Against All Odds

Ichabod

Born Again

Buchenwald released Palestine bound.¹

"Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" (John 3:3).

I arrived at my LAX gate after almost two hours in El Al security just in time to be evacuated to the corridors. Female counter attendants were quickly reaching under every seat – others hurriedly but cautiously removed every trash container from the immediate area. Then out of nowhere, a striking young woman. She resembled another young LAX ticket agent who was the first to die in a terrorist attack three years before. 

She analyzed each passport while asking a dozen different questions in a dozen different ways, but always punctuating each question with a smile. Some were readmitted. Others scanned for nitrogen-based residues. And some were sent to disrobe; those deviating from single file quickly recognized the IDF connections of this twenty-something unit. Then as I handed her my passport, I noticed her eyes, beautiful eyes, Rachel’s eyes – but in them, the weariness of four thousand years.

Today is the anniversary of the First Zionist Congress, held in 1898 Basel, Switzerland, consummate in the establishment of the State of Israel. 

 "Who hath heard such a thing? who hath seen such things? Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once? for as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children." (Isaiah 66:8) 

 Although many believe 14 May 1948 (5 Iyar 5708) was was the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy, Israel as a nation has yet to be "born again" "of the Spirit" (cf. John 3:3, 3:8), but that day is ever nearer!

"And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon. And the land shall mourn..." (cf. Zechariah 12:12).

"And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God" (Zechariah 13:8-9)!

¹By US Army Signal Corps [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ABuchenwald-released-palestine-bound.gif https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Buchenwald-released-palestine-bound.gif

CRISPR/Cas9

"And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds" (1Co 15:37-39).

But "man" has determined to give whatsoever flesh a body as it hath pleased him!

"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, [using transgenesis CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing to create "transgenic" variants of themselves, changing] the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up... ." (cf. Romans 1:22-24).

Last September [2016], ... the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced it would not support studies involving such “human-animal chimeras”... . The agency, in a statement, said it was worried about the chance that animals’ “cognitive state” could be altered if they ended up with human brain cells.

The NIH action was triggered after it learned that scientists had begun such experiments with support from other funding sources, including from California’s state stem-cell agency. The human-animal mixtures are being created by injecting human stem cells into days-old animal embryos, then gestating these in female livestock.

Based on interviews with three teams, two in California and one in Minnesota, MIT Technology Review estimates that about 20 pregnancies of pig-human or sheep-human chimeras have been established during the last 12 months in the U.S., though so far no scientific paper describing the work has been published... .¹

When the NIH relented, and allowed researchers to receive federal funds to make "part human, part animal embryos," researchers still criticized the agency for creating “a threat to progress” and casting "a shadow of negativity” because of proposed changes to existing stem cell guidelines, e.g., scrutiny of "experiments designed to create animals with human brain cells or human brain tissue," or a “substantial contribution” or “substantial functional modification” to the brain of an animal.

The worry is that the animals might turn out to be a little too human for comfort, say ending up with human reproductive cells, patches of people hair, or just higher intelligence. “We are not near the island of Dr. Moreau, but science moves fast,” NIH ethicist David Resnik said during the agency’s November meeting. “The specter of an intelligent mouse stuck in a laboratory somewhere screaming ‘I want to get out’ would be very troubling to people.”¹

As avant-garde interventionists practice their imprecise art of creation — beasts part man and part not — human-animal chimeras are gestating in America; the guardé maintaining a self-imposed moratorium of silence. Few technical abstracts and associated research papers have been published in recent months — those that have, were not reported in the media since the January MIT Technology Review article. Obviously, those affiliated with this spiritually reprehensible endeavor prefer to work without peer or other review, as they profane the "Imago Dei."

"And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" (Genesis 1:26-27).

 ¹Regalado, Antonio. 2016. Senior Editor, Biomedicine: Human-Animal Chimeras Are Gestating on U.S. Research Farms." MIT Technology Review." January 6. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/545106/human-animal-chimeras-are-gestating-on-us-research-farms/.

²By Hiroshi Nishimasu, F. Ann Ran, Patrick D. Hsu, Silvana Konermann, Soraya I. Shehata, Naoshi Dohmae, Ryuichiro Ishitani, Feng Zhang, and Osamu Nureki [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ACrystal_Structure_of_Cas9_in_Complex_with_Guide_RNA_and_Target_DNA.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Crystal_Structure_of_Cas9_in_Complex_with_Guide_RNA_and_Target_DNA.jpg

Operation Babylon

Israeli Air Force F-16A Netz 243, flown by Colonel Ilan Ramon in Operation Opera.¹

"Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon." (Joshua 10:12). Once more Israel prevailed over her enemy.

On 7 June 1981, the lead F-16 Falcon lumbered forth from its subterranean vault onto the tarmac, spewing fire and smoke. 2,000-pound Mark-84s were positioned under each wing. The plane listed side to side as each munition was alternatively secured to the under-carriage. Improvised twin auxiliary fuel tanks hung pendent between the munitions. Seven more similarly configured Fighting Falcons soon completed the wedge formation and were joined by a contingency of six flanking F-15 Eagles.

Colonel Ze'ev Raz could not help but glace overhead as he applied the throttle of the lead Falcon leaving reminder of his squadron exposed and vulnerable on the tarmac. The Pratt & Whitney F100 roared to life that late desert afternoon in June. It raced down the airstrip, but could not lift off in the heat rarified air. Each Falcon was so overloaded with munitions and auxiliary fuel, every structural specification was far exceeded. The required F100 thrust could only be achieved by transgression of the potentially catastrophic turbine’s RPM red-line.

The lead Falcon strained and screamed and shuttered in convulsive agony as it struggled to break the chains that bound it to earth, until at last it was free! Then, two by two, the remainder of the squadron coalesced into the confluence of Raz's contrail. Then each Son of Israel began his dance of death with the late afternoon shadow his plane projected on the rolling desert sand, may they never meet at 1000 feet under radar, on that caravan to Bagdad.

Before sunset, Saddam Hussain’s burgeoning nuclear program and the French constructed Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad were no more.² 

Having completed the mission without a single causality, the squadron quickly retreated into the setting sun, traveling at the "tangential velocity" of the earth. After it became obvious that they had out distanced any pursuit, each pilot started to relax, transfixed by the sun "suspended" in the sky above the horizon. 

Then came a cascade of the breaking of radio silence with each pilot reciting the same exact verse in Hebrew one to another – "Sun, stand still over Gibeon, and moon, over the Valley of Ayalon!" Once more Israel prevailed over her enemy.

"Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies." (cf. Joshua 10:12-13)

A quarter century after Operation Babylon, Israeli Prime Minister Olmert requested that the U.S. bomb Syria's clandestine North Korean constructed and equipped nuclear facility, but Bush refused. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, also trying to preempt the operation, withheld U.S. approval of Operation Orchard, another Israeli “mission impossible,” until Israel had no option, fearing leaks to the media.


Israeli electronic warfare capabilities took control of Syrian airspace, creating a false sky-picture during the preemptive attack on Syria’s covert nuclear program. Israeli F-15Is & F-16Is, again equipped with extended range external fuel tanks, crossed much of Syria without resistance, bombed the nuclear facility totally destroying it and returned without incident. An ELINT (Electronic signals intelligence) aircraft also accompanied the squadron. Israeli special-forces commandos deployed the previous day to highlight the target with laser designators, were also successfully extracted. The only causalities were 10 North Korean technicians presumably extracted in lead-encased coffins, and Iran's 1-2 billion investment in the North Korean constructed and equipped nuclear facility.


In 2014, as an Iran-U.S. secret agreement over Iran’s nuclear program was about to be signed, preparations for another Israeli "mission impossible" military response against an existential threat -- Iran’s nuclear facilities were complete; Israeli fighter jets reportedly making incursions into Iranian airspace without contest. However when President Obama then threatened to shoot down the Israeli jets before they could reach their targets in Iran, Prime Minister Netanyahu had no option but to abort the Iranian sanction, which was also a North Korean sanction considering Iranian-North Korean co-development and exchange of nuclear technology.



¹By KGyST - Own work, GFDL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3556262

²Israel consistent with the, "eye for eye, tooth for tooth," Law of Moses always reserves "the right of response!" Such was the case with the "belated" 1981 response for the Babylonian provocation of 586 B.C.

Rosh Hashanah

“And the L-RD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets” (Leviticus 23:23-24).

There is mystery surrounding what is commonly called Rosh Hashanah (The Feast of Trumpets). Unlike the other six Messianic feasts, it has no name in Scripture. It is simply referred to as Yom Teruah (תְּרוּעָה: Day of alarm, or shouting, or trumpet blast). It is a memorial, but what is being memorialized is uncertain. Jewish liturgy describes it as Yom HaDin (Day of Judgment). Although it is to be on the first day of Tishri, the seventh month of the Hebrew year, ascertaining the day is dependent on atmospheric and other conditions that obscure the delicate crescent of the new moon. It could be said: “of that day and hour knoweth no man.”

Paul writes of another trumpet blast in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52: “Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”

And again in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.”



¹By kubotake [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AKubotake_-_Diamond_ring_on_22_Jul._2009_(by).jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Kubotake_-_Diamond_ring_on_22_Jul._2009_%28by%29.jpg

The Moon into Blood

"And I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke: The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come" (Acts 2:19 -20).

These words of Peter on "the day of Pentecost" following the ascension of the Lord have recently come into vogue with tomorrow's anticipated total eclipse of the sun. Some allege it forebodes the second coming of Christ, the Rapture, or manifestations of Armageddon? Let's examine some of the biblical texts that have given impetus to these conclusions.

And before "a cloud received him out of their sight" they asked of Him "wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6). "And He said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power" (Acts 1:7).

"And when the day of Pentecost was fully come... there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house... And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven... every man heard them speak in his own language" (cf. Acts 2:1-6).

"But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judaea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you... this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel" (cf. Acts 2:14 -16)." and then Peter in a lengthy message offered the Nation of Israel the long ago promised New Covenant with its indwelling Spirit that would initiate the "Day of the Lord,"  the precursor of Israel's long awaited Kingdom.

"The same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls." However, the Nation of Israel in totality did not repent, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Was Peter correct saying "this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel," in retrospect, apparently not, but had Israel as a nation received Peter's plea and repented, the prophecy of Joel would have been fulfilled!

The final words of the final Old Testament prophet begin: "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD." Jesus later speaking of John the Baptist said, "if ye will receive it, this is Elias [Elijah], who is to come."

Jesus extended a bona fide offer of the kingdom incumbent on Israel's acceptance of His gospel, Israel as a nation rejected the offer and the kingdom was deferred.

On the day of Pentecost Peter once again extended Israel a bona fide offer of the kingdom incumbent on her acceptance of the gospel. Israel as a nation again rejected the offer and the kingdom was again deferred.

The confluence of mankind's choices will never alter what God has ordained, but it appears that the "how" and "when" of that which is ordained is contingent on mankind's choices, "good and evil"!



By Abhranil Kundu (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ABlood_Moon.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/45/Blood_Moon.jpg

The Clerical Principle

"The night is far spent, the day is at hand"

In recent days the president has invoked the "clerical principle," i.e., professing the unity of all Americans, while evil exists and is not put away!

The President has no warrant to contend for unity "among Americans," where there is no unity, nor should there be! His sworn allegiance is to "faithfully execute the Office of President ["Execute Justice"] and preserve, protect, and defend "the Constitution of the United States."

"Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness"(2 Corinthians 6:14).

The Body of Christ has a similar and continuing challenge as "the night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light" (Romans 13:12).

"... These fundamental principles are deeply needed in this day, for the saint who seeks to walk truly and thoroughly with God. Latitudinarian unity it may be painful and trying to keep aloof from; it has an amiable form in general, is in a measure respectable in the religious world, tries nobody's conscience, and allows of everybody's will. It is the more difficult to be decided about, because it is often connected with a true desire of good, and is associated with amiable nature.

And it seems rigid, and narrow, and sectarianism to decline so to walk. But the saint, when he has the light of God, must walk clearly in that. God will vindicate His ways in due time. Love to every saint is a clear duty; walking in their ways is not. And he that gathers not with Christ scatters. There can be but one unity; confederacy, even for good, is not it, even if it have its form. Unity, professed to be of the church of God, while evil exists and is not put away, is a yet more serious matter.

It will always be found to be connected with the clerical principle, because that is needed to maintain unity, when the Spirit is not its power, and, in fact, takes its place, guides, rules, governs in its place, under the plea of priesthood, or ministry, owned as a distinct body, a separate institution: it would not hold together without this."
(John Nelson Darby, Separation from Evil - God's Principle of Unity)

¹By No machine-readable author provided. Graf Geo assumed (based on copyright claims). [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

Job

¹Gustave Doré [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A119.Job_Speaks_with_His_Friends.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/119.Job_Speaks_with_His_Friends.jpg

Nagasaki

Of Love and Hate

In the Forest of Ephraim, Gustave Doré¹

McMaster's first order of business as National Security Adviser was to protect and enable “Obama embeds" by concealing their identities, and maintaining their security clearances. Then, McMaster actively undermined virtually every salient issue of the President's agenda. Next, McMaster secured his base by influencing the selection of his old buddy General Kelly to be White House chief of staff. Then came his purge of Whitehouse advocacy. Now McMaster is completing the mop-up operation with the firing of at least three more senior NSC officials loyal to the President.



In summation, McMaster is attempting to influence the outcome of a presidency, and appears to be succeeding! Emboldened by a president who "evidently" loves those who hate him and hates those who love him!²

Brings to remembrance a three millennia old palace intrigue of a king who loved the one who hated him, but conveyed little regard for those who loved and honored him. "In all Israel there was none to be so much praised as his son Absalom for his beauty: from the sole of his foot even to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him" (2 Samuel 14:25). He cut and weighed his hair once a year (two hundred shekels).

Absalom would kill his own brother if he had the chance, and did. The arrogant and manipulative son got the attention and compliance of Joab the king's chief military commander after ordering his servants to set the commander's barley field on fire. After this, it came to pass that the politically astute son of the King prepared for himself chariots and horses, and fifty men to run before him, and launched a conspiracy to usurp his father's throne. 

When the king eventually retreated in exile, the king's mighty men who greatly loved and honored him gathered unto him in the wilderness, as did others of like mind. It came to pass when the reprobate Absalom initiated the final onslaught to annihilate his father, his rebellion die in the entanglement of the crown of his pride in the boughs of a great oak!

"And the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate, and wept: and as he went, thus he said, O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!" (2 Samuel 18:33). The king's thoughts were not of those who saved his life or of the lives of his wives and children, or of his kingdom or of the twenty thousand men who fell that day, but of his reprobate son!"

" And it was told Joab, Behold, the king weepeth and mourneth for Absalom. And the victory that day was turned into mourning unto all the people: for the people heard say that day how the king was grieved for his son. And the people gat them by stealth that day into the city, as people being ashamed steal away when they flee in battle. But the king covered his face, and the king cried with a loud voice, O my son Absalom, O Absalom, my son, my son! And Joab came into the house to the king, and said, Thou hast shamed this day the faces of all thy servants, which this day have saved thy life, and the lives of thy sons and of thy daughters, and the lives of thy wives, and the lives of thy concubines; In that thou lovest thine enemies, and hatest thy friends. For thou hast declared this day, that thou regardest neither princes nor servants: for this day I perceive, that if Absalom had lived, and all we had died this day, then it had pleased thee well. Now therefore arise, go forth, and speak comfortably unto thy servants: for I swear by the LORD, if thou go not forth, there will not tarry one with thee this night: and that will be worse unto thee than all the evil that befell thee from thy youth until now" (2 Samuel 19:1-7).

¹https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3A080.The_Death_of_Absalom.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/080.The_Death_of_Absalom.jpg Gustave Doré [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

²"I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour" (1 Ti 2:1-3).