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US Senate Confirms David Friedman as Ambassador to Israel
CBN News 03-23-2017
The Senate confirmed David Friedman to be the United States' next ambassador to Israel Thursday.
The news was applauded by many conservatives, but highlighted a clear divide in party lines. Only two Democrats, New Jersey Senator Bob Menedez and West Virginia's Joe Manchin, joined a unified Republican party in favor of Friedman's nomination.
Friedman faced fierce oppostion for his critical view of the "two-state solution" and support for Jewish homes in biblical Judea and Samaria.
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"He's a controversial guy because he is right leaning. He's got some pretty tough positions with regard to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict," Jonathan Schanzer, of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told CBN News in an interview.
Israel warmly welcomed Friedman in his new role as ambassador.
Bejamin Netanyahu posted on Twitter saying:
"New US ambassador to Israel David Friedman will be warmly welcomed as President Trump's representative and as a close friend of Israel.
Pro-Israel activists also celebrated Friedman's confirmation and even suggested he may be the most pro-Israel ambassador America has seen in a long time.
"This is a great day for America, Israel, the Jewish people, and Amb. David Friedman," said Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America. "He will be the most pro-Israel pro-America Ambassador to Israel in history. He is the first U.S. Ambassador to Israel that has a realistic, rational view of the issues affecting all the parties there."
Earthquake Activity in Israel Confirms Revelation 11
"At that same hour there was a great earthquake, and a tenth of the city fell. Seven thousand men were killed in the earthquake, and the remnant were frightened and gave glory to the God of heaven" (Rev. 11:13).
In Revelation 11, we learn about the two witnesses who will come to earth to prophesy for 1,260 days (three and a half prophetic years). We are told that after they are killed, a great earthquake hits Jerusalem. It causes tremendous damage and kills 7,000 people.
You may not be aware of this, but the nation of Israel sits on a large fault line. The last major earthquake to hit Israel was in 1927, which killed around 500 people and damaged every house in Jerusalem or Hebron to some degree. In the last 12 months, we have seen an increased seismic activity near or in Israel. Consider the following seismic activity:
Jan. 17, 2017 – 5.5 earthquake near Crete; felt in Israel
We can clearly observe an increase in seismic activity in Israel and the Mediterranean region. Does this point to something larger in the near future? Revelation 11 tells us a larger earthquake is coming. Israel is so convinced a major earthquake is coming that they are conducting studies to prepare for it.
A Knesset sub-committee of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee recently convened to discuss Israel's readiness to handle a major earthquake. The sub-committee found that "based on an assessment that in the event of such a catastrophe, the country could face up to 7,000 casualties and damages of up to NIS 200 billion ($52.5 billion)." It could leave as many as 8,600 seriously injured and 170,000 homeless.
The non-Messianic Jewish people do not read the book of Revelation, as it is not part of the Tanakh (what Christians call the Old Testament). However, their own findings are consistent with what God prophesied to happen in the future. This only confirms the prophecy and affirms that God is working in the heart of Jewish people before this powerful prophetic chapter comes to pass.
May this article remind us to prepare ourselves for the return of the Messiah to rule and reign.
Kelly McDonald Jr.is an ordained evangelist at Hungry Hearts Ministries in Jackson, Tennessee. He has written over 40 books and booklets on pursing Christ, Hebrew roots and end-times prophecy. He is currently president of the Bible Sabbath Association (BSA). You can follow him at: kellymcdonaldjr.com.
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With shofars blasting, Rosh Hashana this year included a biblical commandment Jews haven't executed in nearly 2,000 years: actually counting the Jubilee.
"It is a simple mitzvah, reciting just a few lines, but performing this mitzvah is a declaration that the prophesied return of the Jews to Israel has been fulfilled, thereby establishing a basis for the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple," BreakingIsraelNews.comreported.
"To begin counting the Jubilee last year, the Sanhedrin, as abet din (rabbinic court), ruled that the Jews have returned to inherit the land as a nation, and not just as individuals. This requires at least 600,000 Jews, equal to the number of Israelites that returned to Israel from Egypt under Joshua."
Jonathan Cahn, author of The Mystery of the Shemitah, told me he was led to include a chapter on the Seventh Shemitah, the Jubilee—particularly the Prophetic Jubilee.
"I set the start of that Jubilee with the holy days of September 2015," he explains. "To hear now that after 2,000 years, the Sanhedrin of Israel has declared the restoration of the Jubilee is amazing. And to hear, on top of that, they reckoned the Jubilee as beginning with the holy days of September 2015, the same time as in The Mystery of the Shemitah is stunning."
In a chapter of the book called "The Mystery of the Seventh Shemitah," the prophetic Jubilee is opened. Cahn explains how every seventh year was the Sabbath Year or the Shemitah and every seventh Shemitah, or 49th year, ushered in the super Shemitah known as the Yovel, or the Jubilee.
"During the Jubilee if you lost your land, your home, your family inheritance, your ancestral possession—in the year of Jubilee, you would get it back, you would return to it," he says. "The Jubilee was the year when the land was restored to the people and the people to the land."
How does this apply to today and why is the counting of the Shemitah so significant?
"Two thousand years ago, the Jewish people lost the land of Israel and their holy city Jerusalem, their ancestral possession. For the children of Israel to be restored to the land of Israel would be a prophetic Jubilee," Cahn explains. "So could the ancient Jubilee hold the key to that restoration? No one knows when the Jubilee is, as we have no record of its celebration in the time of Messiah. But we do know when the Shemitah is. And that's the key. The Jubilee must take place in the year following the year of the Shemitah."
Cahn goes on to explain how the Shemitah ended in September 1917 in the First World War. Thus, he says, the Hebrew year following the Shemitah, began September 1917 and ended in September 1918.
"Did anything significant in Jewish history take place in that period—anything involving the restoration of the Jewish people to the land? It was precisely in that period that the land of Israel was freed from the Ottoman Turkish Empire by the British," Cahn says. "In November 1917, the British Empire issued the Balfour Declaration restoring the land of Israel to the Jewish people and the Jewish people to the land of Israel—Jubilee—a prophetic Jubilee taking place, as it had to, in the year following the Shemitah."
Cahn explained to me that if one counts seven Shemitahs, 49 years later, one comes to the seventh Shemitah which ends in September 1966. The following period, September 1966 to September 1967, would be the prophetic Jubilee, the year of restoration.
"Did any significant event during that time—any event linked to a prophetic restoration?" he asks rhetorically. "It was precisely in those time parameters that Israel in the Six Day War, was restored to Jerusalem, its long lost ancestral possession—Jubilee. Though nothing has to take place in every cycle, it is worth nothing that the next Jubilee would begin in September 2015 and extend into October 2016—It is this exact period that the Sanhedrin of Israel has now declared to be the Jubilee."
Ancient Synagogue Confirms Bible's Teachings About Jesus
CBN News 08-18-2016
Israeli archaeologists have uncovered the remains of a synagogue they say dates to the first century.
The ancient structure was discovered in Tel Rechesh, in the lower Galilee region, on land experts believe was in ancient times an agricultural estate.
If the discovery is eventually authenticated, it would represent one of only eight synagogues discovered in Israel from the so-called Second Temple era.
A top archeologist says the find also confirms the Bible's New Testament narrative about Christ's role in preaching in synagogues.
"This is the first synagogue discovered in the rural part of the Galilee and it confirms historical information we have about the New Testament, which says that Jesus preached at synagogues in Galilean villages," Dr. Motti Aviam, a senior researcher at the Kinneret Institute for Galilean Archeology said.
Aviam adds that discovering a Second Temple-era synagogue in a rural setting like the lower Galilee region rather than an urban area is also significant.
Archeological evidence shows that such synagogues of that time period were primarily used for "meetings, Torah readings and study, rather than worship."
Matthew chapter four records how Jesus went throughout the Galilee teaching and preaching. A similar account is found in Matthew chapter nine verse 35 which says, "Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness."
"We now know that if there is a Jewish settlement that is identified by stone vessels and an absence of pig bones and we find a building with benches along the walls, that is a synagogue," Dr. Mordechai Aviam, head of the Kinneret Institute for Galilean Archeology told Haaretz news.
According to experts, the walls of the synagogue room are "lined with benches constructed from skillfully hewn limestone" and "two large basalt stones that formed part of a ritual altar that had been used some 1,500 years earlier in a temple in a Canaanite city" were also found at the site.
Israeli news site Ynet reports that the synagogue was discovered just four inches underground and reportedly measures 29 feet long and 26 feet wide.
