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.
Today's verses seem totally unrelated: the first is an invitation to the needy, and the second expresses the eternal hope of the Jewish people to return to Israel. A great Torah commentator, the Hidda, gave a fascinating explanation for the hidden connection between these two verses. He says that one reason why God expelled the people from His land was their failure to provide for the poor (see Lamentations 1:3). Thus by caring for those less fortunate, we are rectifying this error and bringing closer the Ultimate Redemption. For Passover, the incredible non-profit organization, Meir Panim, will be giving 5,300 pre-paid grocery cards and boxes of food to elderly, impoverished and struggling families, while also conducting festive Seders in their dignified soup kitchens.
Imagine being confined to a bomb shelter for days on end. This was the reality for thousands of Israelis during the 2006 war with Hezbollah. The huge need for food and supplies was met by Meir Panim on the frontlines.
For many less fortunate families throughout Israel who struggle to provide their children with even the most basic necessities, holidays are usually filled with utter disappointment. Hear how one women galvanized her community in Israel to put smiles on the faces of local needy children.
Touch biblical Israel with this scaled, topographically contoured map of Israel as it was in Biblical times. It is labeled with all of the towns, cities, regions, rivers and lakes mentioned in the Bible. See exactly where each tribe settled in the Land, the locations of the surrounding nations, and the roads that the patriarchs walked. Any place with special Biblical status, such as Cities of Refuge, is marked on the map. Feel the valleys and mountains of Israel under your fingers and understand the Bible in a totally new way!
I am enjoying receiving these emails, especially when they are of places to which I have been. PM Q, Queensland, Australia
Thank you for the beautiful inspirational messages and photos of God's Chosen Land. Hope and Pray to visit this Holy Land one day God willing. You are always in our Prayers. God bless and protect Israel/Jerusalem now and forever. Myrna Santiago
David Akers walked into the kitchen to finally tell his wife. Feeling weak, he had to put his hand on the counter to hold himself up.
That's when she asked, "What's wrong? You have been acting weird the past couple of days." What she didn't know was that the money was gone.
Akers was in his ninth year as a kicker with the Philadelphia Eagles and had gone to three Pro Bowls. He had earned millions of dollars. Several days before, he had received a call from the FBI. Although he had done his due diligence and sought the advice from wise business experts prior, the money he had invested with Triton Financial to purchase real estate had been illegally diverted by the company's chief executive. Now eight years of NFL salary, close to $4 million, was gone.
Fortunately, Akers has a wife who cares more about relationships than she does about material things. While losing that amount of money hurts, a strange look of relief came over her face. She said, "Thank God. I thought you were going to say you were leaving me or something. As long as we are together, we will be fine."
That unique perspective has helped them approach each day from a position of strength rather than fear. It is my pleasure to announce that David Akers, a married father of three, has become an All Pro Dad NFL Spokesman. Here are five thoughts that helped him face his financial problems with courage and resolve.
'Look Forward and Lead'
When hard times hit, a person can dwell on the past or move forward. As a husband and father, Akers had to set the tone for the family. It was time to embrace a new day. Things may look different for them now, but that certainly doesn't mean that they will be worse. The future may feel less secure, but he has chosen to move forward and lead the way with faith and hope. That type of approach has a major impact on the well-being of each family member.
'We Always Want a Little Bit More'
We tend to think, "If only I had (insert object of value), I would be content." However, once we get that thing, we want something else. The more we get, the more we want, never grateful for what we have. The cycle has to stop somewhere. Better to stop it now, rather than later.
'We Have Our Family'
When something traumatic happens, it makes you remember what is truly important. The key to a full life is found in relationships. Material wealth is temporal while relationships are eternal.
'Time to Swallow My Pride and Downsize'
The whole experience was humbling for Akers. Money and fame bring a feeling of status and accomplishment. That was another thing that was lost. Pride will cause a person to make bad decisions that have repercussions for the whole family. Fortunately for David's family, he took the road of humility.
'It's Not My Money'
Right before he received the call from the FBI, Akers and his wife had been praying about giving a sizable amount of money to needy families. They had committed to that decision the day before the call came. They believe that the money they have is provided by God and, therefore, not theirs. So even after the huge loss, they still followed through on their commitment. Their faith in God's provision gives them courage and freedom.
BJ Fosteris the content manager for All Pro Dad and a married father of two.
For the original article, visit allprodad.com.
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Advanced Technology Reveals Just How Old the Bible Actually Is
New technological advancements reveal how old the Bible is. (Flickr/Creative Commons)
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Advanced imaging techniques reveal the Bible dates back to at least 600 B.C. based on analysis of inscribed pottery, according to several reports.
While what's on the pottery is "very mundane in nature," says Arie Shaus, a mathematician at Tel Aviv University, the handwriting indicates literacy permeated most of Jewish Society during the First Temple Period, according to The Independent.
Historians used the knowledge to surmise the Bible was written earlier than previously thought.
"Most scholars agree that the earliest biblical texts—including the book of Joshua, Judges and the two Books of Kings—took shape during what's known as the late First Temple Period, before Jerusalem fell to the Babylonian king in 586 BCE," writes Gizmodo's Maddie Stone. "But the circumstances surrounding the writing of these texts, including when they were first penned and by how many authors, remain unclear."
Furthermore, The Independent reports the discovery reveals a sophisticated education system within the kingdom of Judah, and researches believe most of the Old Testament books could have been written and distributed during this time.
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Posted: 14 Apr 2016 Michael Snyder THE ECONOMIC COLLAPSE BLOG
Those that were hoping for an “economic renaissance” in the United States got some more bad news this week. It turns out that the U.S. economy is in significantly worse shape than the experts were projecting. Retail sales unexpectedly declined in March, total business sales have fallen again, and the inventory to sales ratio has hit the highest level since the last financial crisis. When you add these three classic recession signals to the 19 troubling numbers about the U.S. economy that I wrote about last week, it paints a very disturbing picture. Virtually all of the signs that we would expect to pop up during the early chapters of a major economic crisis have now appeared, and yet most Americans still appear to be clueless about what is happening. Even I was surprised when the government reported that retail sales had actually fallen in March. Consumer spending is a very large part of our economy, and so if consumer spending is slowing down already that certainly does not bode well for the rest of 2016. The following comes from highly respected author Jim Quinn…
The Ivy League educated “expert” economists expected March retail sales to increase by 0.1%. They only missed by $6 billion, as retail sales FELL by 0.3%. They have fallen for three straight months. At least gasoline sales were strong, as prices have risen 22% since mid-February. That should do wonders for the finances of American households. If you exclude gasoline sales, retail sales fell by 0.4%. As the chart below reveals, the year over year change in retail sales has been at or near recessionary levels for most of 2015, and into 2016.
You can view the chart that he was referring to right here. In addition to a decline in retail sales, total business sales have also been falling, and this is another classic recession signal. The following comes from Wolf Richter…
Total business sales fell again in February, the Commerce Department reported today. They include sales by manufacturers, retailers, and wholesalers of all sizes across the US economy. This measure is far broader than the aggregate sales by publicly traded companies, which too have been falling. At $1.284 trillion in February, total business sales were down an estimated 0.4% from January, adjusted for seasonal and trading-day differences but not for price changes. And they were down 1.4% from the already beaten-down levels of February last year. They’re back where they’d first been in November 2012!
Yes, the stock market has been on quite a run for the past several weeks, but that temporary rebound is not based on the economic fundamentals. The truth is that the real economy is definitely starting to slow down substantially. If you want to break it down very simply, less stuff is being bought and sold and shipped around the country, and that tells us far more about what is coming in the months ahead than the temporary ups and downs of stock prices. Another huge red flag is the fact that the inventory to sales ratio in the U.S. has hit the highest level that we have seen since the last financial crisis…
The crucial inventory-to-sales ratio, which tracks how long unsold inventory sits around in relationship to sales, is now at a mind-bending 1.41. That’s the level the ratio spiked to in November 2008, after the Lehman bankruptcy in September had put the freeze on the economy. Inventories represent prior sales by suppliers. When companies try to reduce their inventories, they cut their orders. Suppliers see these orders as sales. As their sales slump, suppliers adjust by cutting their own orders, thus causing the sales slump to propagate up the supply chain. They all react by cutting their expenses. And if it lasts, they’ll cut jobs. Inventory corrections have a nasty impact on the overall economy.
Because sales have slowed down, inventories are starting to pile up to alarmingly high levels. And when companies see that business is slowing down, they start to let people go. In a previous article, I told my readers that Challenger, Gray & Christmas is reporting that job cut announcements at major firms in the United States are up 32 percent during the first quarter of 2016 compared to the first quarter of 2015. Somehow, most of the talking heads on television don’t seem too alarmed by this. But ordinary Americans are beginning to become alarmed about what is happening. In fact, the percentage of Americans that believe that the U.S. economy is “getting worse” is now the highest it has been since last August…
One of the more glaring examples of how strong pessimism has become is Gallup’s U.S. Economic Confidence Index. The measure gauges the difference between respondents who say the economy is improving or declining. The most recent results are not good. Fully 59 percent say the economy is “getting worse” against just 37 percent who say it is “getting better.” That gap of 22 percentage points is the worst since August, according to Gallup, which polled 3,542 adults.
Personally, I thought that we would be a little further down the road by now, but without a doubt a new economic downturn has begun in America. So far, it is less severe than what most of the rest of the planet is experiencing. Japan’s GDP is officially shrinking, major banks are failing all over Europe, and even CNN admits that what is going on down in Brazil is an “economic collapse”. It’s funny – yesterday I took time out to write an article about the horrible suffering that ISIS sex slaves are enduring, and a few of my critics took that as a sign that there must not be enough bad economic news to write about. Well, the truth is that this isn’t the case at all. The global economic meltdown is steaming along, even if it is moving just a little bit slower than many of us had originally anticipated. We are moving in the exact direction that myself and many others had warned about, and the rest of 2016 is looking quite ominous for the global economy. So hopefully everyone (including the critics) is using whatever time we have left wisely. Because I definitely wish the very best for everyone during the exceedingly hard times that are coming. *About the author: Michael Snyder is the founder and publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog. Michael’s controversial new book about Bible prophecy entitled “The Rapture Verdict” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.*
Harry S. Truman was a true friend to the State of Israel. (Wikimedia Commons )
A very good question is why hasn't God already judged us as we deserve? Despite our massive moral failures over the decades, clearly God has not judged us according to our sins. There are several reasons for this, but this may be the biggest one:
Support for Israel from the day it was born. Harry S. Truman could not sleep on May 13, 1948. He kept seeing the face of the man who would be Israel's first President, Chaim Weisman. Weisman had begged for his support in a previous meeting. Truman shared his feelings on the morning of the 14th with his top aide, Clark Clifford. Clifford said, "Mr. President, if you are going to recognize the Jewish State, you must do it today." The president asked the Israeli consulate to send a request for formal recognition.
When Truman sent the letter to the diplomats, he didn't even know the name of the new state that would be declared at 4 p.m. that day. The letter simply said "the Jewish state."
At 9 a.m. (4 p.m. in the Middle East), it was announced in Tel Aviv that the new prime minister, David Ben Gurion, proclaimed that the Jewish state would be called the State of Israel. The president's envoy caught up with the courier on the steps of the White House and the words "Jewish state" were scratched out and the word "State of Israel" was handwritten in its place.
Meanwhile, the anti-Jewish State Department was arguing another plan for the area, when the U.S.'s U.N. ambassador was given a note that Truman had recognized Israel. He angrily got up and returned to his hotel. The State Department led by General George Marshall was 100 percent against the idea of a Jewish State and had made that abundantly clear to Truman. It took great courage, but Truman did what was right.
This support for Israel undoubtedly brought the blessing of God on the United States as Genesis 12:3 declares that God will bless those that bless Abraham and his descendants and curse those who curse them.
Before America, it was Great Britain's Foreign Secretary Lord Arthur James Balfour who fought in England's parliament chambers for a Jewish state and God blessed Great Britain as the greatest power on earth. It was said that the sun never set on the British Empire, as she controlled lands from Africa to Hong Kong, from India to the Caribbean.
Yet the minute she turned on Israel in 1922, taking 80 percent of the lands she promised to Israel in the Balfour Declaration and instead created the Muslim state of Jordan, the sun began to set, and today Great Britain is a shell of her former self. In fact, how ironic is it—as Britain in 1922 chose oil over the Jews and the Muslim world over Israel that according to demographic experts, Britain is now in danger of being overrun with Islamic migrants.
So, while judgment on America has been held back, is there a limit? The question is, will we remember our calling as a world leader, protector and refuge for the persecuted, or will we reject that calling in favor of mediocrity, wickedness, socialism and protectionism?
It is time to repent.
It is time to rise up.
It is time to be who God called us to be.
"If My people, who are called by My name, will humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and will heal their land" (2 Chron. 7:14).
Ron Cantor is the lead pastor of Tiferet Yeshua congregation in Tel Aviv, a Hebrew speaking outreach to Israelis. He is also the author of Identity Theft, Leave me Alone—I'm Jewish and his newest book coming out this spring, The Jerusalem Secret, a novel about the first Jewish believers. Ron blogs at messiahsmandate.org.
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“And Rut said: ‘Entreat me not to leave thee, and to return from following after thee; for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God.” Ruth 1:16 (The Israel Bible™)
Ivanka Trump opened up on the subject of her conversion to Judaism during a CNN family interview on Tuesday, saying that GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump had been “very supportive” of her decision to convert.
In response to a question from the audience asking about Trump’s reaction to her conversion, Ivanka said, “My father was very supportive. He knows me. He knows and he trusts my judgment. When I make decisions, I make them in a well-reasoned way. I don’t rush into things.”
“I appreciate the support he gave me because, obviously, these decisions are not taken lightly, and it would have been much more hard if I had had headwinds,” she added. “He believes in me.”
She said that the strong relationship between Trump and her Jewish husband, real estate executive Jared Kushner, helped ease the process. “[My father] loves my husband; they’re incredibly close, which was obviously helpful, and he has been very supportive with me in that decision as in many others I have taken throughout the years.”
Ivanka underwent an Orthodox conversion to Judaism prior to marrying Kushner in 2009. The couple has three children. The youngest, Theodore, had his ritual Jewish circumcision ceremony, or bris, earlier in the month.
The CNN interview represented a break with Ivanka’s usual privacy. Trump’s eldest daughter has traditionally been quiet on the subject of her conversion and her Judaism, though the family openly identifies with the modern Orthodox movement and Ivanka has said they are “pretty observant.”
Husband Kusher is heavily involved in his father-in-law’s presidential campaign, acting as Trump’s advisor on Jewish matters. He helped write the well-received speech that Trump delivered at last month’s American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference, in which Trump mentioned his expectant daughter, announcing, “My daughter Ivanka is about to have a beautiful Jewish baby. In fact, it could be happening right now which would be very nice as far as I’m concerned.”
Trump has repeatedly expressed great pride in his daughter, saying at a New York event last year, “I want to thank my Jewish daughter. I have a Jewish daughter. This wasn’t in the plan, but I’m very glad it happened.”
Israel, and Jewish issues, have played a significant role in the presidential race so far, with candidates on both sides of the fence emphasizing their connection (or, in the case of the single Jewish candidate, Bernie Sanders, the rift) with the Jewish state.
The Jewish issue is all the more prominent as the presidential race moves to New York, which will vote in the primaries on Tuesday, and candidates attempt to capture the state’s Jewish vote.
Pastor in Germany Pays Price to See Spiritual Revival
German Pastor Olaf Latzel (CBN)
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Germany was the birthplace of the Reformation and was once a base for world missions. But much of Germany today is covered by a profound spiritual darkness, as are most Western nations.
Those who refuse to compromise on the teaching of Scripture pay a price.
Bremen Pastor Olaf Latzel knows full well that there is a cost for speaking out boldly—especially in today's Germany, where traditional Christian teaching is viewed by many as bigoted, hateful and even "un-Christian."
Latzel has been attacked in the media, investigated by the local government, and even denounced by fellow pastors. His crime? Refusing to bend a knee to political correctness.
No Compromise
"I'm only preaching the gospel in a clear way," Latzel said. "I think it is my duty to do this preaching in this way for our Lord."
In his sermons, Latzel cuts no corners. He soft-pedals nothing. To some, he might sound mean when he attacks other religions.
But Latzel is standing against what he sees as a spirit of compromise that seems to have swallowed Germany and the German state church.
In the process, he has angered the German establishment and even a lot of German pastors.
Latzel said the chief battle in the German church today now is over who God is.
According to Latzel, some Christian pastors have said, "Allah and Jesus Christ, the Christian God, are the same god."
"But if you ask a Muslim, 'Does your god have a son?' he would say no!" he continued. "Our (Christian) God has a Son; His name is Jesus Christ. So they are not the same."
"If you speak out loud and clearly about the truth of the Bible, that there's only one way to heaven and this way is Jesus Christ, there is only one God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and there is no other god beside Him, then you have a problem," he said.
Seventy German pastors gathered in Bremen last year to denounce Latzel behind a banner celebrating "diversity."
The public prosecutor investigated him for hate speech and then cleared him, and the Bremen parliament passed a resolution against him.
It was reportedly the first time a German pastor has been condemned by a German parliament since World War II.
But far from backing down, Latzel said the real problem is that, in his estimation, most pastors in Germany's state church have not been born again.
"I think over 80 percent of the pastors in the national church in Germany are not reborn," he said. "And that's a great problem, and because of this, they make their own doctrine. The Bible is the Word of God; it's our law, chapter by chapter, book by book, sentence by sentence, letter by letter."
Latzel pastors at the historic St. Martini (St. Martin's) Church in Bremen, where around 1679 the church's pastor, Joachim Neander, wrote the great hymn, "Praise to the Lord, the Almighty."
Latzel enjoys saying that Pastor Neander also got in trouble for preaching the gospel boldly.
Some pastors would have been rattled by so many attacks against them. But Latzel, who comes from a family with a long military tradition, said he is in a "war" between Christ and the devil, and the attacks reassure him.
"This is one sign that you are on the right way in your preaching, when you get problems," Latzel said. "If you preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and everyone is clapping his hand, then you have a problem."
"Because if you're telling the truth from the Bible, then the devil will come and he will fight against you in several ways; he will fight against the Word of God," he said.
A Tool in God's Hand
In fact, Latzel admits his concern is not becoming discouraged but getting a big head.
"I (have received) more than 10,000 emails ... so many persons came to me and said, 'You are a great pastor,'" Latzel said. "And the more persons came and told me this, something happened inside me and, 'Oh, I'm really this great pastor.'"
"And the devil comes here and says, 'Yes, yes. You are great,' and that's not good," he continued. "I am nothing. I am only a sinner. I am only a tool for Jesus Christ. And when Jesus can use this tool, give any honor to Jesus Christ. I am nothing."
The great hymn of St Martin's Church says, "Let the amen come from His people again." Latzel believes revival is coming to Germany and he asks Christians to pray for his country.
"I ask you, brothers and sisters in America, please pray for Germany. Pray for awakening," he pleaded. "Pray that the Word of Jesus Christ will go out and reach persons who are lost so that Jesus can save them."
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