, smoke pourin’ out of a boxcar door. You didn’t know it, you didn’t think it could be done, in the final end he won the wars after losin’ every battle” (“Idiot Wind”, words and music by Bob Dylan, © 1974 by Ram’s Horn Music; renewed 2002 by Ram’s Horn Music).
How shall we then pray?
- Pray for revelation, conviction of sin and repentance for Christian leaders who falsify the truth and tell lies regarding Israel (2 Timothy 4:4; Jeremiah 30:16-17)
- Pray for restoration of a righteous and courage message to Christian leaders regarding the Jewish people – one which does not compromise God’s heart for His chosen (1 Timothy 1:7; Micah 4:11-13)
- Intercede for Israel’s salvation and protection, and for divine wisdom for her leaders (Isaiah 62:1, 6-7; 33:6; Zechariah 2:8)
Your prayers and support hold up our arms and are the enablement of God to us in the work He has called us to do!
In Messiah Yeshua,
Avner Boskey
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