The Collapse Of Italy’s Banks Threatens To Plunge The European Financial System Into Chaos - Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG

The Collapse Of Italy’s Banks Threatens To Plunge The European Financial System Into Chaos Posted: 07 Mar 2016   Michael Snyder  THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG The Italian banking system is a “leaning tower” that truly could completely collapse at literally any moment.  And as Italy’s banks begin to go down like dominoes, it is going to set off financial panic all over Europe unlike anything we have ever seen before.   I wrote about the troubles in Italy back in January, but since that time the crisis has escalated.  At this point, Italian banking stocks have declined a whopping 28 percent since the beginning of 2016, and when you look at some of the biggest Italian banks the numbers become even more frightening.  On Monday, shares of Monte dei Paschi were down 4.7 percent, and they have now plummeted 56 percent since the start of the year.  Shares of Carige were down 8 percent, and they have now plunged a total of 58 percent since the start of the year.  This is what a financial crisis looks like, and just like we are seeing in South America, the problems in Italy appear to be significantly accelerating. So what makes Italy so important? Well, we all saw how difficult it was for the rest of Europe to come up with a plan to rescue Greece.  But Greece is relatively small – they only have the 44th largest economy in the world. The Italian economy is far larger.  Italy has the 8th largest economy in the world, and their government debt to GDP ratio is currently sitting at about 132 percent. There is no way that Europe has the resources or the ability to handle a full meltdown of the Italian financial system.  Unfortunately, that is precisely what is happening.  Italian banks are absolutely drowning in non-performing loans, and as Jeffrey Moore has noted, this potentially represents “the greatest threat to the world’s already burdened financial system”… Shares of Italy’s largest financial institutions have plummeted in the opening months of 2016 as piles of bad debt on their balance sheets become too high to ignore.  Amid all of the risks facing EU members in 2016, the risk of contagion from Italy’s troubled banks poses the greatest threat to the world’s already burdened financial system. At the core of the issue is the concerning level of Non-Performing Loans (NPL’s) on banks’ books, with estimates ranging from 17% to 21% of total lending.  This amounts to approximately €200 billion of NPL’s, or 12% of Italy’s GDP.  Moreover, in some cases, bad loans make up an alarming 30% of individual banks’ balance sheets. Things have already gotten so bad that the European Central Bank is now monitoring liquidity levels at Monte dei Paschi and Carige on a daily basis.  The following comes from Reuters… The European Central Bank is checking liquidity levels at a number of Italian banks, including Banca Carige and Monte dei Paschi di Siena , on a daily basis, two sources close to the matter said on Monday. Italian banking shares have fallen sharply since the start of the year amid market concerns about some 360 billion euros of bad loans on their books and weak capital levels. The ECB has been putting pressure on several Italian banks to improve their capital position. The regulator can decide to monitor liquidity levels at any bank it supervises on a weekly or daily basis if it has any concern about deposits or funding. A run on the big Italian banks has already begun.  Italians have already been quietly pulling billions of euros out of the banking system, and if these banks continue to crumble this “stealth run” could quickly become a stampede. And of course panic in Italy would quickly spread to other financially troubled members of the eurozone such as Spain, Portugal, Greece and France.  Here is some additional analysis from Jeffrey Moore… A deteriorating financial crisis in Italy could risk repercussions across the EU exponentially greater than those spurred by Greece.  The ripple effects of market turmoil and the potential for dangerous precedents being set by EU authorities in panicked response to that turmoil, could ignite yet more latent financial vulnerabilities in fragile EU members such as Spain and Portugal. Unfortunately, most Americans are completely blinded to what is going on in the rest of the world because stocks in the U.S. have had a really good run for the past couple of weeks.  Headlines are declaring that the risk of a new recession “has passed” and that the crisis “is over”.  Meanwhile, South America is plunging into a full-blown depression, the Italian banking system is melting down, global manufacturing numbers are the worst that we have seen since the last recession, and global trade is absolutely imploding. Other than that, things are pretty good. Seriously, it is absolutely critical that we don’t allow ourselves to be fooled by every little wave of momentum in the stock market. It is a fact that sales and profits for U.S. corporations are declining.  This is a trend that began all the way back in mid-2014 and that has accelerated during the early stages of 2016.  The following comes from Wolf Richter… Total US business sales – not just sales by S&P 500 companies but also sales by small caps and all other businesses, even those that are not publicly traded – peaked in July 2014 at $1.365 trillion, according to the Census Bureau. By December 2015, total business sales were down 4.6% from that peak. A bad 18 months for sales! They’re back where they’d first been in January 2013! Sales by S&P 500 companies dropped 3.8% in 2015, according to FactSet, the worst year since the Financial Crisis. I know that a lot of people have been eagerly anticipating a complete and total global economic collapse for a long time, and many of them just want to “get it over with”. Well, the truth is that nobody should want to see what is coming.  Personally, I rejoice for every extra day, week or month we are given.  Every extra day is another day to prepare, and every extra day is another day to enjoy the extremely comfortable standard of living that our debt-fueled prosperity has produced for us. Most Americans have absolutely no idea how spoiled we really are.  Even just fifty years ago, life was so much harder in this country.  If we had to go back and live the way that Americans did 100 or 150 years ago, there are very few of us that would be able to successfully do that. So enjoy the remaining days of debt-fueled prosperity while you still can, because great change is coming, and it is going to be extremely bitter for most of the population.

A 918 Point Stock Market Crash In Japan And German Deutsche Bank Denies That It Is About To Collapse - Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE

A 918 Point Stock Market Crash In Japan And German Deutsche Bank Denies That It Is About To Collapse

Posted: 09 Feb 2016   Michael Snyder  THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE

On Tuesday junk bonds continued to crash, the price of oil briefly dipped below 28 dollars a barrel, Deutsche Bank was forced to deny that it is on the verge of collapse, but the biggest news was what happened in Japan.  The Nikkei was down a staggering 918 points, but that stock crash made very few headlines in the western world.  If the Dow had crashed 918 points today, that would have been the largest single day point crash in all of U.S. history.

So what just happened in Japan is a really big deal.  The Nikkei is now down 23.1 percent from the peak of the market, and that places it solidly in bear market territory.  Overall, a total of 16.5 trillion dollars of global stock market wealth has been wiped out since the middle of 2015.

As I stated yesterday, this is what a global financial crisis looks like.

Just as we saw during the last financial crisis, the big banks are playing a starring role, and this is definitely true in Japan.  Right now, Japanese banking stocks are absolutely imploding, and this is what drove much of the panic last night.  The following numbers come from Wolf Richter…

• Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group plunged 8.7%, down 47% from June 2015.
• Mizuho Financial Group plunged 6.2%, down 38% since June 2015.
• Sumitomo Mitsui plunged 6.2%, down 26% since May 2015
• Nomura plunged a juicy 9.1%, down 42% since June 2015

A lot of analysts have been very focused on the downturn in China in recent months, but I think that it is much more important to watch Japan right now.

I have become fully convinced that the Japanese financial system is going to play a central role in the initial stages of this new global financial meltdown, and so I encourage everyone to keep a close eye on the Nikkei every single night.

Meanwhile, the stock price of German banking giant Deutsche Bank crashed to a record low on Tuesday.  If you will recall, Deutsche Bank reported a loss of 7.6 billion dollars in 2015, and I wrote quite a bit about their ongoing problems yesterday.

Things have gotten so bad that now Deutsche Bank has been forced to come out and publicly deny that they are in trouble…

Deutsche Bank co-CEO John Cryan moved to quell fears about the bank’s stability Tuesday with a surprise memo saying its balance sheet “remains absolutely rock-solid.”
The comments come as investors grow increasingly nervous about the health of European banks, which have taken a hit on the fall in energy prices and which face rising concerns over their cash levels.

Of course Lehman Brothers issued the same kind of denials just before they collapsed in 2008.  Cryan’s comments did little to calm the markets, and even Jim Cramer saw right through them…

“You know, Deutsche Bank puts out a note saying, ‘listen, don’t worry, all good.’ Reminds me of JPMorgan saying if you have to say that you’re creditworthy then it’s already too late.”

Another thing that Lehman Brothers did just before they collapsed in 2008 was to lay off workers.  We have seen a number of major banks do this lately, including Deutsche Bank…

Cryan, 55, has been seeking to boost capital buffers and profitability by cutting costs and eliminating thousands of jobs as volatile markets undermine revenue and outstanding regulatory probes raise the specter of fresh capital measures to help cover continued legal charges. The cost of protecting Deutsche Bank’s debt against default has more than doubled this year, while the shares have dropped about 42 percent.

The following chart comes from Zero Hedge.  Nobody on the Internet does a better job with charts than Zero Hedge does.  I would recommend visiting them right after you visit The Economic Collapse Blog each day (wink wink).  This chart shows that Deutsche Bank stock has already fallen lower than it was during any point during the last financial crisis…

Deutsche Bank is the biggest and most important bank in the biggest and most important economy in the EU, and it has exposure to derivatives that is approximately 20 times Germany’s GDP.

If that doesn’t alarm you, I don’t know what will.

The biggest financial bubble in the history of the world has entered a terminal phase, and the parallels to the last financial crisis have become so apparent that just about anyone can see them at this point.  Just consider some of the ominous warnings that we have seen recently…

Billionaire Carl Icahn, for example, recently raised a red flag on a national broadcast when he declared, “The public is walking into a trap again as they did in 2007.”
And the prophetic economist Andrew Smithers warns, “U.S. stocks are now about 80% overvalued.”
Smithers backs up his prediction using a ratio which proves that the only time in history stocks were this risky was 1929 and 1999. And we all know what happened next. Stocks fell by 89% and 50%, respectively.
Even the Royal Bank of Scotland says the markets are flashing stress alerts akin to the 2008 crisis. They told their clients to “Sell Everything” because “in a crowded hall, the exit doors are small.”

And let’s not forget that famous billionaire retail magnate Hugo Salinas Price has warned that the global economy “is going into a depression“.

The chaos that we have seen this week is simply a logical progression of the crisis that began during the second half of last year.  If you were to create a checklist of all the things that you would expect to see during the initial stages of a new financial crisis, all of the boxes would be checked.

In the days ahead, keep your eyes on Germany and Japan.

Yes, the Italian banking system is completely collapsing right now, but I believe that what is happening in Germany is going to be the key to the meltdown of Europe, and I am convinced that Deutsche Bank is going to be the star of the show.

Meanwhile, don’t underestimate what is taking place in Japan.

The Japanese still have the third largest economy on the entire planet, and their financial system is essentially a Ponzi scheme built on top of a house of cards that has a rapidly aging population as the foundation.

As Japan falls, that will be a signal that financial Armageddon is now upon us.
And after last night, it appears that moment is a lot closer than a lot of us may have thought.

Michael Snyder - The Jim Bakker Show - On Brink of Financial Crisis (Day 1)

(Use link below to watch)

Watch here: Michael Snyder - The Jim Bakker Show - On Brink of Financial Crisis (Day 1)

China and Ukraine, among others effected

Rick Joyner now on PTL Network 
- Prophetic Perspective program

Michael Snyder

Jim Bakker Show 2016 | Show# 2918 | Aired on January 13, 2016

Galatians, Genesis, Mark, Revelation

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A Great Shaking and Collapse is Coming-Jonathan Cahn

By Greg Hunter On February 25, 2015 In Political Analysis  USAWATCHDOG

By Greg Hunter’s USAWatchdog.com 

Best-selling author of “The Harbinger,”Jonathan Cahn, is worried about America. Cahn, whose new book “Mystery of the Shemitah,”warns, “Everything is converging around this time (which is based on 7 year cycles).  I believe we need to be ready, and that’s why I believe I had to write the ‘Mystery of the Shemitah.’  I believe a great shaking is coming.  Whether it is in these parameters or around these parameters, or after these parameters, a great shaking is coming to America and we need to be ready.” 

Cahn goes on to say, “I believe we have a house of cards.  We had that in 2007 and 2008 and everything was wiped out, and we said now we are not going to do this anymore, and we have gotten worse since then.  What I have noticed is there are times when this phenomenon is stronger, and if you look at the 1930’s where you have the Great Depression . . . then the 1970’s and onward.  The key thing, when you look at those two periods, is this comes at a time when America’s debt was at its peak.  Now, this debt level, this house of cards, is astronomical.  What that tells me, the phenomenon of the Shemitah is all the more powerful.  I believe . . . we are going to see a collapse of this house of cards.”

How do you get ready for this collapse?  Cahn, who is a Christian minister, says, “The first thing is if you are listening to this and you are not right with God, get your life right because America is rapidly accelerating into a moral collapse and a spiritual collapse.  That’s part of the picture, and the economic part follows that.  But the first thing is get your life right with God.  I will also say I am a minister.  If you are not born again, get born again no matter what your religion is.”

Cahn goes on to say, “Number two, the Bible says a prudent man prepares.  What do you do?  I am not a financial expert, but I will speak for myself . . . in general, I would not be putting my stock in the stock market or have things attached to it. . . . You should also have essentials in store so if there is a collapse of not only markets, but of infrastructure and services, and these things should break down, that you would be okay for this time period.  I am not a survivalist.  I am more of a revivalist. . . . We say things will always work perfectly, and I don’t believe things will always work perfectly.  I believe we are at the verge of collapse.”

On the stock market, Cahn goes on to explain, “I want people to be aware and be warned . . . . In the last 40 years . . . you have these collapses in the markets, long term collapses.  The dates are 1973, 1980, 1987, 2000 and 2007.  Every single one of them is on the seven year cycle.  Not only that, every single one of them happens at the time of the Shemitah.  It’s not just a 7 year cycle, but on the exact appointed time.  This has happened every single time, and the last two have been so exact . . . what you have is the greatest stock market point crash, September 17, caused by 9/11. 

That day that it crashed is “Elul 29,” the day that is appointed in the Bible of an exact date you have to wipe out financial accounts and becomes a sign of warning of a nation under judgment.  On the exact day, September 17, 2001, you have “Elul 29” that happens not just once a year, Elul 29 happens every 7 years.  Then, that record stays for the next 7  years until you get to the great crash of the great recession.  The greatest crash in history, September 29, 2008, they ring the bell, and the bell refuses to ring.  They take that as a sign, and on that day comes the greatest crash in American history.  Not only on that day, but it was the wipe-out day of the Shemitah that happens only once every 7 years. 

So, the two greatest crashes happened exactly 7 Biblical years apart down to the day, down to the hour, and down to the minute.  We need to be aware because we have entered the year of the Shemitah, now.  The beginning of the Shemitah is very un-dramatic . . . but if something is going to happen this cycle, the pattern is that it happens at the end of the cycle.  That focuses around the time of September.  This is a time when some of the biggest crashes have happened.”

Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Jonathan Cahn, the best-selling author of “Mystery of the Shemitah.”

(There is much, much more in the video interview.)

After the Interview: 
Jonathan Cahn is just starting on a brand new book.  Cahn did not offer much in detail, only that it will be Biblical in nature.  If you want to keep up with Jonathan Cahn, you can do so at HopeoftheWorld.org.  If you want to buy “Mystery of the Shemitah,” click here.  For a copy of“The Harbinger,” click here.

Three threats to America, Israel & the Church in the Mideast - Joel Rosenberg

Joel Rosenberg

Three threats to America, Israel & the Church in the Mideast. Notes from my address at Moody Bible Institute. by joelcrosenberg

(Chicago, Illinois) -- It was an honor to be on the campus of Moody Bible Institute in downtown Chicago on Monday and Tuesday. At the invitation of Dr. Paul Nyquist, president of MBI, and Dr. Michael Rydelnik, a professor and head of the Jewish Studies Program, I was invited to teach a class on the Holocaust, another class on modern Israeli politics and society, speak on an evening panel on "Israel & The Gaza Conflict," tape two programs for Moody Radio, and address the student body -- some 1,600 future Christian leaders -- on Tuesday morning at chapel.

Here are my notes for the addressed I delivered at chapel: "Three Threats Facing America, Israel and the Church in the Middle East." I hope you find them helpful.

----------------------------

Thank you, Dr. Nyquist. It is an honor to be back here at Moody Bible Institute and I'm grateful for the opportunity to share with you. This morning, I'd like to discuss threat grave threats facing America, Israel and the Church and how we as followers of Jesus Christ are supposed to respond, according to the Scriptures.

Let's begin by reading the first ten verses of Ezekiel chapter 33.

33 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ² “Son of man, speak to the sons of your people and say to them, ‘If I bring a sword upon a land, and the people of the land take one man from among them and make him their watchman, ³ and he sees the sword coming upon the land and blows on the trumpet and warns the people, ⁴ then he who hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning, and a sword comes and takes him away, his blood will be on his own head. ⁵ He heard the sound of the trumpet but did not take warning; his blood will be on himself. But had he taken warning, he would have delivered his life. ⁶ But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet and the people are not warned, and a sword comes and takes a person from them, he is taken away in his iniquity; but his blood I will require from the watchman’s hand.' ⁷ Now as for you, son of man, I have appointed you a watchman for the house of Israel; so you will hear a message from My mouth and give them warning from Me.⁸ When I say to the wicked, ‘O wicked man, you will surely die,’ and you do not speak to warn the wicked from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require from your hand. ⁹ But if you on your part warn a wicked man to turn from his way and he does not turn from his way, he will die in his iniquity, but you have delivered your life."

Ezekiel was a Hebrew prophet writing more than 2,500 years ago. He was part of the Jewish people that had been conquered and captured by King Nebuchadnezzar and were now living in the Babylonian Empire. And the Lord came to Ezekiel and called him to be a prophet -- to hear the word of the Lord, and then to speak it to the people.

In this passage, the Lord says very clearly that He has raised Ezekiel up to be a "watchman" for the people. That is, his responsibility is to see threats and dangers that are approaching with God's help and insight, and then warn the people about those coming dangers. He is also supposed to warn individuals about their sins, that they might repent of those sins and turn to the Lord with a humble heart for forgiveness.

But the Lord tells Ezekiel that it is not simply his job to be a "watchman." The Lord will raise up and appoint other watchmen over time. And it is the responsibility of such watchmen to see threats and dangers and sins and warn the people, or they will be held to account by the Lord Himself.

Each of you are future Christian leaders. Each of you have come to Moody to study the word of the Lord and learn how to teach it to others. Each of you, therefore, has a responsibility to see dangers and threats and sins and to lovingly but honestly and clearly warn them to turn to the Lord before it is too late. It is a high calling and a great responsibility, and I urge you to take it seriously.

Today I want to briefly discuss three grave threats we all must see and understand and take action on:

1. The threat that America is not just declining but imploding -- and that our only hope is a Third Great Awakening;
2. The threat that America and parts of the Church will turn against Israel & the Jewish people; and
3. The threat that Christians in the West will ignore or turn a blind eye to the barbaric slaughter and terrible persecution of Muslims as well as Arab Christians in the Middle East by Radical Islamic jihadists like ISIS, Hamas, etc.

Let me now share a bit more on each point.

1. America is not simply in decline. We are heading for collapse, for implosion.

There are many reasons for this, including a massive and crushing national debt with no end in sight, the implosion of families through divorce and out-of-wedlock-birth and the assault on traditional marriage, violent crime, drug use, pornography and so forth. I wrote about this in more detail in my 2012 non-fiction book, Implosion: Can America Recover From Its Economic & Spiritual Challenges In Time?, so I won’t take the time today to go through each of these issues in detail.

But I do want to discuss one threat above all: America faces the implosion because we face divine judgment for murdering so many unborn children.

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to visit Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp in Poland. As I stood in an actual gas chamber that was used to systematically murder so many Jews, political prisoners and others, it was a horrifying experience. I’m Gentile on my mother’s side, and Jewish on my father’s side, and standing there thinking about how the Nazis created these murder factories to kill six million Jews was one of the most painful experiences of my life.

But as I stood in that gas chamber, I could not help but think of how my own country, America — a country I love so dearly — has created murder factories to kill millions of people, as well. I was born in 1967. In my lifetime — since 1973 — the American people have legally murdered more than 55 million babies. If this is not stopped soon, we will reach 60 million. Think about that. If we really get to the point that our nation has systematically murdered 60 million human beings, we will have murdered 10 times more people than the Nazis killed of the Jews.

Now we know how God judged Germany and the Nazi regime through a crushing defeat in World War II, and we believe that the Nazis deserved such judgment. What do we think is going to happen if continue to murder millions of children? We are going to face the judgment of God. It is extraordinary that it hasn’t happened already.

There is hope, but we are running out of time. We could repent as a nation. We could turn from our wicked ways, plead with God and His Son the Lord Jesus Christ to forgive our sins, and plead with Him to heal our land.

The Bible says, “If My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” (2 Chronicles 7:14)

This was specifically a promise given to the nation of Israel in the Old Testament. But it is a principle we can apply today. We could plead with God for forgiveness, and He could grant it. He could give us a sweeping series of revivals that could culminate in a Third Great Awakening, with hundreds of millions of Americans — beginning with the Church — repenting of our sins, turning to Christ, praying, fasting, reading God’s Word and seeking to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit.

This is possible. There is hope. But again, we are running out of time.

But let’s be clear: Without a revival, we are on the road to implosion. Indeed, the threat of implosion is far beyond what the next President or Congress can solve alone — we desperately need a Third Great Awakening.

Will you and I faithfully teach and preach the word of God to the nation? Will America hear the word of the Lord that we have strayed far from the teachings of the Bible and allowed our land to become polluted with abortions and pornography and violence and wickedness of all kinds? Will we admit how far we are from God’s plan and purpose for our lives? Will we confess that our hearts are far from Jesus Christ and plead with the Lord for His mercy and grace and forgiveness? Will we fast and pray and earnestly seek God’s face, and implore Christ to give us a Third Great Awakening? Or will we ignore the word of the Lord and continue in our sins and watch our nation continue to decline, or even implode?

Twice in American history we have seen sweeping spiritual revivals known as the Great Awakening and the Second Great Awakening, respectively. Millions of Americans repented of their sins during those seasons, became devout followers of Jesus Christ, began to read the Bible voraciously and to obey the word of the Lord. Nowhere in Scripture, however, has America been promised a spiritual revival in the 21st century, much less one that would be so sweeping, so game-changing that it would qualify as a Third Great Awakening. But who knows? Perhaps the Lord will show us tremendous mercy and forgiveness if we all humble ourselves and pray, and seek His face, and turn from our wicked ways?

2. What happens if — on top of all our nation’s challenges and sins — America abandons or turns against Israel?

In Genesis 12, the Lord God chooses Abram, calls him out of Ur of the Chaldees (located in modern-day Iraq, 220 miles southeast of Baghdad) to go to “a land that I will show you,” which turns out to be the land later called Israel. The Lord promises to bless Abram, and through him bless “all the families of the earth.” Specifically in 12:3, the Lord says, “I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.” As one reads through the rest of the book of Genesis, it becomes clear that this promise from God is passed down from Abram (who is later named Abraham) to Isaac to Jacob (later named Israel) and then to Jacob’s descendants, Israel and the Jewish people. Thus, the Lord is making clear that those who bless Israel and the Jewish people He will bless, and those who curse them He will curse. If America turns against or abandons Israel and the Jews after being their closest friend and ally for so many decades, God warns He will bring judgment upon us.

Psalm 122:6-9 — This passage reads, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: ‘May they prosper who love you. May peace be within your walls, and prosperity within your palaces.’ For the sake of my brothers and my friends, I will now say, ‘May peace be within you.’ For the sake of the house of the Lord our God, I will seek your good.”

Clearly, people all over the world, including in America, need to:

• pray for peace in Jerusalem, Israel and the broader Middle East
• pray for Jews and Arabs in the epicenter
• love Jews and Arabs in the epicenter
• seek the good of Jews and Arabs in the epicenter

The Lord promises to bless and “prosper” those who do.

3. Followers of Jesus Christ who love Israel and understand God's Biblical plan for Israel must not be blind to the suffering in the Arab, Iranian, and Muslim world, nor deaf to their cries for help, nor dull to the terror and tyranny they face.

We are witnessing a Radical Islamic offensive across the Mideast, from Gaza to Syria to Iraq.

Leaders in Washington and across the world have been slow to see, and slow to act.

But the Church must step up. We serve the King of glory. Our King was born in the epicenter. He died and rose again in the epicenter. He is coming back to the epicenter -- and He's coming soon.

So we must help our brothers and sisters who are being persecuted in the Middle East. We must show Christ's love and compassion to Jews, Muslims and Christians in the epicenter.

We need to LEARN about what is happening in the region and God's plan and purpose for the people there. [On this note, I shared with the students why I write fiction and non-fiction books to help educate people about coming dangers and mobilize them to action. I also shared about my forthcoming novel, THE THIRD TARGET, about the threat ISIS poses to the region and America, and that Tyndale and I have decided to release the novel earlier than expected because of how rapidly ISIS is moving. The book will now release on January 6th.] 

We need to PRAY for peace and healing and stability and calm in the region, and for open doors for the Gospel.

We need to GIVE to ministries that are doing effective work in the region, ministries like The Joshua Fund.

We also need to be willing to GO to the region if God sends us there to serve Him and serve the people in the name of Jesus.

Is this hard? Yes.

Is this dangerous? Sometimes.

But Jesus laid down His life in love to save us. Will you and I lay down our lives in love to serve Him?

When people and nations are in danger, will you and I blow the trumpet and sound the warning?

May the Lord use you as a faithful watchmen on the wall.

CONCLUSION

If a nation follows these principles — if they love and bless Israel and the Jewish people, and do not divide the land of Israel, and love and pray for Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem and seek their good — then God will love and bless and show mercy to such a nation.

But if a nation violates these principles — especially chronically and consistently — then there will be a day of reckoning.

The question is: What do we want, a blessing or a curse, mercy or judgment?

Overall, most Americans are very supportive of Israel and find many ways to love and bless her, as well as the Arabs and others in Israel and the Middle East. This is good.

But there are a growing number of voices who say it is time to:

• cut off military aid to Israel
• boycott Israel
• divest from Israel
• sanction Israel
• and/or turn against Israel once and for all

Some do so because of anti-Semitism, others out of a belief in isolationism, and others because of ignorance.

Given the high stakes, one of the things we need to do is teach people about God’s love and plan and purpose for Israel and the Jewish people, and why this matters to America. We need to help more people — including our leaders and future leaders — understand why America’s fate is inextricably linked with how we treat Israel and the Jewish people, as well as her neighbors.

I would encourage you to study Genesis 12 through 17, in particular, on your own more carefully.

You will seen how the Lord unfolds the Abrahamic Covenant, piece by piece, step by step, including the fact that this is an “everlasting covenant” (Genesis 17:7) and thus cannot be broken or abrogated, and that the Lord has given the land of Israel as an “everlasting possession” (Genesis 17:8). 

Thank you  

joelcrosenberg | September 10, 2014 at 1:12 pm | Categories: Uncategorized | URL:http://wp.me/piWZ7-37G