April 3, 2021, is the last Day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread—see description below.

Live Sabbath services are available, over video and audio, at http://eternalgod.org/live-services/ (12:30 pm Pacific Time; 1:30 pm Mountain Time; 2:30 pm Central Time; 3:30 pm Eastern Time; 8:30 pm Greenwich Mean Time; 9:30 pm Central European Time). Just click on Connect to Live Stream.

Saturday, April 3, is the Last Day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Morning services will begin at 9:00 am Pacific Time; afternoon services will begin at 2:00 pm Pacific Time.

“Discerning Salvation,” is the title of the morning sermonette, presented by Frank Bruno, and “Overcoming—It’s For Life!” is the title of the morning sermon, presented by Dave Harris.

The afternoon service Offertory, titled, “How Deep?” will be presented by Kalon Mitchell, and “What Happened Historically During the Days of Unleavened Bread?” the title of the afternoon sermon for the Last Day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, will be presented by Norbert Link.

We live in an age where truth is very difficult to find. In many cases it is considered to be relative depending on who is speaking and especially when politicians are involved. There is a reminder of this in John 18:38 when Pilate, who was well known to be very political, asked the question, probably sarcastically, “What is truth?” In actual fact, the truth was standing in front of him as Jesus Christ is the truth (John 14:6).

In some cases, for an educator even to state an obvious truth like the fact that some races generally perform better in education than others can risk that person losing their job. The fact that it may well be true does not matter. Even to agree with such a statement can be dangerous for one’s employment. And this is only one example; there are many others where it is safer to stay quiet than to reject an obvious untruth. In some countries, even quoting certain parts of the Bible is considered hate speech and can be punished by law. This is causing truth to be suppressed at times due to fear. And yet, God explains what He thinks about truth and lying in Proverbs 12:22: “Lying lips are an abomination to the LORD, But those who deal truthfully are His delight.”

Justice also can be hard to find today and the outcome of trials can often depend on what kind of lawyers a defendant can afford. In some cases, the result of justice can depend on the color of a person’s skin. But when we read Leviticus 19:15, we find what God decrees about judgement: “You shall do no injustice in judgement. You shall not be partial to the poor, nor honor the person of the mighty. In righteousness you shall judge your neighbour.”

There are many examples today of the lack of truth and justice that we hear about constantly. But in God’s Word, Isaiah 59 is a chapter mostly on the evils of society. While it certainly applied to Isaiah’s time, the last few verses imply that it also applies to our time and to the near future. Verse 20 states: “‘The Redeemer will come to Zion, And to those who turn from transgression in Jacob,’ Says the LORD.”

Verse 4 of the same chapter states: “No one calls for justice, Nor does any plead for truth. They trust in empty words and speak lies; They conceive evil and bring forth iniquity.” God condemns them because they do not seek truth and justice.

Isaiah 59:14-15 repeats this theme forcefully: “Justice is turned back, And righteousness stands afar off; For truth is fallen in the street, And equity cannot enter. So truth fails, And he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. Then the LORD saw it, and it displeased Him That there was no justice.” Make himself a prey has the meaning of “a person that becomes the victim of an enemy.”

In Matthew’s Bible of 1537, “makes himself a prey” is rendered as “must be spoyled.” The verb spoyled or spoiled in this instance means to plunder, pillage or rob. In this day, for a person to not follow a crowd to do evil (Exodus 23:2), could be considered a reason for the crowd to do harm to that person. In fact, there is an expression, “Silence is violence,” which is used to criticize or harm those who do not verbally support the crowd doing evil.

The Koren version of 2015, a Jewish translation, renders it as “makes himself ridiculous.” In at least three commentaries, this expression is rendered “is counted mad.” Today it is considered by many that if a person relies on his religion to determine his actions, he is considered mad and he will be ridiculed. This can also be a very difficult trial for someone trying to obey God. To be constantly made fun of because of personal beliefs can be very wearying. It is little wonder that God is greatly displeased.

But we must remember that when we are persecuted or ridiculed for doing what is right, ours is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:10-12).

So, to conclude, we have already read that God delights in those who deal truthfully (Proverbs 12:22). He also instructs us in what He considers good, what He requires: “To do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8). Going back to Isaiah 59:18, we read, “According to their deeds, accordingly He will repay, Fury to His adversaries, Recompense to His enemies; The coastlands He will fully repay.” So God will repay for the current lack of truth and justice.

So, to answer the question, what has happened to truth and justice? At the moment they can be quite difficult to find, but when God intervenes, they will be the standard way of life for the whole world. As we read in Deuteronomy 32:4, “He is the Rock, His work is perfect; For all His ways are justice, A God of truth and without injustice; Righteous and upright is He.”

by Norbert Link

We begin with further reports on Israel’s election results and the consequences for the country as well as an alleged shocking agenda of the EU towards Israel; serious questions about Joe Biden’s health and his fitness for office; a dangerous “cooperation” deal between China and Iran; and the Suez Canal fiasco and what we must recognize in light of the incident.

We continue with deeply disturbing comments by Angela Merkel and Jens Spahn and other related developments in Germany and pose the question as to what scientific proof exists for the effectiveness of lockdowns, the wearing of masks and the ban on indoor dining. We also speak on vaccine passports programs and the ineffectiveness of today’s vaccines for coronavirus mutations.

We address the hypocritical censorship of “politically incorrect” news and opinions; and point out the difficulties for Jews in Europe; the attacks on religious freedom in the USA; false claims by Pope Francis [please view our new StandingWatch program “Was Christ’s Mother His First Disciple?”]; and a ridiculous Marxist program for teachers in Oregon.

Throughout this section, we have underlined pertinent statements in the quoted articles, for the convenience and quick overview of the reader.

Israel—More Deadlocked Than Ever?

The Times of Israel wrote on March 26:

“Forty-six hours after polling stations closed, Israel’s election results were finally announced Thursday night… Voter turnout was way down — from 71.5 percent a year ago to 67.2 percent… neither the pro- nor anti-Netanyahu alliances have a clear path to a majority…

“… the Israeli electorate was asked to contemplate the mindblowing possibility of Netanyahu… seeking to govern with the parliamentary backing of both Arabs and… anti-Arabs: He would have Ra’am on one flank, and, on the other, the far-right Religious Zionism party… These two beyond-implausible partners do have one thing in common, however: their anti-LGBT stance. So we were also looking at a coalition featuring two anti-LGBT parties and a senior minister who is gay — Netanyahu loyalist Amir Ohana…”

Israel Today wrote on March 25:

“Our fourth election in two years upon which we had placed so much hope failed to bring any clarity. Quite the opposite, the situation now seems to be even more deadlocked than it was after the previous elections.”

This does not sound very promising for Israel’s future.

“EU Agenda: Erase Israel from the Map.”

Israel 365 wrote on March 31:

“A recently released report exposed European Union funding of illegal ‘Palestinian’ construction in the sections of Judea and Samaria designated for Israeli control… the EU has spent approximately three billion Euros in the effort to exert illicit control over areas the Oslo Accords established as under Israeli control. These actions violate international law as well as circumvent any attempts at bilateral negotiations. According to the report, the EU is funneling $952,460 to the Palestinian Authority for new Arab construction in the Old City of Jerusalem and another $778 million for the development of areas around Hebron and Bethlehem. Another $500 million is slated for construction in the Arab city of Ramallah in Samaria…

“Betzalel Smotrich, a Member of Knesset and head of the Religious Zionist Party, warned that ‘this process is one of the most dramatic and dangerous that is currently taking place under our noses in the state of Israel. Very quickly the results will be irreversible… This trend is further exacerbated by the use of an Ottoman-era code based on Islamic law that grants land rights based on agricultural use, effectively allowing Arabs to grab land without any claim of legal ownership.

“Naomi Kahan, Director of the international division of Regavim, [said:] ‘The EU is working very hard to create a de facto ‘Palestinian’ state in total contravention of international law and the Oslo Accords. They don’t hide it and even make statements describing what they do. This goes beyond aid to the ‘Palestinians’. Their efforts are focused on completely erasing the map of Israel. The EU has even planned Arab towns where Israeli towns already exist… The EU is continuing the tradition established by the British when they used their mandate to pander to Arab interests and set up Jordan on land that had been designated for the Jewish state,’ she explained, noting the precedent. ‘They are calling for a return to pre-1967 when Judea and Samaria, which had been designated for Israel, were illegally occupied by Jordan for 19 years in an occupation that nobody except the British recognized…’”

The Bible shows that in these last days, a European power bloc will fight against Israel and invade and occupy the Promised Land.

Biden Not Fit for Office?

The Daily Mail wrote on March 27:

“Texas Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson, a former White House physician [with the rank of Rear Admiral], believes President Biden’s press conference performance Thursday raises questions about his fitness for office. The Texas congressman said Friday that Biden’s behavior at his first solo press conference ‘should concern every American who wants to know that their president is fit for duty and in control,’ Fox News reported. ‘The president of the United States was armed with a picture book of friendly reporters to call on and with what appeared to be prepared answers, but he still could barely make it through his first press conference,’ Jackson said.

“Biden’s first formal news conference came 65 days after he took office, far longer of a wait than many of his predecessors, and he answered reporters’ questions for a little over an hour. Among the notable developments were Biden’s announcements that he plans to seek reelection in 2024 with Vice President Harris as his running mate… ‘If President Biden cannot handle questions from his cheerleaders in the White House press corps, then it is concerning to think about how he represents the American people when speaking to foreign leaders,’ Jackson said.”

Speculations are ripe for evoking the 25^th Amendment of the US Constitution against Joe Biden. It says that if the President becomes unable to do his job, the Vice President becomes the President (Section 1) or Acting President (Sections 3 or 4). Unless the President resigns voluntarily, transfers his powers voluntarily to the Vice President or dies, the 25^th Amendment allows the Vice President, together with a “majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide”, to issue a written declaration that the President is unable to discharge his duties.

China and Iran Sign Cooperation Deal

The Algemeiner wrote on March 27:

“Foreign ministers from China and Iran, which are both subject to US sanctions, signed a landmark 25-year cooperation agreement on Saturday. ‘Relations between the two countries have now reached the level of strategic partnership and China seeks to comprehensively improve relations with Iran,’ China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi was quoted by Iran’s state media… ‘Our relations with Iran… will be permanent and strategic,’ Wang said…

“President Hassan Rouhani… voiced appreciation for Beijing’s support within Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers… China, Iran’s largest trading partner and a long-standing ally, agreed in 2016 to boost bilateral trade by more than 10 times to $600 billion over a decade.”

The Times of Israel wrote on March 27:

“The New York Times reported that China will invest some $400 billion in Iran in exchange for oil as part of the deal. The two countries will also step up military cooperation with joint training, research and intelligence sharing… The deal signed Saturday could undermine US leverage over Iran ahead of expected negotiations and lessen American influence in the Middle East.”

In an attack of Asiatic hordes on the Promised Land right after Christ’s return, China and Iran will be in military alliance.

The Suez Canal Fiasco… Massive Container Ship Ever Given Freed…

CNBC wrote on March 29:

“The Ever Given, the massive container ship that became wedged in the Suez Canal and cut off traffic in the vital waterway for almost a week, has been refloated, authorities said Monday… The Ever Given is one of the largest container ships in the world. The 220,000-ton vessel is able to carry 20,000 containers, and stretching more than 1,300 feet is almost as long as the Empire State Building is tall.

“The ship, which ran aground last Tuesday, created further disruptions in a global supply chain already straining under the ongoing impacts of Covid-19. Around 12% of global trade passes through the Suez Canal. Lloyd’s List estimates that more than $9 billion worth of goods passes through the 120-mile waterway each day, translating to around $400 million per hour.

“Bernhard Schulte Shipmanagement, the technical manager of the ship, said last week that the Ever Given ran aground due to heavy winds. Over the weekend Suez Canal Authority Chairman Osama Rabie said that human or technical error may have played a role in the ship deviating from its course.

“Expert salvage crews were called in to help with the refloat operation. More than 10 tugboats were on the scene, as well as specialized dredging equipment. More than 20,000 tons of sand and mud were removed during the dredging operation. High tide also contributed to Monday’s successful refloating… The ship’s refloating means traffic can resume in the Suez Canal… More than 350 vessels are currently waiting on either side of the canal… This includes container ships, bulk carriers and oil tankers. As the Ever Given remained lodged last week, some ship operators opted to re-route vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, adding more than a week of additional sailing time, while also increasing fuel costs [in fact, hundreds of thousands of dollars in additional fuel costs] …”

Greenwich Time had reported on March 26:

“…  [the] grounded container ship… has come to symbolize the perils of a global economy that relies on goods traveling around the world in larger and larger vessels…. Some tankers have already opted to travel around the southern tip of Africa instead, adding weeks to their journeys through a region known for piracy… Pirates have long preyed on ships moving in the waters off the Horn of Africa, and the seas off oil-rich West Africa are now considered among the world’s most dangerous for shipping…

“[Egypt] spent $8 billion in 2015 to widen parts of the canal, but not the section in question. With more than 200 other ships stuck in the bottleneck, moving the Ever Given will only create a new set of headaches. Many of those vessels will arrive in European ports at the same time, and find they have nowhere to dock….”

The Daily Beast had added on March 27:

“… this same ship was involved in an accident in Hamburg in 2019, when its owners rammed into a ferry and destroyed it…”

This new incident shows how dependent the world is on the shipping industry, and how quickly everything can change and collapse. But the Suez Canal is not the only critical trade chokepoint. Note the next article.

Three More Critical Trade Chokepoints

Deutsche Welle wrote on March 27:

“DW looks at [three other] chokepoints that a strong post-COVID economic recovery relies on.

“Strait of Hormuz. The sea passage between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman that leads to the Indian Ocean is the most critical chokepoint for oil and gas. Some 167 kilometers (90 miles) long, about a quarter of seaborne-traded oil and a third of the world’s liquefied natural gas passes through the strait… The strait connects many different powers and oil market players, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iraq. The actual width of the fairway for the huge tankers is roughly 3 kilometers in both directions, meaning the waterway could be easily controllable during a conflict….

“Strait of Malacca. The 900-km long strait is Asia’s primary chokepoint and one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes. The waterway links Asia with the Middle East and Europe, carrying about 40% of global trade… At its narrowest point off Singapore, the strait is only 2.7 kilometers wide…  Some 16 million barrels per day of oil flowed through the waterway in 2016, making it the world’s second most important energy passageway… The strait has become increasingly important strategically to Beijing, with nearly 80% of China’s crude oil imports passing through, from the Middle East and Africa…

“Panama Canal. The 80-kilometer Panama canal spans the narrowest part of Panama and connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. One of world’s busiest shipping routes, it has historically handled about 5% of world trade and nearly 14,000 transits were made last year… In theory, 98% of the world’s shipping can now ply the route, avoiding the lengthy and hazardous Cape Horn route around the southern tip of South America….”

More Dangerous Nonsense from Merkel and Jens Spahn

The Local wrote on March 26:

“Health Minister Jens Spahn has asked people in Germany to ‘ideally’ only meet outside with others before the Easter holidays… Things won’t yet be back to normal by Easter, Spahn said… Current rules allow for gatherings of up to two households, or five people excluding children under the age of 14…”

Bild Online reported on March 27 that Spahn is under investigation because of alleged misuse of tax money in connection with his mask deals, and questions have been raised regarding a potential conflict of interest because of the purchase of many masks, which were in short supply, through his “husband’s” company. According to Focus, Spahn’s popularity is presently in “free fall.”

In addition, many German doctors call for a “2-week hard lockdown despite the public furor over plans for a strict Easter lockdown, which were quickly rescinded” (Deutsche Welle, March 27).

Deutsche Welle reported on March 28:

“German Chancellor Angela Merkel has urged federal states to do more to curb infections during a televised interview. She also suggested additional measures such as curfews… If states do not take suitable actions in the ‘foreseeable future,’  Merkel warned the federal government could possibly amend the Infection Protection Act to implement nationwide restrictions… Merkel said all Germans should be able to get vaccinated by the end of September. She said Germany would not get ‘any vaccine that is not produced in Europe.’”

Merkel was severely criticized by some in the press and by politicians and state leaders for these comments. It was pointed out that Merkel or the government has no authority to change the Infection Protection Act. This would be within the sole authority of the German parliament, which is on holiday and it would be extremely unlikely that they would meet before Easter. Bild Online commented: “That was Merkel’s Power Politics“ and „Merkel is not the Legislator.“  (“Das war Merkelische Machtpolitik“ and „Merkel ist nicht der Gesetzgeber.“).  However, other politicians, such as Bavaria’s CSU leader Markus Soeder, apparently supported Merkel’s demands. A very dangerous development towards a German dictatorship.

 Also, Germany demands now from everyone entering Germany [irrespective of the origin of the country] to present a negative COVID-test.

Leaders of two German states Call for NATIONAL Lockdown; AstraZeneca Only for Those Over 60

The Guardian wrote on March 31:

“Regional leaders of two German states… have urged the rest of the country to re-impose a tough lockdown… In a joint letter reported on by Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, Bavaria’s conservative premier, Markus Söder, and the Green head of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, said the situation was ‘more serious than many believe’… Despite the political impasse over another lockdown and an already stuttering vaccine rollout, Germany on Tuesday heeded growing concerns over a rare blood-clotting condition and, alongside Canada and several other European countries, [have] chosen to restrict use of the AstraZeneca jab to those aged 60 and over…

“The daily newspaper Die Welt argued that faith in the vaccine had been eroded so badly that Germany should stop using it altogether. Prioritising AstraZeneca for the over-60s after the country’s vaccine regulator had initially only authorised the same jab for the under-65s, the newspaper said, ‘did not build trust but uncertainty’…

“Young people who expressly wish to receive the AstraZeneca shot will still be able to do so after being informed of the potential side-effects by a doctor. The vaccine regulator is going to decide by the end of April whether the 2.2 million people under 60 who have already a first dose of the AstraZeneca shot in Germany will receive their second dose from the same manufacturer.”

What a confusing mess. Germany’s leaders clearly prove that they are unable and incompetent to deal with the situation effectively.

Also, do lockdowns really work or are they even necessary? Or, could they be counter-productive and harmful? Note the next article.

Where is the Proof that Lockdowns Work?

The Norwegian paper steigan.no wrote the following on March 23:

“Texas Gov. Greg Abbott… [rescinded on March 2, 2021] lockdown, masking orders and other coronary restrictions… Governor Tate Reeves of Mississippi closely followed Abbott, declaring that closures and masking orders would be lifted from March 3 and that businesses could resume in full. But Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds was ahead of them. He lifted masking orders and coronary restrictions on February 8.  Montana‘s Governor Greg Gianforte lifted the masking order on February 12.

“The North Dakota House of Representatives has ruled that masking is illegal. As of March 2, 2021, there are 16 states that no longer have a masking order in the United States. This, of course, has led to strong controversy…

“It’s almost three weeks since all coronary restrictions were lifted in Texas… it seems that there has been no increase in infection or death in Texas since the state lifted the coronary restriction. On the contrary, it looks like the winter virus season is over…

“Florida has always practiced a much less restrictive infection control than, for example, the lockdown state of California. In Florida, life has largely gone as normal, with no lockdown and masking. In Florida, too, we are seeing a marked decline in deaths. The virus season seems to be coming to an end there as well.

“For the sake of comparison, let’s include the opposite pole, the lockdown state of California… It seems that it has not played a particularly big role if you have not had a lockdown at all (Florida), have closed the lockdown (Texas) or have continued with a strict lockdown all the time (California).

“We find the same pattern in [the states of North Dakota and Mississippi.] . It is not possible to trace any increase in deaths after the repeal of the corona rules, and also in these two states the winter virus season is in full swing…

“The lockdown policy has never been based on research, and it has never before been practiced… This policy has inflicted enormous damage on the world, it continues to do so, and it applies not only financially in the form of mass unemployment, but also in the form of deaths and illness due to lack of treatment for other diseases and a massive increase in mental health problems.

“It is those who have proposed and implemented this draconian policy who bear the burden of proof, and so far we have not seen any scientific evidence that this has been a correct course to follow.”

Still, lockdowns are being imposed by politicians and a scared medical field on a gullible public.

Masks and Ban on Indoor Dining Accomplish Very Little

Life Site News reported on March 26:

“Masks and bans on indoor dining do little to stop the spread of  COVID-19, according to a new report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Infection…

“According to the CDC report…  Mask mandates reduced case growth between zero and 1.8 percent, and COVID death rates by .7 and 1.9 percent, with an increase in deaths 21-40 days after the mandate went into effect.  Indoor dining bans decreased case growth between .1 and .4 percent with an increase in cases in four time periods the bans were implemented. Restaurant bans were associated with a slight growth in COVID mortality.

“Media outlets reported the findings but downplayed the numbers. ‘CDC study shows link between mask mandates, reduced COVID-19 spread as states lift restrictions,’ reported ABC on March 5 (the day the result released to the public). ‘CDC study finds easing mask and restaurant rules led to more COVID cases and deaths, as some states move to lift restrictions,’ stated CNBNC…

“The CDC’s findings on masks are in line with a Danish study published in November and a study on quarantined Marine recruits published in the New England Journal of Medicine in December. Both studies found limited evidence that mask-wearing was effective in stopping the spread of SARS-CoV-2.  On September 11, CDC reported in a group of 314 with and without COVID-19, there was no significant difference in vigilant mask use….”

Where is the reporting in our left-liberal mass media about these findings?

Craziness Galore

CBS Dallas wrote on March 30:

“The Catholic Diocese of Dallas is responding to Dallas mother Deirde Hairston’s allegation that she was escorted out of Mass at Holy Trinity Catholic Church, while holding her baby — for not wearing a mask. And there’s video of the incident. Appearing on Dr. Taylor Marshall’s podcast, Hairston, who’s pregnant, described how she was escorted out by officers after Holy Communion with the eucharist ‘still on her tongue,’ and told the church didn’t want her there. One of the three officers tells Hariston that she will ‘place her in handcuffs,’ if Hairston doesn’t leave… Cell phone footage shows Hariston asking what crime she has committed, to which police replied she was ‘trespassing on a business.’

“Hariston said her parish-priest, Father Ryan called police. Once outside, Hariston said the usher ran to her car and took photos of her license plate as police were taking her information. She also said she was issued a ticket for trespassing.

“Holy Trinity… responded on March 29, two weeks after the incident and two days after Marshall shared the interview on Youtube. In it, they state that Hairston wasn’t arrested or ticketed, merely issued a trespass warning. They also said the pastor of the parish has required masks at Mass out of concern for the health and welfare of its entire congregation. Hariston and her husband said that isn’t true. They said it wasn’t required – only encouraged….”

It seems a balanced and sound approach is thrown out of the window and replaced by a spirit of fear, panic and hysteria.

The Vaccine Passport Program

The Dossier wrote on March 28:

“What was labeled an unhinged conspiracy theory just last year has become a reality today. Unindicted human rights [violator] Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced this week that New York has rolled out the nation’s first COVID vaccine passport program with the introduction of the ‘Excelsior Pass.’ According to reports, the COVID-19 vaccine passport is already ready for use at dozens of venues statewide… While advertised as a ‘voluntary’ measure, New York State officials are making it clear that not participating in the program will result in an individual being essentially shut out from society… The ‘Excelsior Pass’ mobile application will display a green checkmark if the person has been vaccinated or tested negative for COVID-19. A red ‘x’ means they have not met this standard…

“New York is just one of several states that is introducing an independent vaccine passport program (Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, to his great credit has ruled it out as a misguided, authoritarian idea). With so many states developing their own applications, this complicates privacy and security matters even more so, given the reality that this means several companies will be able to possess sensitive health information, and will have to send your medical records through multiple networks. Competition for vaccine passport contracts is heating up, and there are many technology companies seeking to profit from COVID Mania.

“… Several European Union members… South American countries, China, and other nations are moving forward on their own vaccine passport systems.”

Newsmax reported on March 28:

“The White House is working on a COVID-19 vaccine passport initiative that could be required for travel, sporting events and even eating out. The report comes as major U.S. airlines and nearly 30 travel and labor groups are pushing President Joe Biden to develop a standardized, government-backed credential to ‘accelerate safe economic activity and recovery.’”

 There can be no doubt that these measures will contribute to the establishment of a dictatorial autocratic society.

Vaccine Passports, Nazi Germany and the Star of David

JTA wrote on March 30:

“Political activists… are comparing the idea of ‘vaccine passports’ to Nazi Germany, with many invoking the yellow Stars of David that Nazis forced Jews to wear during the Holocaust…

“Richard Grenell, former… ambassador to Germany and a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, tweeted a meme showing a Nazi Gestapo officer in the Quentin Tarantino film ‘Inglourious Basterds’ saying ‘You’re hiding unvaccinated people under your floorboards, aren’t you?’ The original line from the movie uses similar wording in referring to Jews. ‘Speak up now…’  Grenell wrote.

“In Britain, conservative pundit James Delingpole tweeted, ‘Wouldn’t it be better just to cut to the chase and give unvaccinated people yellow stars to sew prominently onto their clothes?’”

The comparison between the contemplated vaccination passports and the Yellow Stars of David is by no means far-fetched.

New Mutations Resistant to Vaccines

Deutsche Welle wrote on March 28:

“German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chief of staff, Helge Braun, warned that…  there is a growing danger that the next virus mutation will become resistant to the vaccine…”

In fact, it’s more than just a theoretical danger. It has been recognized that today’s known vaccines do not protect against the corona mutations already occurring in Brazil and in other countries.

Hypocritical Censorship

In several articles, Fox News wrote on March 31:

“Facebook removed a video of an interview with former President Trump conducted by his daughter-in-law Lara Trump, saying any content ‘in the voice of Donald Trump’ would be scrubbed from the social media platform. Facebook permanently banned the former president from their platform in January after the Capitol riot… ‘We are reaching out to let you know that we removed content from Lara Trump’s Facebook Page that featured President Trump speaking,’ the Facebook employee wrote. ‘In line with the block we placed on Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, further content posted in the voice of Donald Trump will be removed and result in additional limitations on the accounts.’…

“The Media Research Center unveiled its latest TechWatch Report on Tuesday, which found that ‘more than 260 conservative users on Facebook and Twitter had their posts about Biden scrubbed from the social media platforms’ in the months leading up to the Democratic National Convention…. The study found that the 129 instances of censorship on Facebook included video of ‘a stammering Biden accidentally endorsing Trump’ and a ‘collage of photos that depict Biden sniffing, hugging, or kissing young girls has been censored on a regular basis,’ [MRC’s] Weaver and Moon wrote…. ‘Facebook and Twitter openly deny working with Biden. Yet the platforms appear to cover for him,’ Weaver and Moon wrote…

“CNN’s tepid coverage of the latest developments in the Andrew Cuomo saga continued this week, this time with no mention of the ninth accuser who has come forward with sexual misconduct allegations against the Democratic New York governor… The pro-Cuomo network has similarly avoided the damning groping allegation made by the governor’s sixth accuser… Meanwhile, CNN has gone nearly an entire week without the explosive reporting alleging that Cuomo had prioritized COVID testing for family members and allies, including his kid brother anchor Chris Cuomo. Chris Cuomo returned to his primetime program on Monday night after being conveniently absent last week when the scandal broke. The host made no mention of the controversy he himself was implicated in…”

It is sickening to see how the left-wing mass media and Big Tech are suppressing anything which is not in line with their agenda. Note the next article.

The Right to Voice our Opinions

Dan Wootton, in the Daily Mail, wrote on March 30:

“… despite my personal feelings, I defend with a passion the right for both Meghan [Markle] and Sharon [Osbourne] to loudly voice their opinions, which should play an important role in our public discourse over the thorny social issues that are, very sadly, starting to divide us… Meghan was allowed to share her ‘truth’, as she branded it, to Oprah Winfrey without even the slightest hint of scrutiny. That’s despite the fact she unleashed a dossier of ludicrous claims that defied long-dated royal protocols, historical fact and basic believability, according to many staff members I’ve spoken to who lived through her tumultuous two years as a member of the Royal Family.

“Sharon, meanwhile, was instantly damned to the modern-day torture of public cancellation for merely raising the possibility that her close friend Piers Morgan may well have more insight as to whether Meghan was indeed telling the truth. One of the biggest threats facing democracy in 2021 is a craven desire to shut down voices who are brave enough to speak out against liberal groupthink on controversial issues…

“… my fear is that free speech advocates like me are losing the battle… the tyranny of suppression and cancellation has never been so real in modern culture…

“Believing in Sharon Osbourne or Piers Morgan’s right to express their opinion on Meghan Markle doesn’t make you a bad person. Believing that Meghan isn’t a very nice person who told a load of porkie pies to Oprah doesn’t make you racist.

“Believing we must question the most draconian restrictions to our freedom and liberty since World War Two doesn’t make you a murderer….”

Very true and very insightful… and VERY politically incorrect…

No Private Wedding of Harry and Meghan

Newsmax wrote on March 31:

“Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby has contradicted British royal Meghan’s claim that she married Britain’s Prince Harry several days before the official lavish ceremony at Windsor Castle in 2018. Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, told Oprah Winfrey in an interview earlier this month that she wed Queen Elizabeth’s grandson in a secret ceremony officiated over by the Archbishop a few days before the Windsor event… ‘You know, three days before our wedding, we got married – no-one knows that,’ she said. ‘Just the two of us in our backyard with the Archbishop of Canterbury.’

“But Welby contradicted that. ‘The legal marriage took place on that Saturday,’ Welby was quoted as saying by Die Welt, adding that he personally signed the marriage certificate. ‘I would have committed a crime if I had signed something that was not true.’

“He said he had earlier had a ‘series of private and pastoral meetings’ with Harry and Meghan, but declined to give details on the conversation…”

Jews Unwelcome in Europe

Deutsche Welle wrote on March 28:

“In some cases, the coronavirus pandemic has served as a pretext to restrict worship. Jews in the European Union are deeply troubled by this development… In December, the European Court of Justice upheld a ban on ritual slaughters — a religious and humane method for killing animals for consumption — in Belgium… Banning access to and the producing of kosher meat makes Jewish life impossible. Similarly, proposed bans on male circumcision in Denmark, Finland and Iceland run counter to religious freedom. These policies are de facto bans on Jewish life… While professing to uphold individual liberty, Europe is undermining freedom.

“EU lawmakers repeat over and over that Jewish life must be appreciated and respected. But assertions like these ring hollow and hypocritical in light of recent laws outlawing religious practices… Over the past decade, many Jews have left EU countries, feeling no longer welcome. That stems not only from the growing number of anti-Semitic incidents, but also from the gradual curtailment of religious freedoms…”

Sadly, anti-Semitism is rampant in Europe.

Religious Freedom in Danger in USA

Breitbart wrote on March 27:

“The former archbishop of Philadelphia, Charles Chaput, noted in an interview Friday that religious liberty is in peril in the United States due to declining appreciation for the importance of faith. ‘The United States was founded by Europeans seeking religious liberty,’ Archbishop Chaput noted…

“‘It was a very important issue for them, even though they didn’t really recognize the liberty of Catholics at first, or the liberty of slaves, in the first decades of our country… Today, we don’t have any respect for the dignity of the unborn as a country. When you don’t do that, you begin to embrace ideologies that enable us to interfere with the order of creation, like gender theory. Likewise, if we don’t respect the elderly, which we don’t, then we embrace things like euthanasia,’ he added. ‘Things can turn pretty bad pretty quickly and I worry about that.’ … Bishops themselves contribute to the scandal when they act as if supporting abortion does not harm a person’s relationship with the Church, he added.”

The French Minister of Interior just said in an interview that Evangelicals in France pose an important problem, and that the law of God is inferior to the national law of France.

Was Mary Christ’s First Disciple?

Breitbart wrote on March 29:

“… the Evil One is taking advantage of the crisis to disseminate distrust, desperation, and discord,’ [Pope Francis said].

“‘And us? What should we do?’ he continued. ‘The one who shows us is the Virgin Mary, the Mother of Jesus, who is also his first disciple. She followed her Son. She took upon herself her own portion of suffering, of darkness, of confusion, and she walked the way of the passion keeping the lamp of faith lit in her heart.’”

The claim that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was Christ’s first disciple is absolutely false. For more information, please read our free booklet, “Jesus Christ—a Great Mystery.”

Marxist Ideology in Oregon’s Classrooms

The Western Journal wrote on February 12, 2021:

“The Oregon Department of Education is promoting a course for teachers that links math lessons to racism and a culture of ‘white supremacy’…

“According to the teaching materials, too much focus on asking students to get the ‘right’ answer when solving math problems is connected to white supremacy…  Furthermore, the course will ask teachers to identify and ‘challenge the ways that math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist, and racist views’…

“In Oregon, the idea that there are wrong answers to math problems is being challenged… If you’re wondering where something so brazenly anti-American originated from, the lesson thanks the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for its ‘generous financial support.’”

Has one ever heard such stupidity?

Acknowledgement and Disclaimer

These Current Events are compiled and commented on by Norbert Link. We gratefully acknowledge the many contributions of news articles from our readership. The publication of articles in this section is not to be viewed as an endorsement or approval as to contents or accuracy of the selected articles, but they are published for the purpose of pointing at worldwide developments in the light of biblical end-time prophecy and godly instruction. Our own comments are provided in italics.

The basis of the question is correct; we do think that true Christian values are the only ones that would work in this society making it a much happier, safer and more enjoyable world than it currently is. What we see around us today is a world in turmoil, but this was prophesied.

We have made it clear on so many occasions that we believe that the 6,000 years allocated to man is almost up and that we are living in the end times. A passage in the New Testament sums up the behaviour of man at the end of this age: “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!” (2 Timothy 3:1-5).

Having said that, man’s history over the last 6,000 years is a catalogue of anti-godly behaviour where evil, in general, has proliferated throughout that time. Man has had more than enough time to show that he can live happily and peacefully with his neighbour but history shows that man has consistently gone the wrong way by thinking that he knows the answers and ignoring the One who created mankind and who has set out a blueprint for happy and abundant living.

We read in Judges 17:6: “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” This is repeated in Judges 21:25. Today, this same behaviour has proliferated where legislation is enacted all around the world which is in contravention to God’s Way, and the end result has been disastrous.

The Word of God has been ignored for the most part and, today, man thinks that he knows better than the One who created us all. Laws are pushed through that can often defy the commandments of God and His Way, and this happens around the world.

G.K. Chesterton wrote in “What’s Wrong With the World”, “that people who oppose Christianity do so not because they think it is unreasonable but because they have not truly looked into it.”

A brief overview of the world today clearly shows that God’s Way is ignored and the results include anarchy, hatred, wars, selfishness and much much more.

Almost 2,000 years ago, the apostle Paul set out a list of the works of the flesh as we read in Galatians 5:19-21. These applied to human nature for the previous 4,000 years and these are still extant nearly 2,000 years after this was written:

“Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Many talk today about values, but their values are often in direct conflict with biblical admonition. The works of the flesh, which we can see wherever we look, are certainly not the way that God wanted man to behave when He created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden of Eden around 6,000 years ago. Even the first child born, Cain, was a murderer, and the evil of that action at the dawn of civilisation has continued down to our time now.

Since the time of Adam and Eve, man has tried every available form of government. We have seen autocracy, democracy, communism, dictatorships, monarchy, oligarchy, socialism, presidential, theocratic and so many others – a quick search of the internet will easily reveal a huge number of governmental structures tried out by man.

The ancient nation of Israel had God as their leader but the people wanted to be like all the other nations. In 1 Samuel 8:4-5 we read: “Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah, and said to him, ‘Look, you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways. Now make us a king to judge us like all the nations.’” This displeased Samuel (compare verse 6) but God said that they had not rejected him but had rejected God (note verse 7). Even when God had looked after and cared for His nation Israel, stiff-necked and stubborn human beings wanted to discard divine protection and just be like all the other nations. They wanted a human king to also lead them in battle and fight their wars (see verses 19-20). How utterly absurd was that decision, and the fruits were not good.

In 1 Samuel 8, from verse 11 onwards, Samuel told the congregation of Israel what would happen and in spite of the warnings given them, they still demanded a king! Their first king was Saul who started out well enough but by the time of the end of his life, he had become a king destroyed by his own jealousy.

When we review true Christian values, we see that these are designed to bring about and sustain a peaceful and supportive environment. Not even the most optimistic person could say that mankind has enjoyed that over the last 6,000 years.

In Deuteronomy 7:7, we read the reason why God chose Israel to be His people:

“The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the LORD loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Therefore know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments…”

They were given instructions on how to live but, generally, Israel failed miserably. God had a plan for mankind and the Saviour, Jesus Christ, came from Judah, one of the tribes of Israel.

In Matthew chapter 5 are the beatitudes (blessings) that come from the way that Jesus taught us how to behave. In this chapter, Jesus states that He had not come to destroy the Law or the Prophets but to fulfil them – that is, to expand and develop them, not to do away with them as mainstream Christianity erroneously believes (verses 17-19).  He then goes on to expand the meaning and understanding of murder and adultery which are the 6^th and 7^th of the Ten Commandments.

If Israel, and mankind, had lived according to these instructions, how much better, more gentle, kinder and sensible society would be today. But that has simply not happened.

The Bible is replete with instruction for right and proper living, and great examples of these are to be found in the book of Proverbs. Add to these, the instructions to keep the law of God and you have a really great resume of how to live a life pleasing in the sight of God and how beneficial it would all be to society.

We know that the commandments of God are sneered at today even by so many professing Christians, but instruction from the 1st book of John are there for a reason:

1 John 2:3-6 states: ^“Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. He who says, ‘I know Him,’ and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.  But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.”

1 John 3:4 reads in the Authorized Version:  ^“Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.”

1 John 5:3 says: ^“For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.”

And in 1 John 5:20 we see where our right understanding comes from:  ^“And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.”

Please see our free booklet “The Ten Commandments” for a comprehensive review of God’s Commandments.

There are those who might react and accuse Christianity of being “exclusivist,” and they would be right! In Acts 4:12 we read: “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

In John 14:6, we read: “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’”

In spite of some of the other religions, teaching good values and proper behaviour, true Christians understand that there is only salvation in Jesus Christ which is something that everyone alive at the time of Christ’s return to this earth will come to realise.

Yes, we do believe that Christian values are the right ones and are values that Christians in the true Church of God need to keep today. However, they are a tiny minority who are living the way that God wants His people to live while mankind, in general, goes in exactly the opposite direction which is leading to destruction.

The really good news is that the world, under Christ’s loving, caring and righteous rule which is just ahead of us now, will learn how to live properly and according to God’s Commandments as we read in Isaiah 9:6-7:

“For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.”

In the final analysis, 6,000 years of history has shown us in an undeniable way that man’s approach simply does not work, and that it has not worked. In the future, after Christ’s return, true Christian values will be the only way and will work for the benefit of all concerned.

At that time forward, and for eternity, true Godly values will be the order of the day.

Lead Writer: Brian Gale (United Kingdom)

compiled by Dave Harris

“Are Jews and Christians at Odds with Jesus Christ?” our new booklet, has now entered the final review process before printing. This booklet will be posted soon, and following printing, hard copies will be sent to our mailing list and to those requesting a free copy.

Was Christ’s Mother His First Disciple?” is the title of a new StandingWatch program, presented by Evangelist Norbert Link. Here is a summary: 

Recently, Pope Francis claimed that the Virgin Mary, Christ’s mother, was Christ’s first disciple. Why is this comment false, and why is it important that you understand who Mary was?

“War die Mutter Jesu Christi sein erster Jünger?” is the title of a new AufPostenStehen program, presented by Norbert Link. This program covers the same topic as described above. 

“Was geschah geschichtlich während der Tage der Ungesäuerten Brote?”  is the title of a new German sermon for the Last Day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, presented by Norbert Link. Title in English: “What Happened Historically During the Days of Unleavened Bread?”

“The Meaning of the Suez Canal Fiasco—Comments on News and Prophecy, March 27, 2021,” the first message presented last Sabbath by Norbert Link, is now posted. Here is a summary:

This message covers planned animal sacrifices and the new elections in Israel; the need for encouragement; the concern regarding President Biden’s health; the new treaty between China and Iran; nonsense at Oregon’s schools; the Suez Canal fiasco which shows our fragile worldwide economy; and mutations of the coronavirus for which there are no vaccines.

“The Body and the Blood of Jesus Christ,” the sermon presented last Sabbath by Norbert Link, is now posted. Here is a summary:

During the Passover night, when He was betrayed, Jesus Christ introduced the new symbols of bread and wine. He said much about it, and much happened during the next day of Passover, which is very confusing to most people. Are we allowed to partake of the “communion” or the “Lord’s supper” at any time? Do the bread and the wine change on that occasion to the body and blood of Christ? Did Jesus say during the Passover night that He would eat no bread and drink no wine until His return to this earth? Exactly how did Jesus die on the cross? And in what way was His body broken, and what does this mean for us today?

“Der Glaube kommt aus der Predigt” the sermonette presented last Sabbath in Germany by Mike Richter, is now posted. Title in English: “Faith Comes from the Sermon.”

“Hingabe,” the sermonette presented on the First Day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread in Germany by Christian Mrosek, is now posted. Title in English: “Dedication.”

“Der Betrug der Suende,” the sermon presented on the First Day of Unleavened Bread in Germany by Norbert Link, is now posted. Title in English: “The Deceitfulness of Sin.”

“Just a Second,” the morning sermonette for the First Day of Unleavened Bread which was presented by Frank Bruno, is now posted. Here is a summary:

In the sermons and sermonettes leading up to the Spring Holy Days we have heard and considered that even a person drawn by God to follow Jesus Christ can be beset by sin. Most of us would like to believe that we are basically good people in the eyes of God and among our brethren. However, in this sermonette on the Feast of Unleavened Bread we will consider just how easy it is for a human to sin, and how important repentance is to save us from our nature and mistakes, and even restore our confidence. We need not fall prey to Satan if we remain mindful of the blessing of the Holy Spirit sent to help us move forward. Repentance is the tool that we can wield to return to the embrace of the Father and His Son.

“Who We Are” the morning sermon for the First Day of Unleavened Bread which was presented by Eric Rank, is now posted. Here is a summary:

One characteristic that all Christians share is their humanity. By nature, humans are complex creatures, prone to error, but above all, capable of compassion. The work of a Christian is to strengthen the ability to love and care for one another, recognizing that we are all imperfectly working together towards the same goal.

“Remain Clean,” the afternoon Offertory for the First Day of Unleavened Bread which was presented by Michael Link, is now posted. Here is a summary:

The Days of Unleavened Bread symbolize keeping sin out of our lives from both a physical and a spiritual standpoint by not partaking in anything leavened during these 7 days. But what about after the 7 days are over?  How are we to remain clean spiritually at all times, and what help do we have?

“The Deceitfulness of Sin,” the afternoon sermon for the First Day of Unleavened Bread which was presented by Norbert Link, is now posted. Here is a summary:

How and in what way does sin deceive us? Why is the way of sin a way of error and of fraud? How can people and Satan deceive us and lead us into error? Why is sin compared with leaven, and why are we to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, the Herodians, and the Sadducees? Can we, on our own, overcome sin?

On March 27, 2021, Norbert Link will present “Comments on News and Prophecy, March 27, 2021,” and the sermon, titled, “The Body and the Blood of Jesus Christ.”

The live services are available, over video and audio, at http://eternalgod.org/live-services/ (12:30 pm Pacific Time; 1:30 pm Mountain Time; 2:30 pm Central Time; 3:30 pm Eastern Time; 8:30 pm Greenwich Mean Time; 9:30 pm Central European Time). Just click on Connect to Live Stream.

Passover will be observed on Friday evening, March 26, 2021, after sundown.

The Night to be Much Observed will be observed on Saturday evening, March 27, 2021, after sundown.

Sunday, March 28, 2021, is the First Day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Morning services will begin at 9:00 am Pacific Time; afternoon services will begin at 3:15 pm Pacific Time.

“Just a Second,” is the title of the morning sermonette, presented by Frank Bruno, and “Who We Are” is the title of the morning sermon, presented by Eric Rank.

The Offertory will be presented by Michael Link, and “The Deceitfulness of Sin,” the title of the afternoon sermon for the First Day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, will be presented by Norbert Link.

In the sermon from last Sabbath by Dave Harris, “God-Who-Forgives”, something was stated at the end that was of fundamental importance. I have thought about this before, but it really stood out in light of the upcoming Passover, the Night to be Much Observed and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

The thought that stood out was this: “ We (that would include all of us who heard the sermon and who read this Editorial, including myself) can affect the whole world by HOW we repent.” That is truly mind-blowing. We, the poor, the weak, whatever we consider ourselves to be, have the power to help the world NOW.

2 Peter 3:10-14 states in the New International Version: “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells. So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.”

How often do we take into account that we have the ability to hasten the return of Christ? We pray, or at least we are TOLD to pray, “Your Kingdom come,” but how often does that trickle down into our lives? As we are preparing for the beginning of the Spring Holy Days, what is it that we are focusing on? Hopefully, it is upon what we can do to turn further towards our God! We are told that we have to become without spot; meaning, we have to come to hold the line against sin. We also have to be looking and searching for it.

Once we find sin and we start to root it out, we have to replace it with righteousness. If we are not filling up constantly with God’s Holy Spirit and making gains, then we are in danger of having the same sin, which we worked hard to replace, start to seep back in. We have to be constantly building correctly in our lives. In order to make sure that we are doing this properly, I want to use Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians 3:11-16 where he states in the New International Version:

“For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames. Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for God’s temple is sacred, and you together are that temple.”

The things that we build now will have an impact here and now, but more importantly, in the future. Each of us is the temple of God. Each of us is a vessel for God’s Holy Spirit. The power to overcome and to change is given to each of us because of the great Sacrifice of Jesus Christ and His immense love for us.

The opportunity lies in each of us, though, to carry out something that is larger than ourselves. But we CANNOT lose focus on the fact that each of us is an integral part—contributing to an overall accomplishment.

Ephesians 2:19-22 says in the New International Version: “Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.”

We are God’s people. We are those whom He has called at this end of the age. Living as a true Christian is not going to get easier. The challenges we face are getting more wearisome and challenging. This cannot dissuade us. This cannot stop us from overcoming and moving forward. Rather, as we are making progress, we must constantly harken back to WHY we are doing this! What is it that anchors us and helps us to get back up and keep moving forward?

As we prepare and move through the next few weeks, we should be very mindful of how much we can grow, change and mature in the coming year. It comes down to dedication and resolution. How willing are we to truly allow the mind of Christ to lead and guide us in ALL things?

1 Corinthians 2:6-16 states in the New International Version:

“We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written:

“‘What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived’— the things God has prepared for those who love him— these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for, ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.”

Do all the quoted Scriptures resonate? Do they find a place in our minds and hearts? Again, we are God’s people and we MUST consider ourselves as such! We have the calling and the opportunities! Let us NOT neglect to find out what is right and proper in God’s eyes and to do those things with all perseverance, courage and speed.

by Norbert Link

We begin with the disastrous meeting in Alaska between the USA and China; continue with some troubling questions regarding President Biden’s health; speak on the prospects of new epidemics; the effectiveness and potential dangers of vaccines; dramatic developments in Germany and Europe pertaining to the coronavirus; the ongoing and heated fight between the UK and the EU; and further developments in the UK.

We address animal sacrifices in Israel; the Israeli elections; and Pope Francis’ fight with liberals and conservatives in the Catholic Church, as well as the rocky relationship between the Catholic Church and President Biden.

We conclude with articles on a homosexual Captain America; Chinese propaganda towards a German children’s book; and a court ruling in Canada pertaining to a transgender kid.

Throughout this section, we have underlined pertinent statements in the quoted articles, for the convenience and quick overview of the reader.

The Chinese-US Disaster in Alaska

Breitbart wrote on March 19:

“The meeting [when Chinese diplomats were lecturing their American counterparts on human rights and democracy] took place in Alaska Thursday between American Secretary of State Antony Blinken, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan,  Yang Jiechi, a member of China’s Communist Party’s Politburo; and the country’s top diplomat and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi… During the first in-person meeting between the Biden administration and Chinese officials, Beijing indicated that it would do what it wants, irrespective of U.S. and its allies’ concerns… China’s top diplomat, Yang, went on to attack America’s democracy, urging the United States ‘to stop advancing its own democracy in the rest of the world… Many people within the United States actually have little confidence in the democracy of the United States, and they have various views regarding the Government of the United States,’ he said. Saying that the U.S. is mistreating blacks, he blasted human rights in America.

“Yang declared: ‘In human rights, we hope that the United States will do better on human rights. … The challenges facing the United States in human rights are deep-seated. They did not just emerge over the past four years, such as Black Lives Matter. It did not come up only recently. So we do hope that for our two countries, it’s important that we manage our respective affairs well instead of deflecting the blame on somebody else in this world. He also criticized America for ‘invading’ other nations while accusing China of doing the same.

“Yang said: ‘We do not believe in invading through the use of force, or to topple other regimes through various means, or to massacre the people of other countries, because all of those would only cause turmoil and instability in this world… So we believe that it is important for the United States to change its own image …’

“After the meeting, an unnamed U.S. official accused China of ‘grandstanding,’ Politico reported.”

And what about Chinese blatant civil rights violations towards and concentration camps for minorities? China has shown its utter lack of “respect” for the USA.

Joe Biden a National Security Risk?

Fox News wrote on March 19:

In Friday’s ‘Hannity’ opening monologue, Fox News host Sean Hannity sounded the alarm that President Joe Biden’s recent gaffes and [three-times] stumble while boarding Air Force One have become ‘a nightmare scenario.’… ‘

 “‘Honestly, I watched this. It was sad. You got to almost feel sorry for Joe Biden. From what we can clearly observe now on pretty much a daily basis, he is obviously not doing well. He wasn’t doing well on the campaign. And the scary part of it is, now this is a national security issue… The whole world can see what we see every day, including hostile regimes, hostile actors and America’s enemies. Look at Vladimir Putin, openly mocking the President of the United States of America, challenging him to a debate and then saying ‘I hope you’re better, I hope you’re feeling better, good health.’ The Chinese are now literally spitting at the U.S. and our public image on a public stage like they did yesterday. It was a disaster. Then we had groveling and another apology tour beginning. The mullahs in Iran, they are emboldened…’

“Hannity noted that the media [in the US] has been largely silent on Biden’s tripping incident, contrasting that with wall-to-wall coverage of then-President Donald Trump gingerly walking down a ramp following an event in West Point, New York. He played clips of Associated Press reporter Jonathan Lemire and MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough criticizing Trump and theorizing about his fitness for office…”

The Daily Mail on March 19 added:

“Major left-leaning U.S. press outlets are largely avoiding mention of President Joe Biden’s repeated stumbles as he boarded Air Force One, while many foreign publications are devoting prominent coverage to the incident…. In contrast to the lack of interest in Biden’s stumbles, mainstream U.S. outlets heavily covered an incident last year, in which Trump took mincing baby-steps down a ramp at West Point, which he later explained was ‘very slippery.’ Although Trump did not stumble during the incident, it sparked rampant speculation about his health and criticism over his capacities, including from Biden himself. ‘Look at how he steps and look at how I step,’ Biden said in September 2020, in a clip featured on CNN. ‘Watch how I run up ramps and he stumbles down ramps. OK? Come on.’ ‘Trump’s West Point walk sparks questions about his health,’ read one CNN headline. ‘Trump tries to explain his slow and unsteady walk down a ramp at West Point,’ a Washington Post headline ran. ‘Unsteady appearance prompts new scrutiny of Trump’s health,’ read the headline of an MSNBC article, which also highlighted Trump’s use of two hands to sip a cup of water at the West Point event.

“The contrast drew accusations of a double standard from some conservatives and Trump supporters, who accused the U.S. press of covering up the awkward incident… The fall does nothing to reduce concern for and speculation over Biden’s cognitive health which has grown in recent months thanks to a series of mix-ups on his behalf. The White House and Biden’s camp routinely play down concerns about his health and insist he is fit to lead.

“Biden is the oldest President in history; Ronald Reagan was 77 when he left office and he was 69 when he was elected. Trump was 70 when elected and was 74 when he left office earlier this year.”

It was later “explained” by the White House that Biden slipped because of the heavy wind. However, there was only a very slight breeze. It has been speculated for quite a while on social media that Biden suffers from dementia and/or other physically and mentally-destabilizing conditions, and that he will soon have to resign in favor of Kamala Harris whom he has referred to several times as “President Harris.”

The Sun added on March 19:

“[Conservative commentator ] Candice Owens has claimed Joe Biden is suffering from dementia and that led to his fall while climbing the stairs of Air Force One… Owens tweeted: ‘It’s difficult to fall 3 times while going up a flight of steps… Biden has dementia but let’s wait for CNN to tell us this is just another adorable gaffe!’…

“The President has not taken a cognitive test for dementia and his medical and surgical history released in 2019 made no reference to him suffering from the condition. But his frequent gaffes have been picked up by political opponents as evidence of impaired mental ability, with Donald Trump previously tweeting the Democrat had dementia after forgetting Mitt Romney’s name.

“A poll found that nearly 40 per cent of registered American voters believe Biden has ‘some form of dementia’.”

Coming… New Epidemics

The Washington Standard published on March 16 the following commentary by Michael Snyder:

“What would you do if a coronavirus that is much more contagious than regular COVID and that makes people much sicker than regular COVID started to spread all over the globe?  Well, we are being told that is precisely what is now happening.  Technically, P1 is a ‘variant’ of the COVID virus that has paralyzed the entire planet over the past year, but it is proving to be far more dangerous. Over the past week, the spread of P1 in Brazil has caused people to drop dead at a staggering pace… Vast numbers of healthy young adults are being hospitalized, and that fact has prompted the health secretary of Sao Paulo to refer to P1 as ‘a different pandemic from the one we saw last year’…

“P1 appears to evade immunity conferred by previous COVID infection… the P.1 variant could evade immunity from previous Covid-19 infection by up to 61%. “P1… has already spread to a whole bunch of other countries including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Japan, Mexico, Italy and India…

“If we could barely handle COVID, how are we going to be able to handle P1? And if we can’t handle P1, what in the world is going to happen when a pestilence that is much, much worse comes along? Of course, pandemics are just one element of the ‘perfect storm’ that is now upon us. We live in very troubled times, and what we have experienced so far is just the very beginning.”

The Bible prophesies that in these end times, there will be pandemics and disease epidemics of which we cannot be healed.

Ineffective and Dangerous Vaccines

On March 16, Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche, a vaccine developer, claimed that during a pandemic, we must not have mass vaccinations as it will put great pressure on the virus to mutate to survive the vaccine. That the vaccine does not kill the virus but only prevents the sickness it causes. That the patient still is able to transmit the virus to others. Bossche is also mentioned in the article below.

LewRockwell wrote on March 17:

“The vaccines are the source of a new mutation that is being blamed on the Brazilian, South African, UK or any other ‘variant’ diversions… It’s worth noting, that we are dealing with a 100%-synthetic cocktail… the vaccines don’t do what they’re supposed to do. They neither prevent one from contracting Covid nor do they stop the infection from spreading to others… They do, however, relieve Covid symptoms for which they are reportedly 95% effective. But that’s not why people get vaccinated. Most people get vaccinated because they think it will prevent them from getting sick and dying…

“Is Dr. Vanden Bossche right? Is our ‘extensive and erroneous human intervention’ (the vaccines) ‘going to wipe out large parts of our human population’? Have these vaccines turned ‘a relatively harmless virus into a bioweapon of mass destruction?’ Have the ‘current COVID-19 vaccines… increasingly turn vaccine recipients into asymptomatic carriers who are shedding virus’?? Are we now facing the biggest and most deadly public health disaster in history? We believe he is right…

“Let’s [also] say, for the sake of argument, that [Dr. Gilad] Atzmon is right. Let’s say, there is, in fact, ‘a close correlation between mass vaccination, cases and deaths.’ And let’s also say that ‘This correlation points at the possibility that it is the vaccinated who actually spread the virus or even a range of mutants that are responsible for the radical shift in symptoms above.’

“Is that even possible? Can people who have been vaccinated become super-spreaders of a more virulent and lethal form of the virus? Yes, they can. They can become carriers of a more deadly strain of the infection and kill hundreds of others they come in contact with before dying themselves…”

The Covid Blog wrote on March 12:

“The U.S. Centers for Disease Control recently admitted that Pfizer, Moderna and other experimental shots neither stop the spread of COVID-19, nor prevent you from getting the virus. The agency said in a press release that fully vaccinated Americans must ‘continue to take these COVID-19 precautions when in public.’ That includes wearing masks, staying six feet apart from other people, and avoiding large crowds.

“Pfizer’s CEO, Moderna’s chief medical officer, and Dr. Anthony Fauci have also all admitted that these shots do not stop the spread of COVID-19.  You are not alone if you’re now asking yourself rhetorically, ‘then what is the point of getting these shots?’ There are also real-life events further demonstrating that experimental mRNA and viral vector shots do nothing to stop the spread of COVID-19.

“Two staff members and 10 residents tested positive for COVID-19 this week at the Cottonwoods Care Centre, according to CBC TV. The publicly-funded retirement facility has 221 total beds. The report says 82% of residents were fully vaccinated as of February 15. Two-thirds of staff were fully vaccinated. Thus, the proverbial ‘two-week waiting period’ for alleged immunity had passed. Eight of the confirmed cases were fully-vaccinated.”

However, Senator and physician Rand Paul disagree with these conclusions. Note the next article.

Rand Paul Rips Fauci

Fox News reported on March 19:

“White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci ‘is not being honest with the American public’ about when to wear masks, Sen. Rand Paul [said]. Paul joined host Tucker Carlson one day after the senator challenged Fauci to present hard evidence that people should wear face masks even after receiving the coronavirus vaccine. At one point, Paul called Fauci’s double-masking ‘theater’, which visibly annoyed the immunologist…

“Paul told Carlson Friday that Fauci presented ‘no scientific evidence’ to make the case for wearing masks after people have been vaccinated. ‘There was Dr. Fauci’s opinion, his conjecture that someday there might be a [coronavirus] variant that escapes the control of the vaccine and becomes a pandemic and hospitalizes and kills people,’ he said. ‘But there is no evidence it has happened. He thinks it might happen, so you need to wear the mask until he’s sure that things that might happen are not going to happen.’

“Paul went on to describe Fauci as ‘unconcerned about liberty’, adding that the burden should be on him and other bureaucrats to prove their dictates and recommendations are necessary. ‘There are no news reports or scientific studies saying, after vaccination, that there is some sort of widespread contagion that people [who are] vaccinated are spreading the disease,’ he said.”

It remains to be seen what is and will be happening. In any event, the future looks bleak. Note the next article.

Suicide among American Youth on the Rise

The American Institute for Economic Research wrote on March 20:

“Before Covid, an American youth died by suicide every six hours. Suicide is a major public health threat and a leading cause of death for those aged under 25 — one far bigger than Covid. And it is something that we have only made worse as we, led by politicians and ‘the science,’ deprived our youngest members of society — who constitute one-third of the US population — of educational, emotional and social development without their permission or consent for over a year.

“And why? For what? We were scared. We were scared for our lives and those of people we love. And, like your average German-on-the-street in the 1930s and 40s, we believed that doing what we were told and supporting the national cause would save us and our families. The reality is we sacrificed others without a second thought. We have sacrificed our youths’ lives and future livelihoods…

“Covid poses minimal risk to healthy individuals under 65, and is even less of a threat to youths (those aged under 25). In fact, preliminary data suggest Covid accounted for barely 1.2% of all deaths in the under-25 age group…  the other 98.8% of deaths that had nothing to do with Covid…

“… compared to 2018 and 2019 deaths per 100k, 2020 saw one extra death among those under age five, an additional 1.5 deaths among those aged 5 to 14, and a whopping 23 additional deaths among those aged 15 to 24. Overall, deaths per 100k in this age group jumped from 106.4 per 100k in 2019 to 131.7 per 100k during 2020. That’s an increase of 23% — and Covid only accounts for 1.2% of total deaths in ages 0–24 years.”

These are terrible statistics. Suicides of children, teens and young adults… what a tragedy.

Anti-Lockdown Demonstrations all Over Europe

The Associated Press wrote on March 20:

“Protests against government measures to rein in the pandemic… were reported in several… countries across Europe, including [Germany,] Austria, Britain, Finland, Romania and Switzerland. More than 20,000 people participated in the protest in the central German city of Kassel, where there also were confrontations between the demonstrators and counter-protesters… Chancellor Angela Merkel said Friday Germany will have to… reverse some recent relaxations of restrictions…

“In London, demonstrators opposing the U.K.’s months-long lockdown defied police who warned of potential fines and arrest for violating prohibitions on most group meetings… In Finland, police estimated that about 400 people without masks and packed tightly together gathered in the capital, Helsinki, to protest government-imposed COVID-19 restrictions… Before the Helsinki rally, some 300 people chanting slogans like ‘Let the people speak!’ and carrying placards with phrases such as “Facts and numbers don’t add up” marched through the streets of the city…

“More than a thousand anti-vaccination protesters took to the streets in Romania’s capital of Bucharest… In Austria, about 1,000 protesters participated in demonstrations against the government’s virus measures near Vienna’s central train station… In Switzerland, more than 5,000 protesters met for a silent march…”

Merkel’s Defeat

On Tuesday, the German government announced further lockdowns during the Easter holiday period. Due to extreme outrage, Angela Merkel was forced to reverse this decision. Here is the rundown of the events:

Deutsche Welle reported on March 23:

“Germany is extending the current lockdown through April 18, Chancellor Angela Merkel announced early Tuesday. The country will enter an even stricter lockdown from April 1 to April 5 over the Easter holiday period, when shops, including grocery stores, will largely have to close…‘We are having a de facto Easter lockdown,’ Bavarian State Premier Markus Söder told reporters… Stephan Weil, Lower Saxony’s state premier,… spoke of ‘five days of hard lockdown over Easter.’ ‘Firms should not produce anything, traveling to work should only take place when it is absolutely necessary. Public life in Germany and human interactions should be reduced to the absolute minimum…’

“Professor Andrew Ullmann, spokesman for the German parliament’s health committee [said:] ‘What I’m really concerned about is that we are running from one lockdown to the next lockdown… with no perspective for our population…’”

Bild Online wrote on March 23:

“Storm of Protest after Corona summit. No plan, no clue, no courage. Do Merkel, Soeder & Co. still know what they are doing?”

Bild also said this on March 24:

“In the pandemic, the chancellor and the prime ministers are trying to impose their power more and more unabashedly. The Corona Summits are now feasts of patronizing! With how many guests can a family celebrate Easter? With two, three, four? Which shops are allowed to open on Holy Saturday? None at all, just supermarkets, all? What an undignified legislative horse trading in regards to our fundamental liberties and freedoms! As if it were all about harassing the citizens with ever new measures.”

Die Welt added this commentary on March 24:

“What has become of us? Are we a joke? The decisions… prove: Germany is failing. The rulers, an overwhelmed cohort incapable of solving the crisis, are moving further and further away from the electorate in the pandemic. That won’t go well for long in a liberal democracy.”

Merkel’s government realized that they had gone too far. So this happened next:

Merkel Forced to Backtrack and Apologize

 Deutsche Welle reported on March 24

“In a turnabout move, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told state premiers in a video call that there would not be a strict lockdown over Easter after all… During a press conference, Merkel said the Easter lockdown was formed ‘with the best of intentions,’ but on closer analysis, the planned shutdown risked doing more harm than good… Christian Lindner, party leader of the business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP), tweeted that Merkel should put a vote of confidence to the Bundestag…”

Reuters wrote on March 24:

“[Merkel’s] comments came against a backdrop of growing public frustration with the conservative-led government over the slow rollout of COVID-19 vaccines and extended lockdown measures… A poll released on Wednesday showed public support for Merkel’s conservatives slumping to its lowest in over a year ahead of a national election in September…”

The Daily Mail added on March 24:

“Despite the U-turn, more than 37million Germans could be facing curfews and forced to wear masks in their own cars under other measures agreed at the talks…”

What complete lunacy. Merkel & Co. have reached the end of their ropes, reflecting utter helplessness and incompetence, unwilling to face reality and to step aside. Trust in the federal and state governmental leaders is at an all-time low. A desire for “productive” change is everywhere. Also note the next article.

Jens Spahn under Scrutiny over Mask Purchases

Deutsche Welle reported on March 21:

“Last year, Germany’s Health Ministry ordered over half a million masks from a company that Jens Spahn’s husband works for [Spahn is openly gay.] The reports have raised eyebrows as Merkel’s conservatives continue to get hit by scandals… The mask deal was first reported on by German news magazine Der Spiegel. According to the report, a media company called Hubert Burda Media GmbH sold the Health Ministry some 570,000 masks in April last year — when supplies were low and protective masks were thin on the ground. The report also revealed that Spahn’s husband, Daniel Funke, holds a high-level position in Burda’s Berlin offices. The company confirmed the purchase to news agency dpa, saying the ministry paid the firm around €909,452 ($1.08 million)…

“The reports on Sunday came amid growing scandals and accusations of graft against Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU) and their Bavarian sister-party, the Christian Social Union. Alfred Sauter, former state justice minister for Bavaria, announced on Sunday that he was giving up his CSU party posts after he came under investigation for corruption over mask procurement contracts. Sauter denies any wrongdoing in the case.

“Last month, prosecutors opened a case against senior CSU lawmaker Georg Nüsslein, accusing him of accepting hundreds of thousands of euros to lobby for a mask supplier. Another lawmaker, CDU parliamentarian Nikolas Löbel, also resigned over a separate mask scandal. Prosecutors are likewise looking into his business deals with mask procurement.

“Other conservative lawmakers have resigned over corruption allegations not related to the pandemic, including MP Tobias Zech. The CSU lawmaker resigned on Thursday after reports emerged he did PR work for a political party in Macedonia. The continuous stream of scandals and corruption allegations have hit the conservatives hard just six months before Germany’s general election…”

Britain’s Attack on Von der Leyen and the EU

Express wrote on March 20:

“Has there ever been a better advert for Brexit than this week’s tyrannical, Stalinist rant from the EU’s lost-the-plot boss, Ursula von der Leyen? The woman, who sounds like she’s gone completely mad, has for months headed the worldwide smear campaign against the AstraZeneca vaccine and actively encouraged its suspension. Yet, this week she’s screaming that the EU will commandeer doses destined for us and other countries and then invoke Article 122, allowing the bloc to seize AZ factories along with its patents and control of its production. A pointless exercise obviously because if the EU was too stupid to order enough vaccines it sure… isn’t capable of actually making them.

“Of course none of the threats will ever amount to anything because the consequences would be catastrophic. This is just bluff and bluster from an incompetent leader whose politically motivated blame game has spectacularly backfired and now she doesn’t know what to do. So, she does what the bloc has always done – she threatens. Trouble is, now the world, and especially Britain, sees those threats for what they are – the mark of a blundering, floundering organisation that has failed the only real test it’s ever had, and now feels the ground beneath it crumbling.

“Still, it’s beyond belief that the EU, which is sitting on seven million unused doses of the AZ vaccine, is prepared to go to any lengths to seize every other available dose. This is despite the fact it’s spent months telling the world it’s useless and it kills people. The upshot now, as Covid spirals out of control throughout much of Europe and lockdowns are back, is millions of its citizens are still too scared to have it and hundreds of thousands of unused vaccines are being destroyed thanks to the EU’s killer propaganda.

“Does anyone in the EU actually care about saving lives? Or is it all about scoring points and discrediting Britain and all things British? Yes, this farce is about the EU trying to cover up its own incompetence in not procuring enough vaccines. But it’s also about the bloc’s obsession with trying to hurt us… Britain has so far given 28 million jabs – more than France, Italy, Germany and Portugal combined. And the EU doesn’t like that so it’s desperate to discredit our inoculation programme even if it costs the lives of EU citizens and people all over the world. If it was called the Paris or the Stuttgart vaccine not the Oxford vaccine it would have been a whole different story.

“But this obsession with trying to destroy us had President Macron telling everyone it was ineffective as Chancellor Merkel refused to have it because she said it didn’t work in older people. Then came the claims about it causing blood clots… How must the citizens of those countries feel now, seeing that the EU is playing politics with their lives in order to shore up the bloc’s power and keep safe the jobs of their unelected, overpaid EU masters? ‘All options are on the table,’ said Ursula this week. Well let’s hope those options include her being kicked out before needless numbers of EU citizens die thanks to her towering incompetence.”

This article reflects the ongoing animosity between the UK and the EU, with no hope for healing of any kind. Note the next articles.

Express wrote on March 20:

“Given the EU’s long track record of incompetent and shambolic rule, a Eurocrat [von der Leyen] has to hit spectacular levels of uselessness to be deemed sackable… Her threat to invoke wartime-style emergency powers to block vaccines from being exported out of the EU was meant as a show of strength at a time of crisis. Instead, it has left Brussels looking desperate… Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab likened her threat to the actions of a dictatorship, showing contempt for the international rule of law.”

Deutsche Welle reported on March 20:

“The European Union could stop AstraZeneca from exporting its COVID-19 vaccine from the bloc if the British-Swedish pharma company does not meet its supply obligations, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in comments published on Saturday…”

Deutsche Welle wrote on March 21:

“Despite earlier promises, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen has said the bloc cannot donate COVID-19 vaccines to developing countries while it struggles with its own supply. The UK slammed the move as ‘counterproductive.’… Von der Leyen had strongly campaigned for providing vaccines to people worldwide back in spring 2020…

“The EU has accused the UK of imposing its own de facto export ban. The claim was vigorously denied by the UK, however, there is no evidence to suggest that the UK has exported any COVID vaccines at all, as it relies on complex legal arrangements with manufacturers.”

While the fight between the EU and the UK continues, von der Leyen is becoming more and more unpopular within the EU itself.

Status Report on Britain

The European Council on Foreign Affairs wrote on March 19:

“Brexit has not got off to a flying start. UK goods exports to the European Union fell by more than 40 per cent in January; a new row has erupted over UK ministers’ propensity to breach the terms of the Northern Ireland Protocol unilaterally; and the government’s incomplete preparations have forced it to delay the introduction of checks on incoming EU goods, to avoid empty supermarket shelves…

“Confidence in the US security guarantee has evaporated – not least in the UK, where a startling 74 per cent agreed that ‘Europe can’t always rely on the US; we need to look after our own defence capabilities’…  Britons are warming to Biden’s America, but the United States remains less trusted than other key security partners, such as Canada, Australia, Germany, and Japan, and is considered a less important relationship than our partnership with the European Union…

“Britain’s national finances are in free-fall… National debt has now exceeded £2 trillion (some 100 per cent of GDP – the worst fiscal position for 70 years) and continues to rise…”

Crazy… Barbeques Cause Global Warming

The Sun wrote on March 19:

“Brighton and Hove City Council has come under fire over the controversial proposal to stop holidaymakers and residents enjoying using the grilling stations in all beaches, parks and open spaces. The Green Party-run authority says disposable barbecues are partly to blame for the world’s rising CO2 levels. It says the move is part of the direction for action on climate change with the aim of making the seaside resort carbon neutral by 2030.

“But the plans have been condemned by residents and tourists alike who have accused the Green-run council of being ‘the worst type of woke’ and trying to kill the summer tourism trade…Every year around 10million holidaymakers and day trippers flock to Brighton and Hove with many enjoying a beer and a barbecue on the beach. The tourism industry supports more than 20,000 jobs and brings in an estimated £850million to the city…”

If one thinks that THAT is crazy, note the next article.

Church of England Institutionally Racist?

Daily Mail wrote on March 19:

“The Church of England is set to introduce a 30 per cent quota for ethnic minority candidates on its leadership programme and carry out anti-racism training, it emerged last night. Officials are also planning to provide information giving context to church statues which may have caused ‘pain or offence’ as part of plans to tackle discrimination.

“Only one of the 42 diocesan bishops come from black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds. A taskforce was set up last year by the Church after Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said he was ‘sorry and ashamed’ that ‘we are still institutionally racist’. The ‘Lament to Action’ report also calls for an overhaul of education within CofE schools as well as plans to ‘deal with’ controversial statues and monuments.”

According to the Daily Mail, dated March 18, a movement has started in the UK to do away with masculine and feminine terms, as they “reinforce historic gender stereotypes.” Rather, it is suggested that “a move to ‘Mx’ is more of a general term that could replace Mr, Mrs, or Miss… to avoid any offence.” Also, the head of Kew Gardens, Richard Deverell, defends his decision to “decolonize” his botanical paradise, naming and shaming plants from countries that profited from exploitation. 

Jewish Sacrifices and the Temple Service

Israel 365 wrote on March 17:

“During a virtual conference on Wednesday, Rabbi Aryeh Stern, the chief rabbi of Jerusalem, ruled that the Korban Pesach (Passover sacrifice) is incumbent upon the Jewish people today… The rabbi concluded that in his opinion, it is possible for us today to perform the Passover sacrifice even before the construction of the Temple. This is based on the principle [that] the normal rules that prohibit the Kohanim (priests) and public from performing Temple rituals while in a state of ritual impurity are not applicable regarding the need to bring a sacrifice for the sake of the public…

“Rabbi Aryeh Lipo, the secretary of the Sanhedrin, agreed with the conclusion of Rabbi Stern, adding that it is entirely correct according to Halacha to renew the Temple service immediately. He added that one clear purpose of the Temple service was to cope with epidemics.

“Rabbi Hillel Weiss, the former spokesman for the Sanhedrin told Israel365 News, ‘The only thing preventing the Jewish People from performing the Passover sacrifice is the Israeli government. If the government decides to allow it, we must be ready to go up and begin the service… Now we must do what is required, and for now that means being ready to begin the Temple service.’”

The Bible prophesies that the Jews will begin to bring animal sacrifices, which will then be suppressed by an invading European power bloc. It is possible that these sacrifices will begin before the building of the third temple has commenced or has been completed, but they will be brought in anticipation of the third temple.

Election Results in Israel

JTA wrote on March 23:

“With the vast majority of votes counted from Tuesday’s Israeli election, it appears that neither Benjamin Netanyahu nor his opponents have a clear path to forming a government… as it stands Wednesday, the tally shows a split between Netanyahu’s allies and his opponents in Israel’s parliament, the 120-seat Knesset. Two parties remain uncommitted to either group….

“Should no candidate be able to assemble a coalition, which is what happened twice in 2019, Israel holds a repeat election. The results don’t point to any obvious majority coalition… the shape of the next Israeli government, and the identity of the person who leads it, may be unclear for quite some time.”

The Jerusalem Post wrote on March 24:

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would not be able to form a government, according to preliminary results from 97% of the regular polling stations… unless he gains support from the Arab-Islamist Ra’am Party…”

Coming… Fight between Biden and Catholic Church?

CNA wrote on March 18:

“HHS has authority over a broad range of concerns—federally-funded adoption agencies, regulation of the abortion pill, refugee resettlement, anti-human trafficking efforts, global health, and family planning, to name a few. Health policy also intersects with the work of the Catholic Church, which historically has had a large and heavy footprint on U.S. health care. Perhaps in no other area, aside from education, does the Church work more with the broader society.

“An estimated one in six hospital beds in the U.S. is in a Catholic hospital, according to the ACLU. Catholics provide adoption and foster care services around the country, and help resettle refugee families. They operate shelters for human trafficking survivors. Catholic doctors, nurses, and foster mothers may work anywhere in the healthcare system, not just at Catholic institutions…

“It is also true that in health care, the ‘culture war’ battles are raging the hardest. A number of groups—chief among them the ACLU—have for years been pushing for contraceptives, abortions, same-sex marriages, and gender-transition procedures to become the norm in health care and family life, whether or not religious organizations agree. An administration which is willing to aggressively back abortion, marriage redefinition, and gender ideology could pick a lot of fights with Catholic organizations—and that is exactly what happened under the Obama administration… many Catholic institutions will be counting up the myriad of Obama-era ‘culture war’ fights that could reignite—and burn hotter than ever before.”

On the other hand, it is reported that Jesuit Pope Francis is happy with Joe Biden, the second Catholic President in America’s history.

Pope Francis Battles Liberals and Conservatives

The Wall Street Journal wrote on March 20:

“Pope Francis is struggling to manage powerful bishops in the U.S. and Germany, two groups at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, as he tries to advance his progressive agenda without jeopardizing the unity of the Catholic Church. The election of President Biden, a progressive Catholic whom some U.S. bishops want to censure for his support of abortion rights, has exacerbated longstanding tensions between the pope and the largely conservative American episcopate. U.S. church leaders have resisted promoting the pope’s priorities of social and economic justice and care for the environment over opposition to abortion and defense of religious freedom.

“On the left, the pope is trying to rein in German bishops who—encouraged by the pope’s liberalizing gestures on topics including sexuality, ecumenism and the role of women—are pressing for changes that go further than Pope Francis is comfortable with, and that conservatives warn could cause a schism. Pope Francis’ most recent attempt to restrain the Germans came in this week’s Vatican document forbidding clergy to bless same-sex unions , a practice supported by some leading German bishops…

“Following Mr. Biden’s election, Pope Francis broke protocol by phoning to congratulate the president-elect. But on inauguration day, Archbishop José Gómez of Los Angeles, president of the USCCB, said, ‘Our new president has pledged to pursue certain policies that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage and gender.’ Meanwhile, some bishops say Mr. Biden’s abortion stance makes him ineligible to receive the Eucharist…

“Meanwhile in Germany, bishops and leading lay Catholics are engaged in a national synod considering major changes to church life, including the possibility of women clergy, married priests and changes to church teaching on sexuality… Conservative bishops in both the U.S. and Germany have warned that the German synod could lead the church into a split with the rest of the Catholic world… The [Vatican’s] statement [prohibiting the blessing of same-sex marriages] drew defiant reactions from clergy in Germany and beyond, including Austria and Belgium, with some priests vowing to bless gay couples despite the prohibition.

“… Vatican offices have also recently issued statements that rule out giving Communion to Protestants or allowing laypeople to administer parishes on an equal basis with priests, both ideas popular with German bishops.

“Despite disappointment in Germany with the statement on gay couples, liberals there retain an overwhelmingly positive view of the pope, said Ludwig Ring-Eifel, head of the German bishops’ news agency KNA. ‘The perception goes somewhat like this: Francis has opened all the doors which [Popes John Paul and Benedict] had previously declared closed on gays, on celibacy, on intercommunion. But the conservatives in the Vatican still stand in his way, and he alone is too weak to complete the revolution,’ Mr. Ring-Eifel said.”

Marvel’s First Gay Captain America… and more…

Daily Mail wrote on March 17:

“Marvel Comics has unveiled its very first gay Captain America. The character, named Aaron Fischer, will feature in The United States of Captain America – a new comic book series set for release on June 2. Marvel released images of Fischer on Wednesday, touting him as the first openly queer character in Captain America’s 80-year history. “‘Marvel Comics is proud to honor Pride Month with the rise of this new LGBTQ+ hero,’ the company said in a statement.

“Writer Joshua Trujillo has penned the debut issue in the new series which introduces Fischer… ‘He stands for the oppressed and the forgotten. I hope his debut story resonates with readers and helps inspire the next generation of heroes.’… Fischer was illustrated by Jan Bazaldua, who is a transgender artist…. Fischer also has multiple piercings, including a bull piercing in his nose. Comic book fans were thrilled by the announcement, with many taking to Twitter to share their excitement…

“Marvel has been diversifying its comic book characters in recent years. Thor comics have already featured a trans female character named Sera who descends from a group of male angels, before going on to assume a female identity.”

Chinese Propaganda and German Cowardness

Breitbart wrote on March 10:

“A German children’s book that stated that the coronavirus came from China has been pulped after the publisher caved to pressure from Communist Party diplomats and local Chinese people. The book which was published in the summer of last year is entitled ‘A Corona Rainbow for Anna and Moritz.’ The book tried to help children understand the radically different world they found themselves in following the pandemic.

“In the picture book, the children’s father says: ‘The virus comes from China and has spread out from there across the whole world,’ according to The Times. The book was based on advice from a tropical medicine institute in Hamburg. Despite the overwhelming scientific consensus that the virus emerged from Wuhan, in Central China, the communist regime has consistently denied this, even promulgating unfounded conspiracies such as the U.S. military bringing the virus into China.

“The CCP has also tried to attempt to liken the use of the phrase ‘China virus’ — favoured by former U.S. President Donald Trump — to racism, though the CCP has not made the same objections over the use of the so-called ‘UK variant’.

“A social media campaign from Chinese people in Germany saw many take to Amazon to give the book a one-star rating, claiming the book was ‘spreading racism among children in Germany’. Some Chinese residents also vowed to launch legal claims against the publisher and to protest against ‘racism and discrimination’. The campaign was later picked up by the Chinese consulate in Hamburg, who ‘lodged solemn representations against the publisher’.

“An article from the CCP mouthpiece The Global Times said: ‘The Chinese community believes a simple apology is not enough and asked for the recall of the book’… the Carlsen publishing house apologised and decided to destroy copies of the book…

“Communist China is no stranger to book burning and other censorious tactics stretching back to the time of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution, in which countless religious icons, buildings and books were destroyed by the young Red Guards…’”

We can have gay and transgender heroes in comics, but children’s books must not speak about the coronavirus coming from China…

Stupidity in Canada too…

Newsmax wrote on March 19:

“A Canadian man has been arrested for violating a court order that prevented him from speaking publicly about his teenager’s gender transition… the man is father to a gender non-conforming biological female 15-year-old who identifies as transgender. The teen prefers the use of male pronouns. However, the man has repeatedly called the teen his daughter, despite the court forbidding it. He has also reportedly referred to the teen with the pronouns ‘’she’ and ‘her’… the man is against the teen undergoing ‘gender affirmative’ medical procedures…

“The court ordered the dad not to stand in the way of the teenager’s hormone therapy and to try to better comprehend gender dysphoria… The judges said the man must acknowledge and refer to his child as a boy and by the name the teen has chosen. The father can also state his feelings to family, close friends and close advisers, provided they don’t work for the media… the justices added the father’s rejection of his child’s chosen gender caused the teen ‘significant pain’ that has ‘resulted in a rupture of what both parties refer to as an otherwise loving parent-child relationship.’

“The teen has said he identified as a boy since age 11 and began exploring transition treatment when he [she] was 13. The man claimed… the child had complex problems. But he said the court blamed them all on gender dysphoria… The man… said that the child had intense crushes on two male teachers and also made a suicide attempt.

“The man… blasted the left for his situation…  ‘I am fighting the far left based on a civil disobedience defense!’’ he reportedly wrote. ‘I am now back in court for a five-day criminal trial that will last at least five days … From April 12-16. That trial that could land me in jail for up to five years for speaking truth about state sponsored child abuse. FYI … I am blocked from sharing any videos at this time that oppose the sterilization of children!’”

How must God feel about such blatant violations of His laws and principles? Sodom and Gomorrah come to mind for sure.. but it’s even getting worse.

Acknowledgement and Disclaimer

These Current Events are compiled and commented on by Norbert Link. We gratefully acknowledge the many contributions of news articles from our readership. The publication of articles in this section is not to be viewed as an endorsement or approval as to contents or accuracy of the selected articles, but they are published for the purpose of pointing at worldwide developments in the light of biblical end-time prophecy and godly instruction. Our own comments are provided in italics.

We are living in a world that can be very discouraging and depressing, and a word of encouragement can be very uplifting. We know that in our spiritual life, roadblocks will be put in front of us in order to deter us from achieving our goal, but we mustn’t let these deter us in any way! We can and will win if we keep the Way of God.

What is the definition of encouragement?   In collinsdictionary.com we read that it is “the activity of encouraging someone, or something that is said or done in order to encourage them.” It then gives the following synonyms: “inspiration, help, support, aid, favour, comfort, comforting, cheer, cheering, consolation, reassurance, morale boosting, succour.”

Merriam Webster gives these definitions of encourage:

to inspire with courage, spirit, or hope: HEARTEN

to attempt to persuade: URGE

to spur on: STIMULATE

to give help or patronage to: FOSTER

We know that when we were called to God’s Way of Life, it was not an easy way that lay ahead of us but was the “narrow way” (compare Matthew 7:13-14) and while pursuing it, encouragement can greatly help us in our goal of making it into the Kingdom of God.

In the Old Testament we read of discouragement in Ezra 4:4-5: “Then the people of the land tried to discourage the people of Judah. They troubled them in building, and hired counselors against them to frustrate their purpose all the days of Cyrus king of Persia, even until the reign of Darius king of Persia.” This resistance to rebuilding the Temple came from outsiders – the people of the land. As we know, the Temple was rebuilt years later.

We know that Elijah was extremely discouraged after his Mount Carmel victory over the prophets of Baal. In 1 Kings 19:1-10 we read that “he prayed that he might die” after he was threatened by Jezebel and said: “I alone am left; and they seek to take my life.” We read in the following verses that God encouraged him and he went on to do more things in the name of the LORD.

Today, many of us live in countries where we do not suffer any real persecution at all, but that does not detract from the fact that a true Christian lives a completely different Way of Life from those who have not had God’s great calling at this time. Even with the astounding and wonderful knowledge that God has made available to us, we can still feel down, and discouragement is not unknown to God’s people. Satan will, of course, want to throw us off track as we read in 1 Peter 5:8: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” We have been warned!

The following is an old story that is worth repeating in the context of discouragement.

“The devil was holding a yard sale one day and displayed his most useful tools, marked at different prices, on a table. Lying side by side were some of his most notable implements of destruction: hatred, envy, jealousy, deceit, lust, lying and pride- all on sale. But over to the side of the yard on display was a worn-out tool that cost more than all the others combined. The tool was labeled DISCOURAGEMENT. When asked why it was more expensive than the other tools, the devil responded, ‘It’s more useful to me than any of the others. When I can’t bring down my victims with the rest of my tools, I use discouragement, because so few people realize it belongs to me.’”

An internet writer observed: “Discouragement is a thief.  It steals your vitality, your zeal, your joy, your peace, and your contentment.  If discouragement dwells long with you, its friends will soon join.  Their names are fatigue, hopelessness, despair, self-pity, depression, doubt, and bitterness. Sometimes, discouragement can be so strong that you even don’t want to go on living.”

If we find ourselves discouraged at any time, we should take this to God in prayer and ask for His help in turning this difficulty around.

It is interesting and helpful to review positive information about encouragement in the Bible. In Acts 4:36 we read that “Joses  who was also named Barnabas by the apostles (which is translated Son of Encouragement)…” This is the first time in the Bible that he is mentioned and it shows his outstanding example of generosity when he sold a field that he owned and then took the money to the apostles to distribute to those in need (verse 37).

Barnabas was a nickname given to him: a product of his character. It seems that he played a vital role in the early church. Here we see that he had sold some land to help provide for fellow Christian believers. The Church members in Jerusalem were in severe economic need and what did he do – just give out sympathy? No, he encouraged everyone by providing for their needs.

In Acts 9:26-27, Barnabas is seen encouraging the apostle Paul. He even took him to the apostles in Jerusalem for an introduction. Two chapters later he encouraged new believers in Antioch (compare Acts 11:22-24).

We read the apostle Paul’s instruction in Hebrews 3:13: “… but exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today,’ lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” The NIV uses the word encourage where the New King James Bible uses the word exhort, but exhort means to urge and to encourage.

The apostle Paul further instructs us in 1 Thessalonians 5:11: “Therefore comfort each other and edify one another, just as you also are doing,” and the margin in the New King James Bible says that we are to “encourage” each other.

Do we encourage others? Is this part of our Christian Way of Life? It certainly should be! Hebrews 10:24 states, “And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works.” In a world of doom and gloom, a word of encouragement can work wonders. As the saying goes: “Flatter me, and I may not believe you. Criticise me, and I may not like you. Ignore me, and I may not forgive you. Encourage me, and I will not forget you.”

We know that in this life now, we will have tests, trials and tribulation, as our calling is tested, and Jesus told His followers nearly 2,000 years ago and, by extension today, to be of good cheer as He had overcome the world (compare John 16:33).

In 2 Timothy 2:3-4, we read about being strong in Jesus Christ: “You therefore must endure hardship as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.  No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.”  This clearly tells us that there is to be hardship – the Greek word can also be translated as to undergo hardship, be afflicted, endure afflictions, to suffer trouble.   The true Christian Way is not easy, and we will be tested throughout the rest of our lives.   God has got to see whether we are serious about our calling and His Way of Life.   If it were easy, anyone could do it, but the reward is so glorious and wonderful – and will last for eternity – that God has to be sure of us.   And that is why we will be tested.

When was the last time that we encouraged or sincerely complimented someone?  Negative comments are easy to make but encouragement is a quality not normally exercised by too many.

Another internet writer put it this way: “Encouragement makes it easier to live in a fallen world in a holy way. Encouragement makes it easier to love as Jesus loved (see John 13:34-35). Encouragement gives hope (Romans 15:4). Encouragement helps us through times of discipline and testing (Hebrews 12:5). Encouragement nurtures patience and kindness (see 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and Galatians 5:22-26). Encouragement makes it easier to sacrifice our own desires for the advancement of God’s kingdom. In short, encouragement makes it easier to live the Christian life.”

It has been said that encouragement is the greatest tool available to adults to boost children’s self-esteem. The psychologist Rudolph Dreikers once said, “Like a plant needs water children need encouragement.” It is through encouragement that we help others to achieve greater things than they thought possible.

2 Corinthians 1:3-5 says: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds through Christ.”

This tells us that God is a God of mercy and comfort who comforts us, and that we may comfort others. There many verses in the Bible that can be helpful and encouraging and which can lift our spirits, and here are but a few of so many that are worth reviewing: Psalm 18:1-2; 27:1, 46:1; Isaiah 12:2; Acts 1:8; Romans 14:19; Philippians 4:13; 1 Thessalonians 5:11.

Hebrews 10:24-25 tells us: “And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.” The New Living Translation uses the phrase “motivate one another” instead of “exhorting one another”, and this is another way of encouragement.

What a future God’s people have to look forward to in the Kingdom of God and a time when encouragement, not doom and gloom, will be the order of the day!  The original question was “How Important is Encouragement in the life of a Christian?“ This answer has shown that it is vital.  Encouragement is the expression of approval and support.   We should, in the true Church of God, support each other and help in any way we can.

Don’t ever give up. Tough times will come and go. For a true Christian, everything happens for a purpose, and God is always with us. The future is wonderful, and at this time, we should acknowledge this and use encouragement as a vital part of our Christian life.

Lead Writer: Brian Gale (United Kingdom)

compiled by Dave Harris

The March 2021 Member Letter is now posted.

“Der Leib und das Blut Jesu Christi,” is the title of this Sabbath’s new German sermon, presented by Norbert Link. Title in English: “The Body and the Blood of Jesus Christ.”

“Der Betrug der Sünde,” is the title of the afternoon sermon on the First Day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, presented by Norbert Link. Title in English: “The Deceitfulness of Sin.”

“Mit welchem Recht?” last Sabbath’s German sermonette which was presented by Johann Schell, is now posted. Title in English: “With What Right?”

“Get to Work,” last Sabbath’s sermonette presented by Eric Rank, is now posted. Here is a summary:

The life of a Christian involves a lifetime of spiritual growth and development, requiring hard work in overcoming sin and bringing the fruit of the Spirit to maturity.

“God-Who-Forgives,” last Sabbath’s sermon presented by Dave Harris, is now posted. Here is a summary:

Throughout the history of mankind, evil has become so all-pervasive that God has been moved to destroy individuals, nations and even the entire world. Yet, because righteousness was found in some, God relented. That, however, did not remove all the consequences of sin.

On March 20, 2021, Eric Rank will present the sermonette, titled, “Get to Work,” and Dave Harris will present the sermon, titled, “God-Who-Forgives.”

The live services are available, over video and audio, at http://eternalgod.org/live-services/ (12:30 pm Pacific Time; 1:30 pm Mountain Time; 2:30 pm Central Time; 3:30 pm Eastern Time; 8:30 pm Greenwich Mean Time; 9:30 pm Central European Time). Just click on Connect to Live Stream.

In the Current Events section of our weekly Update no. 961 on February 19^th 2021, there was an item headed “Black List for LGBT-‘Hate’ Groups,” which included the following comments:

“C-Fam wrote on February 12:

“‘The UN rights office is collecting the names of anyone who opposes the LGBT agenda in any way. Politicians, religious leaders, and organizations from around the world who defend life and family will likely be put on a blacklist by the UN office for human rights. The drastic new measure may be used to impose sanctions on pro-family advocates and expose them to terrorist attacks…

“‘In the broadly worded prompt, the UN rights office asks for examples of “public expressions or statements by political and/or religious leaders” who challenge LGBT rights… The UN rights office is especially focused on religions of pro-life and pro-family groups. It asks for any “examples where the concept of gender has been used in religious narratives or narratives of tradition, traditional values or protection of the family” in opposition to new LGBT laws and policies.’”

This was interesting as I had been reading a book entitled “Trigger Warning – Is the Fear of Being Offensive Killing Free Speech?,” where the author, Mick Hume, makes this excellent analysis:

“More recent struggles for freedom and equality in Western societies were just as intimately bound up with freedom of speech. The demand for free speech, the right for their voices to be heard, has proved central to the struggles for women’s emancipation, gay liberation and racial equality in the UK and US. There is a grim irony in the fashion… for feminist, trans or anti-racist activists today to demand restrictions on free speech as a means of protecting the rights of the identity groups they claim to represent. Without the efforts of those who fought for more free speech in the past, these illiberal activists would not be free to stand up and call for less of it in the present.”

Mr Hume went on to say that “we are living in the age of the reverse-Voltaires… Voltaire was a pioneer of free speech in eighteenth-century Enlightenment France. Voltaire is credited with one of the great historical sayings on the subject: ‘I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.’ The cri de coeur [that is, the passionate outcry, as of appeal, entreaty or protest] of today’s hardcore offence-takers turns his principle inside out: ‘I know that I’ll detest and be offended by what you say, and I will defend to the end of free speech my right to stop you saying it.’ The reverse-Voltaires do not wish to dispute ideas or arguments that offend them. They would deny the other person’s right to say it in the first place.”

Put another way, those who have used the right to free speech in the first place are happy to have done so in pursuit of their agenda, and when that has been achieved, they then try and close down any comment, discussion or debate on that very same subject. Freedom of speech or no free speech, we all know which! It can also be called the cancel culture.

Game, set and match to them, or so they think. Perhaps for the time being, but there is coming a time when this nonsense will simply come to a grinding halt. There will be no need for family groups to defend their position nor will those promoting LGBT rights and other ungodly practices be allowed to function in such a capacity. Rather, they will learn and understand how wrong they had been all along.

The Truth given to us by God in His Word which is casually and callously discarded by those who seem to think that they know better, will become the norm, and society in the soon-coming Kingdom of God will practice the way that leads to a properly ordered society and happiness at every turn. Those of us who have been called to the knowledge of this Truth look forward eagerly to such a time!

by Norbert Link

We begin with reports on safety concerns regarding the vaccine AstraZeneca and its suspended use by numerous countries; and report on scandals in Germany and a major hit Angela Merkel took in Sunday’s state elections.

We continue with an eye-opening article about the dangerous rise of dictatorships worldwide and the demise of democracy in over 100 countries [please view our new StandingWatch and AufPostenStehen programs in this regard]; address an alleged massive Chinese cover-up regarding the origin and outbreak of the coronavirus; and speak on the political downfall of Governors Newsom and Cuomo.

We address the “crisis” or “challenge” at the US-Mexican border and the ongoing unrest and violence in Oregon.

We also speak on two European states which have opened branches of their embassies in Jerusalem; and point out another diplomatic row between Israel and Jordan. We also report on a new alleged discovery of Dead Sea scrolls.

We conclude with the Vatican’s announcement not to bless same-sex unions, and more stupidity from England.

Throughout this section, we have underlined pertinent statements in the quoted articles, for the convenience and quick overview of the reader.

Safety Concerns for Vaccine

Bloomberg wrote on March 12:

“The World Health Organization called for immunizations with AstraZeneca Plc’s Covid-19 vaccine to continue after [many] countries suspended use of the shot over safety concerns… after concerns emerged in Austria last weekend, when the country stopped using some supplies of AstraZeneca’s vaccine as a precaution following reports of a death and illness among recipients. In rapid succession, Denmark, Italy and Norway followed suit, pointing to instances of blood clotting potentially linked to batches of the product. Thailand has suspended AstraZeneca vaccinations.

“The moves threaten to derail Europe’s already stuttering vaccine rollout, which trails campaigns in the U.K. and U.S. and could prolong the social and economic pain of the pandemic. They follow complaints from Europe that Astra isn’t delivering enough doses, along with age restrictions that many countries put on the shot in January before recently clearing it for all adults…

The Guardian reported on March 14 that Ireland is suspending the use of the vaccine “as a precautionary measure following further reports of blood clots in people who have received it, this time from Norway… Ireland cited a report into a death and three hospitalisations in Norway that came out on Saturday.” Other countries include Iceland and Bulgaria. Subsequently, it was announced that the Netherlands, Germany and France and Sweden also suspended the use of the vaccine “as a precaution.”

On March 13, MSN reported that “President Joe Biden’s administration is holding on to its stockpile of AstraZeneca PLC vaccines, even though the shot isn’t authorized for U.S. use… the U.K.-based company has begun manufacturing doses in the U.S. to fill an order for 300 million shots the American government placed last year… An AstraZeneca executive told CNBC last week that the company expects to have 30 million doses ready to ship when the shot receives authorization from the Food and Drug Administration.”

Deutsche Welle reported on March 16:

“The EU regulatory body… is ‘still firmly convinced that the benefits of the AstraZeneca vaccine in preventing COVID-19 with its associated risk of hospitalization and death outweigh the risk of these side effects,’ Executive Director Emer Cooke [said]…”

Dramatic Escalation between EU and UK over AstraZeneca’s Vaccine

The Sun wrote on March 17:

“In a dramatic escalation of their furious row with the pharma giant, EU boss Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc could even suspend patents on the lifesaving jab so anyone could produce it – but critics branded the threats ‘Stalinist.’ In a bombshell intervention, the raging German said she did not rule out triggering emergency powers to ‘make sure Europeans are vaccinated as soon as possible’ – warning ‘all options are on the table’. And in an astonishing broadside aimed at Britain she warned the bloc may restrict vaccine shipments to countries whose rollouts are going far better than its own. Her explosive comments come despite several EU nations pulling the plug on the very same jab earlier this week…

“The remarks reignited a fuming war of words between Britain and the EU…

“The massive row comes after 20 EU countries fully or partially suspended the use of the AZ vaccine over unsubstantiated blood clot fears this week. In Germany doctors at one vaccination centre were reported to have been brought to tears by having to destroy a batch of unused vaccines, describing the situation as a ‘disaster beyond all expectations’… The head of Italy’s medicines agency railed against the move as a ‘political choice’ and vowed to resume vaccinations at a greater than ever pace as soon as possible. Meanwhile in Poland – which has not suspended use of the jab – a top adviser to the PM suggested a commercially motivated ‘disinformation’ campaign designed to benefit AZ’s rivals was behind the decisions.”

Reuters added on March 17:

“The European Union on Wednesday threatened to ban exports of COVID-19 vaccines to Britain to safeguard scarce doses for its own citizens facing a third wave of the pandemic that would jeopardise plans to restart travel this summer… Von der Leyen said the flow of vaccine products was smooth with the United States but aired frustration over lack of deliveries from AstraZeneca in Britain…

“The situation threatens plans announced by the Commission to launch ‘green digital certificate’ that would collate information on vaccinations, tests and COVID recovery to let travellers cross borders freely again.”

Quite an interesting contradiction, as Europe wants more AstraZeneca vaccines while suspending its use.

Europeans Resume Use of AstraZeneca Vaccine

 Deutsche Welle wrote on March 18:

“Germany, France and several other EU countries on Thursday have decided to continue using the AstraZeneca vaccine after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) deemed the shot ‘safe and effective’…  Germany will resume administering the jab on Friday, according to Health Minister Jens Spahn. The vaccine, however, will come with new advice on potential side effects…

“France, Italy, Latvia, Bulgaria and Slovenia will also move forward with the AstraZeneca vaccine following the EMA’s guidance. French Prime Minister Jean Castex plans to receive the AstraZeneca shot on Friday to boost public confidence in the vaccine… Spain will reintroduce AstraZeneca vaccinations on Wednesday, but will exclude some demographic groups to minimize health risks. 

“Lithuania will resume using the AstraZeneca jab on Friday… Norway and Sweden will keep the AstraZeneca vaccine suspended as their public health bodies assess the situation… Norwegian Institute of Public Health director Camilla Stoltenberg told reporters [that] it was ‘premature’ to come to a final conclusion on the vaccine.  Sweden has said it ‘needs a few days’ before coming to a decision on the jab.”

Secret Contracts and Corruption in the EU?

Express wrote on March 12:

“AUSTRIA has accused some EU states of having ‘secret contracts’ for coronavirus vaccines in a snub to the bloc’s shambles jabs programme. In a fiery intervention, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz claimed Covid vaccines are not being distributed evenly within the EU. He called for greater transparency because some countries had been able to get ahead after receiving more doses than they were due under the bloc’s pro-rata system. Mr Kurz has held talks with his counterparts from Greece, Belgium, Poland, Slovenia and the Czech Republic to compare the vaccine delivery figures…

“Mr Kurz suggested there has been a ‘bazaar’ for life-saving vaccines within the EU, with secretive side agreements reached between a ‘steering board’ and drugs giants.”

Money makes the world go around. Several German politicians had to resign when it became known that they had allegedly manipulated the system by profiting financially, having received payments for brokering face mask procurement deals.

In addition, Deutsche Welle wrote on March 12:

“A year ago, Germany was effusively praised for its coronavirus response. Nobody would think to do that now. If anything, the international view today is a mixture of astonishment and schadenfreude… Germany has morphed from model student to pandemic problem child in short order, fighting failure in a number of subjects.”

Merkel Takes Major Hit in Regional Elections

The Guardian wrote on March 15:

“Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats face questions over… the impact of a corruption scandal involving face mask production following historic defeats in German regional elections on Sunday – just six months before a national vote. Merkel’s successor as chancellor is due to be chosen by the voters in September and the CDU’s worst ever results in the states of Baden-Württemberg and Rhineland-Palatinate, which were once considered its strongholds, have increased pressure on the party to work out how it can regain the confidence of the public in time.

“In the wealthy southern state of Baden-Württemberg, the CDU’s result slumped to just 24%, way behind its main rival, the pro-environmental Greens, who made gains to secure 33%. The CDU had previously ruled the state from 1953 for almost 58 years. In Rhineland-Palatinate, south-western Germany, the CDU vote fell by more than four points to 28%, with the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) securing victory with 36%.

“The CDU has had to face up to the fact that a corruption scandal involving alleged kickbacks over face mask procurement, which led to the resignation of three MPs within a week, in the run-up to the votes, has seriously damaged its image… A sluggish nationwide vaccine rollout,  which has been largely blamed on Merkel and her health minister Jens Spahn’s decision to allow the European commission to take control of orders, is also thought to have contributed to voter distrust…

“The fact that the CDU has returned such historically bad results, which have plunged the party into its worst crisis for years two months after electing a new party leader, Armin Laschet, has raised serious questions as to whether he is the right candidate to take it forward…

“Sunday’s state elections kicked off what has been labelled ‘superwahljahr’ or ‘super election year’, to include further votes in the state of Saxony-Anhalt in June, Lower Saxony and Berlin in September and culminating in the federal election on 26 September, together with elections in the states of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Thuringia on the same day…”

Newsmax added on March 14:

“The results are also a blow to CDU party chairman Armin Laschet, who took pole position in the race to succeed Merkel by winning the CDU leadership two months ago… Soeder, the leader of the CDU’s Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU), is the preferred conservative candidate for chancellor among German voters… Soeder and Laschet want to settle the candidacy matter by May 23. No German chancellor has ever come from the CSU.”

AFP wrote on March 14:

“‘This is a dark hour for the CDU,’ said Die Welt daily, while Die Zeit newspaper called it ‘a disaster’… The Greens… could emerge as kingmakers in September’s elections.”

Interesting developments in Germany…

Dictatorships on the Rise all over the World

On March 12, 2021, the American Institute for Economic Research published the following report:

 “… few people have recognized how pandemic-spurred crackdowns have devastated democracy around the world. Emergency proclamations have entitled presidents and other government officials to seize vast new powers previously forbidden to them. Government bureaucrats became a new priesthood that could sanctify unlimited sacrifices merely by invoking dubious statistical extrapolations of future perils.

“In October, Freedom House issued a report…  which warned that since the pandemic started, ‘the condition of democracy and human rights has worsened in 80 countries.’[According to new estimates, the number has climbed since then to at least 100 countries.] Abuses of power have been propelled by a presumption that government officials are entitled to all the power they claim to need to keep people safe.

“When the pandemic arrived in America… New York Governor Andrew Cuomo set the standard when he effectively declared that he was entitled to inflict any burden on his state’s residents to ‘save just one life.’ Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer prohibited anyone from leaving their home to visit family or friends. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti banned people from walking or bicycling outside. More than ten million jobs were lost thanks to lockdowns, a major reason why life expectancy in the United States last year had its sharpest plunge since World War Two.

“Australia imposed some of the most heavy-handed restrictions. In August, the state of Victoria dictated an 8 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew for the Melbourne area and prohibited people from venturing more than three miles from their residence…

“Britain unleashed some of the most absurd restrictions. In June, it prohibited couples who live in different homes from having sex indoors…

“New Zealand has imposed four separate lockdowns in its pursuit to banish the virus from the island, repeatedly placing residents in the capital city under house arrest. In October, the government announced it was creating ‘quarantine centers’ for anyone who tests positive and refuses to obey government orders…

“In Uganda… only the government may hand out food aid. Anyone else who does so can be charged with murder… since they might do it in a disorderly way, attract crowds and thereby spread the coronavirus…

“In Kenya, police killed at least 15 people during brutal crackdowns on alleged violators of lockdown decrees. Amnesty International declared that the Covid-19 pandemic provided ‘the perfect storm for indiscriminate mass violence’ by the police…

“Many regimes have expanded the definition of ‘fake news’ to justify repression.

“An Associated Press article in January explained why Californians were denied access to the information that determined the fate of their freedom: ‘State health officials said they rely on a very complex set of measurements that would confuse and potentially mislead the public if they were made public.’ But many data-driven dictatorial policies relied on data that was either fraudulent, politically contrived, or laughably inaccurate…

“The pandemic’s precedents pose a long-term peril for liberty around the globe… the media in some Western nations were the biggest cheerleaders for obliterating limits on political power…

“Federal judge William Stickman IV declared in September, ‘Broad population-wide lockdowns are such a dramatic invasion the concept of liberty in a free society as to be nearly presumptively unconstitutional.’ But unless there is a similar stark ruling from the Supreme Court, shutdowns could return whenever politicians can panic enough citizens with some new threat… The pandemic painfully illustrated how government officials can always concoct the data to justify whatever decree they itch to issue…  Covid-19 crackdowns are a warning for people to be wary of oppressive governments regardless of their purported mandate. The world doesn’t need any more Cage Keeper Democracies where citizens’ ballots merely designate who will place them under house arrest.”

This article is by no means exclusive. Many European countries, including Germany, France, Spain and Italy, could also be mentioned with their dangerous and autocratic lockdown measures.

In his first prime time address to the nation, President Biden stated that “if we do our part,” then “there is a good chance” Americans will be able to have “small” events by Independence Day. He clarified that he does not mean large events with lots of people together, but that there is a good chance that “your families, and friends will be able to get together in your backyard or in your neighborhood and have a cookout or a barbeque” (compare Breitbart, March 11). Apart from the fact that the President has no constitutional authority to make or enforce such proclamations, in a segment of the “Ingraham Angle” on Fox News, Senator Rand Paul ridiculed the naivety of the President and his lack of contact with reality, stating that such meetings “in our backyards” have taken place for a long time all over the country, with or without the President’s blessing.

Paul also compared Dr. Fauci with a “Greek philosopher” who tells “noble lies” to help the “ignorant” public “because he doesn’t think you are smart enough to make any of these decisions on your own.” Paul also stated: “You can sequentially look at the date when each mandate was passed and when it got ratcheted up. You can look at the incidence of the disease, and what you find is they were proportional, meaning the more mandates we got, the more disease we got. The mandates did not cause the disease but there is no evidence the mandate slowed down the disease at all” (see Fox News, March 13).

Massive Cover-Up of COVID-19 Origin?

Fox News reported on March 13:

“[David Asher] the State Department’s former lead investigator who oversaw the Task Force into the COVID-19 virus origin tells Fox News that he not only believes the virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, but that it may have been the result of research that the Chinese military, or People’s Liberation Army, was doing on a bioweapon… He believes the Chinese Communist Party has been involved in a massive cover-up during the past 14 months. ‘And if you believe, as I do, that this might have been a weapons vector gone awry, not deliberately released, but in development and then somehow leaked, this has turned out to be the greatest weapon in history,’ Asher said… ‘You’ve taken out 15 to 20 percent of global GDP. You’ve killed millions of people. The Chinese population has been barely affected. Their economies roared back to being number one in the entire G20.’…

“‘China has been involved in this type of virus research since 2003, the SARS outbreak,’ according to Miles Yu, the State Department official who co-wrote a recent op-ed in the WSJ with former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo about the virus origins. ‘China’s biosafety standard is really low and is very dangerous. So this is an accident waiting to happen.’”

Numerous theories exist as to the origin of the virus, including the Chinese population’s consumption of infected bats and other unclean animals.

On March 15, The Times of Israel and AFP reported:

 “Experts believe that SARS-CoV-2, the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19, originally came from bats, and jumped into humans via an intermediate animal. However, samples from tens of thousands of wild, domestic and farm animals in the region revealed no trace of the virus. The scientists are also uncertain as to where and when the outbreak started, though the Wuhan cases remain the earliest known…

‘There was conduit (back) from Wuhan to the provinces in south China where the closest relative viruses to SARS-CoV-2 are found in bats,’ Daszak [of the WHO team] told an event hosted by Britain’s Chatham House think-tank last week… The team also did not rule out transmission through frozen meat — imported frozen food packages being Beijing’s favorite theory [saying that frozen wild meat from neighboring provinces remained a ‘very valid option.’

“The idea of a lab leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology — a hypothesis promoted by former US president Donald Trump’s administration — is ‘the least likely on the list of our hypotheses,’ said [a team member]… However, back in Geneva, in the face of clouds of suspicion that continued to hang over the mission, WHO boss Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus insisted all hypotheses remained on the table…

“Trump had accused the WHO of being China’s puppet. Though his successor Joe Biden has changed the tone towards the UN health agency since becoming US president in January, Washington has continued to voice serious concerns about the WHO investigation, and has pushed Beijing to provide more information…”

Recall Looms for Gavin Newsom

Deadline wrote on March 11:

“Late Wednesday night, the group organizing the recall of California Governor Gavin Newsom announced it had collected over 2 million signatures… About 1,500,000 signatures are needed to trigger a recall election under state law…

“Organizers have until March 17 to gather signatures. Election officials have until April 29 to verify them. If there is a recall election, it will most likely be in November and feature just two questions on the ballot: ‘Should Gavin Newsom be recalled?’ and another asking voters to choose a replacement…

“The governor has been barnstorming the state for weeks visiting Covid-19 vaccination clinics and announcing the reopenings of schools in the state, theme parks, restaurants and generally loosening the restrictions that have many Californians so angry.”

Democratic Governors Newsom and Cuomo (see below) misused their powers to such an extent that their political survival is now on the line.

Walls Closing in for Andrew Cuomo

The Associated Press wrote on March 12:

“Facing unprecedented political isolation, a defiant New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo insisted on Friday that he would not step down in the wake of sexual harassment allegations and condemned the sprawling coalition of Democrats calling for his resignation as ‘reckless and dangerous.’… The embattled governor’s comments came on the day his party in New York and beyond turned sharply against him following allegations of harassment as well as sweeping criticism of Cuomo for keeping secret how many nursing home residents died of COVID-19 for months… A majority of Democrats in the state legislature and 21 of the state’s 27 U.S. House members have called on him to step down…

“Never before has the brash, 63-year-old Democratic governor, the son of a New York governor himself, been more politically alone… The state Assembly allowed an impeachment investigation into Cuomo on Thursday as lawmakers investigate whether there are grounds for his forcible removal from office.”

By March 12, seven women have claimed inappropriate sexual conduct by Cuomo towards them. More than 30 women who have worked or interacted with Cuomo allegedly confirmed that bullying was a defining element of his management style (New York magazine, March 12). Cuomo has denied all of the allegations. His brother Chris, moderator at CNN, was prohibited by the network to speak about his brother Andrew. The following high-ranking Democrats, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler as well as Adam Schiff and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), called on Cuomo to resign. Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden spoke on the issue as well, but refused to demand Cuomo’s resignation. Biden said Cuomo should resign if harassment and sexual misconduct allegations are confirmed. He added that he thinks Cuomo will probably end up being prosecuted.

Joe Biden under Attack

The Daily Mail wrote on March 12:

“Biden’s flights of fantasy: President WRONGLY claimed that Covid-19 cost more lives ‘than WWI, WWII, Vietnam and 9/11 combined’ and MISLED the public on timelines of Trump’s response to the virus and number of vaccine doses he ordered…

“What unity, Joe? Biden marks passage of $1.9T COVID bill with Rose Garden ceremony featuring NO Republicans…”

None of the Republicans had voted for the COVID-19 bill, claiming that it included billions upon billions of dollars for unrelated “gifts” (pork) in support of numerous Democratic pet projects. This country has never been as divided since the Civil War, as it is today.

“Still No Crisis?”

The Daily Mail wrote on March 13:

“In recent days, more than [3,600] unaccompanied teens and children have been held in Customs Border Patrol (CBP) detention centers designed for adults with most children spending on average 108 hours in the facilities – much higher than the 72-hour limit.

“The surge comes after Biden lifted a policy that had forced migrants to remain in Mexico while awaiting legal hearings to enter the US. This has fueled an influx of migrants but facilities and shelters cannot cope with the rise in demand. Children at the Donna facility in south Texas are reportedly going hungry and are only able to shower once a week as the center is at 729% of its legal capacity.

“However the official line coming from the Biden administration continues to be that there is no crisis, with Press Secretary Jen Psaki refusing to be drawn into saying the word Thursday…”

A crisis because of the government’s own making…

Deutsche Welle reported on March 14:

“The US Department of Homeland Security has ordered the government’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to help care for a rising number of migrant children… to make sure the children are safely accommodated and transferred to people who will take care of them, such as relatives already in the US… The order comes as hundreds of children arrive at the border every day in what is fast becoming a major humanitarian challenge for President Joe Biden…

“The increased influx of minors comes after Biden reversed some of the restrictive migration policies of his predecessor, Donald Trump. The danger of coronavirus infection in shelters is an additional headache for US immigration authorities… The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which is meant to take in such children after they have been processed by border authorities, is also overwhelmed, with some 8,800 unaccompanied children in custody… There have been reports of parents sending their children across the border from Mexico unaccompanied.”

Unrest in Oregon

The Daily Mail wrote on March 13:

“Cops detain an ENTIRE block of Antifa protestors on the second night of chaos in Portland: Activists smash windows in ugly clashes with the police…

“The ugly scenes occurred Friday after a group of activists assembled to march against the Department of Homeland Security. One local journalist claimed that between 100 and 150 protesters started making their way through the city’s Pearl District and began ‘breaking the glass of businesses’ and ‘attacking’ anyone who was filming them.”

On Thursday, according to The Daily Mail, Antifa protestors had set fire to American flags and smashed windows of the courthouse. Further violence was reported Friday night. The violence did not stop with the change of the Presidency.

Czech Republic and Hungary Open Branches of their Embassies in Jerusalem

JTA wrote on March 12:

“The Czech Republic opened a branch of its embassy in Jerusalem, becoming the second EU member state to make such a move after Hungary… The Czech Foreign Ministry has told journalists that the new mission is not a recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city, which the United States in 2017 recognized but the European Union and many other countries and international bodies have not pending Israeli peace talks with the Palestinians.

“But observers… have argued that the  mission’s opening cannot be seen separately from the debate about the status of Jerusalem… Rudolf Jindrak from the [Czech] presidential office described this as a highly significant symbolic step and the president’s spokesman, Jiri Ovcacek, even connected it directly with the effort to move the embassy there…”

The refusal of the EU to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital has wide-ranging prophetic consequences.

Diplomatic Row between Israel and Jordan

Times of Israel wrote on March 13:

“Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman al-Safadi on Friday lashed out at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over a canceled visit to Jerusalem’s Temple Mount by Jordan’s Crown Prince Hussein. Safadi confirmed that Jordan held up granting Netanyahu overflight permission in retaliation, causing him to postpone a planned visit to the United Arab Emirates.

“The diplomatic spat underscored… tensions between the two neighbors that have simmered for years… Hussein had been set to visit the Temple Mount on Wednesday for Lailat al-Miʿraj, a holiday marking a journey undertaken by the Prophet Muhammad. Safadi accused Israel of violating an agreement on the arrangements for the visit, while Israel has said Hussein arrived with heavier security than promised…

“Under their 1994 peace treaty, Israel recognizes Jordan as the custodian of the Temple Mount, which houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Temple Mount is the holiest place in Judaism and the site of the third holiest shrine in Islam. Israel captured the Temple Mount and Jerusalem’s Old City from Jordan in the 1967 Six Day War. However, it allowed the Jordanian Waqf to continue to maintain religious authority atop the mount, where Jews are allowed to visit, but not to pray.

“Netanyahu said Israel straightened out matters with Jordan and that he would visit the UAE soon…

“[It was] also reported the US told the UAE to scale back Netanyahu’s trip, before it was canceled, due to concerns over interfering in Israel’s March 23 elections… [a] news report said Netanyahu wanted to sign a peace treaty with Sudan while in Abu Dhabi, but the US told the UAE hosting such a ceremony would amount to election interference.

“Hebrew media reports on Wednesday suggested Netanyahu may have also been hoping to meet Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and/or Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman during the trip, which was scheduled to be held 12 days before Israel holds its fourth national election in two years….”

Discovery of More Dead Sea Scrolls

ABC News reported on March 16:

“Israeli archaeologists on Tuesday announced the discovery of dozens of Dead Sea Scroll fragments bearing a biblical text found in a desert cave and believed hidden during a Jewish revolt against Rome nearly 1,900 years ago. The fragments of parchment bear lines of Greek text from the books of Zechariah and Nahum and have been dated around the first century based on the writing style, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority. They are the first new scrolls found in archaeological excavations in the desert south of Jerusalem in 60 years.

“The Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of Jewish texts found in desert caves in the West Bank near Qumran in the 1940s and 1950s, date from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D… The roughly 80 new pieces are believed to belong to a set of parchment fragments found in a site in southern Israel known as the ‘Cave of Horror’ — named for the 40 human skeletons found there during excavations in the 1960s — that also bear a Greek rendition of the Twelve Minor Prophets…

“The fragments are believed to have been part of a scroll stashed away in the cave during the Bar Kochba Revolt, an armed Jewish uprising against Rome during the reign of Emperor Hadrian, between 132 and 136…”

Skepticism as to the age is in order as the article also stated that “the exhibit included far older discoveries of no lesser importance found during its sweep of more than 500 caves in the desert: the 6,000-year-old mummified skeleton of a child, an immense, complete woven basket from the Neolithic period, estimated to be 10,500 years old…”

This is highly questionable, as man was only created by God about 6,000 years ago.

Vatican Won’t Bless Same-Sex Marriages

The Associated Press reported on March 15:

“The Vatican [with the approval by Pope Francis] decreed Monday that the Catholic Church won’t bless same-sex unions since God ‘cannot bless sin’… [The Vatican] distinguished between the church’s welcoming and blessing of gay people, which it upheld, but not their unions. It argued that such unions are not part of God’s plan and that any such sacramental recognition could be confused with marriage… Catholic teaching holds that marriage, a lifelong union between a man and woman, is part of God’s plan and is intended for the sake of creating new life. Since gay unions aren’t intended to be part of that plan, they can’t be blessed by the church, the document said… Francis has endorsed providing gay couples with legal protections in same-sex unions, but that was in reference to the civil sphere, not within the church.

“… the head of the German bishops’ conference, Bishop Georg Bätzing, said the new document would be incorporated into the German discussion, but he suggested that the case was by no means closed… Other commentators noted that Catholic Book of Blessings contains rites of blessings that can be bestowed on everything from new homes and factories to animals, sporting events, seeds before planting and farm tools.”

CNN added on March 15:

“… the Holy See referred to homosexuality as a ‘choice,’ described it as sinful and said it ‘cannot be recognized as objectively ordered’ to God’s plans… The decision is a setback for Catholics who had hoped the institution would modernize its approach to homosexuality…

“The statement says that gays and lesbians, as individuals, may receive a blessing if they live according to Church teaching. But blessing same-sex unions, the Vatican said, would send a sign that the Catholic Church approves and encourages ‘a choice and a way of life that cannot be recognized as objectively ordered to the revealed plans of God.’… In a commentary provided with the Monday statement, the Vatican insisted that ‘the negative judgment on the blessing of unions of persons of the same sex does not imply a judgment on persons.’”

The Bible teaches that homosexual practices are sinful, but the Vatican’s double-talk and inconsistent practices are more confusing than helpful.

More Stupidity from England… Men Under Curfew?

The Daily Mail wrote on March 11:

“Men should be banned from being outdoors after 6pm to ‘make women a lot safer’ after the abduction and suspected murder of Sarah Everard in London, a Green Party peer has suggested. Baroness Jones made the comment in a discussion in the House of Lords during a debate on domestic violence.

“The issue of women’s safety has been again thrust into the spotlight following the disappearance of 33-year-old Ms Everard as she walked home to Brixton from her friend’s home in Clapham, south-west London, on March 3…

“[Baroness Jones] calls for a curfew echoed those made during the Reclaim The Night rallies in the 1970s, when members of the Women’s Liberation Movement took to the streets in the wake of the Yorkshire Ripper murders. Baroness Jones added later on Twitter her solution was ‘better than the Met telling women to stay indoors,’ following reports of officers cautioning women to be careful… [Jones] came third in the 2012 election won by Boris Johnson.”

Acknowledgement and Disclaimer

These Current Events are compiled and commented on by Norbert Link. We gratefully acknowledge the many contributions of news articles from our readership. The publication of articles in this section is not to be viewed as an endorsement or approval as to contents or accuracy of the selected articles, but they are published for the purpose of pointing at worldwide developments in the light of biblical end-time prophecy and godly instruction. Our own comments are provided in italics.

The importance of this period relates to the covenants God made with Abraham—which included God’s promise to deliver Abraham’s future descendants from slavery:

“Then He said to Abram: ‘Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions’” (Genesis 15:13-14).

The time did come when God began to fulfill His promise to save the people of Israel, and God chose Moses to lead the nation out of Egypt:

“And the LORD said: ‘I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt’” (Exodus 3:7-10).

God revealed Himself to Moses, saying, “‘I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’” (Exodus 3:6). Likewise, God told Moses to tell the children of Israel about God and what He was going to do:

“‘Go and gather the elders of Israel together, and say to them, “The LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, appeared to me, saying, ‘I have surely visited you and seen what is done to you in Egypt; and I have said I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, to a land flowing with milk and honey’”’” (Exodus 3:16-17).

That the Israelites of that time were anticipating help from God—especially the “elders of Israel”—seems apparent based on their traditional knowledge of God’s relationship with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. For Joseph had left instructions for his bones to be carried to the land God had promised (Genesis 50:24-25). Also, Stephen spoke of how Moses, before God revealed Himself to him, considered himself as one who might save Israel from Egyptian slavery:

“For he supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand” (Acts 7:25).

But God did deliver the people out of slavery, and He did use those whom He chose for this responsibility. This is important to understand, and we will see how the events of the Passover were enacted through God’s instructions and followed by Moses and the people. Also, consider how God memorializes His actions in delivering Israel, as noted in Micah 6:4, “‘For I brought you up from the land of Egypt, I redeemed you from the house of bondage; And I sent before you Moses, Aaron, and Miriam’”; and Psalm 103:7, “He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel.”

With great power God brought terrible destruction to the nation of Egypt. In a series of relentless plagues, Egypt was so decimated that even Pharaoh’s servants said to him, “‘Do you not yet know that Egypt is destroyed?’” (Exodus 10:7).

Yet, a final plague, the tenth, did cause Pharaoh to free the Israelites, but Egypt paid a bitter price:

“Then Moses said, ‘Thus says the LORD: “About midnight I will go out into the midst of Egypt; and all the firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the female servant who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the animals. Then there shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt, such as was not like it before, nor shall be like it again. But against none of the children of Israel shall a dog move its tongue, against man or beast, that you may know that the LORD does make a difference between the Egyptians and Israel”’” (Exodus 11:4-7).

Just as God warned through Moses, so the firstborn of Egypt died:

“And it came to pass at midnight that the LORD struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of livestock” (Exodus 12:29).

God gave very specific and detailed instructions to Moses and Aaron regarding the observance of the Passover, calling it “‘the Passover sacrifice of the LORD’” (Exodus 12:27). This included the institution of His calendar, insofar as the order of the months are concerned, with instructions of when and how to observe the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Note chapters 12 and 13 in this regard).

While both the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread had specific meaning for the Israelites of that time, their observance was instituted as part of God’s choosing them to be His nation with implications for successive generations, as well. In fact, God specifically commanded that the observance of these holy times to be continued:

“‘So you shall observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread, for on this same day [the first Day of Unleavened Bread] I will have brought [or better: “I brought,” compare NIV, RSV] your armies out of the land of Egypt. Therefore you shall observe this day throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance’” (Exodus 12:17).

“‘And you shall observe this thing as an ordinance for you and your sons forever. It will come to pass when you come to the land which the LORD will give you, just as He promised, that you shall keep this [Passover] service [of eating the Passover lamb].  And it shall be, when your children say to you, “What do you mean by this service?” that you shall say, “It is the Passover sacrifice of the LORD, who passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and delivered our households”’” (Exodus 12:24-27).

Shortly after leaving Egypt, God revealed the weekly Sabbath day (Exodus 16) to Israel. Even though the Sabbath was in force and effect since the creation of the first man, it seems that Israel had forgotten about it, while in Egyptian slavery. Three months following their departure from Egypt, God spoke His commandments from Mount Sinai and made a covenant with the children of Israel. We see that God was accomplishing much more than freeing the Israelites from captivity:

“And Moses went up to God, and the LORD called to him from the mountain, saying, ‘Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel:  “You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel’” (Exodus 19:3-6).

After forty years and just before his death, Moses once again reminded Israel of God’s purpose in saving them from captivity in Egypt and making them His chosen people:

“‘For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the LORD loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Therefore know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments’” (Deuteronomy 7:6-9).

Returning to the events in Exodus 12 and 13, we find a remarkable testimony about how the children of Israel responded to God’s instructions about the Passover through Moses and Aaron:

“Then the children of Israel went away and did so; just as the LORD had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did” (Exodus 12:28); and, “Thus all the children of Israel did; as the LORD commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did” (Exodus 12:50).

That remarkable attitude of careful obedience to God on Israel’s part serves as an example for Christians, today. However, they left another, regretful example, because the thankfulness for God’s mighty intervention on their behalf soon waned into outright rebellion. Moses confronted Israel about this, and it is left as a warning we should heed:

“Remember! Do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you departed from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the LORD” (Deuteronomy 9:7).

The Passover and the annual Holy Days of God, along with the weekly Sabbath, have been observed throughout the generations but only rarely with the commitment and zeal that God has commanded. Following the reigns of David and Solomon over all Israel, the Holy Days of God lost their place in the lives of the now divided kingdoms of Judah and Israel.

Israel in particular, under the rule of Jeroboam, was led into idolatry and rejected God’s rule over them. From that state of rebellion, the ten-tribe nation of Israel never recovered and was eventually driven into national captivity (2 Kings 17).

Judah, on the other hand, experienced times when a righteous king arose and restored national obedience to God. In particular, both King Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 30) and King Josiah (2 Kings 23) restored true worship of God in Judah. That restoration centered on re-establishing observance of the annual Holy Days of God—especially, the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

Following their return from Babylonian captivity, the Jews once again observed the Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Ezra 6:19-22); also, the Feast of Tabernacles was kept again (Nehemiah 8). Weekly Sabbath observance was strictly practiced under the strong leadership of Nehemiah (Nehemiah 13).

That brings us to the New Testament times of Jesus. It is not within the scope of this Q&A to review all the references about Jesus and His disciples observing the weekly Sabbath and annual Holy Days, but note carefully that they indeed kept what God had commanded.

Jesus Christ observed and brought full meaning to “the Passover sacrifice of the LORD” as mentioned in Exodus 12:27. He instituted a different way for His followers—those who are baptized members of the Church of God—to keep this Feast. Here are Paul’s instructions—just as He received from Jesus:

“For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’ In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes” (1 Corinthians 11:23-26).

It should be more than obvious that we, as Christians, must keep the Passover just as Christ has commanded.

It is important to consider what Jesus said to His disciples during this Passover service. He referred to the future in God’s Kingdom, when the elect of God would be with Him:

“‘But I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom’” (Matthew 26:29).

The events surrounding the first Passover are absolutely and profoundly relevant to true Christians, today! The knowledge and observance of all that God has commanded separates us from this world—a world held captive to sin through the powerful deception of Satan the Devil (1 John 5:19).

“But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered” (Romans 6:17).

Like Israel of old, God has chosen us, but our calling from God is to enter His Family and to be given eternal life in the Kingdom of God. Let’s never lose sight of this incomparable opportunity:

“But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy” (1 Peter 2:9-10).

Lead Writer: Dave Harris

compiled by Dave Harris

“Coming… A Worldwide Dictatorship,” is the title of a new StandingWatch program, presented by Evangelist Norbert Link. Here is a summary:

The whole world is being prepared today for accepting a global autocratic dictatorship. Its beginning is already manifesting itself on the world scene. Do you know what is happening, and why, and that the Bible has prophesied this end-time development thousands of years ago?

“Eine weltweite Diktatur kommt!,” is the title of a new AufPostenStehen program. Presented by Norbert Link, this video covers the same topic as described in the English version. 

“Unsere Hindernisse überwinden,” is the title of this Sabbath’s new German sermon which is presented by Michael Link. Title in English: “Overcome Our Obstacles.” 

“Are Jews and Christians at Odds with Jesus Christ?” is the title of our newest booklet. This has been sent to graphic artist, Shelly Bruno, in preparation for printing. While this will be posted to our website, hard copies will be available upon request.

A new member letter has been written by Eric Rank who discusses what is really important for true Christians in light of the upcoming Passover and Spring Holy Days. The letter will be distributed next week to our members and subscribers. 

“Die Ewigkeitsklausel,” is the title of a split sermon presented last Sabbath in Germany by Thilo Hanstein. Title in English: “The Eternity Clause.”

“Stehen wir alleine vor Problemen?” is the title of a split sermon presented last Sabbath in Germany by Christoph Sperzel. Title in English: “Are We Facing Problems Alone?”

“Fatigue,” the sermonette presented last Sabbath by Kalon Mitchell, is now posted. Here is a summary:

What happens when you are in a role where there are a lot of alerts always coming at you? The natural tendency is to start to ignore important issues. What happens when this occurs to us as Christians? How do we combat this?

“The Leaders and Followers,” the sermon presented last Sabbath by Michael Link, is now posted. Here is a summary:

What makes a good leader and what are the responsibilities they must uphold to be considered as such?  What are the roles of a follower and how do the followers and the leaders complement one another?

On March 13, 2021, Kalon Mitchell will present the sermonette, titled, “Fatigue,” and Michael Link will present the sermon, titled, “The Leaders and Followers.”

The live services are available, over video and audio, at http://eternalgod.org/live-services/ (12:30 pm Pacific Time; 1:30 pm Mountain Time; 2:30 pm Central Time; 3:30 pm Eastern Time; 8:30 pm Greenwich Mean Time; 9:30 pm Central European Time). Just click on Connect to Live Stream.

Those of us who are members of the Church of God made an important decision in our lives, when we decided to become a part of God’s Church, to become a part of Christ, His spiritual Body, knowing that we must live differently than the rest of the world, as we would be set apart from the world—which involves our commitment. This is our pledge, our dedication. So, when we commit ourselves to do something, we have to follow through, or else we could be considered dishonest, and even unreliable.  Once we say yes, we have to do it, unless circumstances are different and a change is justified.  Christ said in Matthew 5:37 to let our yes be yes and our no be no.

We all have goals in life to which we are committed. If there is something we are trying to pursue and are serious about it, do we keep trying or will we give up soon after we have started?  But we also go through trial and error. If something is not working out the way we want it to, it may be that God is trying to tell us something, perhaps teaching us a lesson, and our desires may not even be in accordance with His Will.  Being successful involves hard work and commitment.

Living in this world is difficult and living God’s Way of Life is difficult because we are constantly bombarded with temptations, and some could certainly be directed at our greatest weaknesses which we need to overcome by constantly having God involved in our lives. We commit ourselves to Him by living His Way of Life.  An important decision we had to make to show our commitment at our baptism will be reflected upon once again very shortly when we partake of the Passover, showing our continued dedication to God’s Way of Life.

In preparation for and at the moment of our baptism and ever since, we knew as soon as we made that commitment, that our lives would be changed and that there would be no turning back. Our lives would become increasingly difficult, yet at the same time, we would experience a change—a positive change. We knew that we were granted the gift of God’s Holy Spirit the moment we were baptized, for we are considered holy. We have God’s special protection, and we grow in wisdom and strength, to bring us closer to the fulfillment of God’s master plan for us. There is no need to fear and when we doubt, there are several Scriptures we can turn to for reassurance, reminding us that God is with us and gives us strength (compare Isaiah 41:10, 13; Deuteronomy 31:6; Psalms 103:1-10).  We shouldn’t be afraid of what’s going on in this world today, but we must be committed to God’s Way, and if we are, we can see what He promises us.

There is a responsibility that we must endure because in order to live God’s Way of Life, we must fear Him. What we fear is breaking His commandments, breaking our commitment we have with God. We were committed to the Truth as soon as we were baptized. Because we know these things, we have to ask ourselves how committed we are now to the Truth and God’s Way of Life?  Do we have faith that God will protect us during these terrible times we are going through and will continue to go through, and that God will show mercy to us? When God gives us a command, will we comply or will we complain? Without faith, it is impossible to please Him (Hebrews 11:6), and we have to be consistent with what God tells us. We can’t agree with something that God says and then at the same time disagree with something else that God commands us. We do not want to be lukewarm which is described in the 3rd chapter of the Book of Revelation, but rather, we must listen to God’s Word and we must take it to action.

Just as we have faith in God, God at the same time is faithful to forgive us our sins when we ask for forgiveness. Unfortunately in this world today, there isn’t a whole lot of faith in God, and God is left out of the picture when decisions are made. They may mean well and think what they are doing is justified, but as soon as they go against what God says, by thinking they are doing the right thing, they are taking matters into their own hands. Many also think that they are teaching God’s Word, but they are not. God does not approve of false teaching! We see in 1 Timothy 6:3-5 what today’s world is all about: “If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, useless wrangling’s of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself.”

We know that we have to have a tremendous amount of faith to live God’s Way, and it should be easy for us to do this because we know firsthand what the Bible promises and what is going to happen. So, when we committed ourselves to God at our baptism, we knew what we were getting into.

We have to be careful that we don’t slip and lose focus but stay committed at ALL times because Satan is always ready to catch us off guard. We should all realize the importance of our individual commitment we have with God and with each other. Christ said to His Church in John 15:12: “This is My commandment, that you love ONE ANOTHER as I have loved you.”

The decision we each made to be baptized was a crucial necessity if we want to be in God’s Kingdom, by receiving God’s Holy Spirit so we can receive everlasting life. This will always be perceived as a mystery in this world until Christ’s return, but we in God’s Church have been given the gift to understand this now, and are expected to keep this understanding and act upon it until the end.

by Norbert Link

We address Israel’s fight against Iran’s alleged ambition to acquire nuclear weapons; Europe’s search for new leadership and Germany’s dissatisfaction with its current leaders; and the rising threat of wild animals during the corona pandemic and further news on travel restrictions to Germany.

We continue with the ongoing turmoil and controversy involving Britain’s royal family and Prince Harry’s and Meghan Markle’s highly explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey; and the accusation that America, in taking Meghan’s side, is trashing the British monarchy. Also, voices are being heard stating that the survival of the Commonwealth is at risk. In this context, please view our new StandingWatch program, titled, “Any prophetic fallout from Harry’s and Meghan’s interview?”

We also speak on further disagreements between Russia and Germany.

We point out intense earthquake and volcano activities around the globe and the frequency of strong tornadoes in the USA which is unparalleled in the rest of the world.

We report on a vote by the Swiss population to ban burqas.

We speak on censorship in the USA; the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the last pending case alleging voter irregularities; a strange and popular statue of Trump as Buddha on a Chinese shopping portal; and we conclude with the House’s passing of the $1.9 trillion spending bill and the fear of a coming crash in the USA, due to the country’s unprecedented debts, which would be so much more devastating than the Great Depression.

Throughout this section, we have underlined pertinent statements in the quoted articles, for the convenience and quick overview of the reader.

Against the Entire World

Newsmax reported on March 4:

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told supporters he would ‘stand against the entire world’ to stop the Iran nuclear deal. Netanyahu’s comments were a change for the prime minister, who had been careful in discussing the nuclear pact… President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear deal in 2018… ‘The international reality has changed,’ said Netanyahu, undoubtedly referring to Biden having replaced Trump. ‘There is an intention to go back to this dangerous deal. I am the only one who will stand against the entire world.’…

“France, Germany and the United Kingdom have backed off a plan to censure Iran for not cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency…”

The Jerusalem Post added on March 6 that “Netanyahu told… Kamala Harris in a late-night phone call on Thursday that he will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons…”

It does appear that Israel might find itself alone with respect to the Iran deal.

US Warns Its Allies in Middle East

The Jerusalem Post wrote on March 5:

“The Biden administration issued a warning this week to its allies in the Middle East not to oppose US policies and not to seek military solutions to the region’s problems. ‘We do not believe that military force is the answer to the region’s challenges, and we will not give our partners in the Middle East a blank check to pursue policies at odds with American interests and values,’ it said in a document posted on the White House website that outlined its global strategic interests.

“The document, titled, ‘Interim National Security Guidelines,’ was published as Israel has increasingly spoken of the possibility that it might have to use force to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. On Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said that the IDF was updating a military plan to strike Iranian nuclear sites if necessary…

“Israel and the US are also at odds over West Bank settlement activity, with Israel believing it has the right to build on territory that will one day become part of sovereign Israel. The Biden Administration believes that much of that territory should be part of the permanent boundaries of a Palestinian state and holds that settlement activity prevents the resumption of negotiations for a two-state resolution to the conflict.”

The American warning to Israel is far too obvious than to be ignored.

Macron and Draghi

Express wrote on March 2:

“EMMANUEL MACRON might have found a replacement for Angela Merkel in Mario Draghi as the new Italian Prime Minister sees eye-to-eye with the French leader on EU defence and security… Italian newspaper Il Foglio claimed the pair united on various themes during [a] virtual meeting, ranging from vaccine protectionism to strengthening defence and security…

“This would be the perfect opportunity for the French President to take the leadership of the EU once Angela Merkel leaves the national and European political scene…”

Neither Macron nor Draghi will lead the final European revival of the ancient Roman Empire, consisting of ten nations or groups of nations.  

German Health Minister Spahn Must Go!

Bild Online wrote on March 5:

“At first there were too few masks, then too little vaccine, and now we are dawdling with the quick tests. Now even Der Spiegel just boiled over. ‘It’s enough, Mr. Spahn,’ was the headline of an article in the Hamburg news magazine, and the author continued: ‘Actually, two resignations are due.’

“Whom does Der Spiegel author Dirk Kurbjuweit mean in his editorial? Chancellor Angela Merkel (66, CDU) and Health Minister Jens Spahn (40, CDU)! ‘The main responsibility lies with the Chancellor,’ the author writes. ‘Merkel’s overall balance sheet as Chancellor is spoiled.’ However, Jens Spahn’s situation is even ‘worse.’ Because: ‘As health minister, he is also responsible for the debacle.’

“In the case of Merkel, her resignation would lead to a political crisis in the middle of the pandemic, and because of the imminent general election, there would probably be no stable government until the end of the year. ‘That doesn’t make the situation any better,’ Der Spiegel says. ‘For the Minister of Health, however, this pragmatic-political objection does not apply. Spahn no longer belongs in this office.’

“It also said that ‘The crisis policy of the federal and state governments has become a ‘farce’. ‘Is that really Germany?’ the author asks in astonishment, looking at the government’s crisis management. ‘Organizing, doing business intelligently, that was always considered a strength of the Germans. And now almost nothing works smoothly, of all things in the pandemic, in the struggle for life and death. What’s going on here?’

“His diagnosis: ‘Germany, it has to be said, is currently being ruled terribly badly by the Federal Chancellor, by the group of Prime Ministers, and by some ministers, namely Health Minister Jens Spahn. That must have consequences.’”

By that standard, just about all health ministers and governmental leaders all over the world must go, given the absolute fiasco they have created and are responsible for. And so they should resign. Of course they won’t, and it takes the return of Jesus Christ to make an end to man’s mismanagement. In the meantime, beware when Germans are becoming unhappy with their government.

German Travel Restrictions

The Local wrote on March 9:

“The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) changed the risk classification of the United States on March 7th. The US was previously classed as a ‘high incidence area’ by the RKI… now it’s a ‘risk area’ – which is used by German authorities to describe a region with an increased risk of infection… However, entry from the US is only permitted in a few narrow exceptions. Proof of urgent need to travel is required, German authorities say…

“If you are a German resident from the US, or fall into one of the exception categories, you still face strict testing and quarantine measures.

“All travellers must have a negative Covid-19 test result at the latest 48 hours after they enter Germany. It must be presented to authorities if they request it. Some individual airlines may however still say that travellers have to present a coronavirus negative test result before boarding is allowed…

“Testing is still mandatory even if travellers are vaccinated or have recovered from a coronavirus infection…

“People returning from ‘risk zones’ are required to self-isolate for 10 days after they arrive. The quarantine can usually be ended with a negative coronavirus test result taken at the earliest five days after arriving in Germany… Everyone entering Germany is also required to register online.”

Covid-19 Lockdowns and Wild Animals

Deutsche Welle wrote on March 5:

“In London and other major cities across the UK, rat sightings have soared during the pandemic. The British Pest Control Association (BPCA)… said its members reported a 51% hike in rodent activity during the first lockdown last spring, and a 78% increase in November after the next lockdown.

“Typically, rats avoid humans and make drains and sewers their homes. However, as a result of shuttered businesses and deserted high streets, the creatures are out in full force and making restaurants, pubs and empty buildings their new habitat as they look for other sources to satisfy their dietary needs…

“Thousands of macaques… roam the streets of Lopburi in Thailand… Usually well-fed by tourists, the monkeys have been finding snacks hard to come by during the pandemic. They’ve even engaged in intertribal warfare over scraps, fighting in the streets and historic temples… There are tens of millions of [stray dogs] roving [India’s] streets and slums; a law has made it illegal to kill or maim the animals… Strays are also common in Istanbul — the city on the Bosporus… counts more than 200,000 free roaming cats and dogs…

“Rodents are known to carry and transmit diseases such as… Leptospirosis [a bacterial disease ], Salmonella, Listeria, Toxoplasma gondii [a parasite that forms cysts and can affect a number of body organs], and Hantavirus [which can cause potentially deadly diseases such as hemorrhagic fever or a pulmonary syndrome]…”

God says that many people will die due to the wild beasts of the earth.

In addition, according to an article by the Ron Paul Institute, dated March 9, “Stanford University Medical School professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is featured in Newsweek Magazine condemning the lockdowns across the United States to fight the virus, calling them the biggest mistake ever made by public health authorities. A new study released by…  the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)… appears to bolster Dr. Bhattacharya’s claim.”

Royal Family in Turmoil

Deutsche Welle reported on March 8:

“Prince Harry and Meghan… talked about the struggles of living in the royal family in a highly-anticipated interview with US television personality Oprah Winfrey… Meghan said the family and the people who run the institution are separate. She said the Queen has always been ‘wonderful’ to her, always making her feel welcome… She added that while the palace was ready to lie to protect other members of the family, ‘they weren’t willing to tell the truth to protect me and my husband.’… Meghan said there were concerns about how ‘dark’ her child would be… [Oprah later clarified that the persons allegedly raising this issue were NOT the Queen and Prince Philipp.] Meghan said she told the palace that she needed help for mental health concerns: ‘I just didn’t want to be alive anymore.’…

“Prince Harry said separation from the British royal family had been very difficult for him and Meghan. ‘My biggest concern was history repeating itself,’ Harry said, apparently referring to his mother Princess Diana, who was hounded by the British press and died at age 36 in a car crash in Paris…

“Queen Elizabeth II, Harry’s grandmother, gave a televised address on Sunday, hours before the interview was aired. In a pre-recorded message from London, the British monarch talked about the importance of ‘dedication to duty’ in an address to mark Commonwealth Day… The couple stepped away from royal duties in March 2020, complaining about the British tabloids’ treatment of Meghan. They cited what they described as bullying and racist attitudes toward the duchess, who is biracial…”

Bild Online wrote on March 7:

“That there could ever be again peace in the [royal] family seems to be impossible now… all bridges have been burned…”

Deutsche Welle added on March 8:

“Birgit Maass, DW’s London correspondent, said it was unclear if Buckingham Palace would give an official statement. [Subsequently, Buckingham Palace did issue an official statement, see articles below.] ‘There would only be statement if individual members of the palace were attacked,’ she said. However, the couple was careful to avoid naming individuals during the interview. ‘It’s a tough one for the palace’ Maass said. ‘There will be a fear in the royal family that it could be tainted, but the queen still is somebody who is very popular as head of state,’ Maass said, adding that questions remain about the future of the royal family near the end of Elizabeth’s reign.”

This scandal is reminiscent of the scandal pertaining to Princess Diana and her interview. Whomever one wants to believe and however one wants to evaluate it, the reputation and institution of the Royal Family has suffered another severe blow. Some papers have stated that while Americans don’t care too much for the concept of the British monarchy, many Brits look at the Royal Family almost as holy and tabu, which must never be criticized.

“America Is Trashing Britain”

The Hollywood Reporter wrote on March 8:

“Britain’s notorious tabloid press was apoplectic with rage towards Meghan Markle and Prince Harry after their bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey on Sunday night….

“After dismissing the interview as a ‘sideshow’… The Daily Mail devoted well over twenty stories related to the special on its website on Monday morning… The Daily Mail and its sister publication The Mail on Sunday have been particularly virulent in their coverage of the Sussexes, the latter paper was recently ordered by a British judge to publish a front-page statement declaring Markle’s victory in her copyright claim against the newspaper over its publication of a letter to her estranged father.

“Good Morning Britain host Piers Morgan, another long-time and very public critic of Markle, opened his show by repeatedly suggesting that Prince Harry had ‘spray-gunned’ his family with the revelatory interview and that it was ‘so disloyal’… ‘as Prince Phillip lies in hospital.’ ‘America is trashing our country and trashing our monarchy now,’ Morgan said.”

Predictably, the reaction in America was much more sympathetic towards Harry and Meghan. Express reported on March 8 that the White House praised Meghan for her courage to speak about her struggles with mental health, stating that these comments risk “opening a rift between Joe Biden’s administration and the UK political establishment.” Following a hot debate with co-hosts on Good Morning Britain, Piers Morgan walked off the set and subsequently resigned, after saying that he does not believe that Meghan Markle was indeed suicidal. Most British viewers seem to agree with Morgan.

Royal Response Insufficient?

The Associated Press wrote on March 10:

“Buckingham Palace’s statement on Prince Harry and Meghan’s allegations on racism and mistreatment has failed to quiet the controversy, with some observers criticizing the royal family for failing to forcefully condemn racism and suggesting that the couple’s version of events may not be accurate. ‘Too little, too late’ was the verdict of royal commentator Peter Hunt, who also criticized the palace’s 61-word statement for saying the issue would be dealt with privately as a family matter…  ‘The whole family is saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan,’ the palace said. ‘The issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning. While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.’

“The comments were the palace’s first word since the interview rocked the royal family — and touched off conversations around the world about racism, mental health and even the relationship between Britain and its former colonies…

“Fallout from the interview is likely to only fuel the debate over the future of the monarchy and its role both in Britain and the other countries around the world for which the queen serves as head of state… The queen remains the head of state for 15 countries, most of which were once part of the British Empire, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand and island nations in the Caribbean.”

Other countries, which are part of the Commonwealth, include Malta and Cyprus, South Africa and many other African nations, such as Kenya, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, Uganda, Tanzania.

Commonwealth At Risk?

Express wrote on March 10:

“Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have put the Commonwealth at risk after former Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, said the bombshell interview bolstered his case for breaking away from the British monarchy… He told ABC: ‘After the end of the Queen’s reign, that is the time for us to say, ‘OK, we’ve passed that watershed. Do we really want to have whoever happens to be the head of state, the King or Queen of the UK, automatically our head of state?’’

“Mr Turnbull led the Australian Republican Movement from 1993 to 2000. In 1999, the Australian public voted to keep the monarchy. While the Queen’s role is mostly ceremonial, she does have the power to sack the Prime Minister, which happened in 1975.

“New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has previously expressed republican views but said the country was unlikely to break from the British monarchy in the near future…

“[For Commonwealth Day,] Prince Charles delivered a speech focused on the devastating effects of the pandemic but also hailed the Commonwealth’s efforts to fight climate change and protect its wildlife.”

Russia’s RT under attack in Germany

Deutsche Welle wrote on March 5:

“A dispute between Berlin and Moscow over the establishment of a Russian state-backed TV channel in Germany heated up on Friday after the Russian Foreign Ministry accused the German government of violating press freedoms. The dispute arose regarding the channel RT — formerly Russia Today — the German offshoot of which announced a plan in January to set up a television station in Germany by the end of the year… RT, based in Moscow, already offers services in English, Spanish, Arabic and French. RT DE, as the German-language offshoot is called, launched its website in 2014…

“Tensions spiked on Thursday when Maria Sakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, accused the German government of forcing Commerzbank to close accounts belonging to RT DE until the end of May in an attempt to stifle ‘freedom of expression and freedom of the press’… Berlin denied that it had any involvement in the closure of the RT accounts…”

“2021 on Track to become record-breaking year of major earthquakes, volcanoes”

Israel 365 wrote on March 7:

“Though the past year has been replete with troubling news items that include a pandemic and hotly contested US Presidential election, the earth shaking beneath our feet seems to have gone unnoticed.

“In the first 65 days of this year, 42 major quakes, magnitude 6 or higher, have shaken the planet. The year with the largest total was 2010, with 24 major earthquakes greater than or equal to magnitude 7.0. In 2011, a total of 207 earthquakes of magnitude 6.0 or higher shook the earth, culminating in a 6.6 magnitude earthquake that caused the catastrophic meltdown of the Fukushima nuclear reactor and the concurrent 9.1 magnitude earthquake in Tohuka, Japan that killed over 20,000 people. Powerful earthquakes shook the Kermadec Islands region of New Zealand on Thursday, setting off tsunami warnings.

“But attention should be paid to less dramatic geologic rumblings as well. Iceland was hit by more than 18,000 earthquakes in the past week including a magnitude 7.3 earthquake, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake, and a magnitude 8.1 earthquake. In addition, authorities are warning that two volcanoes in a densely populated region of the country could erupt at literally any moment.

“The number of earthquakes is increasing.  In the first 65 days of 1921, exactly one century ago, only seven major earthquakes, magnitude 6 or higher were recorded globally according to the USGS DataBase. In the same period last year, a total of 24 major quakes, magnitude 6 or higher were recorded around the globe. Back in 2019, just 20 major quakes had been reported up to March the 6th, just 50% of this year’s total. In 2018, a total of 24 major quakes were reported in the first 65 days of the year and in 2017 just 15. 24 major earthquakes were recorded in the beginning of 2016 and in 2015, just 18…

“But earthquakes aren’t the only concern. Europe’s most active volcano, Mount Etna in Sicily, erupted seven times in the past two weeks. A large eruption started at Sangay volcano, Ecuador on Saturday. An earthquake swarm shook Mount Hood, a potentially active stratovolcano near Portland, Oregon for 45 minutes last week… Mount Sinabung in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province began erupting last Tuesday, sending volcanic materials as high as 16,400 feet into the sky with authorities recording 13 times when it released ash clouds. Three weeks ago,  Fuego volcano, located 50 kilometers away from the capital city of Guatemala, started to erupt. As of yesterday 43 volcanoes around were erupting or showing signs of activity… Since January 20, 2021, 1,722 weak earthquakes were detected under the Pinatubo Volcano in the Philippines.”

Increased earthquakes here and there and other natural catastrophes are part of the “beginning of sorrows,” according to the words of Jesus Christ.

US Has More Tornadoes than any Other Country

CNN wrote on March 7:

“The US averages over 1,150 tornadoes every year. That’s more than any other country. In fact, it’s more than Canada, Australia and all European countries combined… Other countries experience tornadoes, including Germany, Australia, South Africa, eastern China, Japan, Bangladesh, Argentina, and more. Europe as a whole is comparable to the size of the US, but there is a vast difference in number of tornadoes and tornado fatalities…

“Outside of the US, Canada actually ranks second on the list for most tornadoes, with an average of 100 per year…”

Increasing Catastrophes, especially for the USA, ARE prophesied.

Swiss Voters Approve Ban of Wearing Burqas in Public

The New York Post wrote on March 7:

“Swiss voters narrowly approved on Sunday a proposal to ban face coverings, both the niqabs and burqas worn by a few Muslim women in the country and the ski masks and bandannas used by protesters. The measure will outlaw covering one’s face in public places like restaurants, sports stadiums, public transport or simply walking in the street. It foresees exceptions at religious sites and for security or health reasons, such as face masks people are wearing now to protect against COVID-19, as well as for traditional Carnival celebrations. Authorities have two years to draw up detailed legislation.

“Two Swiss cantons, or states, Ticino and St. Gallen, already have similar legislation that foresees fines for transgressions. National legislation will put Switzerland in line with countries such as Belgium and France that have already enacted similar measures. The Swiss government had opposed the measure… It argued that the ban could harm tourism — most Muslim women who wear such veils in Switzerland are visitors from well-heeled Persian Gulf states, who are often drawn to Swiss lakeside cities…

“Supporters of the proposal… argued that the full-face coverings symbolize the repression of women and said the measure is needed to uphold a basic principle that faces should be shown in a free society like Switzerland’s.

“In the end, 51.2% of voters supported the plan. There were majorities against it in six of Switzerland’s 26 cantons — among them those that include the country’s three biggest cities, Zurich, Geneva and Basel, and the capital, Bern. SRF public television reported that voters in several popular tourist destinations including Interlaken, Lucerne and Zermatt rejected it. Backers included the nationalist Swiss People’s Party, which is the strongest in parliament. The committee that launched the proposal is led by a lawmaker from the party, Walter Wobmann, and also initiated a ban on the construction of new minarets that voters approved in 2009.”

While wearing face masks, including double face masks, is encouraged and required, burqas and ski masks are prohibited. Insanity rules the world.

Censorship in the USA

The Ron Paul Institute published an article on March 4 which originally appeared in the Washington Times. We are bringing you the following excerpts:

“… how can Mark Twain’s ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,’ or Laura Ingalls Wilder’s ‘Little House on the Prairie’ series, or J.M. Barrie’s ‘Peter Pan’ [survive,] each with their own set of perceived and real stereotypes and slurs? Even Roald Dahl’s original ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ has inspired criticism over the depiction of the Oompa Loompas as jungle-dwellers. Let’s not forget Margaret Mitchell’s ‘Gone With the Wind,’ in all its slavery glory, or Charles Dickens’ ‘Oliver Twist,’ in all its anti-Semitic glory, or Lynne Reid Banks’ ‘The Indian in the Cupboard,’ in all its — well, the title speaks volumes on that one…

“The list is endless. The list can be endless. Even the Bible speaks to the enslavement of various peoples.

“Are we to turn off all the offensive to our ears, in some sort of — futile — attempt to whitewash, er, erase, not just history, but fancy and fiction and flights of imaginations?… This is about the shape of censorship things to come. It’s about a growing acceptance of blotting out all offenses, in the hope that ignoring offenses means the offenses don’t occur — in fact, that they never did occur. That’s erasing history. That’s living a lie…

“Word is next up are L. Frank Baum’s ‘Wizard of Oz’ series.  Let the burning begin. The trouble, of course, will be to know the exact point to extinguish the fire…”

Terrible memories of book burnings in Nazi Germany come to mind, and the banishment of books in East Germany after the Russians took over. Not to speak of all the prohibited books in dictatorships all over the world. In times past, it was prohibited by the Catholic Church to read the Bible. Where is all of this going…?

Newsmax published on March 8 an article by Alan Dershowitz. We are bringing you the following excepts:

“If cancel culture were to accept the notion that a person should be totally cancelled based on only a portion of his output, we would have to comb the libraries, book stores and eBook sites for offenders. Near the top of the list would be Fyodor Dostoevsky, perhaps the greatest writer of modern times. In addition to his monumental novels such as ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ and ‘Crime and Punishment,’ he wrote an essay that could easily have been mistaken for a chapter straight out of ‘Mein Kampf’ by Adolph Hitler. In his essay on ‘The Jewish Question,’ he rails against the Jewish faith, culture, and people. He claims that Jews hoard gold so that they can easily carry it with them to the promised land. He accuses them of duel loyalty, deception and other sins…

“Should Renoir be cancelled because of his sexist and degrading views toward women— he said they belonged only in the kitchen and bedroom—which are reflected in some of his paintings? Or for his racism and anti-Semitism? What about Picasso?

“The list of people who have expressed bigoted views in their writings includes Mark Twain, Theodore Dreiser, T.S. Eliot, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Margaret Sanger, Walt Disney, Malcolm X and Roald Dahl…

“The disgraceful treatment accorded Kate Smith is a case in point. The totality of this great singer’s career was positive, but she was cancelled, as was her stirring rendition of God Bless America, because it was discovered that when she was young she recorded several songs that by today’s standards contained racially insensitive lyrics (which she didn’t write)…”

The concept of “cancel culture,” as described herein, is a dangerous development. And it seems to be growing continuously. Note the next article.

Breitbart wrote on March 9:

“Children can no longer watch Dumbo, Peter Pan, Swiss Family Robinson, and The Aristocats on Disney’s Disney+ streaming service while using the ‘Kids Profile’ mode, which filters out titles flagged with content warnings — including scenes now deemed racist… it is now up to parents if they want their children to watch the cartoons.”

Parents should be knowledgeable about what their children watch anyhow. But the underlying motive by the Disney enterprise is of course quite too obvious.

U.S. Supreme Court Disposes of Last Trump Case re Election Results

Thomson/Reuters reported on March 8:

“The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday disposed of the last of three cases brought to the justices by former President Donald Trump challenging his election loss, ending his legal efforts to hold onto power. The court without comment rejected Trump’s appeal challenging thousands of absentee ballots filed in Wisconsin…

“The court on Feb. 22 turned away Trump’s other two appeals — a second Wisconsin challenge and one relating to voting in Pennsylvania…

“It already was clear that the high court… had no intention to intervene in the cases and others filed by his allies because it did not act before Congress on Jan. 6 certified Biden’s victory…

“Trump continues to claim that the Nov. 3 presidential election was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud and irregularities. Republicans are focusing on those allegations in… an effort to impose new voting restrictions in numerous states.

The Supreme Court’s refusal to review any of those cases will make many Trump supporters very unhappy.

Trump Buddha Statue

meaww.com wrote on March 10:

“Trump Buddha statues sell like hot cakes on Chinese shopping portal Taobao…  While the statue shows Trump with his trademark hairdo, it has, uncharacteristically, a rather peaceful expression on his face. His hands are seen resting on his lap, referencing the traditional iconography of Buddhist statues in China. As per an Insider report, the figurine’s description says: ‘Trump, who knows Buddhism better than anyone.’”

First a golden statue of Trump at CPAC 2021, and now this. And Trump knows Buddhism better than anyone???

House Passes $1.9 Trillion Spending Bill

MSN wrote on March 10:

“The House Wednesday passed a $1.9 trillion spending package, sending the bill to President Biden [President Biden signed the bill on Thursday]… Not a single Republican voted for the bill. The measure will provide a new round of $1,400 stimulus checks, enhanced weekly unemployment benefits and expanded child tax credits… Democrats passed the bill over the objections of all House Republicans, who said the package was too expensive and dedicated mostly to wasteful spending unrelated to the pandemic…

“The legislation, Republicans argued, dedicates about 9 percent of funding to combating Covid-19 and just one percent to production and distribution of the critical vaccines… But Democrats argued the massive spending package is exactly what the nation is demanding after a year of Covid-19 and goes even further to alleviate longstanding poverty…”

An American Crisis Greater than the Great Depression?

Ron Paul wrote the following on March 8 in the Ron Paul Institute:

“According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), 2021 will be the second year in a row in which the federal debt exceeds Gross Domestic Product (GDP). CBO also projected that this year’s federal deficit will be 2.3 trillion dollars, which is 900 billion dollars less than last year. However, CBO’s projections do not include the 1.9 trillion dollars ‘stimulus’ bill Congress is likely to pass. [Subsequently, it was passed and signed by the President]. The CBO’s report was largely ignored by Congress and the media…

“The overreaction to coronavirus is a cause of the explosion in federal spending and debt we have witnessed over the last year. However, federal spending already greatly increased from January 2017 until the lockdowns. This spending growth occurred under a Republican president, a Republican Senate, and, from 2017 to 2019, a Republican House…

“Republican hypocrisy in claiming to care about spending and debt only when a Democrat sits in the Oval Office is one reason why Democrats can so easily disregard debt… Unless the government changes course, America will experience a crisis greater than the Great Depression. The crisis will include a final rejection of the dollar’s world reserve currency status. There will also be much increased price inflation…

“Those who know the truth [need to] ensure they and their families are protected when the crash comes…”

 Acknowledgement and Disclaimer

These Current Events are compiled and commented on by Norbert Link. We gratefully acknowledge the many contributions of news articles from our readership. The publication of articles in this section is not to be viewed as an endorsement or approval as to contents or accuracy of the selected articles, but they are published for the purpose of pointing at worldwide developments in the light of biblical end-time prophecy and godly instruction. Our own comments are provided in italics.

This is a fundamental question that affects every facet of life. If there is no God, then everything is determined by man. It seems that the consensus of opinion in society is that concepts of right and wrong are just a matter of personal choice.

Dr J Slattery, writing specifically about sexual matters, stated the following:

“In today’s culture, right and wrong are sorted through a grid of what we perceive as being the best for ourselves and our fellow humans. Essentially, human beings are now ‘god,’ with the authority to determine our own moral compass. With this type of humanistic worldview, morality is defined as ‘do no harm.’ Ethics and morality are measured by whether or not people are harmed. ‘She’s not hurting anyone, so how could she be doing something wrong?’ From this perspective, Christians who stand against gay marriage, for example, are thought to be doing harm. They are ‘hurting’ people who want to celebrate the gay lifestyle. In contrast, those who want to participate in gay marriage are viewed as doing no harm.”

In today’s secular society, God and His Word are neither thought about nor consulted when laws are enacted. The consensus is that when it comes to morality which can be defined as “principles of right and wrong,” there are those who believe that there are no absolutes, merely personal preferences and these can be different in varying cultures.   It is because man wants to do his own thing that he dismisses God, and the standards expected of a God-fearing individual don’t apply to them as they don’t believe in a superior Being who created everything we see.

On the website, truthnet.org, we read: “…the problem is that Christianity proclaims there are absolute moral norms that apply to all persons in all places at all times. Relativism denies there are moral norms. If relativity is true then Christianity is false. If there is no basis for right and wrong, then Christianity is a meaningless set of values. If relativity is false, then there must be an objective source of what is right or wrong.”

This same writer asked this question:

“Why is there a right and wrong? Have you ever asked yourself this question? What makes something right and what makes something wrong? Imagine a world, where you could do whatever you want? No one to stop you from your heart’s desire, if you like the car you just take it! If someone offends you, you have the right to hurt or even kill them. What’s the problem with this scene?

“Well if you are like me, you might think, ‘What if I am on the other side?’ What if I am the guy who owned the car or I am the guy who offended the person?’ The world would be a chaotic place to live if everybody got their heart’s desire. What is the basis of rules? Who said it’s wrong to steal, murder or rob? The real question being asked is who determines our morality, and why should we care?”

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist and philosopher wrote that “If God doesn’t exist, everything is permissible.” And that is what the liberal, permissive and atheistic element in our society is determined to achieve, and just look at the chaotic state that exists around the world. The world denies God and His way at their peril, and judgment cannot be that far away now for this God-hating world and its determined ignorance of the way that God wants us to live for our own good.

In 2012, Ben Kinchlow wrote an article, entitled, “Who Decides What’s Right and Wrong?” Below are just a few brief excerpts from his thought-provoking article.

“Doing right: Actions which are fair, proper, good, upright, righteous, virtuous, moral, ethical, honorable, honest, lawful, legal.

“Doing wrong: Actions which involve crime, lawbreaking, lawlessness, criminality, misconduct, misbehavior, malpractice, corruption, immorality, sin, sinfulness, wickedness, evil, vice, iniquity, villainy, offense, felony, wrong, misdeed, misdemeanor, fault, peccadillo, transgression.

“Now I have a few questions: Says who? Who sets the standards for right and wrong? Who gives them the right to establish these standards? Suppose we disagree on our definitions of right or wrong … who are you to decide for me? Based on what?

“Remember when sodomy was not only wrong but a crime? Who suddenly decided it was not only right, but now legal? And who has the right to declare pornography as wrong or illegal? Doesn’t that interfere with my rights? Who gives them that right?

“Why can Saudi Arabia say homosexuals should be put to death if homosexuality is OK in the United States? If NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Love Association) thinks sex with boys, including 8-year-olds or younger, is OK, who can say it isn’t?

“Did anyone come up with the answers to some questions I asked in an earlier column: Should lawbreakers be prosecuted just because they don’t agree with society’s standards of behavior? Is anything truly right or wrong, really legal or illegal? Does it all just depend on whether one agrees or disagrees?

“If we all began as an electromagnetically charged single-cell product of lifeless slime, evolving, like other life forms, with no reason or purpose other than survival of the fittest, why should I be subjected to another life form’s delineation of right or wrong?

“If no One is in charge, isn’t everyone?”

What an excellent question to ask those who think that man is in charge of all law-making processes. They believe that they are, but look at the state of society when mankind is left to its own devices. No one in their right mind could possibly accept that societies around the world are law-abiding and shining lights for others to follow!

It is not a new phenomenon. We read in Judges 17:6 and 21:25, “In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” In fact, it goes back even further than that.

In the garden of Eden, “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17). We know that Satan tempted Eve as we read in chapter 3, and she made the decision not to do as God had instructed but, with the help of the serpent, made her own decision, and Adam followed that poor example. It was a case, right at the dawn of civilisation, that man wanted to make his own rules and do his own thing.

After just over 1600 years of man ignoring God and making up his own rules, the wickedness of man had become so great that God said that He had regretted making man (Genesis 6:7), and the flood came and man was destroyed except for Noah and his family. We know that man again followed the cunning of Satan, “the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2), and man, today, still wants to live by his own rules, laws and regulations.

What you may consider right for you may not be right for another person. It cannot be that each person makes up his own rules and regulations to live by as there would be chaos, and no one set of rules would be accepted by everyone; hence the reason why the nations’ rulers and legislators enact laws and put them on the statute book for all citizens to live by. In a way, that makes sense as everyone knows what is and what isn’t acceptable, but the system fails when God is ignored because He has our best interests at heart. He is the Creator of us all and, consequently, knows far more than man will ever know.

Proverbs 21:2 tells us that “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes…” This is repeated in Proverbs 16:2, in this fashion: “All the ways of man are pure in his own eyes.” In Jeremiah 17:9 we read: “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?”

As already mentioned above, we read in Judges 21:25 and in Judges 17:6 that when there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes. The Benson Commentary observes: “There were elders (Judges 21:16), who had some authority, and there was a high-priest (Judges 20:28), but there was no supreme governor, such as Moses and Joshua were, and after them the judges, and none that had power sufficient to punish public wrongs, whoredoms, and idolatries, and thereby check the progress of vice and profaneness, and keep the people in order. It is a natural inference from hence, that men ought to be extremely thankful for lawful authority: and, if they would preserve their felicity, ought to be zealous to support that authority, as well as to discourage all licentious approaches toward its dissolution.”

“What are the fruits?” is always a very good question to ask about anything that man does, and we can see that there have been 6,000 years of disobedience to the great Creator God. Man, following the lead of Satan the devil, has had a history of wars, killing, cruelty, barbarism, inhumanity, persecution, depravity, wickedness and so much more.   When we compare the “fruit of the Spirit” listed in Galatians 5:22-23 (love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control), we see the difference between God’s Way and the way of the world, and the chasm between the two is enormous.

The true Christian will not, and cannot, just accept the law of man when it contradicts instruction from the Word of God.

The great Creator God set the standard for absolute Truth, and it is His authority that establishes that Truth. When Jesus was on earth, He said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). When Jesus was praying for His disciples, He said, “They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.  Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:16-17).

Therefore, God’s Word is Truth; that is, the source that a Christian must consult to find out what God has to say on any given matter. Let us look at just four examples of conflict with what society now accepts legally and as the norm, and what the Bible has to say on these four matters. There are many more, but these examples will clearly show how deeply man has sunk into depravity, compared to what God instructs and expects.

Abortion has now been legalised in many countries around the world. The Centre for Reproductive Rights, an organization dedicated to promoting abortion around the world, estimates that 60% of the global population lives in countries where abortion is broadly legal. During the years 2010-2014, it was estimated that 546 million abortions per year were carried out worldwide. For an explanation as to why abortion is wrong, please see our booklet “Are You Already Born Again?”

Homosexuality is roundly condemned in the Bible, but is now accepted in many countries around the world as being normal. Please see our booklet God’s Teachings on Sexual Relationships,” pages 95-105, to see the biblical instruction and condemnation on this issue.

Couples living together rather than being married is another commonly accepted practice, but is against God’s clear instructions. Please see our booklet “God’s Teachings on Sexual Relationships,” chapter 6, entitled “Cohabitation or Common Law Marriage.”

A family was defined by God, and again this issue is covered in the booklet mentioned above, “God’s Teachings on Sexual Relationships,” on pages 75-79. Man has re-defined marriage and family to suit his own requirements, which is certainly at odds with the Bible.

Is man right on these, and many other issues, or should we always and solely look to God for His wise instruction? Secularists and atheists would say the former and true Christians, the latter.

Most people live by their own rules and accept society’s rules without too much thought as to whether they are acceptable in the sight of God. Some others, even church members, may, at times, try and change the meaning of Scripture so that it can fit into what they want it to mean to suit their own particular sinful lifestyle (compare Romans 1:25). However, we must never forget that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).

Too many Christians today are prepared to compromise with God’s Word because they are not separate from the world and its customs when they should be living by God’s standards and setting the example that is required of them (compare Matthew 5:13-16). Some may think that God’s Way is too hard, boring or not what excites them, and if that is the case, it may be that they are not convinced about the “Way of Life” which is the lot of a true Christian.

Many may want to indulge their own desires, have a fear of what others may say or just be ignorant of the true Way of God, and so they weakly compromise. They should have known that following God and His Way is the narrow way (Matthew 7:13-14). When such people compromise, they will, inevitably, follow the way of the world and its laws and edicts, and God’s Way will be either ignored or discarded. Right and wrong will then be decided by them and the society they willingly accept!

Who is the ultimate authority in all moral matters? Is it the created – man – with all of his imperfections and lack of wisdom and Godly knowledge, or is it the Creator God of the Bible who was the One who created us all? The answer is that God reveals what is right and wrong in His Word—the Bible. Put as simply as we can, God decides what is right and wrong in His Word, and that must be our guide to life.

Only God has the right to decide what is good and evil.

As the Church of God has said many times, if the law of the land is in conflict with the law of God, then we must follow God’s Way and be willing to suffer for righteousness sake which might even include not violently resisting any punishment or sentence that the state dishes out for such an infringement to its man-made law. In order to see what a Christian’s duty and responsibility is in this regard, please read our free booklet, “Obeying God Rather Than Men,” pages 44-45. We must always strive to do as God instructs and remember that God’s Word is our basis for living and our instruction manual for life.

Psalm 119:105 is a good Scripture to finish this Q&A with: “Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.”

Lead Writer: Brian Gale (United Kingdom)

compiled by Dave Harris

 A Tech Team meeting was conducted via SKYPE on Sunday, March 7, 2021. Hosted by Eric Rank, discussions centered on fine tuning the Church website graphic designs and with planning for different Internet services to host our live broadcasts.

We are saddened to announce the death of Martha Bittle, a member who lived in Arkansas. Her daughter, Lois Nelson, wrote saying her Mother died peacefully knowing that she was in God’s hands, and that Mrs. Bittle faithfully looked forward to her resurrection in God’s Family.

“Any Prophetic Fallout from Harry and Meghan’s Interview?” is the title of a new StandingWatch program, presented by Evangelist Norbert Link. Here is a summary: 

The bombshell interview with Oprah has prompted many different emotional reactions all over the world. This program does not address at all who is right or wrong. But it focuses on interesting developments which might be a preview of things to come. The Bible has much to say about the future of Britain’s monarchy and the Commonwealth. 

“Israel’s and Germany’s Future—Comments on News and Prophecy, March 6, 2021,” the first message presented last Sabbath by Norbert Link, is now posted. Here is a summary:

Benjamin Netanyahu told supporters that due to the “changed international reality,” he is the only one who will stand “against the entire world” in regard to the Iran question. In response, the USA warned Israel and others in the Middle East not to oppose US policies. Also, Germans are very unhappy with Angela Merkel and Health Minister Jens Spahn, and Der Spiegel Online asked for Spahn’s resignation. What could all of this mean in the light of biblical prophecy?

“Why the Footwashing Ceremony at Passover?” the sermon presented last Sabbath by Norbert Link, is now posted. Here is a summary:

Baptized Members of the Church of God partake each year at Passover evening of the symbols of bread and wine, but they also participate in the footwashing ceremony. Why did Christ introduce the footwashing ceremony, and what does it mean for us today? How do we understand Christ’s statements in response to Peter’s initial refusal to accept Christ’s washing of his feet? And is there a relationship between the correct baptism, which only occurs once in a lifetime of a converted person, and the footwashing ceremony which is being observed annually?