The apostle Paul warned of these times:

“But realize this, that in the last days perilous times will come. For men will be … unholy, without
natural affection, (callous and inhuman) … brutal, despisers of good, treacherous … holding to a form of
godliness (religion), although they have denied its power.” (2 Timothy 3:1-6)

And there was the terrorist plot to blow up a dozen passenger aircraft between Britain and the US.
This was the latest news to remind us that we are indeed living in perilous, wicked, and rebellious
times; and that the day for God to judge the earth is drawing near.

“The nations were enraged, and Your wrath has come. The time has come for the dead to be judged, and
for You to reward Your bond-servants the prophets and the set-apart people of God, and those who fear
Your Name, the small and the great. And it is time to destroy those who destroy the earth.” (Revelation
11:18)

“The transgressors will be destroyed together; the final result of the wicked will be, to be cut off. But the
salvation of the righteous is from YHWH - their strength in time of trouble. And YHWH helps them, and
delivers them. He delivers them from the wicked, and saves them, because they trust and take refuge in
Him.” (Psalm 37:38-40)

At times the Lebanon conflict looked like it might have developed into a wider war, with Syria and
Iran joining the fray. But those two were not quite ready for the big showdown – world war. In a
couple of years, however, Iran should be ready with its nuclear missiles.

The Lebanon war seems to have come to an indecis-ive and messy end, with Hizballah claiming
victory because it was able to withstand the “invincible Israel” which Nasrallah was saying, is “a
cobweb that will be blown away by the winds of history.”

So with Hizballah still armed, and now officially declaring an open -ended war on the United States;
and with Iran preparing for an apocalyptic “end of time”; and with Lebanon picking up the pieces;
and with Israel’s military furious that “diplomacy” denied them the chance to win a decisive victory
on the battlefield; and with Israel proving it is not a toothless tiger; and with Sunni Saudi Arabia,
Egypt and Jordan concerned about the ascendancy of the Persian Shia threat; and Syria
pronouncing it wil now regain the Golan Heights, and with all of us wondering “what next?” and
“how long?”, it is time to remember the Saviour’s words:

“When these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads, because your
redemption is drawing near.” (Luke 21:28)

My reader, because of the seriousness of the current situation, I have sought to give an extensive
coverage of the present conflict and background, without going into all the day to day details. The
conflict is not yet over - even after the ceasefire; but I believe this war has inflamed much hatred of
Israel in the Middle East, and it has brought the world one step closer to the coming Battle for
Jerusalem, and World War 3.

MINISTRY NOTES
In July, our Queensland representatives, Rob and Marguerite Weir were with me on an 18-day, 21
meeting, 2,500 km itinerary in Queensland. It was an encouraging time, and it was great to meet
many of our regular readers during the trip. And I want to welcome all our new readers. I trust the
magazines will be a help and encouragement to you all, until the Master comes!
My messages were mostly on “The Middle East Countdown to the Second Holocaust,” and though
preaching for up to 2 hours at a stretch, my voice held out very well throughout the 18 days. But on
the day I returned to Perth, I developed a very heavy chest cough which has held on to me for a
month.

I will appreciate your prayers now as I will be in the midst of a busy month-long preaching itinerary
in the UK when you receive this issue.

This heavy schedule means our next magazine will not come out until about the end of October.
But I’m sure this present extended report will keep you reading for a while!
In the meantime, keep one eye on the current events, but keep the other eye looking up, and be
encouraged in the Master. And ...,

“Be careful how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, redeeming and making the most of the time -
buying up each opportunity, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the
will of YHWH the LORD is... And be filled with the Holy Spirit.” (Ephesians 5:15-28)

Yours in the service of Y’shua the Messiah,
Don Stanton

THE WAR in Lebanon was not simply another chapter of the ongoing century-old Arab-Jewish conflict over territory. Israel had long ago withdrawn from Lebanon, and had no desire to go back.
Rather, Lebanon became an ideological battlefield; this was a war of goals, a war of culture, a spiritual war, as well as a war for security and existence.
Both Israel and Hizballah are caught up in a much wider battle than the conflict that seized hold of them and threatened to escalate into a wider regional war, or even world war. Israel and Hizballah, in fact, were junior proxies for rival ideologies. It is similar to the conflict between communism and the non-communist world during the 20th century - opposing ideologies, belief systems, with vastly differ-ent global ambitions.

In the 21st century, the world has been swept into a conflict based on two opposing ideologies. Some see it as a war between “America and Iran.” Others, as a conflict between “East and West”, or between “Democracy and Radical Islam,” or between “Medieval Theocracy and Liberal Democracy.”

It is not so easy to give a clear-cut definition of the opposing forces, except, perhaps, in spiritual terms – a war between God and Satan. But even when looking from a spiritual viewpoint we cannot list certain nations as “the Godly,” and the others as “the satanic.” There is much ungodliness in all nations! And it is quite easy for both sides to be evil.
From a general viewpoint, one side of the ideological conflict is being led by the US. It claims to represent the modern global system of open markets, free elections, religious freedoms and sexual equality. It believes that all nations should be able to adopt “freedom.”

The other side is represented by radical Islam, which regards the Western model as decadent and dangerous for the future of mankind. And it aspires to the creation of a world under the banner of Islam which it claims is “the only true faith.”
During his presidency, George Bush emphasized what he believes is the desirability of extending democracy throughout the Arab world - as a means of countering terrorism. In Lebanon, as in Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt and the Palestinian territories there have been quite dubious successes in the democratic experiments. In some of them, radical groups have taken advantage of the political process to win a good slice of power. In some, the election results were totally rejected.

Early in the current Lebanon conflict, George Bush promised a “new Middle East,” but this idea is a red flag to the other side. A western-type, democratic system is anathema to al-Qaida, Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood, and their offspring including Hizballah and Hamas, for the simple reason that a true democracy will become a graveyard for radical ideology.

It was for that reason, the Ayatollahs in Iran prevented reformists from standing in elections last
year. Reform would shackle the fundamentalist agenda.

If George Bush’s promise of a new Middle East succeeded, there would be no place for regmes such as the Islamic Republic in Iran and Syria’s Baathist dictatorship.
But Iran’s state-controlled media warned that Lebanon would become “the graveyard of the Bush plan for a new Middle East.” And that may very well be true!

In Lebanon, Hizballah took advantage of elections to win 14 parliamentary seats and two cabinet ministries even though its heavily-armed militia continued to function quite independently of the national army. A true functioning democracy would not permit an independent army or a militia group to operate as a proxy for another nation. So for Hizballah, the war in Lebanon is a battle for existence.

For Israel also, it is a battle of survival – not that it could be wiped out by Katyusha rockets. But a Middle East dominated by Islamic extremism could, in time, spell the death of Israel as a successful state.

The battle, however, is not simply “Islam” against “the West!” Islam itself is divided, and many “moderate” Arab regimes are threatened by the Iran-Hizballah phenomenon. Moreover, there is an intense rivalry for Islamist leadership under way.

Earlier, Sunni Salafist movements, backed by oil money, were gaining high ground; but the fallout from the 9/11 attacks deprived them of support from Arab governments and charities. Since then Shi’ite Iran has seized the opportunity to advance its own claims to Islamic leadership.

Sunni and Shia (Shi’ite) Muslims have always been at loggerheads, but it is the extremists, the Sunni Salafists and the Irani Shias, that are most opposed to each other.

Al-Qaida is a Salafist movement, as is the Muslim Brotherhood founded in Egypt in 1928; and also Hamas, and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Iran, Hizballah and the main Islamic faction in Iraq are not Salafists - they are Shia. But while Salafists and Shias are diametrically opposed, they will sometimes have a “marriage of convenience” for a common cause - such as in the present alliance between Shia Iran and Sunni Syria.

This contradiction can be seen in the context of the Lebanon war: While a Saudi fatwa forbade any association with and support for Hizballah, leading Sunni theologians at the al-Azhar seminary in Cairo issued a decree that allows Sunnis to fight alongside and under the command of Shia Muslims.
Salafist al-Qaida, not to be left out in the cold, en-dorsed the idea of a global campaign against the “infidel” invaders in Lebanon, and gave support of a sort to the Shias.
“The al-Qaida organisation will not stay silent regarding what the Muslims in Palestine and Lebanon are facing,” said Bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. In what amounted to a call to arms, he said. “Nowhere is safe from al-Qaida attacks. The whole world is an open field for us.”
But in a videotape about the fighting in Lebanon, released by al-Jazeera, al-Zawahiri conspicuously failed to encourage Hizballah in its fight against Israel or even to so much as mention the group. Instead, he spoke of al-Qaida’s jihad as being the one that would liberate Palestine. Al-Zawahiri then designated a vast area of jihad – from Spain to India. Co-operation between Sunni and Shia is usually short-lived; the two groups certainly aren’t true allies. Last April Lebanese police arrested nine men that Hiz-ballah officials claim were al-Qaida
agents plotting to assassinate their leader.

In Iraq, Sunnis and Shias have been blowing up each other’s mosques, and butchering each other.
The country could now be on the verge of civil war.

Israel is under attack from both Islamist religious jihadists and Arab secular radicals who regard it as “an American proxy.” In Asharq Alawsat, a pan-Arab daily, a Syrian cabinet minister made it clear that the war in Lebanon was between “the forces of Islam and America, with Israel acting as an American proxy.”

Not all Arabs, however, are in favour of the Iranian agenda. Many in the Middle East actually dread the prospect of a new dark age dominated by radical Islamist regimes.
In the current war there seemed to be much less hos-tility towards Israel in the Arab world than could have been expected – because of the fear and distrust of the Ayatollahs of Iran. In the Lebanon war neither Israel nor Hizballah were totally wiped out. Neither were truly defeated, but both claimed victory. All Hizballah needed to do to win was to not lose – to hold out. Now it is has the reputation of surviving against Israel’s assault longer than any of the Arabs nations in all the wars of the last 50 years.

And there will be no peace between Israel and Hiz-ballah. Both will live to fight another day! The ideological war will assure that. And Israel has no choice but to continue defending itself by developing more powerful weapons, and maintaining a buffer zone between itself and its neighbours.

The Messiah, Y’shua, Jesus, speaking of the end of the age said clearly that …
“You will be hearing of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you do not become frightened. All
these things must happen first, but the end is not yet. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against
kingdom.” (Matthew 24:6-7)

The ideological war is becoming increasing global in its outreach and impact. All nations are being
drawn into this battle, and they are beginning to take sides. For example: Iran’s supreme leader,”

Chavez endorsed that analysis by calling on Muslims and non -Muslim revolutionaries to unite to “save the human race by finishing the US empire.”
Now watch how all the nations are shaping up and taking sides!
There will be no letup in this ideological war; it will continue right up to, and until the day after the day when God makes “Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling to all the people around.”

For …
“Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. And on that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered
against her, I will make Jerusalem a very heavy rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will be severely
injured. In that day, declares YHWH, I will strike every horse with confusion and his rider with madness. But I
will keep a watchful eye over the house of Judah, when I strike every horse of the peoples with blindness … In
that day I will make the leaders of Judah like a blazing pot in a woodpile, and like a flaming torch among
sheaves. They will consume on the right hand and on the left all the surrounding peoples; and Jerusalem will
be inhabited again on her own sites - in Jerusalem.” (Zechariah 12:2-4, 6)

That prophecy will be fulfilled in the coming Great Tribulation. While Israel appeared to be a fiery torch in attacking Lebanon, Hizballah appeared to be a fiery brand in targeting the cities of northern Israel with Katyushas!

Israel was reputed to be the strongest military force in the region, and in spite of massive air and artillery attacks, it has not had a resounding victory as in earlier wars. Of course, this has been a different type of war – a war against a well-armed guerilla force hiding among civilians rather than a standing army on a battlefield.

But the fact today is that Israel is spiritually weak; it has allowed evils to triumph in the land, and has compromised the Abrahamic covenant by trading off God’s Land. This is a time for heart searching in Israel.

“God also said to him (Israel): I am El Shaddai - God Almighty; be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations will come from you, and kings will come forth from you. And the land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I give to you. Yes, and I will give the land to your descendants after you.” (Genesis 35:11-12)

And Yahweh El Shaddai said to Israel through Moses:
“The land shall never ever be sold permanently or beyond reclaim, for the land is Mine; for you are
but ’strangers and settlers with Me.” (Leviticus 25:23)

Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from both southern Lebanon in 2000, and from Gaza in August 2005, has led to disastrous results. Now, after the Katyusha war PM Ehud Olmert has shelved his “convergence plan” -the withdrawal from90% of the West Bank which is actually the heartland of Israel – Judea and Samaria.

It is now very clear that “the defence wall” will not keep Katyusha rockets out of Israel. And if Israel unilater-ally withdrew from the West Bank, that territory would become another armed Gaza. The Palestinians, en-couraged by Hizballah’s achievements, say it is now time for a third Intifada! And the prophet Daniel says:
“To the end there will be war, and desolations have been decreed.” (Daniel 9:26)

Iran’s supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei blasted the United States and warned of an
impending Muslim “jihad”, or holy war, against the West.

“Today it is clear for everyone that the aggression against Lebanon was a pre meditated U.S.-Zionist action
as a key step in the path of dominating the Middle East and the Islamic world.”

His comments were reported in the official news agency IRNA and aired in part on state television
on 2nd Aug.

“Today, Muslim nations more than ever despise the U.S.,” he said. “With its support of the Zionists’ crimes and criminals, and its blatant aggression against the rights of Muslim nations, the U.S. regime must be prepared for a hard slap and a destructive punch by Muslims,” Khamenei said.

The Ayatollah praised the Lebanese militia Hizballah for taking part in a “jihad” against the “enemies of Islam,” stating that the group was on the “frontline” of the defence of Muslims.

A storm is brewing in the Middle East and will strike “enemies of humanity,” Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned from the Tajik capital of Dushanbe.

“A storm is near in the Middle East and this storm will turn against the en emies of humanity and strike violently,” Mr Ahmadinejad said. “Those who sow the wind are also sowing a storm, and it’s very dangerous for the region.”

Aug 3. The solution to the Middle East crisis is to destroy Israel Ahmadinejad said. In a speech during an emergency meeting of Muslim leaders, Ahmadinejad also called for an immediate halt to fighting in Lebanon between Israel and the Iranian-backed militant group Hizballah.

“Although the main solution is for the elimination of the Zionist regime, at this stage an immediate cease-fire must be implemented,” he said.

Ahmadinejad, who has drawn international con-demnation with previous calls for Israel to be wiped off the map, said the Middle East would be better off “without the existence of the Zionist regime.”

Israel “is an illegitimate regime; there is no legal basis for its existence,” he said. In Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev responded by noting the ties between Ahmadinejad’s regime and Hizballah. “Our operation in Lebanon is designed to neutralize one of the long arms of Iran - Hizballah,” Regev said. “Hizballah is their proxy, being used as an instrument of Tehran to advance their extremist agenda and the blow to Hiz-ballah is a blow to Iranian interests and a blow to all extremist jihadist forces in the region.”

BACKGROUND: Since Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in August last year, Palestinians have turned the territory into a heavily armed state, and have fired Kassam rockets into nearby Israeli towns on an almost daily basis.
Early in the year Hamas was voted into government on an agenda of resisting and destroying the state of Israel. Hamas has been frustrated, however, in its attempts to govern because it has been blacklisted as a terrorist organisation, and finance from the US, EU and Israel to the Palestinian government has been blocked.

President Mahmoud Abbas, who is also head of Fatah, the main opposition party, tried to persuade the Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, to compromise and accept the “Palestinian Prisoners Document” that calls for Palestinians to accept a two state solution that implies recognition of Israel.

Abbas declared that a Hamas refusal would result in the issue being put to the people in a national
referendum. (A two state solution was the basis of the talks between Israel and the Palestinians arranged by Bill Clinton in 2000; it was also acknowledged by a meeting of Arab states in Beirut in 2002 when the majority committed themselves to “normal relations with Israel if it with -drew to its pre-1967 borders;” and it was also the basis of the Road Map adopted by the Quartet – the US, EU, UN and Russia - in 2003.)

Haniyeh’s agreement seemed imminent until the Hamas leaders based in Damascus, (particularl Khaled Meshaal), ordered the attack on the military post and the abducting of an Israeli soldier. Hamas, although a Sunni religious party, is backed heavily by Shi’ite Iran which always seeks to scuttle any Israel-Palestinian peace agreements.

In 1982, because of con-stant PLO attacks from south Lebanon, Israel was compelled to invade Lebanon and to drive Yasser Arafat and the PLO out of Lebanon.
(Arafat had seized control of southern Lebanon through sheer terror.) Israel was generally welcomed as liberators by the Lebanese who were fed up with the PLO atrocities. And then, because of civil war that began in 1975, Syria moved into Lebanon “to keep the peace.”

Israel had no intention of remaining in Lebanon, and in due time pulled its troops out, except for a 10 km strip in the south of Lebanon which it wanted to maintain as a buffer zone to prevent future attacks on Israel.

Hizballah, supported by Syria, waged guerilla warfare against Israeli troops, killing over four hundred. Finally in 2000, Israel pulled out its troops from S Lebanon and hoped that by doing so,
Hizballah would feel its job was complete, and that peace would prevail. A UN multi -national force, (UNIFIL), was deployed in the vacated territory to monitor the situation.

Over the past six years there has been continuous tension, and Hizballah’s pretext for its regular attacks on Israel was “the Shebaa Farms” – a 22 sq km piece of territory between the Golan Heights and Lebanon which Israel captured in 1967. The tiny territory used to belong to Syria, but Lebanon has long had a claim on it.

THE REASON: In kidnapping the two soldiers, Hizballah’s avowed intentions were to get a prisoner exchange; and to press for Israel’s withdrawal from the Shebaa Farms.

In particular, Hizballah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, wanted Israel to release Samir Kuntar, a Lebanese citizen who was part of a PLO cell that, in 1979, arrived by boat in the Israeli town of Nahariya and invaded the apartment of the Haran family. Smadar Haran hid in the attic with her daughter Yael, but tragically, while trying to stifle the girl’s crying, she accidentally suffocated the child.

Meanwhile, members of the cell took Danny Haran and daughter Einat, 4, back to the shore where, realizing escape was impossible, Kuntar shot Danny in the back and drowned him, and then battered Einat’s head on beach rocks and smashed her skull with his rifle butt. Kuntar also murdered an Israeli police officer before being captured.

The few other Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails are all held for t errorist offences and because of the
inherent risk that they will return to their previous activities.

OTHER REASONS for Hizballah’s July 12 attack were;
* to divert attention from Iran’s nuclear situation and the expected UN-backed sanctions against Tehran;
* to test Israel’s current strength and resolve;
* to prove Hizballah’s own strength and resilience;
* to create another backlash against Israel throughout the Islamic world;
* to generate wider hostility to Israel and the West, and
* to gauge the world’s responses in relation to a planned jihad against non -Islamic nations.

Evidently at the beginning of the war, neither Iran nor Hizballah expected the response to blow out
to such a degree; the real battle in their planning is scheduled for some time after Iran has nuclear
weapons.

Some Lebanese political insiders speculate that either Hizballah misjudged the likely Israeli response
to the July 12 attack, or that Iran or Syria ordered it to deliberately provoke Israel.

Iran is credited with creating Hizballah in 1982 in response to Israel’s invasion of Le banon that year.
In the 24 years since then it has built up into the most powerful force in the country.
In the 1980s Hizballah established itself as a terrorist organisation by kidnap ping foreigners in Lebanon and killing some of them; one of them was William Buckley, a CIA Station chief. In 1985 Hizballah was suspected of having a connection to the saga of TWA Flight 847, in which hijackers shot dead a US Navy diver and dumped him onto a Beirut tarmac.
In 1992 Hizballah bombed the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29; and, in 1994, a Jewish cultural center also in Argentina, killing 95.
Hussein Massawi, the Hizballah leader behind the slaughter of US and French forces 20 years ago, made a straightforward Islamist declaration:“We are not fighting so that you will offer us some -thing. We are fighting to eliminate you.” In the last six years the Hizballah established a com -plex system of bunkers and tunnels in the south of Lebanon – the territory from which Israel withdrew. It stockpiled weapons and equipment in anticipation of an ultimate confrontation with Israel. It had headquarters in south Beirut and major command centres in south Lebanon and in the Bekaa Valley on the east – adjoining Syria.
Hizballah claims that its fighters are a civilian “resistance” movement. In fact, when Syria occupied Lebanon at the end of the 1975-90 civil war, Hizballah was the only one of 25 militias that the Syrians allowed to keep their weapons - in defiance of a UN resolution on disarmament. Hizballah today is believed to be stronger than Lebanon’s official army. The Hizballah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, who has survived at least two Israeli attempts to kill him in air strikes since July 12, has gained tremendous popularity in the Shi’ite world.

TIME magazine claims that a Lebanese official revealed that Iran recently doubled its cash infusions to Hizballah, to about $300 million a year. In the six years since Israel’s withdrawal in 2000, it was Hizballah, not the Lebanese Government and its army, that had controlled the Lebanese-Israeli border.
Hizballah does not act in the interest of the Lebanese state; rather, its interests are defined in Damascus and Tehran, from where it receives much of its arsenal. Despite its record of violence, Hizballah enjoys broad appeal among Lebanese. It has gained its popularity because of the social programs it operates, including hospitals and schools throughout the downtrodden Shi’ite districts.
Being a Shi’ite party, Hizballah does not normally receive support from the Sunni, Druze and Maronite (Christian) populations. But because it has been so well armed by Syria and Iran, and become the most popular and largest single party in the parliament, it has been able to function, not just as a state within a state, but almost as the state itself. There is little support for Israel in any Arab country but in the early days of this confrontation there were plenty of non-Shia Lebanese hoping that Israel would shut down “the Party of God.”
“They are a tool in the hands of the Syrian, regime and for Iran’s regional ambitions,” says Walid Jumblatt, veteran leader of Lebanon’s Druze community.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, for one, has accused both Tehran and Damascus of providing support for Hizballah. According to Blair, Iran is also implicated in the supply of advanced explosive devices to Iraqi insurgents.
In the six years following Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, the Shia militants did not cross the recognised international border separating Israel from Lebanon. When they launched attacks, they did so in disputed areas such as the Shebaa Farms district. Hizballah realised it could go only so far before provoking Israeli wrath.
The blatant attack on Israel on 12 July, however, represented a sudden change in Hizballah’s strategy. Until now it had branded itself as a protector of the Lebanese people. But in this attack Hizballah exposed itself as being a front for a foreign agenda - Iran.
Even if the Hizballah raids from Lebanon into Israel and the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers were not planned in Tehran, ( as the Iranian President asserts they were not), they would not have occurred had their perpetrators thought them inconsistent with Iranian strategy.

Intelligence sources in Israel are claiming that not only was Iran behind Hizballah’s decision to attack Israel, but Tehran influenced the timing of the incident in order to divert international attention from its nuclear programme, which was high on the agenda at the G8 summit in St Petersburg.
Hizballah’s attacks coincided with the deadline the European Union set for the Iranians to respond to its proposed nuclear deal. What better way to show that Iran can make life difficult for those who pressure it than to create a broad crisis in the region?

Iran is also waging a struggle to achieve regional dominance that threatens not only the US, but all of America’s friends in the Middle East.
The “good news” is that Hizballah has actually un-masked Iran’s intentions, which even Arab leaders now appear to recognise.
If Israeli forces had still been in Lebanon, Hizballah could have claimed it was resisting Israeli occupation. But after Israel ended its occupation in 2000, the Iranians stepped up the supply of Katyushas and surface-to-surface rockets.
Much like Saddam before them, the Iranians believe they can mobilise the Arab world against the US by playing on the sense of grievance against Israel that is so deeply embedded among many people in the region.
Iran is determined to fuel that grievance, and they have long pressured Hamas and Islamic Jihad to initiate acts of terrorism in Israel to keep the grievance alive. At times when peace is promising, Iran pushes harder to make sure the peace and quiet do not last. As Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak discovered recently when he had arranged a deal for the release of Gilad Shalit, “other parties” undercut the plan.
Shalit’s release would have helped end the siege of Gaza - and avoided much Palestinian suffering - but that would not have served Iran’s interests. In Damascus, Khaled Meshaal, the real leader of Hamas, who is protected by Syria and encouraged by Iran, announced that he was the man to talk to about Shalit’s release.
Some commentators believe the present conflict is not simply about Israel. Hizballah and Hamas are
merely tools in the Iranian game of furthering an Islamist agenda and undoing Western influence in
the area. But the US and Israel are not the only ones on Iran’s hit list. Every non-Islamist regime in
the area is ultimately a target.

Across southern Lebanon, Hizballah fighters manned batteries that fired as many as 350 rockets a day at Israeli cities and towns, from an arsenal estimated at 13,000 missiles. In the 34 days of the war, almost 4,000 rockets were fired on Israel.
More than 100 hit Haifa, Israel’s third-largest city, while one radar-guided anti-ship missile, the C- 802 - a gift to Hizballah from its Iranian sponsors - struck an Israeli gunboat off the coast of Lebanon.
28 July. Hizballah fired longer-range, Iranian-made missiles into Israel for the first time. Five Zelzal-I missiles, which have a range of about 100 km, landed in the town of Afula, just under 50 km south of Israel’s border with Lebanon.

HIDING BEHIND CIVILIANS
After a visit to Lebanon, UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland strongly condemned Hizballah for deaths that were entirely of the terrorist group’s making.
Mr Egeland accused Hizballah of “cowardly blending ... among women and children” and said: “I cannot understand how (Hiz-ballah) could be proud that there were more women and children hurt than armed militants.”
Hizballah, like Hamas, deliberately operate military wings out of densely populated areas. They launch anti-personnel missiles loaded with ball-bearing shrapnel, and designed by Syria and Iran to maximize civilian casualties in Israel. And then they hide from retaliation by living among civil ians. If Israel decides not to go after them for fear of harming civilians, the terrorists win by continuing to have free rein in attacking civilians with rockets. If Israel does attack and causes civilian casualties, the terrorists win a propaganda victory: the international community pounces on Israel for its disproportionate response. This chorus of condemnation encourages the terrorists to operate from civilian areas.
Lebanon’s various factions have united against Israel’s onslaught, and Hizballah can still count on broad support. But many citizens are angry at Hizballah for taking it upon itself to initiate a new conflict with Israel.

At present Israel possesses Patriot and Arrow anti-missile systems which are effective against STUDs and long-range missiles, but not the short-range Katyushas.
Israeli experts say a technological answer to the missile challenge should become available within a few years. It would probably be based on the Nautilus laser system jointly developed by the US and Israel.
Designed specifically to intercept rockets, the system focuses a high-energy laser beam capable of heating steel more than 200 meters away. The system was successfully tested in the US in 2004, downing Katyusha rockets and even artillery shells.

SOME WAR STATISTICS (to August 14)
* 157 Israelis killed (118 soldiers and 39 civilians).
* One million Israelis either fled their homes or took to living in basement shelters.
* Almost 4000 Hizballah rockets fired on Israel.
* Hizballah rockets also struck many Israeli-Arab villages, and at least twelve Arabs were killed.
* Israel suffered less than 40 civilian fatalities and hundreds injured from some 4000 rockets in 33 days of war. (During the Palestinian intifada there was sometimes that number of deaths from a single bus bombing.)
* 5,500 houses and apartments, 30 businesses, 20 factories, and 19 communities in northern Israel have been damaged in 19 days of rocket barrages, according to government sources. Worst hit cities were Haifa (1,300 homes damaged), Kiryat Shmona (435), Safed (361), Carmel (466), and Nahariya (300).
* 743 Lebanese killed. 1100 Hizballah fighters and supplementary militia reportedly killed.
* 800,000 Lebanese fled the fighting.
* More than 70 bridges and 60 big factories were destroyed in Lebanon. Lebanon’s Mediterranean coastline became an ecological disaster as a result of oil slicks from bombed fuel tanks.

In its editorial on July 21, The Australian argued for the necessity for supporters of Israel to “calmly deploy an arsenal of facts” rather than resorting to emotional arguments, seeking to badger opponents to score debating points. The editorial detailed some of the facts about the battles in Israel’s 60-year struggle in the Middle East.
Despite being a tiny country surrounded by Arab states who would happily - and on more than one occasion have tried to - push it into the sea, Israel has historically sought peace with its neighbours and only fought to defend itself. The present conflict with Hizballah in Lebanon was not a fight of Israel’s choosing; in fact, Israel had pulled out from Lebanon in 2000 only to see the Iranian and Syrian-backed terrorist group regroup on its northern border.

In the occupied territories, Israel has repeatedly sought to arrive at some sort of accommodation with the Palestinians. Yet it was Israel’s reputation that was sullied during the first intifada of 1987 to 1993 when images of Arab youths hurling stones at tanks were beamed around the world. But when the collapse of the Soviet Union cut off aid from Moscow, the Palestinian leadership was finally forced to the peace table.
This led to the signing of the Oslo accords and the famous handshake between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn. The tragedy is that this promise of peace was false. Since its founding in 1948, Israel has repeatedly faced down hostile enemies who still view its founding as a naqba, or catastrophe.

This was shown most dramatically during the 1967 Six Day War. Having been subjected to weeks of threats and surrounded by the mobilised armies of Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Jordan, Israel took the initiative and decimated its enemies’ military capabilities. And even though every honest accounting of the war acknowledges Israel was facing overwhelming odds, many in the West see it as an act of Jewish aggression.

Israel only occupied land to the east of the ceasefire line of 1949 because it was in the process of fighting a defensive war. But the obligation to seek peace is not an obligation to commit national suicide. Who could reasonably expect Israel, a country that is at places just 15km wide, to withdraw from such defensive buffers in the face of states that have already proven their desire to do it harm?

In any case, Arab countries have proved more than happy to delay solutions to the problem of the occupied territories to provide them with a continuing source of propaganda.
Soon after Oslo the murder of Israel’s peacemaking Prime Minister Rabin by a Jewish fanatic in 1995 removed one of the strongest advocates for compromise with the Palestinians, as did repeated violations of the Oslo understanding by the Palestinians. By the mid -to late-1990s suicide-bomb belts had replaced rocks as the Palestinian weapon of choice.
And Yasser Arafat would prove to be nothing but a disaster. Through all of this the Israelis explicitly voted to give land back to the Palestinians in a quest to achieve peace - a very rare act in the history of the world. Events would come to a head with the start of the second intifada in late 2000, triggered, some say incited, by a visit by then Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon to the Temple Mount complex in Jerusalem.
Arab Israelis rioted, and in the West Bank town of Ramallah two Israeli reservists were arrested and lynched in a local Palestinian police station. In the years that followed, suicide bombings would take hundreds of lives in Israel. Yet in 2004 Mr Sharon, the most hawkish of Israeli hawks, finally saw a way to make peace by evacuating the Gaza Strip and withdrawing from parts of the West Bank and leaving the Palestinians to run both areas. But once again the hope of peace was betrayed when the Hamas terrorist militia kidnapped an Israeli soldier on June 25.
The terrorists acted in an attempt to derail the possibility of a Palestinian vote on peace with Israel that could have gone against them. This fits a long pattern. For decades, first under a secular leadership and now under a more Islamicised one; every chance for peace has been scotched by a new atrocity committed by a Palestinian or Arab group determined to instead make war. And now Hizballah has followed them into the fray, with attacks on Israel from the north. This is
the long and complex story Israel’s enemies do not want told, instead preferring the narrative of displacement and victimisation that is so commonly heard in the West.

When Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was sworn into office, Hizballah militants marched through the streets of Damascus, in uniform and carrying flags in a state-sanctioned ceremony to pay the new leader tribute.
But Hizballah now has broader ambitions. In the war-torn south of Lebanon, its banners and mosaics are emblazoned with a key theme: Jerusalem. The group no longer wants to stop at the Israeli border, it now lays claim to the Jewish capital in the name of Shia Islam.
The 1700 rockets and missiles fired at the northern Israel were all put in place since Israel withdrew from south Lebanon in 2000. So was a tunnel network under the hills in southern Lebanon that has allowed Hiz-ballah fighters to escape relentless bombardment from Israeli tanks and warplanes. Hizballah is a state within a state and a power that Lebanon’s 10-fold stronger military is deeply reluctant to take on. After being a marked man, Hizballah chief Hassan Nasrallah emerged from hiding on the Pan-Arab television network Al-Jazeera early, reaffirming that the group no longer sees itself as a resistance group, but as the vanguard of an Islamic struggle, which identifies with the occupation of Palestinian territory as its central driver.
“It is obvious by now that Israel’s conflict with Hizballah and Hamas is part of a larger conflict largely paid for and directed by Iran and Syria. “In the Arab world, only Syrian President Bashar al-Assad supports both Hamas and Hizballah. Would he help both by, say, opening a new front on the Golan Heights? Syria has large artillery forces that could quickly launch a tremendous barrage; it has missiles that can reach deep into Israel,
and its armoured forces and commando units could go into action almost immediately.

“On the other hand, Syria has never violated the 1974 ceasefire on the Golan Heights, not even in 1982 when the Israelis destroyed Syrian forces in Lebanon. The Syrians know that even if they struck first, the Israelis would retaliate by bombing Syrian air bases and by destroying electrical power stations, oil refineries, main bridges and the like. And the Syrian army would undoubtedly suffer heavy losses.
“Most important, Assad must be concerned that his regime, narrowly based on the loyalty of the small Alawite religious minority to which he belongs, would be overthrown if the country suffered a big military defeat. Which brings us back to Iran.
“Ahmadinejad has been threatening Israel with destruction daily and keeps denying the Holocaust in a manner that reveals his own genocidal fantasies. But as of now, Iran has no military capacity against Israel other than a few unreliable ballistic missiles imported from North Korea, whose warheads could fall just about anywhere. Even if by some miracle they were to hit a city or town in Israel, their conventional explosives would not inflict much damage anyway.
“On the other hand, an Iranian missile attack would give Israel the opportunity to strike Iran’s nuclear installations without provoking global outrage. It would be a very serious act of war, but it would not stir the Arab states to aid Iran’s mullahs: they, too, fear a nuclear Iran. Much is at stake in the current crisis: Israel’s security; Lebanon’s viability as a nation; the future roles of Hamas and Hizballah; America’s ability to function as an effective power in the Middle East; and more still. There are dangers on every side. - By Martin Chulov, The Weekend Australian, 22-23 July 06. Used by permission of News Limited.

Hizballah expected that the Arab world would fully support its offensive against Israel, as usual. But this time Hizballah may have miscalculated. Shi’ite Hiz-ballah does not command an instinctive following throughout a largely Sunni Arab world.
Saudi Arabia - perhaps the most conservative Arab Muslim state of all - openly condemned the actions of the Shia Hizballah in instigating conflict with Israel. It denied Hizballah’s action represented “resistance,” and declared it “reckless.”
Never before in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict has a state that considers itself a leader of the Arab Muslim peoples backed Israel so openly.
King Abdullah II of Jordan and President Hosni Mu-barak of Egypt likewise condemned Hizballah for “adventurism that does not serve Arab interests.”
At the Arab League, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal called Hizballah’s actions “unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible.” He told his counterparts: “These acts will pull the whole region back to years ago, and we cannot simply accept them.”
His remarks were endorsed by Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and the Palestinian Authority - that is, the PA represented by President Mahmoud Abbas, not the Hamas-led cabinet.
In Lebanon, you could hear similar criticism. Walid Jumblatt and other parliamentarians asked, “What gave a party (Hizballah) the right to commit the country to war, with all its attendant costs?” The war in Lebanon is not a war by the Arab world against Israel; rather it is a war orchestrated by the region’s radical forces, which reject any settlement with Israel.

This conflict was sought for four reasons:
1. to ease pressure on Hamas from within the Palestinian community to recognise Israel.
2. to undermine democratisation in Lebanon, which was marginalizing Syria.
3. to lift attention from the dispute over the Iranian nuclear program.
4. to demonstrate to the West the tools at Tehran’s disposal in the case of war.
Moderate Arab governments understand the issue at stake: it is about regional hegemony, in the case of Syria with Lebanon and Palestine, and on a wider level, Iran’s hegemonic claim to the entire Middle East.
While there may be no sympathy for Israel, many Arabs realise the war is over something bigger than a Jewish state with a tiny territory of 25,000 sq km - less than 1% of Saudi Arabia’s land mass.
There is little mystery about why Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan - all Arab states with predominantly Sunni Muslim populations - would distance themselves from Hizballah. The Lebanese organization is a Shi’ite fighting force, founded and bankrolled by Shi’ite, and non-Arab, Iran.
As Tehran flexes its muscles in the region, pursuing technology that could enable it to build nuclear
weapons and watching as Shi’ite forces gradually dominate Iraq, Arab powers have become worried.

At the moment, it is only Israel that has the power to create an enforceable, lasting peace in the region. And it is only Israel that has the power to enforce UN Resolution 1559, which calls for Hizballah’s eviction from southern Lebanon.
An immediate ceasefire, as called for by European and other leaders, would only entrench the status quo that existed from 2000 when Hizballah was allowed to control southern Lebanon, nominally protected by the UN and free to take pot shots at northern Israel.
The idea of a UN peacekeeping force able to enforce its own resolutions is as unworkable as it is unimaginable. Over its 28-year life, the $133 million-a-year UNIFIL mission to southern Lebanon has been unable to stop Hizballah attacks on Israel, such as the one that provoked the present conflict.
A UN mission to disarm Hizballah and dismantle its presence in S Lebanon would require troops willing, able and authorised to occupy as much as half the country. Even were such a force to be authorised, European and Middle Eastern nations would be highly reluctant to commit personnel. A ceasefire enforced by the UN would lead at best to the folding-in of Hizballah into the Lebanese Army, to the detriment of Lebanon’s sovereignty.
The ground operation in Lebanon could be more costly for Israel in the short term, but creating its own buffer against those who would seek to destroy it may be the country’s only option.

– From editorial, Israel’s Chance to Create Peace, The Australian, 3 Aug 06. Used by permission of News Limited.

After many days of wrangling, a draft resolution thrashed out by the US and France was at first rejected by Lebanon and Hizballah who both insisted that Israeli troops must pull out of Lebanon before a ceasefire can be accepted. (They backed down later.)
Arab representatives descended on the UN, calling for a ceasefire and Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon.
The revising of the draft resolution pitted France against the US; and France even threatened to file a resolution in the Security Council on its own.
Russia, increasingly impatient that diplomacy has taken so long, introduced its own resolution calling for a blanket 72-hour humanitarian cease-fire in Lebanon. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin sounded an alarm that the humanitarian crisis in Lebanon was reaching “catastrophic” proportions and said it was too urgent for diplomacy to go on much longer. The resolution was rejected by Israel.
Finally on 11-12 August, Resolution 1701 was adopted unanimously by the 15-member Security Council. The main points of the resolution: It ...

* Calls for full cessation of hostilities.
* Authorises an interim UN force with up to 15,000 in Lebanon, with a mandate to take all necessary action to perform its duties. (It will in fact be an expansion of the present UNIFIL force.)
* Asks the Lebanese government to deploy troops in the south and to prevent weapons flowing to the militia.
* Calls on Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon when fighting stops, in parallel with the deployment of Lebanese and UN troops.
* Imposes an arms embargo on Lebanon, barring the delivery of weapons or military equipment to “any entity or individuals,” excluding the Lebanese and UN troops.
* Asks for the unconditional release of Israeli soldiers abducted by Hizballah on July 12, and urgently encourages settling the issue of Lebanese prisoners detained in Israel.
* Asks UN Sec.-Gen. Kofi Annan to develop proposals within 30 days for the disarmament of militia, and the delineation of the borders.
* Asks Kofi Annan to secure agreements from Lebanon and Israel for a permanent ceasefire. The resolution makes no mention of Syria or Iran. But Condoleezza Rice simply said; “Today we call upon every state, especially Iran and Syria, to respect the sovereignty of the Lebanese government and the will of the international community.”
Many commentators believe that any international force is sure to fail, just as it did, in 1982-84 when US, French, and Italian troops were deployed in Lebanon to separate Israel from Lebanon’s anarchy and terrorism. The Multi-National Force at that time collapsed when Hizballah attacked the MNF soldiers, embassies and other installations. That prompted the MNF’s humiliating flight from Lebanon.
The present expanded UNIFIL is likely to be at constant odds with the Lebanese army and Hizballah. One thing is sure; Iran will not be content until Lebanon is ruled by Shia fundamentalism.

Aaron Miller, a former top US Middle East negotiator, says Lebanon’s political fragility means that a serious try at bringing Hizballah under government control “can’t be done without triggering civil war.”
If no outside force can pacify Hizballah, what’s the chance it will choose to restrain itself? It will not give up its major philosophy. Fighting Israel and “liberating Jerusalem” is at the core of its politics, and it is the key not only to self-definition, but also to the arms, money and backing it gets from Syria and Iran, and the support it gets inside Lebanon and elsewhere in the Arab world. As part of efforts to normalize Lebanon earlier this year, Hizballah was engaging in a national dialogue with other parties in which it listened sympathetically to entreaties to forget fighting and concentrate exclusively on politics for the good of the country. At the same time, it was stockpiling missiles and preparing for the war it started without anyone’s consent. Few non-Shias would now trust any promise it gave.
Aug 15. Lebanon’s Defence Minister Elias Murr said that the Lebanese army would deploy 15,000 troops on the boundaries of the Litani River.

In the meantime, international troops currently in Lebanon would assume positions vacated by the Israeli army before handing them over to the Lebanese troops. Murr said the army would not disarm Hizballah; he expected the group to co-operate. ”There would be no arms in southern Lebanon other than those of Lebanese forces once they deployed,” he said. Does he mean the UNIFIL should lay down their arms, and also go home, after the Israelis have left?
Will Hizballah’s acclaim and “victory” lead to greater political power? Will the Hizballah militia be integ-rated into the Lebanese army, and will it lead to Hizballah’s domination of the army?

One thing we can be sure of is that Hizballah is not goin g to concentrate exclusively on social work! Many analysts expect the ceasefire will allow Hizballah fighters to regroup and rearm in preparation for another round of conflict, with even more longer-range missiles. Israel will be compelled to develop more advanced weapons and anti-missile shields.

There is no doubt much truth to this assertion. The government’s prosecution of this war has been unforgivably inept. At the same time it should be noted that the short-term political gain accrued by the US by forging the ceasefire agreement will come back to haunt the US, Israel and all forces fighting the forces of global jihad in the coming weeks and months?

The battle will continue!

Does anyone still remember the avowed reason for our unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon six years ago - so that no more Israelis would die on Lebanese soil?
At the time, our fatalities in Lebanon averaged 20 to 25 soldiers a year. In the four weeks since the current fighting began, Israel has suffered 102 fatalities - the equivalent of four to five years worth of fighting in Lebanon before the withdrawal. Granted, only 63 of these casualties have been soldiers; the rest have been civilians. But that hardly seems an improvement. Moreover, unlike our 18-year occupation of south Lebanon, this war has been fought largely on the home front, with consequently enormous economic and human costs.
The north’s economy has been virtually shut down for four weeks (and counting). Many small businesses have been so damaged that they will never reopen. Some 1.5 million residents of the north have either become internal refugees or been forced to spend four miserable weeks in bomb shelters. And some have lost their homes entirely in rocket strikes.
By comparison, the costs of staying in south Lebanon no longer look so steep. And in fact, they never would have, had they been calculated correctly. Unfortunately, the decision to withdraw from Lebanon suffered from the same flaws that afflict far too many Israeli foreign policy decisions: failure to take the other side’s motives and perceptions into account, and an obsession with preventing short-term casualties.
THE THEORY behind the Lebanon pullout was that once Israel withdrew, Lebanon would have no further quarrel with Israel, so hostilities would cease. Unfortunately, this theory ignored several salient and well-known facts.
First, Hizballah was armed and financed - and therefore heavily influenced - by Iran and Syria, neither of which concealed their continued hostility to Israel. Second, Hizballah itself declared periodically that hostilities were justified as long as Israel occup ied any Arab land - and it defined all of Israel as “occupied territory.”

Third, Lebanon was controlled by Syria, and was therefore powerless to suppress Hizballah against Syria’s will even had most Lebanese wanted to do so (at that time, no one envisioned Syria’s later ouster).

Y’SHUA THE MESSIAH, Jesus, warned us:
“You will be hearing of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you do not become frightened. All these things must happen first, but the end is not yet.
“Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these things are the beginning of sorrows.” (Matthew 24:6-8)
AS we approach the coming world climax, and the end of the age, we see two great powers striving for the minds and souls of men.
On one hand we see the enslaving power of Satan - the devil. He is no myth, but a reality. His chief aim seems to be to frustrate the saving work of God in mankind. Satan, himself, is condemned to Hell. His fate is sealed, as he fully realizes. And in his hatred for God, he s eeks to damn as many men, women and children as he can, while he can.
On the other hand, we see the gracious work of God, striving to turn men, women and children from the path that must inevitably end in everlasting misery and despair.
The battle for the souls of men is not one of sheer strength. God is the Almighty; Satan is a created being. But there is a legal battle raging in the minds and souls of men. God has given man a free will - freedom to receive His offer of love - His beloved Son.

God will not force anyone to receive Jesus as Saviour, and to live with Him forever. But if a person really does not want God, or His Son, then God has given him the freedom to reject His salvation - even though it means the rejector’s ruin.

But God talks and reasons with people today.
“As I live, says the LORD, Yahweh, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked: but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn from your evil ways; for why will you die”? (Ezekiel 33:11)
The main reason why God has revealed the future, in the Bible, is so that we will clearly see the wrath that is coming, and so seek His mercy, and be saved NOW!
“Seek the LORD (Yahweh the Supreme and Eternal Being) while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the LORD, and He will have mercy upon him: and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.” (Isaiah 55:6-7)
That the world is overdue for judgment is very clear when you take a deep look at the wickedness, corruption, immorality and ruthlessness of modern civilization. And God will not always strive with men. At this time God is holding back the judgment for one reason:

“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the Day of Yahweh (the
Great Tribulation) will come as a thief in the night.” (2 Peter 3:9-10)

In these last days, Y’shua, Jesus the Messiah is adding members to His body - the last complement of true believers - people who TRUST in Him. And soon a shout from Heaven will proclaim, “BODY COMPLETE.”

Yes, the full Body will be complete; the true believers on earth will be caught u p to meet their sovereign-Saviour in the heavens. Theirs will be a joy inexpress-ible. And then on earth, the Great Tribulation will begin.
My dear reader, your decision in regard to God’s Divinely-appointed Saviour at this time, determines whether you will be included in that blessed and privil-eged company ascending to the Father’s House, or whether you will be left on this doomed planet.

If you reject God’s offer of mercy now, in this time of grace, there is every reason to believe that you will never call upon the Name of Yahweh, and His Son Y’shua, in the Great Tribulation, when the world’s situation will be far more terrifying, and when faith will often be paid for with martyrdom.

“WHOEVER WILL CALL UPON THE NAME OF the LORD, YAHWEH-Y’SHUA (Jesus) WILL BE SAVED.” (Romans 10:13)

Today the Heavenly Father is striving with you to be saved. Now!

Can you not feel God striving with you, my reader? You know your sins are weighing you down. You know you must have them forgiven. You know you cannot be sure of tomorrow, for tomorrow may find you in the Great Tribulation, or in Hell. You know it is foolish to neglect this most important thing in your life - your eternal destiny.

Yet, you may have reservations. There may be some sin you are clinging to - something that you would rather hold to than have peace with God. That thing, that sin, that ambition, that person, that “god” - whatever it is, will bring about your ruin. It will destroy you if you do not turn to the Saviour and receive His forgiveness.

Even now, you think to delay your decision and neglect your salvation. You have something to complete first. You feel that you may still have plenty of time. You think to procrastinate (to put off till to-morrow what you should do today).

Procrastination is the thief of time! Don’t play with fire! Don’t play with your eternal destiny! The Great White Throne is an awful reality for those who refuse the grace of the Almighty!

But you don’t have to appear before that Great White Judgment Throne. You don’t have to go through the Great Tribulation. You don’t have to go to Hell. You can be saved now! How? By simply believing in, and receiving the Divinely-appointed Saviour. Here are God’s promises to you.

Will you receive them?

“For Christ has once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but raised by the spirit.” (1 Peter 3:18)

You should have died for your sins, of course; but God made a provision for you - He gave His perfect Son, Y’shua (Jesus), to die instead of you.

“And it is appointed for men once to die, but after this the judgment. So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and to them that look for Him shall He appear the second time.” (Hebrews 9:27-28)
“As many as received Him (Y’shua), to them gave He the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on His Name.” (John 1:12)

Here God promises to make you His own child, to bring you into His family, with all its privileges and joys.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:l6)

Yahweh, the Almighty God, guarantees your salvation. If He gave His Son, to suffer the penalty of your sins on the cross; and if you truly believe with your heart in His Son, He will never cast you away.

“If you shall confess with your mouth that Y’shua is the Messiah, (that Jesus is the Anointed Saviour), and shall believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved.” (Romans 10:9)

The Scriptures are very clear and definite on this matter. It is so simple that a young child can believe, and yet many stumble over this truth, thinking they must somehow earn salvation.

But it’s “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us.” (Titus
3:5)

“All our righteous acts are like filthy rags (in God’s sight).” (Isaiah 64:6)

“For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God; not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9)

The Lord Jesus promised: “All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me; and the one who comes to Me I will
certainly not cast out . . . He who believes in Me h as eternal life . . . He who believes on the son has everlasting life and he who does not believe the son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him.” (John 3:36)

TO BE SAVED, then, you need to:

Acknowledge that you are a sinner, and need to mercy of Yahweh the Heavenly Father.

Believe in your heart that Jesus, (Y’shua), the Son of God, came to earth, and died on the cross in your place, and that He rose again, and lives to be your eternal Saviour.

Commit your life to the Lord Jesus and deliberately receive Him as your personal Saviour, your Master and God, yielding your life to Him.

Will you settle this urgent matter right now?

Will you bow down and talk to the Saviour, asking Him to forgive your sin and to make you a new person?

Will you believe in the Lord Jesus as your Saviour and Master without delay? He is just waiting for you to call on Him.

Will you trust Him to save you right now?

PRAYER FOR SALVATION

 

ALMIGHTY GOD, I come to You just as I am, a sinner, seeking forgiveness and salvation. I believe Your Son, Y’shua (Jesus) died on the cross in my place, and paid the penalty my sins deserved. I believe Jesus rose again from the dead, and that He is indeed the living Saviour.

I believe Your promise, Father, that if I call upon the Name of the Lord Jesus, I will be saved. So I call upon You in faith, today. I place my trust in the Lord Jesus and I am now deliberately receiving Him as my personal Saviour. By Your grace, I will follow Him all the days of my life.

Lord Jesus, Y’shua, I give my life to You. Fill my life with Your power and holiness, I pray, and make me Your true disciple.

Thank You, my Father, for receiving me, for making me Your child, and for forgiving my sin.
Thank You, Master, for Your salvation. I believe You will save me from the Great Tribulation, and from a lost eternity. Thank You, my Saviour, Thank You. Amen.

Signed ...................................... Date ............