Weekly Prophecy Review

World religious news...

• East African church leaders are mobilizing to increase their missionary efforts. According to a director of one missions organization, within 5 years Africa could become the greatest mission-sending force in the world.

• From Niger, Africa: While on a business trip, an Islamic man from the remote desert town of Wer isenet become a Christian. Upon his return he began telling his family and friends how his life had changed. This prompted the 100 or so families in the town to contact a missionary organization, Youth With a Mission, seeking someone to come and tell them about Jesus. The organization was at first skeptical, but when he arrived their representative found that, in fact, several of the townspeople wanted to become Christians.

• From Zaire, Africa: A 61 year-old pastor led 6,695 people to Christ during a three month journey through Zaire! Traveling by boat and then by bicycle, pastor Bokese Bokonga took the gospel to the Nkundo and Gombe pygmies. In all, five large fellowships were started among these two pygmy tribes.

• Several thousand miles east of Africa, approximately 20,000 conversions were reported during a recent evangelistic crusade in crime-ravaged Port Moresby, Papa New Guinea. Each night between 1,500 and 2,000 people responded to the gospel. These numbers so overwhelmed the small staff of individual counselors that, according to a spokesman, all they could do was refer the inquirers to local churches. Among those converted were a number of the city's hardened criminals.

• According to Gideons International, a prisoner in Siberia became a Christian after smoking two Bibles! The man picked up three Bibles when the Gideons distributed them in his prison, thinking he would use the pages to roll cigarettes. Apparently, he had used up of two of the Bibles and was working on the third, when he began to read the pages. Shortly thereafter, he became a Christian. The Gideons also reported that the man quit smoking.

• In Tulsa, Oklahoma hundreds gathered in an "assembly of repentance" on the 77th anniversary of one of the nation's worst race riots. White ministers led whites in seeking forgiveness for the actions of their forefathers, as black ministers led blacks in pardoning them. The gathering closed with cries of "Hallelujah" and "Amen!" as blacks and whites spontaneously embraced each other.

• The teenager in Pearl, Mississippi who killed his mother and then shot seven students at his high school claimed as his defense—"demons made me do it."

• Speaking of demons, a man recently attempted an exorcism on the steps of the U.S. Capitol. Dressed in a black satin robe and wielding a silver cross and a Bible, Baron Deacon attempted to drive the evil spirits from the halls of the U.S. Congress. After the ritual, Mr. Deacon admitted the exorcism had failed.

• In other news from the Capitol, the U.S. House failed to capture the necessary two-thirds majority for a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to pray in schools and on other public property. 197 Republicans voted for the Amendment, with 28 voting no. Across the aisle, 174 Democrats opposed the amendment, with 27 voting in favor of it. Needless to say, President Clinton also opposed the bill. (Perhaps Mr. Deacon would have been more successful had he directing the exorcism toward the Democratic side of the House.)

News from Israel...

• The site on the Jordon River where Jesus is thought to have been baptized may be open to tourism next year.

• The costs of U.S. intervention in the Middle-east "peace process" continue to mount. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has suggested to Congress and the Clinton Administration that, due the coming redeployment from the "Occupied Territories," an additional $1 billion will be needed to insure Israeli security. Primarily, the money would be spent for bypass roads for Israeli settlements. So bottom line, by forcing Israel to give away an additional 13% of their land (which, of course, is contrary to God's decrees), U.S. taxpayers must now pony up an extra billion dollars for new roads—roads which would not be necessary had we kept our noses out of Israel's affairs in the first place.

• And what do we get for this billion dollars? Do we further the peace process? Not according to the secretary of the Palestinian cabinet, who is quoted in a Saudi newspaper as saying Arafat has vowed to declare a Palestinian state next year. "leading to a war with Israel, with the first target being the destruction of the settlements"—presumably the same settlements for which the U.S. will spend the billion dollars to construct bypass roads in order to insure (?) their security.

• Remember how American networks were caught staging incidents involving GM (NBC) and Food Lion (ABC)? Now an Israeli network has been caught doctoring a film clip of Prime Minister Netanyahu. It seems he was innocently waving to a crowd of soccer fans at the team's victory celebration. However, two employees at the TV news department superimposed shouts of "Death to the Arabs!" on the clip, making it appear Netanyahu heard and encouraged the shouts. When the clip was aired the newscaster cynically remarked, "Now he'll claim that he didn't hear them." As a result, a number of investigations have begun, and the editor and the deputy editor of the nightly news have been fired. (As yet, there is no word on whether NBC and ABC are vying for their services.)

• The Chinese government recently gave Netanyahu an "absolute commitment" that they are not now, nor will they in the future, supply Iran with nuclear technology. It should be emphasized, however, that they do not speak for the U.S. Department of Commerce or Loral or its CEO, Bernard Swartz.

• The Palestinian Authority's representative in Pakistan announced that the day Pakistan carried out its nuclear test was a holiday for the Palestinians. Meanwhile, Pakistan claims Israel helped India with its nuclear tests, which, of course, Israel denies. (Source: MA'ARIV, 6-1)

• The Clinton Administration has strongly announced it probably wouldn't support a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state by Yassar Arafat. (Source KOL, Israel, 5-29-98)

• The final U.S. report on the looted gold from the Holocaust implicated five nations. Switzerland, which has already received a good deal of global criticism, was said to be the "financial facilitator" for the Nazis. However, four other nations—Spain, Portugal, Sweden, and Turkey—"played an equally critical role in sustaining the war effort," by providing Nazi Germany with minerals essential for making weapons.

A very short editorial...

The Tie That Binds the CA and the PA?

For some time I have wondered what was behind the close ties between the Clinton Administration (CA) and the Palestinian Authority (PA). Perhaps it is merely a kindred spirit (something like honor among theives) between two groups which have little or no regard for the truth. To illustrate, consider these patently outrageous statements by Sheikh Ikrama Sabri, the official PA Mufti (senior Moslem cleric), and a man appointed by Arafat:

"Moslems have no knowledge or awareness that the Temple Mount has any sanctity for Jews. For 600 years, the Moslems ruled the land, and only now have the Jews remembered to demand a right to the Temple Mount. If the Jews really want peace, they must absolutely forget about having any rights over the Temple Mount. The Western Wall also belongs to the Moslems, and was given to the Jews as a place of prayer only because the British asked and the Moslems agreed out of the goodness of their hearts. The Western Wall is just a fence belonging to the Moslem site. Since 1967, the Israelis have dug and searched for proof that the site is holy to them, but they have not found any sign of the existence of a Temple or a Jewish community at the site. I heard that your Temple was in Nablus or perhaps Bethlehem." (Source: the Israeli weekly Makor Rishon, May 22, 1988)

And from the PA Information Ministry [read spin doctors], December 10, 1997: "The archeology of Jerusalem is diverse—excavations from the Old City and the areas surrounding it revealed Umayyad Islamic palaces, Roman ruins, Armenian ruins and others, but nothing Jewish. Outside of what is mentioned/written in the Old and New Testaments, there is no tangible evidence of any Jewish traces/remains in the old city of Jerusalem and its immediate vicinity."

And we thought the Clinton Administration had told some whoppers.

Till He Returns...