Herod's Grave Uncovered

Herod's Grave Uncovered

A Hebrew University professor, fulfilling a career-long quest to solve this national-historic mystery, has found King Herod's grave at the Herodion

Jewish Converts to Christianity?

I am opposed to anybody - Jew, Israelite or Gentile - becoming a convert to the counterfeit Christianity of "traditional Churchianity." Such popular error misrepresents true Christianity with its Babylonian mystery religion dressed up in the drag of "Christianity."

True Christianity, as taught by Herbert W. Armstrong, merely announces to the cities of Judah the soon coming Kingdom of God to be established by King Messiah, Yeshua. We don't seek converts or believe it's our responsibility to "save" the world. If God wants to save the world, it will be saved. There's no contest between God and the devil, contrary to traditional myths.

CAPAI: Christians Against Proselytizing Among Israel

From Jerusalem to the USA by Stan Goodenough

From Jerusalem to the USA
By Stan Goodenough

I am writing this from the food court at Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, where I have just “enjoyed” a Big Mac - getting ready for what lies ahead of me I guess.

About two hours ago I took leave of my family in Jerusalem, and in just under an hour I will board an El Al Jumbo Jet for my 13-hour flight to the United States.

For the next four weeks I, together with my mentor and good friend Jan Willem van der Hoeven - director of the Benjamin-based International Christian Zionist Center - will be traveling through a number of different states from one side of America to the other, there to speak with church leaders and congregations, and also with political leaders in Washington DC, about developments in the relationship between the US and the State of Israel.

We leave an Israel that is in political turmoil and simultaneously exceedingly grave danger. The Winograd Commission of Inquiry into the prosecution of the Second Lebanon War released its findings earlier this week: a damning indictment of failure and incompetence that goes to the highest levels of the government and military.

As infighting intensifies and demands for the prime minister’s resignation come hard and fast from every side, Israel’s enemies in Damascus and Lebanon are gloating, repeating their claim to have defeated the IDF last summer even as they continue to prepare for their next assault on the Jewish state.

Some fear the explosion could come really soon, as the Arabs take advantage of the turmoil tearing away at Israel’s insides.

Many experts have said they believe there will be another war this year, one that will likely include Syria and even, God forbid, the use of non-conventional weapons.

It is not easy, then, to leave this nation and my family in the midst of all this uncertainty.

I believe very strongly, however, in the need to impress on Christians and leaders in America the fact that the last war was - and the next one will be - in no small way attributable to the US-led land-for-peace process that has seen Israel weakened from within and without.

Madrid, Oslo and the Road Map have left Israel far more vulnerable today than she would have been if the nations had not so leaned on her to go this way of compromise and unilateral surrender to the demands of the Arabs.

Israel is in the center of a grave crisis. Things look like getting a whole lot worse before they will start to get better.

We believe it would be good - for Israel and for the United States - if instead of bewailing, as he has done, the imminent political demise of Ehud Olmert, whose leadership President George W. Bush suggested earlier this week was important to the successful realization of the “two state solution,” if the White House itself will be open to accepting the Winograd findings.

For these findings not only indict the failed Israeli leadership; they also highlight the failure of the land-for-peace process to bring any measure of peace at all to the people of the Jewish state.

Israel, under pressure, pulled unilaterally out of southern Lebanon, which today is a terrorist stronghold positively bristling with surface-to-surface missiles and threatening to bleed Israel again in order to trigger another war.

Israel, under pressure, pulled unilaterally out of Gaza, which today is a terrorist stronghold positively laden with weapons and explosives, and which seeks daily to bleed Israel until it succeeds in pulling the IDF back into the Strip and initiating intense conflict in the south.

America’s decades-old land-for-peace process has pushed Israel into this extremely precarious position, and threatens to exacerbate things even more if it can successfully bring about Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Samaria and Judea.

Within months the newly-vacated biblical heartland of Israel will, too, be turned into a terrorist mecca. Towering over Israel’s densely populated and highly-industrial coastal plain, with an open channel feeding arms, including missiles, in from Iran and any Arab state that wants to be in at “the end” - this “State of Palestine” will threaten Israel’s very existence.

It will threaten, too, the American economy, which is so dependable on the maintenance of stability in the Middle East.

The United States - so blessed by God with power, influence and prosperity - and which has already tasted the fury of heaven as it has sought to divide up the Land of Israel, is playing with, not Israel’s existence, but its own.

This is the grave and, in fact, fearful warning we are bringing to America. It will not be a popular message. We will not be welcomed with it. But it is a warning we have to sound:

9-11, Katrina, and all the other disasters and threatened disasters will pale, we believe, in comparison with what is poised to come upon the United States if, after all the pain, bloodshed and warfare US-promoted Middle East peace policies have wreaked on the people of Israel, the US persists in pushing Israel down this road.

May God give us the words to say and the courage to say them. And may He bring across our paths ears to hear, and hearts to respond, to what we have to share.

***************

May Stan Goodenough (my long lost relative - we're both descendants of John and Priscilla Alden from the Mayflower - who I've met in Jerusalem and given a copy of Beyond Babylon: Europe's Rise and Fall) embrace our identity as Joseph that he may better understand why the United States and Israel's past, present and future are intertwined.

Joseph and Judah must work together or we'll fall together.

This vital biblical truth about the "Lost Ten Tribes" will help Stan to bless Judah and Jerusalem in even greater ways.

Don't Expel Jews from Gaza!

Moving Day in Gaza?!

Call for Anglo-Israeli Alliance

EU to Conquer Anglo-Saxons and Jews

Death to the American, British & Jewish Peoples?

British-Israelites and Jews in Grave Danger

Katrina is Only the Eve of Destruction!

Ariel Sharon: From Zionist to Traitor

An Open Letter to President Bush

Politics in the Church of God prevents progress

Politics in the Church of God Prevents Progress
By David Ben-Ariel

Many Sabbath-keeping Church of God members (various groups and organizations associated to one degree or another with Herbert W. Armstrong) are sincerely opposed to offering any Church of God literature or religious material for sale, since Herbert Armstrong taught us to "buy the truth and sell it not." However, such Church of God members should remember that Mr. Armstrong later permitted his books to be made available for sale in bookstores, informing the brethren and co-workers in a letter dated September 12, 1985:

"There is a very large audience which would never request this book [Mystery of the Ages] if offered free - who would never send their name and address to us - but would gladly buy a copy in the bookstore. By putting it in the bookstores we will reach a very great audience that we can reach in no other way. We will not sell the book ourselves, but it cannot be made available to this large audience of book buyers unless the bookstores do put a price on it." (Autobiography of Herbert W. Armstrong, Volume 2, page 638).

Some have been upset that Beyond Babylon: Europe's Rise and Fall is sold. I remind them of Herbert Armstrong's words above and Paul's rhetorical response to some in his day over this principle that we're commanded to not muzzle the ox while it is treading out the grain and that a worker is worthy of his hire. Besides, Beyond Babylon is available to for FREE or read online for FREE. God knows I am certainly not in this for the money, but gladly share the plain truth of the Bible and history as I am able, knowing it is truly priceless information.

I am also an individual, not a Church organization receiving regular tithes and offerings who therefore have no need to sell anything, as they're equipped to offer it all, ideally, for free. I don't believe any Church of God organization should sell Church of God literature. However, those out in the field, not part of the administration or headquarters, have a God-given right to do as necessary. Yeshua didn't condemn selling sacrificial animals but was righteously indignant that such commercial activities were taking place in the Temple courtyards and at exorbitant prices. Many were making a killing rather than offering a service.

A member of the Philadelphia Church of God recently corresponded with me on this and other Church of God issues.

Didn't you try and impose your book on God's ministers and church?

Not at all. Gerald Flurry refused to go forward with Beyond Babylon and fell backwards, treading old ground and is now going in circles, business as usual, as Europe rises and Judah and Israel have yet to be warned.

Maybe you should have waited until the time came.

Don't you believe God goes first to His Church and then His Nation? It was time to bring Beyond Babylon before Flurry, whom I consider to be the leader of this Laodicean era of God's Church.

Do you think you are one of the 2 witnesses?

God knows, but what I do know is that we ought to at least prepare the way for them with Judah and NONE of the Church of God groups reach the cities of Judah.

That would be a honor to be one. I've often prayed about them and in my silliness wished I could be one of them.

It would be an honor and a grave responsibility and the most hated job in the world since rejection would be by many in the Church, initially, and nearly all in the world, with a bloody ending until the resurrection to physical life just before the return of the King, Yeshua the Messiah. No nice dinners or fancy invitations for the Two Witnesses but plenty of murderous misunderstanding and hateful grief.

But I'm just a lay member.....

No such thing as "just" a lay member. Everybody has their God-given place in the Church of God and are equally important for whatever God has called them to do.

Seems to me you focus too much on the physical Jews.

Not at all. Herbert Armstrong always told us to "WATCH JERUSALEM!" Who's in Jerusalem? JEWS! The gospel began and will return there. God's true church is not there now although "Elijah" went there. This must change.

Mr. Armstrong, near the time of his death, said on one of his sermons or Bible studies that they are not so important as he once thought since they don't even believe in Jesus Christ.

I don't believe that at all and don't believe he ever said it. I quote what we know for sure Herbert Armstrong said about the importance of reaching the cities of Judah. It's documented. Shamefully, it's something that hasn't been done yet but the foundation has been laid, even though the Work in Israel is temporarily suspended by government decree as it was in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah.

Mr. Flurry never read your book right?

I don't know. Wayne Turgeon [Gerald Flurry's son-in-law] handed him a print out of it years ago and he returned it to him saying, "He's always sending us stuff." Mr. Flurry even responded to me several times on various issues including his confusion of Mount Carmel with Mount Hermon which I brought to his attention (having been blessed to live next to both of them), and my disagreement with him when he said the pope was the only religious leader to sit on a throne and I mentioned the Queen of England is also head of the Anglican Church (although agreeing with the point he was making against the Roman Catholic Cult).

I would love to find those letters, however during my many moves overseas to Israel I thought I kept them stored at my sister's home but she can't find them. Such letters also include correspondence from Dr. Herman Hoeh years ago about the Jews and their variations in color and why. I met Dr. Hoeh at the Toronto Singles' Weekend (Church of God singles from all over were in attendance) where he spoke and invited us to write him, which of course I did.

Later I sent an autographed copy of a self-published BB (Beyond Babylon) to Flurry's home for him and his wife who said to me (during the Feast of Tabernacles in Louisville) about my name, "What a strong Judah name!"

Dennis Leap said he read parts of it and that it wasn't necessary for him or Flurry to read it, unlike Mr. Armstrong wanting Sardis (Church of God, Seventh Day) to read his manuscript - The United States and Britain in Prophecy - which they DID.

Well, I hear you loud and clear. I do not agree with some of headquarter's decisions but they are just as human as we are and liable to make mistakes, including Mr. Flurry. Sometimes we just have to suffer the wrong and go on.

I readily accept and acknowledge that fact, but if it's a mistake or a sin we learn from it, acknowledge it and go forward all the wiser. Flurry has done none of those humble things. Regardless, I go on without him as he goes backwards trying to play HWA and God in the Temple, grieved to say.

David, I hope and pray for your return to PCG... Mr. Flurry has engaged in personal appearance campaigns and he plans to go to Joseph and Judah this coming year I think. The Key of David will no longer air on TV and we are now focusing on personal warnings.

Remember we are baptized into the Body of Jesus Christ - not into any sect or denomination of men. I remain a member of the spiritual Church of God that isn't bound by membership lists at the mercy of men. Remember Diotrephes? (3 John vs. 9-11).

What do you mean they've scrapped the TV programs (even though I always constructively criticized them -through Wayne Turgeon who used to write me very frequently - that nobody but a very limited religious audience would watch the programs at the hours they were shown). As Turgeon can testify, I also said they needed a toll free number (which years later they obtained); I said they needed a website with Church literature (which years later they have); they need to publish Beyond Babylon freely (which they still don't) and to take out major newspaper ads like HWA to reach EVERYBODY and get EVERYBODY talking about our God-given controversial message.

We do really need better advertisement.

Yes, because I've conducted my own tests and surveys on many internet forums to see that the general public doesn't have a clue who Flurry is, never heard of the PCG and doesn't know the warning message at all. All that money for what? A private club?

Too bad you only see what you think is bad but God has to get his family ready first to marry his Son before He can deal properly with the world.

And how does God do that? Have us stare at our Church navel - Church headquarters as the center of our attention? - or by the way of give, outflowing concern for the good and welfare of OTHERS - like the cities of Judah. Otherwise folks will never feel ready to reach out and will have proven themselves deceived by Satan who doesn't want the Work to GO FORWARD. As we reach out, so help us God, He will work in and through and for us at the same time.

I know everything that is good about the PCG and continue to direct folks to its literature and The Philadelphia Trumpet magazine despite their refusal to send it to me. They even know I've given them contacts in the Middle East, in Jerusalem, Jewish leaders, and that it was me whom God used to contact the mayor of Jerusalem to get the HWA monument repaired (in the Liberty Bell Park in Jerusalem), and then I forwarded the information to Flurry (who didn't even say thank you and wasn't even aware of its woeful neglect that I knew about from being over there so many times). I'll bet you didn't know that, did you?

I had written an open letter to the mayor of Jerusalem, Uri Lupolianski, that was published in The Jerusalem Post. His office contacted me to inquire about what groups or organizations I was referring to that would be interested in undertaking the financial responsibility for the monument's restoration and the rest is history.

David Ben-Ariel is a Christian-Zionist writer and author of Beyond Babylon: Europe's Rise and Fall. With a focus on the Middle East and Jerusalem, his analytical articles help others improve their understanding of that troubled region. Check out the Beyond Babylon blog.