Standing in support of Israel, Jews, and believers in all the nations, in the name of Jesus (Yeshua). Sharing biblical truth, encouragement, news and prophecy.
Richard: How many of you have been disappointed in how things have turned out - be it a family event, a project at work or even ministering before a congregation? That's what happened to me. The L-rd had opened some doors in Basel, Switzerland and a few cities in nearby France to speak in churches about some of the new things the L-rd is doing in Israel, especially concerning the Gospel going forth in the Land. We had a new video that we were excited to share with a church in France. Many of the leaders in the church had not yet caught a vision of Israel and the importance of the church standing with Israel in these last days.
Unfortunately, we didn't have the video with French subtitles yet so the translator tried to translate the English subtitles into French as the video was playing in Hebrew! Needless to say it was an unqualified disaster. Afterwards I told Carolyn that I was disappointed in the overall message and felt that I had really let the church down.
But later that evening when we returned to minister in the same church, we heard that some leaders, two elders and the youth leader, had caught a vision for Israel for the first time while I was speaking! I was shocked, but greatly encouraged! G-d can take what seems to be, and in fact is, a disaster and turn it around. He can turn ashes into beauty, our feeble attempts into His success. I'm reminded of Psalms 62:5
My soul, wait in silence for G-d alone, for my expectation is from Him. Psalm 62:5
Carolyn: The L-rd wasn't finished instructing us yet. A few months ago we experienced such open doors and success when we went to Paris to speak to Jewish people about Aliyah. G-d had orchestrated things so beautifully and Jewish hearts were so open to hear about coming home. So naturally we expected when He called us to Berlin that He would open doors but things didn't work out the way we expected.
Yes, I participated in a street outreach at a place where Israelis usually hang out but I mainly spoke with people from other nations. And I attended a concert at the main synagogue; praise G-d for some contacts that are developing from that visit. But when Richard and I visited places where Israelis were known to be, we didn't meet any! On the final day of our trip, we tried so hard to contact a key Aliyah person from Europe whom we needed to meet, but it didn't seem to work. G-d again was reminding us that our expectations are not necessarily His expectations and that it's imperative to yield our heart, our will and our hopes to His loving guidance.
Later while prayer-walking near the main synagogue, we saw a restaurant with a Hebrew name and when we approached it, there was a dear friend and intercessor sitting near the front door so we entered. This began a chain reaction that led from one divine appointment to another with ten Israelis in that same place! Plus the key Aliyah person we'd been trying to meet "just happened" to walk into that same restaurant after landing in Berlin, so unexpectedly, we were completely set up by the L-rd - at last!
What did we learn from this journey? G-d is sovereign and we serve at His pleasure.
Trust in the L-rd with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding.
Acknowledge Him in all you do and He will direct your paths. Proverbs 3:4-5
Please come to our home for worship and Israeli folk dancing then hear how the Spirit of G-d is moving in the Land! Then enjoy dinner up on our balcony with a magnificent view of the Kineret (Sea of Galilee), Golan and Jordan Valley!
"I was just thanking the Lord for you guys the other day, as I truly witnessed a miracle within my child when we met you both. We were at a Shabbat meal and as Richard blessed the bread he took the time to say that there were many blessings that came from observing Shabbat. Joy was one of them. As I held my daughter on my lap, she began to grin and then squeal with delight. The remarkable thing was, she was about 18 months old and I had hardly ever seen a smile; she went months and months without even crying as she was so weak and frail. But there in the midst of the Sabbath meal she began to have a joy, joy unspeakable that is still present and seen today. Thank you for your ministry and I hope this encourages you all in some way. It does me!"
"The L-rd blessed Shabbat and made it holy."
While visiting our dear friend Alon Tamir in his recording studio, he showed us a new series of music videos he's making with Yaron, another Israeli believer who plays Middle Eastern instruments. I could hear a voice wafting through the music and Scriptures so Alon allowed me to sing on this project. What an honor! Please feel free to share this on social media pages of your Israeli friends!
Going Out of Zion
We plan to fly to Sardinia for a prophetic prayer and worship conference next week with European believers who have boats and a spirit of Issachar! What a blessing to join them in praying over the seas that will one day carry the Jewish people home from the West...
While in Berlin we came alongside established ministries and supplied them with our outreach booklets. They found great success sharing our booklets with the many Israelis they met so we will continue to support them in this way. Thanks so much for helping us to bless ministries like these!
We truly thank you for your love, prayers and support because we know that we can't do what we do without the help of the saints like you! While traveling Richard had several episodes of unstable angina and had to undergo another angioplasty after we returned home so thank you for keeping him in prayer for a healthy heart!
We write L-rd and G-d in this way because it's a Jewish custom that Carolyn grew up with and it's done only out of reverence and honor for the name of the L-rd. Thanks for understanding.
Sometime today, our 2 millionth visitor will open this site.
Flash (2:32 PM EST) All time history 2,000,014
Researching a recently digitized collection in France, we decided to celebrate and share one of the pictures we found this week. The photo was taken by French photographer Charles Lallemand in 1865 and can be found in the archives of the D'Orsay Museum in Paris. The young woman welcomed us in her fanciest outfit, wearing on her feet elaborate platform shoes used in the hammam (Turkish baths). Some of the shoes at the time were inlaid with mother-of-pearl and silver.
This site has published features on early pictures of lost Jewish communities in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, and Iraq. We recently published 19th century pictures of other Jewish girls from the Middle East, including Syrian/Damascus Jewish girls, found by the British Library in an endangered Beirut collection of Bonfils photographs.
Netanyahu rejects French ultimatum on Palestinian statehood
Jan. 31, 2016 Reuters
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Sunday for a more “sober” approach towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in dismissing a French peace initiative as only encouraging Palestinians to shun compromise.
The proposal on Friday by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius for an international peace conference was the latest sign of Western frustration over the absence of movement toward a two-state solution since the collapse of U.S.-brokered negotiations in 2014.
Fabius said that if the French plan did not break the deadlock, Paris would recognize a Palestinian state.
Such a step would raise concern in Israel that other European countries, also long opposed to its settlement-building in occupied territory, would follow suit.
In public remarks to his cabinet, Netanyahu did not explicitly reject the notion of an international conference – an aide said Israel would examine such a request once it was received – but he made clear that reported details of the plan made it a non-starter.
Netanyahu said a “threat” to recognize a Palestinian state if France’s peace efforts did not succeed, constituted “an incentive to the Palestinians to come along and not compromise”.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting at his office in Jerusalem May 10, 2015. REUTERS/Sebastian Scheiner
“I assess that there will be a sobering up regarding this matter,” Netanyahu added. “In any event, we will make effort so that there is a sobering up here, and our position is very clear: We are prepared to enter direct negotiation without preconditions and without dictated terms.”
On Saturday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the French proposal, telling an African summit in Ethiopia that “the status quo cannot continue”.
But Washington responded with caution to the French move, saying it continued to prefer that Israel and the Palestinians reach an agreement on final-status issues through direct talks.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called Abbas and the two discussed the French initiative and “the tense political situation in the region,” WAFA, the official Palestinian news agency reported on Sunday.
While aware the initiative may struggle to get off the ground, French officials said Paris had a responsibility to act now in the face of Israeli settlement activity and the prospect of continued diplomatic inaction as the United States focuses on a presidential election in November.
And, the officials said, Netanyahu had gone a step too far in accusing U.N. Secretary of State Ban Ki-moon of giving a “tailwind to terrorism” by laying some of the blame for four months of stabbings and car rammings by Palestinians at Israel’s door. Ban angered Israel by saying last week that it is “human nature to react to occupation”.
The United States, European Union – Israel’s closest allies – have also issued unusually stern criticism of Israel in recent weeks, reflecting their own frustration with the policies of Netanyahu’s right-wing government.
The criticism, particularly about the settlements, where some 550,000 Jews live in around 250 communities scattered across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, has raised Palestinian hopes that world powers might finally be minded to support a U.N. resolution condemning Israel’s policy outright.
WEST BANK ATTACK
Since October, Palestinian attacks, partly fueled by tensions over the freeze in peace talks, have killed 26 Israelis and a U.S. citizen.
In an incident on Sunday, a Palestinian gunman wounded three Israelis near the West Bank settlement of Beit El and was then shot dead by soldiers, the Israeli army said. Palestinian officials said he worked as a bodyguard for a Palestinian prosecutor in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Shortly after that attack, a Palestinian motorist was shot and wounded when he tried to run down soldiers at a military checkpoint in the West Bank, the army said.
Over the past four months, Israeli forces have killed at least 152 Palestinians, 98 of them assailants according to authorities. Most the others have died in violent protests.
“I don’t see anything that warrants living as long as the occupation smothers us and kills our brothers and sisters … You were first and I am following you,” the Beit El assailant, Amjad Abu Omar, wrote on Facebook.
Palestinians seek a state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem, parts of which have been occupied by Israel since the 1967 Middle East war. Palestine has non-member observer status at the United Nations and its flag flies with those of member states at UN headquarters in New York.
Sweden became the first EU member nation to recognize the Palestinian state in 2014. A total of 136 U.N.-member countries, mostly in Africa, Latin America and Asia, now do so.
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Jewish Exodus from Western Europe Sets New Record - ISRAEL
01-19-2016
CBN News
Jewish immigration to Israel from Western Europe has reached an all-time high in an exodus mainly caused by a spike in anti-Semitic attacks from Islamic radicals.
Just last week, a machete-wielding teen attacked a Jewish teacher in the southern French town of Marseille, prompting a local Jewish authority to ask fellow Jews to refrain from wearing their traditional skullcaps to stay safe.
The Jewish Agency, a leading nonprofit group, reports that 9,880 Jews from Western Europe moved to Israel last year. That number is more than 10 percent higher than 2014 and double the figure from 2013.
Jews have increasingly reported assaults and intimidation, mostly from Muslim extremists. And while the attacks have taken place in Belgium, Denmark and other European countries, France has seen the worst of it.
That's why the vast majority of immigrants, close to 8,000, came from France. The shocking rise in anti-Semitic violence there has shattered the sense of security of the world's third-largest Jewish population.
France is still reeling from a series of attacks in Paris on Nov. 13 that killed 130 people, and it just marked the anniversary of attacks on the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and a kosher grocery store, which killed 17 people. In each case, the Islamic State claimed responsibility.
France's Jewish community of some 500,000 is the largest in Europe. Jewish schools and synagogues are often surrounded by soldiers in combat fatigues, armed with automatic rifles, who patrol the streets.
And though Jews make up less than 1 percent of the population there, French officials say more than 50 percent of all reported racist attacks in 2014 were directed against them.
Experts say European Jews have not felt this threatened since World War II, when 6 million Jews were murdered in the Nazi Holocaust.
With fewer than thirty days remaining until the Iowa caucuses -- and the cancer of the Islamic State and other jihadists metastasizing across the globe in attacks like we've seen in Paris and San Bernardino -- I am become increasingly concerned about the possibility of an attack by the Islamic State on the campaign trail.
What if ISIS operatives or loyalists (or jihadists affiliated with other terror groups) try to assassinate one or more of the presidential candidates, try to kidnap one or more of them, and/or try to bomb, strafe or otherwise attack a campaign event filled with hundreds or thousands of people?
A terrorist attack against a presidential contender or his/her campaign event would be huge news, reverberating across the nation and around the globe. It would also be chilling to the political process because it could scare people away from attending campaign events as the caucuses and primaries are getting closer.
Most of the presidential candidates -- both Democrats and Republicans -- are vulnerable because they are so accessible to the public. While local police may provide crowd and traffic control at larger campaign events in certain circumstances, historically they haven't actually been tasked primarily with protecting the candidates and their families and staffs, or with preventing a terror attack.
Only a handful of the candidates currently have Secret Service protection. Hillary Clinton does as a former First Lady. Donald Trump does as a frontrunner who is drawing specific credible threats. Dr. Ben Carson also has federal protection due to credible threats made against him. (I'm not sure about former Gov. Jeb Bush).
While I was writing my new thriller, The First Hostage, I spent a lot of time thinking about why and how ISIS might try to assassinate or kidnap the President of the United States and other world leaders, and use such attacks to humiliate the American people and recruit more foreign fighters to their apocalyptic cause. Such threats are central to the plot of The Third Target as well as The First Hostage.
At the same time, however, I couldn't help but think of the tragic assassination of Sen. Bobby Kennedy, the Democrat presidential candidate, during the 1968 campaign. Kennedy was shot by a Palestinian extremist, Sirhan Sirhan, during a campaign visit at a California hotel.
Who's to say such a tragedy couldn't happen again in this campaign cycle?
FBI officials say they are currently running more than 900 investigations into suspected ISIS terrorists operating inside the U.S.
In fact, there are active cases in all fifty states at present.
What will happen when those who aren’t killed on the battlefield return to the U.S. with their American passports? What if they aren’t detected and stopped by federal authorities in time? Will they target candidates and campaign events?
These are not normal times, or normal threats. The Secret Service is stretched quite thin right now. I'm not confident they have the manpower to cover all eleven Republican presidential candidates, plus each of the Democrat candidates. But the Secret Service should be working extra closely with the FBI and other federal, state and local law enforcement leaders to develop specific new guidelines on how best to keep the American campaign trail safe. Congressional leaders who oversee Homeland Security should insist that every safeguard is put into place in the next few months in the gap of time until the nominees are determined and comprehensive Secret Service protection is afforded to both nominees.
"My view is that the candidates should use campaign funds to hire federal accredited security personnel," one highly-experienced national security expert told me. "The Department of Justice should provide a general set of Rules of Engagement for these security personnel. The Feds should ensure that all relevant intelligence is going to the security personnel of every candidate and every local law enforcement jurisdiction that candidates appear in. When the field narrows, and we have no more than six to eight total candidates, then it may be feasible to use a combination of Secret Service and Federal Marshals to protect them. This is going to be expensive, but it's a reasonable action given the seriousness of the threat."
Let's pray that none of these worst-case scenarios come to pass. But let's press our leaders to insist that every precaution is taken, as well. The stakes are very high.
Core beliefs and values are being challenged across the globe. With such a major change of direction happening, where are we headed?
The following are the five major events that will likely define our immediate future and impact world affairs for the foreseeable future. These are listed in the sequence they occurred, not necessarily the sequence of importance or impact:
1. China stock market crashes
2. Falling energy prices
3. Russian military intervention into the Middle East
4. Paris and San Bernardino terrorist attacks
5. The Trump candidacy
We will look at each of these for the message they have, but first we will briefly discuss the most basic change factor in world affairs—initiative. In military operations and world affairs, having the initiative is necessary for success. The one with the initiative can control the battle or geopolitical situation, requiring their opponent(s) to react to them rather than the other way around.
Therefore, those with the initiative have a major advantage in the confrontation. For this reason, the most important factors to look for to discern the nature of events and where they are heading are:
Who has the initiative
What are their intentions or goals
What are their resources and strategies for sustaining the initiative
Now we'll look at each of the five events having a major impact on the world and their potential consequences:
1.The China stock market crash. China's economic growth has been a key factor impacting the world economy this century. Without it, the recovery after 9/11 or the crash of 2008 would have been more difficult if not impossible. China is now one of the biggest economic forces in the world, rivaling the impact of both the U.S. and Europe.
Factors
On June 12, 2015, The Shanghai Index lost one-third of its value. It rebounded, but this began the most turbulent volatility of a major market possibly in modern times, even eclipsing the 1929 crash. Understanding its cause and impact on the world economy is important for understanding what we can expect the world economy to do in the foreseeable future.
One report estimated that 100,000,000 Chinese investors were virtually wiped out in a day. Many more than this number were also severely hurt by this crash. The Chinese economy had produced more millionaires and billionaires and created and expanded a middle class more quickly than any economy in history. It delivered more people out of poverty in a shorter time—a truly remarkable achievement.
China also created a huge number of consumers who drove industry around the world. The June crash, dramatic recovery and then a worse crash over a few-week period unnerved more than the Chinese—it alarmed everyone who understood the interconnection of world economics. This will no doubt majorly impact the rapid growth of the Chinese's purchasing of the world's goods, with huge ramifications.
The Western media hardly covered this remarkable event, possibly because only about 1.5 percent of Chinese stocks are held outside of China. Another reason is China's control over its media. In the free media, panic can be created and driven by the media. China clamped down on their media, likely preventing a far worse catastrophe. They also quickly shut down trading by major companies and stockholders.
This strategy can work in the short term, but the lack of transparency also breeds suspicion, long-term concern or fear that can hurt a free market even more. The Chinese leadership is smart enough to know this, but the potential for catastrophe in the short term was so great, they felt they had to take drastic measures.
Chinese authorities blamed the crash on rumors and fear mongering. If true, fear and rumors will be a continuing problem for the Chinese without transparency. Their markets stabilized because of the controls, but when those controls were lifted a little, the markets fell another 40 percent. They've recovered some, but the factors that initiated these shockwaves have not been addressed—the lack of transparent accounting and the true value of their currency, the Yuan, that was arbitrarily set by the government.
Although it's impressive how well the Chinese government handled the crash without prior experience in anything like this, the IMF's recent decision to designate the Chinese Yuan a reserve currency seems to be more political than economic. This was likely a move to help stabilize the Yuan, but this too could have a destabilizing effect on other world currencies—we'll see.
It is no secret that the Chinese would like to see their currency replace the dollar as the world's top reserve currency. Even with their problems, they are headed that way because of the over-regulation and over-taxation shackling the U.S. economy.
Bottom Line
This will not likely bode well for the U.S. dollar or economy. The potential effect of the Chinese market turmoil to destabilize the rest of the world is substantial. Again, Chinese economic growth, and the creation of such a huge middle class and consumer base, may be the single biggest factor sustaining the world economy after the 2008 crash. Basic economic indicators point to increasing weakness in the world economy at a time when one of its biggest economic engines, China, will slow down.
A slide into a recession in 2016 not only looks possible, but seems inevitable. The recovery since 2008 would not likely exist with China, and it has still only been a shallow, weak recovery. Now the world cannot count on growing Chinese consumption to bail them out.
The turmoil in China will impact the world economy negatively by slowing its consumer spending. At the same time, China is seizing the initiative to become the world's reserve currency, giving them increasing leverage over the world economy. This is not the result of strength in their economy as much as Chinese leadership and decisiveness. As Donald Trump accurately pointed out, "Their leaders have been smarter than ours."
Without a major change in U.S. economic policy, China is in the best position to take and hold the initiative in world economics for the foreseeable future. This is happening in spite of the fragile nature of the Yuan. Chinese equity markets have more to do with the incompetence of U.S. and European economic leadership than brilliance on the part of the Chinese. That China has seized the initiative in the world economy after suffering such dramatic turmoil in its own economy is a clear indication of the kind of jeopardy the world economy is in.
2. Falling energy prices. Along with the growth of Chinese consumerism, falling energy prices have been a major driver of the world's economy in recent times. The effect has been like having a trillion-dollar stimulus infused into the U.S. and EU economies each year. Combined with "Quantitative Easing" (QE), the artificial dumping of almost another trillion dollars into the economy each year, the U.S. economy is just barely inching along, indicating how gummed up the works are in our economic engine.
Falling energy prices may have bought us more time to fix serious issues in the economy, but without decisive leadership that will actually fix things, we will inevitably suffer the worst economic disaster in our history. Falling energy prices are mostly the result of falling demand for energy, a sure sign that much the world's economy is weakening.
3. Russian intervention in the Middle East. Russia's economy has been devastated because it is a petroleum-based economy, and falling energy prices have it near collapse. However, Putin has emerged as the most decisive world leader. He has seized initiative in world affairs and become a major player in world economics.
Putin's move into the Middle East was not just about propping up the Assad, a man Putin has shown disdain for, in Syria. Neither is his alliance with Iran the result of his love for that regime. He has brilliantly positioned Russia to use both of them in a bold move to threaten Saudi Arabia and the other oil producers in the region. This will drive up oil prices, thereby saving the Russian economy.
This is bold and brilliant, and a decisive man such as Putin will likely carry it out. The recent shooting down of a Russian plane by Turkey gave him more cards to play. Cutting off Russian tourism to Turkey can devastate that country's economy. It also has the potential to create major turmoil in NATO, ultimately securing the Russian southern flank by bringing a capitulating Turkey under Russian control. Putin is smart enough to play the cards he's dealt, and it's not likely the Russian/Turkish crisis will go away until Putin has gained a great deal.
Another factor is that almost all NATO countries are dependent on Middle Eastern oil. If Putin is ambitious (and he seems to be), he could break up NATO and bring many of the nations under Russian influence. This would force the E.U. to stand down and not interfere in his actions against Ukraine or other former Soviet states while freeing him for other adventures.
America alone has the power to counter Putin, but his decisiveness combined with the ineptness of American leadership could not be setting the tables better for him. The U.S. and Canada could now be producing enough energy to support the E.U. so that it does not have to depend on Saudi Arabia or Russian energy sources, strengthening NATO at a time when it is increasingly needed. Policies such as killing the Keystone Pipeline could have bad consequences. At the very least, this will likely prove a major missed opportunity strategically.
Bottom Line
Expect energy prices to rebound in 2016, though they could drop even more before this happens because of the weakening world economy. When they start back up, they could return to previous levels faster than they fell. This will be like a reverse of the stimulus at the worst time for Western economies, wreaking economic havoc on the U.S., the EU and many other countries.
Russia does not need energy from outside sources, but they do need the price of energy to go up. China is desperate for dependable and cheap energy. They did not join Putin's Middle East adventure without a purpose. China will likely soon have virtual control over Saudi Arabia as part of this deal.
Understanding the power of the Russian/Chinese alliance combined with weak American resolve has much of the world looking to Russia and China for leadership. The end result could be the worst economic disaster in history for the U.S. and the EU At the same time, Russia can get back on its feet economically and China will be the most powerful economic force in the world as the stable source of cheap energy (for them).
Together, Russia and China are systematically and effectively seizing the initiative in the world economy, and by that world affairs. No other leadership in sight can counter it. This is the extraordinary geopolitical shift now taking place. Its implications are as far reaching as the fall of the Iron Curtain, but this time to the advantage of the former communist states. This leads us to the fourth factor to have a major impact on the trajectory of world affairs.
Tune in Wednesday for finale of this two-part series.
Rick Joyneris the founder and executive director of MorningStar Ministries and Heritage International Ministries and is the senior pastor of MorningStar Fellowship Church. He is the author of more than 40 books, including The Final Quest,A Prophetic History, and Church History. He is also the president of The OAK Initiative, an interdenominational movement that is mobilizing thousands of Christians to be engaged in the great issues of our times, being the salt and light that they are called to be. Rick and his wife, Julie, have five children: Anna, Aaryn, Amber, Ben and Sam.
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