Monthly Archives: January 2011

WAR COULD RESULT FROM HISTORIC REFERENDUM VOTE UNDERWAY IN SUDAN: Please pray for this country, mentioned in Ezekiel 38-39

January 11, 2011 By in Epicenter

If the south votes for independence, a civil war could ensue. (NYT map)

Please pray for the people of Sudan. This week, those in southern Sudan are voting on a referendum that would separate them from the Radical Muslim regime that runs the north and would give the south independence. But such a move could also lead to a bloody civil war. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, an Islamic extremist, says the south is not ready for independence and warns of severe instability. Secretary of State Clinton has warned of a “ticking time bomb” in Sudan. Some Obama administration officials have feared “cataclysmic bloodshed.”

By God’s grace, these fears will not materialize, but Sudan is a country to watch carefully and to pray for regularly, especially this week. Its people have been devastated by war, famine and genocide in recent decades. What’s more, Sudan is a country mentioned as “Cush” in the prophecies of Ezekiel 38-39 that will align with Russia, Iran, and others against Israel in the “last days.” As a result, its government and military will face severe judgment for cursing Israel.

  • For this reason, let us pray for peace in that country in the near term.
  • Let us pray for the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to be communicated to everyone in Sudan — more than 5 million Sudanese have come to faith in Christ in the last 15-20 years or so, but there are 44 million people in the country.
  • Let us pray for pastors and ministry leaders in the north and south to be strengthened and encouraged there, even amidst severe poverty and terrible persecution. See Reuters story, Churches in Sudan’s north fear repression after split

“As voters continued flooding the polls on Monday for a landmark referendum on southern Sudan’s independence, officials said more than 40 people had been killed over the weekend in intense skirmishes in a contested area along Sudan’s north-south border,” reports the New York Times. “The voting, which began Sunday, is proceeding jubilantly and remarkably smoothly, with high expectations and few serious complaints anywhere across southern Sudan. But if the referendum passes and the south breaks off from the north, the disputed border will become the next issue to resolve, and some fear that the specter of an all-out border war is rising. Abyei, where skirmishes broke out Friday and Saturday, is considered the most combustible and intractable of all the disputed areas. Both the north and the south claim historical ties to it and are refusing to budge. Some Western analysts have called Abyei ‘Sudan’s Jerusalem.’ Most people here in Juba, the southern capital, were unaware of the rising tensions along the border, which is several hundred miles away. Voters continued to pour into polling places on Monday, to dance, whistle and sing, and to talk excitedly about how secession will bring new bridges, new roads, new schools, new hospitals, new jobs, even new food…..”

IRAN HAS ENOUGH ENRICHED URANIUM TO BUILD 4 NUCLEAR BOMBS: But sanctions and covert ops against Iran seem to be working

January 10, 2011 By in Epicenter

“Officials say Iran already has enough low-enriched uranium stockpiled to create as many as four atomic weapons if it decided to further process the fuel,” reports the Wall Street Journal this morning. “The U.S. and the IAEA also worry Iran could have deployed advanced centrifuges at clandestine sites.”

To put this in context, in September 2009, Israel’s former Ambassador to the U.N. Dore Gold told me that the latest U.N. report indicated Iran had enough low-enriched uranium (LEU) to build two nuclear bombs, should it take the LEU to 90%-plus weapons purity.

That said, evidence continues to surface in the media that economic sanctions and covert operations to slow down Iran’s development of nuclear weapons are working. Iran may have the LEU, but it doesn’t seem to have the other materials needed to actually build or test atomic bombs it would seem — at least not yet. Last week, the outgoing head of the Mossad said he felt Iran wouldn’t likely be able to build operations nuclear weapons until 2015. Washington officials, therefore, believe the likelihood of an Israeli war with Iran over the nuclear issue has declined somewhat in the near-term.

“The Obama administration has concluded that Iran’s nuclear program has been slowed by a combination of sanctions, sabotage and Iran’s own technical troubles,” noted columnist David Ignatius in yesterday’s Washington Post. “Because of the delay, U.S. officials see what one describes as “a little bit of space” before any military showdown with Iran….A senior Obama administration official [said], ‘They’re not moving as fast as we had feared a year ago’….This new assessment of Iran’s nuclear setbacks has lowered the temperature on what had been 2010’s hottest strategic issue. Last summer, Jerusalem and Washington were talking themselves into a war fever, prompted in part by a powerful article in the Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg that starkly described the likelihood of military action. This fever seems to have broken.”

Indeed, Israeli covert efforts to stop Iran appear to be working so well that Iran is trying hard to strike back. A Reuters wire story notes that “Iran has arrested a ‘network of spies’ linked to Israel’s Mossad intelligence service which it blames for the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist in 2010, Iran’s state television reported on Monday….Under Iran’s penal code, imposed since its 1979 Islamic revolution, espionage can carry the death penalty. In December Iran hanged an Iranian man convicted of spying for Israel. Another Iranian man was hanged in 2008 for allegedly working with Mossad. Israel denied having any links with the case.”

Is this true, or Iranian propaganda? This remains to be seen. The Iranian regime has been deeply embarrassed by recent revelations that its nuclear program has been severely slowed down by covert operations, including the Stuxnet computer virus, the assassination of senior Iranian nuclear scientists, defections by key scientists and other sabotage efforts, all presumably masterminded by various Western intelligence agencies, including Mossad and the CIA. Sometimes, Iranian officials have been known to arrest people and charge them with espionage to make big, splashy headlines, only to later release the accused when it’s clear there is no real evidence against them. Over the weekend, for example, CNN reported that Iran deported an American woman after dropping trumped up espionage charges against her.

In related news, “U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dismissed on Sunday Israeli assessments of delays in the Iranian nuclear program and called for more work on sanctions to bring Tehran to heel,” reported Haaretz. “Clinton, on a tour of Gulf Arab countries to shore up support for pressure on Iran, arrived in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. She will also visit Dubai, Oman and Qatar on the five-day trip….Clinton said a recent assessment by the retiring chief of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service that Iran would not be able to build an atomic bomb until at least 2015 should not undercut international determination to keep the pressure on Iran through sanctions and other means to come clean about its atomic work. ‘The timeline is not so important as the international effort to try to ensure that whatever the timeline, Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons,’ Clinton told reporters on her plane as it arrived in Abu Dhabi. ‘I don’t know that it gives much comfort to somebody who is in the Gulf, or who is in a country that Iran has vowed to destroy, that it’s a one-year or a three-year timeframe.'”

MORE HEADLINES TO TRACK:

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CHRISTIANS IN THE MIDEAST FACE WAVE OF VIOLENCE: 10 ways to pray for the persecuted Church in the epicenter

January 8, 2011 By in Epicenter

>> Please pray for Rep. Giffords, shot in Arizona….Jewish…pro-Israel…granddaughter of a Rabbi…..please pray for all those wounded and the families of those slain as well.

It is not receiving nearly enough attention in the mainstream media, but a disturbing development is underway in the Middle East: followers of Jesus Christ in the epicenter have endured a dramatic surge of violence and persecution at the hands of religious and political extremists in recent weeks and months….FULL STORY ON THE JOSHUA FUND WEBSITE.

OUTGOING MOSSAD CHIEF SAYS IRAN WON’T HAVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS UNTIL 2015: Good news. Is he right?

January 7, 2011 By in Epicenter

Retiring Mossad chief Meir Dagan.

>> BREAKING: Gun battle on Israel-Gaza border. Five Israeli soldiers wounded.

What’s the latest status of Iran’s nuclear weapons program?

In the first video blog we produced for new Joshua Fund website in December, I offered a “Year End Assessment of the Iranian Nuclear Threat.”  Based on  discussions with numerous U.S. and Israeli intelligence officials and analysts, I concluded that the prospect of war between Iran and Israel in the first six months of 2011 had diminished and that there was a growing sense that the West’s covert war to slow Iran’s bid for nuclear weapons was working. The threat of Iran getting the Bomb is certainly still there, but for the moment the good guys seem to have the upper hand.

That was December. January now brings official confirmation of that assessment.

“Meir Dagan, who retired from his post as Mossad chief on Thursday after eight years, does not believe Iran will have nuclear capability before 2015,” reports the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “In a summary given to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Dagan said Iran was a long way from being able to produce nuclear weapons, following a series of failures that had set its program back by several years….Dagan concluded his term saying Iran was still far from being capable of producing nuclear weapons and that a series of malfunctions had put off its nuclear goal for several years. Therefore, he said, Iran will not get hold of the bomb before 2015 approximately.”

“The Israeli intelligence community’s assessments of Iran’s nuclear capability have changed during Dagan’s tenure,” the story noted. “In 2003, Israeli intelligence officials thought Iran would have its first bomb by 2007. In 2007, they thought it would be 2009, and a year later they put it at 2011. Now the date has moved to 2015. These adjustments were not the result of mistaken evaluations, but due to the difficulties Iran has encountered in advancing its program, largely because of the Mossad’s efforts.” The article also stated that “Dagan’s term centered around two main issues: the Iranian nuclear program; and the assassinations of Hezbollah and Hamas leaders and Iranian scientists, most if not all of which have been attributed to the Mossad.”

Dagan’s testimony is the strongest evidence so far that the covert war underway inside Iran — the Stuxnet computer virus, assassinations, defections, sabotage, and other measures — has had a dramatic impact on slowing down Iran’s effort to build nuclear weapons. The question is this: Is Dagan’s assessment accurate? Does Israel and the world really have until 2015, or do the mullahs have a separate, secret track they are operating on that could cause Iran to acquire the Bomb sooner? Time will tell.

In the meantime:

  • let’s thank the Lord that He appears to have given the people of the epicenter more time (Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak recently said 2010 was one of the quietest and most secure years in modern Israeli history)
  • let’s thank the Lord for the hard work of U.S., Israeli and other intelligence agencies in slowing Iran down
  • let’s continue to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, according to Psalm 122:6
  • let’s continue to care for the poor and needy in the epicenter
  • let’s continue to “get ready, be prepared” for war whenever it comes (for prophetically we know several major wars, at least, are coming to the Middle East) — for The Joshua Fund, this means expanding our warehouse capacity, expanding the number of food distribution centers we serve, purchasing more trucks and vans, training more Israelis in humanitarian relief distribution, stockpiling more supplies, etc.
  • let’s continue to pray for the persecuted Church in the Middle East, especially as a new surge of extremist violence has led to the murder of many believers, and left many more believers wounded in recent weeks and months, and let’s do everything we can to educate and mobilize Christians around the world to pray for believers in the epicenter
  • let’s also continue to do everything we can to strengthen our brothers and sisters in Israel and the rest of the epicenter, to teach the Word of God, to encourage pastors and ministry leaders, and to give everyone in the region the opportunity to hear the good news of the love and salvation only offered through our Lord Jesus Christ, and to make disciples of all nations
  • may the Lord bless you as you “learn, pray, give and go”!

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IRAQI EFFORTS TO REBUILD BABYLON & DRAW TOURISTS TO HEBREW PROPHET EZEKIEL’S TOMB FOCUS OF NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLES, VIDEOS, THIS WEEK

January 6, 2011 By in Epicenter
 

A new, modern museum will open in the ancient city of Babylon this month. (Photo: Joao Silva, NYT)

 

>> Netanyahu meets with Mubarak on Thursday to discuss way forward in peace process with Palestinians

This week the New York Times published an intriguing article on Iraqi efforts to preserve, protect, restore and then rebuild the ancient city of Babylon and make it a draw for tourists, with U.S. taxpayer assistance. The Times reports that a modern Babylon museum will open later this month.

Times’ reporter Steven Lee Myers also posted a fascinating four minute video walking through some of the rebuilt ruins of Babylon, and explaining Iraqi efforts to protect and restore numerous Biblical sites.

What’s more, Times’ reporter Stephen Farrell posted an equally compelling three and a half minute video on the tomb of the Hebrew Prophet Ezekiel in the Iraqi town of Kifl, describing how Muslims pray at the tomb of this Jewish prophet, and how the Iraqi government wants to study the site more, preserve the it better, and draw more tourists there.

Other Biblical sites in Iraq are also given attention on the Times’ website.

“The Babylon project is Iraq’s biggest and most ambitious by far, a reflection of the ancient city’s fame and its resonance in Iraq’s modern political and cultural heritage,” the Times reports, noting that “in November, the State Department announced a new $2 million grant to begin work to preserve the site’s most impressive surviving ruins. They include the foundation of the Ishtar Gate, built in the sixth century B.C. by Nebuchadnezzar’s father, Nabopolassar, and adorned with brick reliefs of the Babylonian gods Marduk and Adad.”

“The American reconstruction team has refurbished a modern museum on the site, as well as a model of the Ishtar Gate that for decades served as a visitors’ entrance. Inside the museum is one of the site’s most valuable relics: a glazed brick relief of a lion, one of 120 that once lined the processional way into the city. The museum, with three galleries, is scheduled to open this month, receiving its first visitors since 2003. And with new security installed, talks are under way to return ancient Babylonian artifacts from the National Museum in Baghdad. The fate of Babylon is already being disputed by Iraqi leaders, with antiquities officials clashing with local authorities over when to open it to visitors and how to exploit the site for tourism that, for the most part, remains a goal more than a reality. Even now they are clashing over whether the admission fee should go to the antiquities board or the provincial government.”

Honestly, I’d love to put together a Joshua Fund “Prayer & Vision” tour to visit Babylon and Ezekiel’s tomb. Not quite ready for that yet, but please join us in Israel in May for an amazing tour of Israel and the 2011 Epicenter Conference.

RUSSIAN LEADER CANCELS TRIP TO ISRAEL, PLANS TO VISIT PALESTINIAN AREAS INSTEAD: Keep your eye on the Kremlin in 2011

January 5, 2011 By in Epicenter
  • INTERVIEW: On Wednesday, I will be interviewed on the Janet Parshall program on the Moody radio network at 5:30pm eastern. Topics: the Saudi’s “arrest” of an Israeli vulture for being a “spy,” the Stuxnet computer virus, Israel’s record year for tourism in 2010, and why the leader of Russia has canceled his upcoming trip to Israel. To listen, please click here 
  • STEP INTO THE STORY: The Russian President has canceled his trip to Israel, but you can tour Israel with The Joshua Fund and attend the 2011 Epicenter Conference this May — for details, please go to www.joshuafund.net or www.epicenterconference.com.  
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Keep your eye on Russia in 2011. Here’s why:

  • For the past several years, leaders in the Kremlin have been angling to play a much bigger geopolitical and economic role in the Middle East.
  • Specifically, Moscow has been building alliances with Iran, Turkey, Syria, Libya and Sudan, among other key epicenter countries, selling advanced weapons systems to these countries, selling nuclear technology, forging deeper commercial ties, and expanding Russian influence in the Middle East in other ways, as well.
  • According to Bible prophecy (specifically Ezekiel 38 and 39), Russia will eventually build an anti-Israel coalition and seek to take-over the Jewish State and seize her financial resources. 
  • In the summer of 2010, a group of Orthodox rabbis began publicly speculating that perhaps the “War of Gog and Magog” was going to happen sooner than most people thought.
  • Of course, it is too early to say definitively whether events are truly lining up for the “War of Gog and Magog” to happen in our lifetime, much less soon. But it is fair to say that trend lines in the Middle East in recent years appear to be strangely consistent with the prophecies of Ezekiel 38-39.
  • Now comes this headline in a leading Israeli newspaper: “Medvedev to visit Palestinian territories, despite canceling Israel leg.” That’s right. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev has abruptly canceled his first state visit to Israel scheduled for January 17. “The agenda for Medvedev’s visit,”  reported Haaretz, was “expected to include the nuclearization of Iran, Russia’s supply of advanced weapons to Syria and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.” All of that is now off. But Medvedev does plan to go forward visiting with Palestinian leaders anyway.
  • All this raises new questions about what the Kremlin’s objectives in the Middle East are, and what moves Moscow will make in 2011. Given recent trends and Bible prophecy, it’s worth keeping an eye on.
  • One other note: Vladimir Putin will run for President of Russia again in 2012, he has made clear. (Currently he is serving as Prime Minister.)

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HEADLINES TO TRACK:

2010 A RECORD YEAR FOR ISRAELI TOURISM: Come with The Joshua Fund to Israel in May 2011! Also: working on a new novel.

January 3, 2011 By in Epicenter

>> Please pray for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his family after the death of Abbas’ older brother on Monday in Syria. Pray for the Lord to comfort the family and to draw them all into a personal relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ. Thanks.

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I know, I know, a lot of you were frustrated by the cliff-hanger ending of The Twelfth Imam. I hear you and I’m grateful for all your emails and Facebook posts over the Christmas holiday. While I wrote about this last fall, let me say it again because obviously a lot of people missed it: The Twelfth Imam is just the first novel of a three-book series. That’s right. The story isn’t finished. There are two more coming. In fact, I began working on the second in the series in December and started writing in earnest today. Lord willing, the book will be released in October 2011. I’d be grateful for your prayers as I write it, and let’s also pray that none of it comes to pass.

That said, some wonderful news out of Israel last week: “Estimates that 2010 would mark a record year for tourism for Israel proved correct on Sunday, as the Airports Authority released its final numbers,” reports Haaretz. “Approximately 11.485 million passengers passed through Ben Gurion Airport over the course of the year on international flights – an increase of 9.3 percent over 2009….Preliminary estimates last week showed that Israel received 3.45 million visitors over the course of 2010 — 14 percent higher than the previous record of about 3 million tourists in 2008. Tourism slid last year during the global economic crisis. The increase reflects improved security in Israel, where Israeli-Palestinian violence last decade sent tourist numbers plummeting.”

In May 2011, my colleagues at The Joshua Fund and I will be leading a “Prayer & Trip” to Israel that includes the 2011 Epicenter Conference. We would love to have you join us to walk where Jesus walked, to study the Word of God in the land where much of it was written, to pray for the peace of Jerusalem in Jerusalem, to worship the King of kings in the City of the Great King. We’ll take you to The Joshua Fund’s warehouse and you’ll have the opportunity to do a humanitarian relief project to bless the poor and needy. You’ll hear amazing speakers like Kay Arthur, Anne Graham-Lotz, Pastor Skip Heitzig and Pastor Ray Bentley. And more speakers will be announced soon. Please click here for more information and to watch a video about the trip and the conference. We’d love to see you there!