Iranian president Hassan Rouhani refused to say whether he agreed that Israel should be wiped off a map, but called for a one-state end to the conflict with the Palestinians, in two interviews published Thursday.
Speaking to French TV ahead of his first trip to Europe, Rouhani also denied that Iran ever sought nuclear weapons.
Asked by France 2 whether he shared his hard-line predecessor Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s view that Israel “has no place on the map of the Middle East,” Rouhani answered: “How come this question destined for my predecessor returns now to me?”
He then added that Iran does not believe in a two-state solution.
“We are not speaking of two states but a single one. We say that all the people who originated in Palestine as it was in the borders before 1948 and as it was then as a country should reunite and vote, and whichever [political] system they choose, we will be in agreement with that.”
“Israel in its current form is not legitimate; this is why we don’t have any relations with it, because we do not consider it legitimate,” said Rouhani, according to a France 2 translation.
One of the most-mentioned laments among those of us who have Bible prophecy as our calling is that seminaries are not teaching prophecy and pastors are not preaching and teaching prophecy today. We refer to the majority of the seminary instructors and preachers who otherwise preach and teach God’s Word as inerrant truth.
Those who view the Bible as merely a book with good suggestions for how to live, but don’t consider it the literal Word of God, can’t be expected to understand the crucial necessity of preaching and teaching the whole Word of God. These pick and choose verses, applicable or not, to put forth their ear-tickling homilies, which by their very nature avoid doctrinal truth. So, we aren’t pointing a finger of admonishment at these.
Sadly, however, this description fits a growing number of seminaries and their graduates. It is getting harder to tell the genuine from the pretenders. More and more the words are sugar-coated, the points supposedly made trailing off into the ether of mumbo-jumbo irrelevance. When one gently probes one or the other of the Bible-believing/preaching pastors with the question: “Do you preach prophecy?” the answers are along the same line. It’s my experience and that of others who ask the question that 95 percent of those asked say something akin to the following:
“Prophecy is just too hard for people to understand.”
“I just don’t know about the subject, because we just barely touched on it in seminary.”
“Teaching people how to live as a Christians is more pressing.”
“It scares people, so I just don’t want to worry them unnecessarily.”
“People have been saying the Second Coming is here for years, and we are still here. We need to deal with the here and now, not pie in the sky.”
“I just don’t know about the subject, because we just barely touched on it in seminary.”
“Teaching people how to live as a Christians is more pressing.”
“It scares people, so I just don’t want to worry them unnecessarily.”
“People have been saying the Second Coming is here for years, and we are still here. We need to deal with the here and now, not pie in the sky.”
And my personal favorite:
“Some preachers are premillennial, some postmillennial, or whatever. I’m ‘pan’-millennial. I believe it will just all pan out in the end.”
I have to tell you–confess, I guess—that this last one always presents a personal test of my temperament. Whenever I hear it, I see red, even though I’ve been as physically blind as the proverbial bat since 1993. Some of these preachers–a few—become a bit defensive and get rather exercised, launching into tirades, arguing that we prophecy types read far too much into the headlines as they might relate to biblical prophecy. And I readily admit that this has and continues to happen more often than it should.
Despite the fact that there are those who are overly speculative in their views of Bible prophecy, the following must be said. To the pastors of America who claim the Bible as the inspired, inerrant Word of the Living God but callously ignore its prophetic content—be forewarned. Your excuses/arguments won’t stand the test at the bema–the judgment seat of Christ. You will be held accountable by the very Lord you proclaim you love so much–the same Lord about whom the angel told John: “for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Revelation 19:10b).
That same Jesus gave us the Olivet discourse, during which He laid out general and specific things to come. The Gospel accounts give Christ’s commandment of what to do about the many prophesied things He had just foretold: “And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch” (Mark 13:37). Prophecy makes up at least 27 percent of the Bible. Half of that 27 percent has been fulfilled, with half yet to be fulfilled. Anyone with spiritual ears to hear and spiritual eyes to see is capable of following the Lord’s command: “And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21: 28).
Certainly, if God calls people to be pastors–shepherds of His flock—He equips them to feed the flock His whole Word, not just the parts the pastor selects as important, while summarily dismissing the other parts of God’s Word. Jesus said to “watch” for prophetic developments. And, spiritually attuned eyes and ears–a condition all pastors should seek to appropriate and maintain—can hear and see that we are at the very end of the Church Age.
The world is in end times rage. The seas and waves of humanity are roaring with distress and perplexity. Violence fills the whole earth.
Israel stands alone in the global spotlight as the most-hated nation on planet earth. The world is in economic chaos, headed for total collapse. All the while, technology is progressing geometrically in ways that will one day provide earth’s last tyrant with the satanically endowed ability to enslave most all people on this fallen sphere.
Yet many pastors of America are into building bigger, more beautiful edifices in order to more spectacularly entertain their audiences. They make claims that they are telling of God’s love. But, they are stressing how to tap into that love in order to gain favor for acquiring material things; they are not teaching how to share the message that Jesus’ love is shown in that He died to save us from our sins. Too many pastors are moving farther from teaching doctrinal truth. One such truth being assiduously avoided is that of Christ’s Second Coming.
Thankfully, this Laodicean model doesn’t apply to all megachurches in America today. Some genuinely preach and teach truth from the Bible, although most, I’m sorry to have to say, continue to push aside Bible prophecy in favor of sticking exclusively to life-lesson theology. The responsibility to “watch” must, by the Bible’s very definition of the word “preacher,” fall first and foremost on those who are called to shepherd God’s people. The Word of God warns specifically about keeping the flock informed, and about those commissioned to do so who fail in that responsibility: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me” (Hosea 4: 6a,b). Paul’s admonition applies to pastors and teachers even more, perhaps, than to those whom they shepherd and instruct.
“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2: 15). These are perilous times, dear pastors and teachers. Bible prophecy at this juncture in human history isn’t frivolous or an elective to be chosen according to the pastor’s whim. The hour is late, and God’s people haven’t a clue. It is critical that you begin giving them biblically prophetic nourishment.
In any examination of historical precedence, it is easy to see that the sheer number of collectivist and tyrannical systems have far outweighed any experiments in individual liberty. I have explored the reasons for this in numerous articles, including recent pieces such as “How To Stamp Out Cultural Marxism In A Single Generation” and “The Tools Collectivists Use To Gain Power.” To summarize, there is a driving desire among weaker-minded people to seek control over other people in the name of arbitrary standards of safety as well as arbitrary standards of “civil” conformity. While such people proclaim publicly that they do what they do for the “greater good,” in reality they seek only to satiate a private lust for power.
In the darkest corners of their souls, many people have personal aspirations to attain godhood in their own little worlds. And if they cannot achieve such godhood outright on their own, then they will join a mob with similar aspirations so that they can at least feel omnipotent through vicarious tyranny.
This is why collectivism and individualism are mutually exclusive. A collectivist uses force or manipulation to compel the masses to accept a society that follows his personal ideology. An individualist adheres only to the tenets of natural law and the non-aggression principle. He believes force is justified only when the personal liberties of an individual are threatened by others. And he demands that if he participates in any society, it be voluntary. Collectivism is society through coercion. Individualism promotes society through voluntary cooperation. The two philosophies cannot coexist.
I'll say it again because there are some people out there with severe reading comprehension issues; the definition of collectivism requires the prioritization of the group over the rights of the individual. Collectivism by its very nature denies or destroys individualism and individual choice in this prioritization. Collectivism therefore requires the engineered organization of individuals predicated by COERCION, or force. Period. If a group organizes voluntarily, then it is NOT collectivist. If a group is organized through force and manipulation, then it IS collectivist. Period. Bananas are yellow. Oranges are orange. The sky is blue. Two plus two equals four. And, collectivism compels participation by force, while voluntary community does not.
There is no rational debate to be made against this clear dichotomy. It is truly amazing how some folks cannot seem to grasp the very obvious difference between collectivism and voluntary community; the same people that will likely still attempt to argue that collectivism and individualism are "not mutually exclusive" after reading this very article.
As I have explained in the past, these are the “useful idiots” within any society. They are the reason why there will never be a time now or in the future in which collectivist oppression will not be a potential threat, and why individualists will have to remain forever on guard. That said, they are only a part of the bigger problem. In almost every instance of mass tragedy or despotic government, an elitist minority pulls the strings of the useful idiots, aiming them like a shotgun at individualists in order to clear a path for total centralization. The elites are another horror altogether.
These are the men and women who EMBRACE their psychopathy. It is not latent or subconscious; it is a fully integrated and accepted part of their psychological life. They have found that psychopathy can be an effective tool for gaining power and influence when average people around them are less vigilant or less confrontational due to fear or apathy. And contrary to popular belief, psychopaths CONSTANTLY organize into effective working groups, some of them vast and global in scope, as long as there is the promise of mutual benefit involved.
This is not to say that they organize around “gain” alone. Elitists have their own pervasive ideology and their own rationalizations for seeking control of others.
They see themselves as “philosopher kings” as described in Plato’s 'Republic,' exemplary and “special” people who are born with the inherent genetic capacity to rule over the masses with the utmost clarity. They believe they know what is best not only for you, but for the human experiment in total. Their goal is to construct a sociopolitical apparatus that will allow them to have complete overreaching influence over every aspect of every individual life, up to and including the erasure of that life if they think it serves their ends.
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Watch unto Prayer
Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation : the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak – Matt 26:41
We must learn both to watch and pray. It is good to watch. There is danger everywhere. An army in an enemy’s
country never rests a moment without its encircling line of pickets, keeping watch against danger at every point,
and reporting instantly any hostile movement. We are living in the enemy’s country, and cannot safely pass an
hour without watching. But watching is not enough; for we are not able to keep ourselves when the danger comes.
Hence we need also to pray asking God to keep us. But as watching without praying is not enough, neither is praying
without watching. God means us to use our eyes and to keep our wits about us, as well as to cry to Him for help
We must not say that every one who makes a good profession, and then fails, is insincere or a hypocrite. Peter was
neither when he made his bold avowal that he would never deny Christ, and that he could die with Him. He loved Christ,
and meant to be true to Him. Peter’s spirit was eager and earnest, but he was weak in himself; and because he relied
only on himself, he was not able to hold out against the sore temptations which came upon him.
We are all just like Peter. If we are true Christians we mean to be faithful to our Lord. But sincerity is not enough. “The flesh
is weak,” and we need to rest continually upon God for help to be true and faithful. If young Christians would learn this lesson
they would not fall so easily. If the drunkard who resolves to reform learned it, he would be safer and stronger. No matter
how good his intentions are, he is not able of himself to fulfil them. None of us are as good as we want to be and strive to be;
and only through the mighty help of Christ can any of us live a true and noble life amid all the world’s temptations and dangers.
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