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Who are the Druze? In this video, we explore the history, culture, and beliefs of the Druze people — a small but influential religious community mainly found in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.Find me and my music here:https://linktr.ee/filipholmSupport Let's Talk Religion on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/letstalkreligion Or through a one-time donation: https://paypal.me/talkreligiondonateSources/Recommended Reading:Betts, Robert Brenton (2009). "The Druze". Yale University Press.Daftary, Farhad (2007). "The Isma'ilis: Their history and doctrines". Cambridge University Press.Firro, Kais M. (2011). "The Druze Faith: Origin, Development and Interpretation". Arabica 58 (2011) 76-99. Brill.Hirschberg, H.Z. (1981). "The Druzes". In "Religion in the Middle East: Three Religions in Concord and conflict (ed. Arberry, A.J. & Beckingham, C.F.), vol 2. Cambridge University Press.Hitti, Philip K. (2007). "The Origins of the Druze People and Religion: With Extracts from their Sacred Writings." Saqi Books. Hodgson, Marshall G.S. (1962). "Al-Darazi and Hamza in the Origins of the Druze Religion". Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol 82, No. 1.Walker, Paul E. (2010). "Caliph of Cairo: Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, 996-1021". The American University in Cairo Press. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Syria has been riddled with problems for ages, but will all that chaos boil up and spill over? The short answer is that it's unlikely, but let's unpack it.Join the Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/PeterZeihanFull Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/zeihan/syria-and-the-return-of-the-march
Israel and its U.S. backers are advancing a clear project: Greater Israel. That means weakening every state in the Levant, fueling sectarianism, and pressuring Lebanon to disarm — leaving the south of the country defenseless.But disarming resistance in the middle of Israel's expansion isn't peace. It's surrender. So how should the Levant respond?Rania Khalek speaks with Antoun Issa, co-founder of DeepCut News, about the rise of “Greater Israel,” why disarmament would be catastrophic for Lebanon, the targeting of journalists, Syria's instability, his resignation from The Guardian, and what a real sovereign vision for the region could look like.
CBS EYE ON THE WORLD WITH JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW SCHEDULE 1957 9-15-25 GOOD EVENING. THE SHOW BEGINS IN TROUBLED AMERICA... FIRST HOUR 9-915 HEADLINE: Global Allies Worry About US Division, Adversaries Exploit Weakness GUEST AND TITLE: Ambassador Husain Haqqani, Hudson Institute Director of Eurasia Project; Bill Roggio, Senior Fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies SUMMARY: Ambassador Husain Haqqani states US allies are "very worried" by American internal division and extreme rhetoric, unlike past unity. Bill Roggio notes similar European issues, but the US now seems to lead in domestic disorder. Adversaries like China, Russia, and Islamist extremists exploit this polarization, using social media manipulation and citing Western decline. Both emphasize leaders must reduce aggressive rhetoric, promote bipartisan cooperation, and control social media to heal divisions, advocating for unity to counter external exploitation and domestic radicalization. 915-930 HEADLINE: Global Allies Worry About US Division, Adversaries Exploit Weakness GUEST AND TITLE: Ambassador Husain Haqqani, Hudson Institute Director of Eurasia Project; Bill Roggio, Senior Fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies 930-945 HEADLINE: Political Crises Deepen in Brazil and Venezuela Amidst US Pressure GUEST AND TITLE: Alejandro Peña Esclusa, Venezuelan writer and thinker; Ernesto Araújo, former Foreign Minister of the Republic of Brazil SUMMARY: Ernesto Araújo discusses former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's conviction for an alleged assassination plot, calling it a "show trial" despite a dissenting judge's opinion. He notes Bolsonaro's failed anti-system movement. Alejandro Peña Esclusa reports a US military buildup near Venezuela, fostering internal military discussions about turning in Maduro. Both believe their countries' fates are linked; Venezuela's liberation could expose a crime network, potentially delegitimizing Lula's regime and fostering broader Latin American freedom 945-1000 HEADLINE: Political Crises Deepen in Brazil and Venezuela Amidst US Pressure GUEST AND TITLE: Alejandro Peña Esclusa, Venezuelan writer and thinker; Ernesto Araújo, former Foreign Minister of the Republic of Brazil SUMMARY: Ernesto Araújo discusses former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's conviction for an alleged assassination plot, calling it a "show trial" despite a dissenting judge's opinion. He notes Bolsonaro's failed anti-system movement. Alejandro Peña Esclusa reports a US military buildup near Venezuela, fostering internal military discussions about turning in Maduro. Both believe their countries' fates are linked; Venezuela's liberation could expose a crime network, potentially delegitimizing Lula's regime and fostering broader Latin American freedom SECOND HOUR 10-1015 HEADLINE: Houthis Remain Undeterred Despite Israeli Strikes and US Sanctions GUEST AND TITLE: Bridget Toomey, Foundation for Defense of Democracies Houthi Watcher; Bill Roggio, Senior Fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies SUMMARY: Bridget Toomey reports Houthis continue daily drone and missile launches towards Israel, with Israeli Iron Dome defenses proving effective. Israel responded with strikes on Houthi military and media infrastructure in Sana'a, causing civilian casualties. US Treasury sanctioned 32 Houthi-affiliated individuals/entities for supporting Iranian-backed smuggling networks. Toomey confirms Iran absolutely provides weapons, mostly via ship routes, despite interdiction efforts. She notes Houthis are undeterred, fueled by past attacks, and will likely continue unless Iran is held accountable. Bill Roggio critiques a recent, unsuccessful Israeli strike in Doha. 1015-1030 HEADLINE: Houthis Remain Undeterred Despite Israeli Strikes and US Sanctions GUEST AND TITLE: Bridget Toomey, Foundation for Defense of Democracies Houthi Watcher; Bill Roggio, Senior Fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies SUMMARY: Bridget Toomey reports Houthis continue daily drone and missile launches towards Israel, with Israeli Iron Dome defenses proving effective. Israel responded with strikes on Houthi military and media infrastructure in Sana'a, causing civilian casualties. US Treasury sanctioned 32 Houthi-affiliated individuals/entities for supporting Iranian-backed smuggling networks. Toomey confirms Iran absolutely provides weapons, mostly via ship routes, despite interdiction efforts. She notes Houthis are undeterred, fueled by past attacks, and will likely continue unless Iran is held accountable. Bill Roggio critiques a recent, unsuccessful Israeli strike in Doha. 1030-1045 HEADLINE: South Korea's President Accused of Aligning with CCP and North Korea GUEST AND TITLE: Morse Tan, former US Ambassador at Large for Global Criminal Justice; Gordon Chang, author and geopolitical analyst SUMMARY: Morse Tan and Gordon Chang discuss South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol's policies, including a visa waiver for Chinese tourists, which Tan likens to CCP tactics. Tan claims Yoon aligns with the Chinese Communist Party and North Korea, dismantling counterintelligence and attending parades with Putin and Kim Jong-un. He reports Chinese nationals, pro-Yoon, illegally voted, and a third of South Korean police are reportedly CCP operatives. Yoon'sapproval is low, with most Koreans distrusting the CCP and prioritizing the US alliance. 1045-1100 HEADLINE: China's Advanced Weapon Systems and Global Asteroid Defense Ambitions GUEST AND TITLE: Rick Fisher, Senior Fellow, International Assessment and Strategy Center; Gordon Chang, author and geopolitical analyst SUMMARY: Rick Fisher discusses China's new DF-26D ballistic missile, capable of intercepting aircraft carriers up to 4,000 km, and other advanced unmanned weapon systems surpassing US capabilities. Gordon Chang questions US defense against these hypersonic threats. Fisher notes Russia's Energia space program faces financial distress due to the Ukraine war. China proposes an international asteroid defense, inviting global participation. Fisher warns this PLA-controlled initiative could be a front to develop anti-satellite capabilities and challenge the US in future conflicts. THIRD HOUR 1100-1115 HEADLINE: Ukraine Advances in Sumy, NATO Urged to Boost Russia Sanctions GUEST AND TITLE: John Hardie, Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Bill Roggio, Senior Fellow for the Foundation for Defense of DemocraciesSUMMARY: John Hardie discusses Ukrainian advances in the Sumy border area, noting Russia has redeployed better units to other regions like Donetsk, focusing on areas near Pokrovsk. He suggests Ukraine's counterattacks are part of an active defense, and their focus on Pokrovsk is strategically sound despite manpower shortages. Hardie highlights recent massive Russian drone barrages, including one into Poland, as a "wake-up call" for NATO to improve cost-effective air defenses. He advocates for stronger US secondary sanctions on Russian oil revenue and untying Ukraine's hands for long-range strikes. 1115-1130 HEADLINE: Ukraine Advances in Sumy, NATO Urged to Boost Russia Sanctions GUEST AND TITLE: John Hardie, Foundation for Defense of Democracies; Bill Roggio, Senior Fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies130-1145 HEADLINE: MIT Professor Explains the Discovery of Ionic Liquid, Expanding Search for Extraterrestrial Life GUEST AND TITLE: Professor Sara Seager, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; David Livingston, Dr. Space of the Space Show SUMMARY: Professor Sara Seager discusses the accidental lab discovery of ionic liquids, a non-evaporating liquid salt potentially sustaining life on planets without water, expanding the traditional "habitable zone" concept. She envisions future missions like a Solar Gravitational Lens Telescope. For her lifetime, Professor Seager prioritizes privately funded "Morning Star missions" to Venus, beginning with Rocket Lab in 2026, to directly study its cloud particles for signs of life in this overlooked sister planet.1145-1200 HEADLINE: MIT Professor Explains the Discovery of Ionic Liquid, Expanding Search for Extraterrestrial Life GUEST AND TITLE: Professor Sara Seager, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; David Livingston, Dr. Space of the Space Show SUMMARY: Professor Sara Seager discusses the accidental lab discovery of ionic liquids, a non-evaporating liquid salt potentially sustaining life on planets without water, expanding the traditional "habitable zone" concept. She envisions future missions like a Solar Gravitational Lens Telescope. For her lifetime, Professor Seager prioritizes privately funded "Morning Star missions" to Venus, beginning with Rocket Lab in 2026, to directly study its cloud particles for signs of life in this overlooked sister planet FOURTH HOUR 12-1215 HEADLINE: US Diplomat Addresses Failed Doha Strike Amidst Iranian Defiance GUEST AND TITLE: Mary Kissel, Executive Vice President, Stephens Incorporated, former Senior Advisor for the Secretary of State SUMMARY: Mary Kissel discusses Secretary of State Marco Rubio's diplomatic shuttle after an unsuccessful Israeli airstrike in Doha targeting Hamas leadership. Despite the failure, she believes Israel's defense capabilities and past decapitation efforts were incredible, fostering public resolve against terrorism. Kissel notes Qatar's role as a money-laundering center and host of terror groups, despite its strategic importance to the US. She emphasizes that Iran, the world's largest state sponsor of terrorism, remains defiant regarding its nuclear and missile programs, posing an ongoing challenge for Israel and the US.1215-1230 Guest Names: Ahmad Sharawi and Bill Roggio Summary: Ahmad Sharawi and Bill Roggio discuss Al-Sharaa, the self-named president of Syria, who was appointed by militia leaders. His loyalist-drafted constitution grants him extensive powers, with key ministries held by former HTScommanders, and minority representatives serving as mere tokens. Formal Name: Ahmad Sharawi and Bill Roggio, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies 1230-1245 HEADLINE: Genocide Allegations Against Israel Debunked by Expert Analysis GUEST AND TITLE: Peter Berkowitz, Tad and Diane Taube Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution at Stanford University SUMMARY: Peter Berkowitz debunks genocide allegations against Israel, emphasizing the UN definition requires intent to destroy a group. He questions the credibility of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. Berkowitz highlights the absurdity, noting the Palestinian population tripled since the 1980s despite such claims. He attributes propaganda success to Hamas's use of human shields, shifting responsibility for civilian casualties. A comprehensive report systematically refutes claims of deliberate starvation, civilian targeting, and infrastructure bombing, demonstrating Israel's precautions.1245-100 AM HEADLINE: Genocide Allegations Against Israel Debunked by Expert Analysis GUEST AND TITLE: Peter Berkowitz, Tad and Diane Taube Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution at Stanford University SUMMARY: Peter Berkowitz debunks genocide allegations against Israel, emphasizing the UN definition require
Guest Names: Ahmad Sharawi and Bill Roggio Summary: Ahmad Sharawi and Bill Roggio discuss Al-Sharaa, the self-named president of Syria, who was appointed by militia leaders. His loyalist-drafted constitution grants him extensive powers, with key ministries held by former HTScommanders, and minority representatives serving as mere tokens. Formal Name: Ahmad Sharawi and Bill Roggio, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies april 1959
GPF contributor Kamran Bokhari recently wrote that massive geopolitical change has come to the Middle East in the form of the attack on Gaza, a weakening of Iran, paralyzing of Hezbollah, the overthrow of the Assad regime in Syria and much more. Considering all these developments and the way in which Israel's actions are driving events in the region, Dr. Bokhari was back on the Club's Podcast+ with host Christian Smith to discuss Israel's wider strategy and what he predicts for the future. Recorded Thursday, September 11, 2025. This clip is part of a full-length episode available to our ClubGPF members. To find out more about ClubGPF, go to www.geopoliticalfutures.com/joinclubgpf.
Donald Trump arrives in London for his second state visit and Syria holds its first elections since Assad’s fall. Plus: Kansas City’s mayor on preparing for federal forces; and an auction of 577 unique chairs in France.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
PREVIEW. Guest Names: Ahmad Sharawi and Bill Roggio Summary: Ahmad Sharawi and Bill Roggio discuss Al-Sharaa, the self-named president of Syria, who was appointed by militia leaders. His loyalist-drafted constitution grants him extensive powers, with key ministries held by former HTScommanders, and minority representatives serving as mere tokens. Formal Name: Ahmad Sharawi and Bill Roggio, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies 1914 DAMASCUS
Over the weekend in London, more than 100,000 people took to the streets for the anti-immigrant "Unite the Kingdom" rally organized by far-right activist Tommy Robinson, featuring Elon Musk as a guest speaker. Also, Syria holds its first parliamentary elections since the ouster of former President Bashar al-Assad. And, a first-of-its-kind agreement to deal with overfishing around the world goes into effect. Plus, a look back at the 1881 global tour of the last king of Hawaii.Listen to today's Music Heard on Air. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices
It's Monday, September 15th, A.D. 2025. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard on 140 radio stations and at www.TheWorldview.com. I'm Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com) By Adam McManus Syrian Christians facing “accelerated cultural erasure” Radical Muslim jihadis and other extremist groups have carried out brutal mass killings and other human rights violations against Syria's religious minorities, prompting calls from religious freedom advocates for the United States to take action, reports The Christian Post. Dr. Morhaf Ibrahim, president of the Alawites Association of the United States, says the attacks against Syria's Christian, Alawite and Druze communities are not just random acts of violence. "It's a deliberate campaign of terror," Ibrahim declared during a Wednesday press conference AAUS hosted on Capitol Hill to discuss the atrocities committed against Syrian ethno-religious minorities. Since the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in December 2024, Syria's religious minorities are facing a rapid increase in violence from foreign jihadis, Assad loyalists and militias unleashed by Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa. After the Islamic alliance Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which is made up of former Islamic State and Al Qaeda fighters, ousted President Bashar al-Assad, religious freedom advocates have feared for the safety of Christians and other minority groups. Sam Brownback, the former United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, talked about what he thinks needs to happen now. BROWNBACK: “I just know that right now is a critical moment to get the structure of Syrian government correct, where it needs to provide safety for everybody. It needs to be decentralized. “The minority groups need to be able to defend themselves, and you'll be able to have equal citizenship. It's important right now to get the structure, or you will have genocide in the future. It will go poorly.” The Christian back story in Syria is demonstrable, Of the 325 bishops who took part in the First Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325, twenty were from Syria. Suspected assassin of Charlie Kirk in custody The man suspected of murdering conservative influencer Charlie Kirk is now in custody, and has been identified as 22-year-old Utah resident Tyler Robinson, reported LifeSiteNews.com. As police circulated images of the suspected shooter on Thursday, Robinson's father became convinced the killer was his son and confronted him, reports CNN. He asked, “Tyler, is this you? This looks like you.” His son acknowledged that it was him, and when his father urged him to turn himself in, Tyler suggested that he would rather kill himself. But after his father convinced him to talk with a youth pastor, Tyler agreed to be taken into custody around 11:00pm Thursday night. His arrest was first announced by President Donald Trump Friday morning on Fox and Friends. TRUMP: “I think with a high degree of certainty, we have him in custody.” LAWRENCE JONES: “This is going to be a federal case, and there's many of us believe that Charlie was targeted because of his political ideology.” TRUMP: “Yeah.” JONES: “What's going to happen to this guy?” TRUMP: “Well, I hope he's going to be found guilty, I would imagine. And I hope he gets the death penalty. What he did, Charlie Kirk was the finest person. He didn't deserve this.” Genesis 9:6 says, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in His own image.” Robinson's hatred of Charlie Kirk A family member of Robinson's told investigators that the suspected shooter “had become more political in recent years,” and in particular had lashed out at Charlie Kirk at a recent family dinner, reports CNN. But, ironically enough, several years ago, in high school, Robinson – like his family – was politically conservative, and supported President Donald Trump ahead of the 2020 election. Robinson attended Utah State University for one semester in 2021. He was a pre-engineering major at the university but took a leave of absence after his first semester. Robinson then enrolled at Dixie Technical College in St. George. He is currently a third-year student in the electrical apprenticeship program, and obtained an apprentice electrician license in 2022. He drifted away from the Mormonism of his parents and became deeply connected to an on-line gaming community. Kirk's alleged assassin lived with transgender partner In a related development, the New York Post reports that Charlie Kirk's alleged assassin, Tyler Robinson, lived with his transgender partner. That individual, who has yet to be publicly identified by the authorities, is now fully cooperating with the FBI. According to public records, Lance Twiggs, age 22, resided at the same address where Robinson lived. A relative of Twiggs confirmed to The Post Saturday that “yes, they were roommates.” Twiggs is a male pretending to be female. They shared an apartment in Saint George, Utah which is approximately four hours away from Utah Valley University in Orem, where Robinson allegedly shot Kirk. Twiggs said he "had no idea" Robinson was allegedly planning to assassinate the Turning Point USA founder. The person is not currently accused of any criminal activity in connection with the assassination. The FBI had text messages and other communications between Robinson and his partner that helped FBI agents zero in on Robinson. Officials said the FBI took evidence from their apartment, including computers, which has been sent to Quantico for review. Kirk was compassionate as he dialogued with a transgender student Charlie Kirk was known for respectfully disagreeing with liberal college students on a wide range of issues, political and religious, including with this 19-year-old woman pretending to be a man. Listen to both Kirk's commitment to the truth and compassion in a conversation which Turning Point posted in May. STUDENT: “I just want to say I'm a transgender male. What age should kids be able to get things, like, hormone therapy? Because I don't know what's true, what's not." KIRK: “Tell me. Are you comfortable telling me your story?” STUDENT: “I've known that since, like, third grade, and I'm currently 19, almost 20. I have known basically since then. I didn't start going by, like, a different name until seventh and eighth grade, I just don't know, like, with the med…, like, the whole medical stuff, like, what's true, what's not, what's helpful. Because I've heard so many different opinions.” KIRK: “First of all, thank you so much for that.” STUDENT: “Of course.” KIRK: “And so I'm gonna have an opinion that very few people will ever tell you, which is, I want you to be very cautious putting drugs into your system in the pursuit of changing your body. I, instead, encourage you to work on what's going on in your brain first. I think what you need first and foremost is just a diagnosis, just someone that is going to listen to what you've gone through, listen to what else is going on. “My prayer for you, and again, very few people will say this, I actually want to see you be comfortable in how you were born." STUDENT: “Yeah.” KIRK: “I know that you might not feel that way, but I think that is something that you can achieve. I think that with the right team and the right people, you don't have to wage war on your body. You can learn to love your body.” People have posted fascinating comments online. One said, “This is what the Left calls hate! His response was pure compassion!” Another said, “He was such a kind and caring man and they murdered him for it.” A third person said, “Charlie … gave caring and respectful advice. Not at all the hateful monster the Left makes him out to be.” And another said, Charlie “WAS on his way to becoming the youngest president ever elected in America. Bill Clinton was 46 in November '92. Charlie Kirk was gonna break that record. This loss will be felt for years!” Indeed, the Turning Point canopied tent proclaimed, “Prove me wrong.” Clearly, since the Left couldn't prove Charlie Kirk wrong, they killed him. Erika Kirk to assassin: “You have no idea what you just have unleashed!” On Friday, from the headquarters of Turning Point USA in Phoenix, Arizona, Erika Kirk, the widow of Charlie, addressed the nation for 17-minutes, just two days after she witnessed her husband assassinated in front of her at Utah Valley University. Listen. ERIKA KIRK: “I want to thank the first responders who struggled heroically, heroically, to save Charles' life, and the police who acted bravely to make sure that there were no other victims on that terrible afternoon. “I want to thank President Trump and his incredible family for the same. Mr. President, my husband loved you, and he knew that you loved him too. He did. Your friendship was amazing.” Erika Kirk had a specific message for those responsible for taking her husband's life. ERIKA KIRK: “The evildoers responsible for my husband's assassination have no idea what they have done. They killed Charlie because he preached a message of patriotism, faith, and of God's merciful love. “They should all know this. If you thought that my husband's mission was powerful before, you have no idea what you just have unleashed across this entire country. You have no idea the fire that you have ignited within this wife. The cries of this widow will echo around the world like a battle cry.” Send a letter of condolence to Erika Kirk, c/o Turning Point USA, 4940 East Beverly Road, Phoenix, Arizona 85044. Plus, you can make a donation to Erika and her two children as well as a donation to Turning Point to continue the fight for a Biblical worldview and American exceptionalism. We have both of them linked in our transcript today at www.TheWorldview.com. Ray Comfort: Charlie Kirk was so courageous And finally, in a CBN podcast, Evangelist Ray Comfort shared his thoughts on the assassination of Christian Charlie Kirk, reports FaithWire.com. COMFORT: “He was so courageous to touch issues that most of us would be afraid to touch, and he did it with such eloquence. I've never heard anyone with a grasp of the English language like he had, and the guy was absolutely brilliant. “And so, I'm very, very sorry that we've lost a general, but I'm optimistic that God's going to raise up soldiers to continue the work and be even more effective.” Deuteronomy 31:6 says, “Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the LORD your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.” Close And that's The Worldview on this Monday, September 15th, in the year of our Lord 2025. Follow us on X or subscribe for free by Spotify, Amazon Music, or by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com. I'm Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.
The Rev. Canon George Maxwell leads this class.When we ask the question, “What is Anglican spirituality, and where does it begin?”, many instinctively look to the English Reformation. We think of Thomas Cranmer, the Book of Common Prayer, and the Elizabethan Settlement. These are indeed crucial moments, shaping the way Anglicans pray and order their life with God. But Rowan Williams often invites us to look further back, beneath the surface of the 16th century, into the deeper soil from which Anglican spirituality grows. He points out that Anglicanism is best described as a reformed Catholicism — a tradition that holds onto the catholic inheritance of the early church while reshaping it in the light of reform. If that is true, then Anglican spirituality cannot be confined to Cranmer and Hooker. It must be traced to the fathers and mothers of the early church, and in particular, to the great spiritual experiment of the desert tradition in Egypt, Syria, and Palestine in the 3rd and 4th centuries. Rowan Williams describes the desert tradition as a school of prayer and discipleship that continues to shape Christian life today. In his vision, the desert is the common wellspring of Christian spirituality — Benedictine, Catholic, Orthodox, and yes, Anglican. This Sunday we follow that line of thought: to see how the desert mothers and fathers, through monastic tradition, gave Anglicans their particular way of praying, believing, and living. We trace the journey from the desert of Antony and Syncletica, through Cassian and Benedict, to the cadences of Morning and Evening Prayer, to the lives of George Herbert and Evelyn Underhill, and finally, to Rowan Williams' own reframing for our age.
A MIRACULOUS healing led to a Syrian warrior carrying mule loads of dirt from Israel back to Damascus. Why did Naaman the Syrian do that? In the ancient world, it was understood that every nation had a patron deity. For Syria, that was the storm-god Hadad, better known to us as Baal. For Israel, it was Yahweh—although Jezebel and her children tried hard to replace the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with Baal, Astarte, and the rest of the Canaanite pantheon. When the prophet Elisha instructed Naaman to wash in the Jordan to be healed of his leprosy, Naaman was angry, expecting something more elaborate—a ritual of some kind. But after following the prophet's instructions and being restored to full health, Naaman realized the true God was Yahweh, not Baal, and Israel was His home. So, Naaman loaded two mules with dirt and carried it back to Syria—not because it held magical properties, but because it was a reminder of the one God with the power to heal. The concept of “holy ground” was established after the Tower of Babel, as described in Deuteronomy 32: When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.But the LORD's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage. (Deut. 32:8–9, ESV) In other words, God allotted the people of Earth to angelic representatives who were tempted into receiving worship themselves, but He chose Israel as the conduit through which He would bring forth the Messiah to save the world from those fallen entities. We also discuss the way God delivered the northern kingdom of Israel from a prolonged siege of Samaria by the Syrians—despite the continued apostasy of Samaria. Sharon's niece, Sarah Sachleben, was recently diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer, and the medical bills are piling up. If you are led to help, please go to GilbertHouse.org/hopeforsarah. Our new book The Gates of Hell is now available in paperback, Kindle, and as an audiobook at Audible! Derek's new book Destination: Earth, co-authored with Donna Howell and Allie Anderson, is now available in paperback, Kindle, and as an audiobook at Audible! If you are looking for a text of the Book of 1 Enoch to follow our monthly study, you can try these sources: Parallel translations by R. H. Charles (1917) and Richard Laurence (1821)Modern English translation by George W. E. Nickelsburg and James VanderKam (link to book at Amazon)Book of 1 Enoch - Standard English Version by Dr. Jay Winter (link opens free PDF)Book of 1 Enoch - R. H. Charles translation (link opens free PDF) The SkyWatchTV store has a special offer on Dr. Michael Heiser's two-volume set A Companion to the Book of Enoch. Get both books, the R. H. Charles translation of 1 Enoch, and a DVD interview with Mike and Steven Bancarz for a donation of $35 plus shipping and handling. Link: https://bit.ly/heiser-enoch Follow us! • X: @gilberthouse_tv | @sharonkgilbert | @derekgilbert• Telegram: t.me/gilberthouse | t.me/sharonsroom | t.me/viewfromthebunker• YouTube: @GilbertHouse | @UnravelingRevelation• Facebook.com/GilbertHouseFellowship JOIN US IN ISRAEL! Our next tour of Israel is October 19–30, 2025. For more information and to reserve your place, log on to GilbertHouse.org/travel. NOTE: If you'e going to Israel with us in October, you'll need to apply for a visa online before you travel. The cost is 25 NIS (about $7.50). Log on here: https://www.gov.il/en/departments/topics/eta-il/govil-landing-page Thank you for making our Build Barn Better project a reality! We truly appreciate your support. If you are so led, you can help out at GilbertHouse.org/donate. Get our free app! It connects you to these studies plus our weekly video programs Unraveling Revelation and A View from the Bunker, and the podcast that started this journey in 2005, P.I.D. Radio. Best of all, it bypasses the gatekeepers of Big Tech! The app is available for iOS, Android, Roku, and Apple TV. Links to the app stores are at www.gilberthouse.org/app/. Video on demand of our best teachings! Stream presentations and teachings based on our research at our new video on demand site! Gilbert House T-shirts and mugs! New to our store is a line of GHTV and Redwing Saga merch! Check it out at GilbertHouse.org/store! Think better, feel better! Our partners at Simply Clean Foods offer freeze-dried, 100% GMO-free food and delicious, vacuum-packed fair trade coffee from Honduras. Find out more at GilbertHouse.org/store. Our favorite Bible study tools! Check the links in the left-hand column at www.GilbertHouse.org.
Faith for the Coming Wilderness (4) (audio) David Eells – 9/14/25 I want to back up a little from what I shared last time, when we knew we were to move to Florida and share how we got a little ahead of the Lord. Sometimes the Lord will wait before He answers because He wants to see if we are going to get out there in the flesh and that's what we did. We came over a little early and started looking around Pensacola, but we didn't see anything, and we went back home. We started crying out to the Lord, “Okay, Lord, we know this is the time; we know it's coming,” and so on. And the next time, we waited until the Lord sent us. We even had a Christian realtor in Pensacola looking around for us, and we described the house to him because we had already seen it in dreams and visions. He was looking all over Pensacola, trying to find the house, until, finally, one day, in a little frustration after having sought the Lord, I stopped the man. I said, “Look, let's get your map.” So he got his map and we stretched it out on the hood of his car, and I said, “Listen, this is where the house is, right here!” I wasn't even looking where I was pointing, but I stuck my finger down on the map and he said, “Okay, we'll go there and look.” As we were looking, I told the man just exactly how much we were going to pay for the house. I could tell he wasn't used to that, but he said, “Okay.” He drove us through the area where my finger came down and we passed by the house we had seen in our dreams and visions. The lady who owned it had just stuck a “For Sale By Owner” sign in the ground. And since this was a realtor and it was a For Sale By Owner sign, he was just driving right on by, but I had my pad and pencil out. I wrote down the phone number and called her later. So after we looked at the house, I felt led to offer her $1000 less than I knew I was going to pay because some people like to haggle. She said, “Well, I don't know.” And I said, “Well, I tell you what, leave the curtains,” which I knew she was planning on doing anyway, “and I'll give you this much,” which was the amount the Lord told me. And she said, “Okay.” Praise the Lord! I do want to tell you that the realtor was a good Christian man who had done a good job looking for the house, and we actually gave him his commission. He had worked for his due, and we figured we'd give it to him anyway. He told us, “Man, I could never have found you a deal like this!” Now this lady was a Baptist, but one of her relatives was the pastor of a large, full-Gospel church in Pensacola. He and other people had been witnessing to her. And at the time when we came to Pensacola, she was having a problem with her eyes, so we asked her, “Would you let us pray for you? Will you let us lay hands on you for those eyes, so God will heal them?” I pointed out some verses to her and so on. She said, “Well, I don't know so much of that laying on of hands stuff, but I would like you to pray for me.” I answered, “Okay, we will pray for you without the laying on of hands.” That's what we did; we prayed for her, and God healed her. She was so jubilant to come to find out that God would do this for her because her doctrine didn't permit that kind of miraculous healing. She didn't really believe in those kinds of miraculous healings, but she received a miraculous healing, and her eyes were suddenly opened to the true Gospel. Then, when the time came for us to move in, she still wasn't ready to move out for another week, so she lived with us for a week, and we were able to witness to her even more. We had our stuff all piled up on one end of the house, and we were kind of living together like that until, finally, we had the house to ourselves. You see, God did a miracle. And it was through our weakness that we got this miracle. God paid for it; we didn't pay for anything. The money He gave us was enough to buy the house and a new car because our small car was a Toyota, which was good for doing small jobs, but we had five kids. So we bought a large, brand new station wagon, and God also did many miracles on that station wagon for us over the years. But the miracle was that God paid for both of these. We didn't have any money or save any money, and we just continued to give to any need that came our way. Whenever we saw a need, we gave to it. We didn't believe in storing up our treasures on earth, so we put no money in the bank. We did what Jesus says. (Luk.12:33) Sell that which ye have, and give alms; make for yourselves purses which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief draweth near, neither moth destroyeth. “Faileth not.” I want to remind you that no credit goes to us. Eph 2:8 for by grace (unmerited favor) have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not of works, that no man should glory. When you store up your treasures in Heaven by meeting the needs of the brethren, you can always get it back because as the Lord said, it “faileth not.” For many years, I made a very good living, and I met the needs of the brethren around me. Whenever I saw a need, it wasn't a burden to me to take care of it by the grace of God, Who put it in my heart to do that. When you read the Word of God and you love the Word of God, and you love to act and live on the Word of God, the Word gets into your heart. The Word in you is Jesus in you. So we just gave where we saw to give; we didn't save up money and we didn't borrow money. Borrowing was out of the question for us because we were walking by faith, and even up to today, I haven't for 55 years. But because I give, the money is always there when I need it. As I've shared with you, the Lord taught me never to borrow, never to tell my needs, never to go into the business of buying and selling. Another was, never to take any government help. Recently the Lord had me sighn up for Social Security at 76 which didn't belong to the government but me, but I have given it away ever since. One of the things the young man said happened in his dream was that when he walked up to me, I told him, “I'm never going to work for man again,” and it was true. After I retired from Exxon, I never worked for man again. Now, everybody has to work, as the Bible says: (2Th.3:10) For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, If any will not work, neither let him eat. So I've worked diligently for the Lord and still do, but I've never been a burden on people. I made sure of that, and I never made my needs known. I haven't received any income from UBM. God put it in people's hearts to meet our needs separately. I don't believe in being a freeloader or “mooching.” It's wrong and it's evil. If you're truly walking by faith, God's going to support you. (Luk.10:7) And in that same house remain, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the laborer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house. (Mat.10:10) Get you no gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses; (10) no wallet for your journey, neither two coats, nor shoes, nor staff: for the laborer is worthy of his food. God supports those who work for Him. Apostle Paul is our example. At the beginning of his ministry, he worked for a living. (1Co.9:11) If we sowed unto you spiritual things, is it a great matter if we shall reap your carnal things? (12) If others partake of [this] right over you, do not we yet more? Nevertheless we did not use this right; but we bear all things, that we may cause no hindrance to the gospel of Christ. But later on (2 Corinthians 9; Philippians 2), it seems very clear that Paul was receiving freewill offerings from brethren so that he could continue on with his ministering and not be distracted by any work. It was that way for the first part of my ministry, too. I worked for many years while I ministered. I learned to walk by faith and, in that weakness, God was miraculous. Most people don't get to see the miracles of God because they are not willing to be weak. They're always strong and do for themselves; it's salvation by works. Remember that the Greek word for “salvation,” which is the noun soteria or the verb sozo, is translated in many different ways to cover every kind of salvation. For instance, when Jesus healed someone, (Mat.9:22) But Jesus turning and seeing her said, Daughter, be of good cheer; thy faith hath made thee whole (sozo). And the woman was made whole (sozo) from that hour. When He delivered people from demons, (Luk.8:36) And they that saw it told them how he that was possessed with demons was made whole (sozo). When the disciples were in the sinking boat, (Mat.8:25) And they came to him, and awoke him, saying, Save (sozo), Lord; we perish. Salvation is very, very big! Jesus saved us from sin and its curse. (2Co.5:21) Him who knew no sin he made [to be] sin on our behalf; that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Did you know, in the Scriptures, poverty is a curse? (Deu.28:47) Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness, and with gladness of heart, by reason of the abundance of all things; (48) therefore shalt thou serve thine enemies that Jehovah shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee. Unless it is a sacrificial self-imposed poverty for the sake of others, it's a curse. How many of you know that Jesus wasn't poverty-stricken? He had His needs met everywhere He went. Now, He didn't have riches, according to the way the world likes riches. The world likes the material kind of riches in which they can trust. Jesus didn't have that, but His needs were met wherever He went, and so were His disciples. They weren't poor, but they were poor to the world. (Jas.2:5) Hearken, my beloved brethren; did not God choose them that are poor as to the world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to them that love him? People who are poor to the world are in a position of weakness, where they have to trust in God. You have to come out from under the principles of the world and the teachings of the worldly, Babylonish Church. You learn to obey the principles that Jesus gave us in the New Testament. Make sure your brother's needs are met sacrificially out of what you have, and God will make sure you don't ever have a need that isn't met by God's faith in us. Paul said, (Php.4:19) And my God shall supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. He said that because his needs were being met by the brethren and He made that promise to the Philippians. Well, we lost a car, had been injured, and didn't have any money, but in our weakness, God was made strong. We didn't have to sell or borrow or beg or do anything of the sort; all we did was give. I want you to walk in the same blessings, and God will do that for you if you start living according to His principles. By the way, because the second part of the money that came in from the wreck was delayed and delayed, God made an opportunity for me to give away my first station wagon that I had when I was in Baton Rouge. I gave it away to a mission in town where I had preached quite a few times because they needed transportation for the people in the mission. God blessed me with that car, and I never had any problems with it that Father didn't fix. When we prayed for a car, my youngest daughter had a vision of that car being in New Orleans. She even saw the color of the car. Sure enough, I couldn't find anything in Baton Rouge that I liked, so I went to New Orleans, and I saw the car and bought it. That was the car I gave to the mission. And I'd never put any spares in that car because I was trusting God to keep my tires, but the day I put the keys in the preacher's hand in my living room and we walked outside, it was sitting on a flat. I never had a flat as long as I had that car because I never carried a spare, but as soon as it got out of my hand and into his, it had a flat. And since I mentioned New Orleans, think about what happened there, folks. God brought a Category 5 hurricane (Hurricane Katrina: August 29, 2005) to that big sin city and, just as it was about to hit land, He sent in a wave of dry air from the northwest that suddenly knocked that hurricane down to a Category 3. That same gust of dry air pushed the hurricane to the east. A Category 5 hurricane that was about to hit that area would have driven the waters of Lake Pontchartrain over into the city and drowned 40,000 to 50,000 people because the water would have come in there so fast. Think about man's efforts to save himself with the levees and those great big monster pumps that they have in that city. They thought they could keep that city dry. Had a Category 5 hit that city head-on, or even a Category 3, it would have pushed the water in there faster than the pumps could handle. Most of New Orleans is 20 feet below sea level and some of it is more than 20 feet below sea level. What chance did man have to save himself from just one of God's judgments? As it was, He didn't let the city escape, even after moving the hurricane over a little bit. The levees gave out when they became saturated and the city started filling up with water, but it was slow enough to give people a little time to move out of the way. It was astounding how the mercy of God saved those people. The meteorologists pointed out on radar how this gust of dry air came in and moved the hurricane; they were totally amazed by it. They had never seen anything like it. That was purely an act of God that spared them when they couldn't have saved themselves, even with all of their efforts. They knew if a major hurricane hit them, the city would drown. God didn't completely spare the city, but He spared an untold number of people, including many brethren. I'm sure some people in New Orleans with faith were praying until God, at the last moment, suddenly dropped the strength of that hurricane and moved it over. Hurricane Dennis did exactly the same thing as it was coming toward Pensacola. I was praying the whole time and I was asking, “Lord, do you want me to command that hurricane to back off and go the other way?” The Lord said, “No. Just wait,” so I didn't do anything. All of a sudden, when it hit the land, I felt in my heart that the Lord wanted me to command it to be broken up, and that's exactly when it started breaking up. The strength dropped down, and it veered a little bit to the right of Pensacola. I know that there were some people over there in New Orleans doing the exact same thing and God answered the exact same way. You see, God has it all planned out. He just uses His faith in us to bring it to pass. We can put our trust in the living God. Nothing that man can do will save you from the judgments that are coming. The wilderness is where you learn to walk by faith in the Lord. You learn to put your faith in Him and you give up your efforts and your power; you give up your ability to do anything. The promises of God are past tense. He became a curse for you, He bore your curse, and He healed your body. He already did all of this, and since all of these promises are past tense, what can you do to bring it to pass? Jesus taught us, (Mar.11:24) Therefore I say unto you, All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye received them, and ye shall have them. If you believe you have received, there's nothing for you to do to bring them to pass. Believing the promises brings us into a position of weakness where we can't save ourselves. You've probably heard the old saying, “God helps those who help themselves.” Well, that's a lie. The Bible says just the opposite: (Jer.17:5) Thus saith the Lord: Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. The power of God is made perfect in weakness; that's what He told Paul: (2Co.12:9) And he hath said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my power is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Paul couldn't save himself in those situations that he got into, but he said, (2Ti.4:18) The Lord will deliver me from every evil work, and will save me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. In his weakness, and faith, God's power was made perfect. Keep the Sabbath, and don't bring a burden into God's Holy City on this Sabbath. Cease from your own works or, in other words, cease from the works of man. As God told Moses and the children of Israel, (Exo.14:13) And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you to-day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to-day, ye shall see them again no more for ever. (14) The Lord will fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace. He said, “Stand still.” They were trying to figure out what to do. Here was Pharaoh's army coming up behind them and they would have never thought about parting the Red Sea. (Exo.14:15) And the Lord said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward. (16) And lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thy hand over the sea, and divide it: and the children of Israel shall go into the midst of the sea on dry ground. You see, God has ways far beyond our ways. (Isa.55:8) For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. (9) For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. That's why He had to tell them, “stand still.” It's the same for us. Sometimes we're just so busy running around, trying to figure out a way out of this or a way out of that. We've been trained from our youth to solve our problems for ourselves, when God just wants us to be believers in His promises. Get your Bible and diligently read it. Underline those promises and start acting on them. (Jas.2:17) Even so faith, if it have not works, is dead in itself. Faith without works is dead. Remember that Jesus told us, (Mar.11:24) … All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye received them, and ye shall have them. How would you act if you believed you had received what you prayed for? You would stop trying to bring it to pass for yourself. You would cease from your own labors and, if you cease from your own labors on His Sabbath, you will find God's power is made perfect. Glory be to God! Now, I want to remind you that the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart over and over before the Israelites were set free from Egypt to go into their wilderness. (Exo.7:1) And the Lord said unto Moses, See, I have made thee as God to Pharaoh; and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet. (2) Thou shalt speak all that I command thee; and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh, that he let the children of Israel go out of his land. (3) And I will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my wonders in the land of Egypt. (4) But Pharaoh will not hearken unto you, and I will lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring forth my hosts, my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments. (5) And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I stretch forth my hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from among them. Why did He do that? Why did the Lord harden Pharaoh's heart? (Exo.10:1) And the Lord said unto Moses, Go in unto Pharaoh: for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I may show these my signs in the midst of them, (2) and that thou mayest tell in the ears of thy son, and of thy son's son, what things I have wrought upon Egypt, and my signs which I have done among them; that ye may know that I am the Lord. The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart because He wanted to judge Egypt and He wanted to prove His great power to deliver the Israelites. By the time the Israelites left Egypt, the land had been devastated, and the economy was in ruins. (Exo.10:7) And Pharaoh's servants said unto him, How long shall this man be a snare unto us? let the men go, that they may serve the Lord their God: knowest thou not yet that Egypt is destroyed? You know, He's going to do that again in our day! (Ecc.1:9) That which hath been is that which shall be; and that which hath been done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. History is going to repeat. Judgments are coming upon the United States, but God is merciful, and He sends warnings to us so His people will pray. I'm totally convinced that the prayers of the saints have delayed a time of judgment. We have been receiving many revelations of judgments, some of them with actual dates that have since come and gone, and the Lord showed me that these were true revelations, yet they didn't come to pass. You see, the Lord gives you a warning of things to come for the purpose of having you seek Him for grace. (Jas.4:2) … ye have not, because ye ask not. God's people don't pray and they don't seek Him for His grace and mercy! It takes a threat for His people to seek Him for grace and mercy. When God wants to give us grace and mercy, He almost has to tell us what's going to happen if we don't seek Him. I know what the Lord did with those revelations that never came to pass: He put those warnings out there so His people would seek Him for grace and He gave it. By the way, if you don't believe God dates prophecies, you haven't read very much of the Bible because there are many of them in there (Daniel 7; 9; Jonah 3; Revelation 12; etc.) The brethren who share these warnings sometimes wonder if God just forgot about them or if He left them, or if they were deceived. The same thing happened with Jonah. (Jon.4:1) But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. Jonah had prophesied Nineveh would be overthrown in 40 days, and yet, God had mercy when the people cried out to Him. God had mercy, and Jonah was angry because now he was going to look like a false prophet. (2) And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I hasted to flee unto Tarshish; for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, and repentest thee of the evil. (3) Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live. Jonah didn't want to face the world. He felt as if the Lord had let him down. He had prophesied their destruction, but he also knew that God was merciful and would repent of the prophesied evil. However, God reminded Jonah there was something a lot more important than his pride. (Jon.4:11) And should not I have regard for Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle? Can you imagine, He was even having mercy on the cattle! God was showing it wasn't important that Jonah might look like a false prophet, but it was important that God was going to have mercy on these people. That's the thing we have to keep in mind. Remember, we've been put here to be of no reputation anyway, according to the Scriptures. (Php.2:5) Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: (6) who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a thing to be grasped, (7) but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; (8) and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross. We're supposed to have the same mind as Christ. We're here to lose our reputation in the eyes of the world. The wilderness is a place of hopelessness for the flesh because the flesh really can't help God. Just like the wilderness was a place of weakness for Israel, a place where the world couldn't supply the needs of God's people, so it is, and will be, for us in our day. What the Church has been teaching for so long is, “God helps those who help themselves.” That's their doctrine. Well, God doesn't like that and it's a stench in His nostrils. The Bible says (Eph.2:8) For by grace have ye been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. We are saved by His works, His efforts, and His wisdom. The Lord has already accomplished everything for us at the cross. (Php.4:19) And my God shall supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. He supplied our needs at the cross, so God doesn't appreciate that the Church is preaching salvation by works. He said, (2Co.12:9) … My grace is sufficient for thee: for my power is made perfect in weakness.... I'd like to share with you the difference between assurance and insurance because this is part of my wilderness. Many people have their trust in the “idol” of insurance. They think they've insulated themselves from anything bad that could come from this world, but it's going to fail. Every idol that you stand up to the Lord will fall over and be crushed like Dagon. (1Sa.5:3) And when they of Ashdod arose early on the morrow, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord. And they took Dagon, and set him in his place again. (4) And when they arose early on the morrow morning, behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord; and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands lay cut off upon the threshold; only the stump of Dagon was left to him. God is going to judge all the idols of Egypt; they will all fail. Even insurance companies are not going to be able to save America. As a matter of fact, insurance companies have been leaving several states, including Florida, where judgments such as hurricanes are becoming more and more frequent. They've been leaving those states to avoid going bankrupt. And they get permission to not pay up if doing so would harm them. But God's going to continue hitting big sin cities all around the United States with one form of judgment or another, and there aren't enough insurance companies in the world to save America. If you're interested in my wilderness experiences and teachings from the Bible, I ask that you get our free e-book, Sovereign God For Us And Through Us, on our website: ubm1.org. He is sovereign for us and He wants to be sovereign through us. He wants to administer His authority in this earth through His people. I want to share some excerpts with you here from Chapter 18. It's titled “Assurance Versus Insurance,” and I hope it will give you a desire to read the rest of the book. We receive testimonies every day of people who are being empowered by God and helped and delivered by this book. (The excerpts are italicized, and my commentary is in parentheses.) (Psa.91:9) For thou, O Lord, art my refuge!.... This confession of faith and the deliverance that comes of it are merely acting on what the Word says. I received a revelation years ago in Louisiana, before it was a law to have any form of auto insurance. Even now there are are laws to have the minimum PIP/PD but that covers the other guy, not you. So I have had this to obey the law and have been rewarded greatly because the other guy was a fault and paid me. The Lord began spiritually to reason with me. It occurred to me that God is sovereign over what we call “accidents.” (We're always insulating ourselves with insurance, but there is really no such thing as an accident, is there?) (Joh.3:27) A man can receive nothing, except it have been given him from heaven. That doesn't sound like there are accidents (It sounds like there is a sovereign God!); therefore, an accident could not come without God sending it. Since He said that if we prayed believing we would receive, then I could ask Him to keep my vehicles, or let the other guy be at fault and pay me, which has profited me greatly. Why would I need insurance if I believed the assurance just given in His promises? (Psa.91:9) For thou, O Lord, art my refuge! (Notice the good confession and its resulting benefit. (Jas.2:26) For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from works is dead. Faith without works is dead, but the good confession brings a benefit.) Thou hast made the Most High thy habitation; (10) There shall no evil befall thee, Neither shall any plague come nigh thy tent. (I know a lot of people don't believe or teach this nowadays, but it's the Word of the Lord. Who are we to say otherwise!) (11) For he will give his angels charge over thee, To keep thee in all thy ways. (12) They shall bear thee up in their hands, Lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. (Or, in other words, “lest you have an accident.”) Notice that when we abide in Christ by faith (and hold fast this good confession; that's the promise of God), angels keep us from what men call “accidents.” An exception to this can be an experience like Job's to show hidden faults (Job.32:1-2). As in his case, God strictly controls the chastening and later restores what is taken. God restored to Job twice as much as he had and without insurance. God desires to be our security. We don't need security in the world; we need our God to be our security. (Psa.119:122) Be surety (Hebrew: “to give or be security”) for thy servant for good.... (Heb.7:22) By so much also hath Jesus become the surety of a better covenant. God and His promises are the believers' assurance of provision and protection. After seeing what the Lord was saying to me, I dropped my auto insurance back before it was required. Then I called my life insurance man and he came over. I told him that I would not need insurance anymore because God would be my assurance. He was a good Lutheran man who sincerely tried to reason with this fanatic, but to no avail. The week after I did this, I drove to a Stop-N-Go mart and went in to get some food. While I was walking down an aisle, I heard a crash that shook the store windows. I looked up over the isle to see that my car had been in a wreck without me! I went out and found a heavy old Buick's front end wrapped around the back corner of my Datsun station wagon. The driver backed the car up a foot or so, and we both stood there speechless. We just couldn't really understand how this could happen. The hood, grill and bumper of his all steel car were notched back about six inches, as if it had hit a big oak tree. Here is the good part. Datsun station wagons were tin boxes and could be dented with an elbow. This tank hit my car on the left rear wrap-around, plastic tail lens! I reached out and with my thumbnail, scraped a piece of paint from his hood off the plastic tail lens, and we stood there for a moment looking at this miracle. There was not a scratch, dent or crack on my car anywhere. Awesome God! He made my wimpy car, which should have been totaled, invincible to this old tank of a car. The assurance of God saved me from any need of insurance. The man said, “I think my brakes went out,” and then he mumbled, “They sure make ‘em better than they used to.” As I was thinking about how ludicrous that statement was (and I knew he didn't believe it anyway), he got in his car and left. Suddenly, it hit me that I missed the best chance in the entire world to witness to someone. I jumped into my car and caught him at the next red light (where his brakes, obviously, had stopped him). I grabbed some tracts out of the glove box and hurried to his door. I said, “Sir, that was a miracle.” He said, “It had to be.” I said, “I didn't have any insurance on my car and I was trusting God to keep it and He did.” The light turned green and we parted company. Since then, I have never had any insurance that covers our family, vehicles or home, other than what the law demands. We now have to have liability, which covers the other guy but not you. However, when the Lord tells you that you do not need insurance He means it. That first wreck, or lack thereof, was an awesome testimony, but we did not plunder Egypt, as we did with later wrecks. Since then, God has not always protected our vehicles or bodies, but in every case, it was to our advantage, for He healed our bodies once and greatly blessed us financially. (When you trust in the Lord, He's working all things for your good, as Romans 8:28 says.) During this time, though we sued no one, the other guy's insurance blessed us with money for the following: to repair a motorcycle with money leftover in my pocket for a new one; to repair a Toyota pickup that needed painting anyway, and I ended up after fixing the pickup, painting it with a beautiful paint job with $1,500 left in my pocket; to buy two cars, one new; to buy our home; to enable us to buy and give cars to others; to enable us to give our home away; and to buy a travel trailer for a homeless woman and her son. Besides all that and more, we have not spent God's money on many years' worth of insurance. (If you obey God, you can't lose! If you obey God and walk by faith in Him and let His assurance be your insurance and not the world, then you'll see the miracles of God.) Now, I can hear someone say, “But David, what if ... ?” What if what? What if God Almighty fell off His throne? (God made these promises; we're just depending upon Him.) (Rom.10:11) For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be put to shame. (The devil tells you that you will be put to shame, but that's a lie.) (Jer.17:7) Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose trust the Lord is. By the grace of God, it has been many years since we have had a wreck. Praise God! (So God can keep you from wrecks, but when you do get into them, He can make them bless you.) One day, in that same Datsun station wagon, I was driving along rather frustrated because I had had three flats on relatively new tires. Most people would be complaining to the manufacturer, but I believed that God was in control, so I was complaining to the Lord. A little frustrated, I said, “Lord, can't You keep my tires?” He said to me very clearly, “Don't you believe that I can keep your tires?” I replied in my ignorance, “Yes, I believe You can keep them.” He replied, “Then why do you keep putting that spare back there?” To be honest, I put the spare in the trunk because it was traditional and I had not questioned it, but also, the underlying reason was in case God didn't keep my tires. (I'm not trying to make a new doctrine on spares, just share a lesson God gave to me.) Fear and unbelief cause us to try to insulate ourselves from any possibility of lack, loss or threat. Since we are trusting in insurance besides the Lord, we usually end up needing it. (That's what people don't understand. If you trust in something besides the Lord, you end up having to use it. Of course, some people say, “Aha! You see, I needed it!” But they have it all backwards. When you trust in any idol and not in the Lord, you're going to need it.) Jesus sent out His disciples in a way that would make them dependent on living by faith. He sent them without their own provision so that in their weakness His power would be proven. (Mat.10:9) Get you no gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses; (10) no wallet for [your] journey, neither two coats, nor shoes, nor staff: for the laborer is worthy of his food. Later, Jesus wanted to see what they learned from this experience of depending upon God's supply. (Luk.22:35) And he said unto them, When I sent you forth without purse, and wallet, and shoes, lacked ye anything? And they said, Nothing. (For those of you who believe that only applied to the disciples, remember Jesus commanded His disciples to make disciples and teach them to observe everything that He commanded the first disciples to observe (Matthew 28:20). In other words, what He spoke to them, He spoke to us, but man came in there with religion and thwarted the whole mission that God sent us on.) In the wilderness of man's supply, God's provision was evident. (When Jesus sent out the disciples without their own supply, He basically made a wilderness wherever these men went because they didn't bring enough with them out of “Egypt” to supply their needs.) God starts His works when we finish ours. His power is made perfect in our weakness. That was my experience with those tires. I threw out my spare and I never had another flat on that car, and the neighbors who used to borrow it quit! (I would tell them, “Look, if you're going to drive this car, you have to drive it by faith because I don't have a spare back there.” Well, they quit borrowing my car, which I guess was another benefit.) The moral of that story is, if you prepare for a rainy day, it will come. With the next car, I had the same experience: no flats. When I decided after many years to give it to a mission, I put the keys and title into the hand of the pastor in my living room. We walked outside and the car was on a flat. (I was the one walking by faith and now that it was his car, now that the key was in his hand, it was sitting on a flat! Well, inside I just chuckled. I understood exactly what He was saying to me.) God made His point. As long as I owned the car, putting my trust in Him, there was never a flat. In other words, trusting in God takes away the need for insurance. (And, again, I'm not making any laws about this; I'm not condemning anybody for having spares. God was teaching me, and He'll teach you. He may use other methods, but He wants to teach you to walk in this wilderness, to walk in a lack of man's provision, but in your weakness, God will be made strong.) Men serve insurance companies, H.M.O.s, banks and store up their treasures on earth for the security they think it gives them. (Mat.6:19) Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal. Y2K revealed the paranoia and lack of trust in those who stored up their treasures on earth, contrary to the Lord's command. (It's fear that causes people to do such things, but God's power is made perfect in our weakness.) Quite a few I showed these principles to went home to give their store away and found it full of bugs, just as Jesus said, “thieves break through and steal.” Jesus told of a man who found peace in the insurance of storing up his goods in greater barns (Luke 12:18). He said to himself, (Luk.12:19) ...Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, be merry. (That's the thinking of man: “I have all I need; this will keep me for a long time.”) His misplaced trust brought judgment. (20) But God said unto him, Thou foolish one, this night is thy soul required (Greek: “they require thy soul”) of thee; and the things which thou hast prepared, whose shall they be? (21) So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God. (Now, to be “rich toward God” is to be “rich in faith and heirs of the Kingdom.” (Jas.2:5) Hearken, my beloved brethren; did not God choose them that are poor as to the world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to them that love him? Why did He choose the “poor as to the world”? He chose them because they have to trust in God, they have to put their faith in God. That's what God did with the Israelites when He brought them into the wilderness. He made them poor to the world, and He expected them to put their faith in Him.) Notice that it was his stored-up treasures that required his soul. Jesus promised the unfailing Kingdom provisions to those who would store up their treasures in Heaven by giving. (32) Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. (33) Sell that which ye have, and give alms; make for yourselves purses which wax not old (not storing up), a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief draweth near, neither moth destroyeth. As long as we are on this earth, we can draw on our Heavenly bank account if we have deposited by giving to the needs of others. “Give, and it shall be given unto you.” If we have stored up on earth instead, the promise is that it will be stolen by thieves of one kind or another. Our heart will be on our treasures, falsely thinking them to be our security. (Luk.12:34) For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. (And God cannot lie!) (I'm told that Psalm 118:8 is the center verse in the Bible and I'm sure that it is at least central to God's heart.) (Psa.118:8) It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to put confidence in man. Our trust in man is what brings the curse to pass. (Jer.17:5) Thus saith the Lord: Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. (People are trusting in their insurance of many different kinds; they're trusting in their insurance companies, but they are all going to fail. Everything but God is going to fail in the days ahead!) As we can see, the insurances themselves bring the curse that they are thought to relieve. (The man who stored up “much goods” found that they brought the curse upon him. God is not offended with the world doing it; He's offended with His people doing these things.) God is offended with those who call themselves believers, yet trust in man's strength and insurances. This is a heart that departs from the Lord. In 2 Chronicles 16:1-6, Asa, king of Judah, put his trust in the worldly king of Syria for insurance against his enemies. This offended God, Who sent judgment. (2Ch.16:7) And at that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah, and said unto him, Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and hast not relied on the Lord thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thy hand. (8) Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubim a huge host, with chariots and horsemen exceeding many? yet, because thou didst rely on the Lord, he delivered them into thy hand. (9) For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly; for from henceforth thou shalt have wars. God is eager to show signs and wonders to those who trust in Him with a perfect heart. (Obviously, a “perfect heart” is not one that trusts in the world.) You would think that Asa would have learned this lesson, but his trust in man cost him his life, as it does for so many. (12) And in the thirty and ninth year of his reign Asa was diseased in his feet; his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians (13) And Asa slept with his fathers.... Christians justify their misplaced trust in man's insurances, not realizing that this brings the judgment in the first place. Let me share this experience with you. M.J. and I were about to go to work on a large crude oil pump for Exxon. The process department had blocked it out of line and drained it, or so we thought. What we did not know was that the pressure gauge read “0” because it was broken and the drain valve, though open, was stopped up, so there was a little pressure still in the pump. We took the bolts out of the head plate to remove it, but it was stuck. I stood up and took about four steps away to get something to break it loose when I heard a “pop” sound and turned around to see M.J. drenched with black crude from head to foot. As he opened his eyes, he sarcastically looked at me and said, “David, you did this to me.” Well, I could not contain myself and busted out laughing. The thought of me stepping away in the nick of time so that M.J. could get plastered was too much for me. Attempting to sound serious, he said, “Dave, you're never going to do this to me again.” I said, “M.J., you had better watch those self-confident statements. You know God is listening.” Then, he repeated his statement and said, “Bring me up to the shower house. I have a spare set of clothes up there.” I said, “Oh, now I know why you got it instead of me.” He asked, “Why?” I said, “Because I don't have a spare set of clothes and God knew it.” He looked at me kind of inquisitively. I explained that planning for a catastrophe is the same as having faith for it. It also proves that you do not believe that God will protect or provide. Later that day, we were working on another pump. M.J. was next to me as we used an impact gun to take off some bolts. Suddenly, slurry squirted down one of the open bolt holes and hit M.J. in the middle of his chest, leaving me untouched. (Slurry is a crude that will stain anything; you cannot get it out. If it gets on your clothes, you can just forget it because that's the color they are now. In fact, it's that way on skin; it's just terribly staining. So this slurry squirted down the bolt hole, down the side of the thread and hit him right in the chest.) He looked at me in disbelief. I playfully said, “M.J., I told you God doesn't like those self-confident statements,” but we both knew that God was speaking in this. We could not remember when this had happened to us before, much less twice in one day. (Truly, in the wilderness that's coming, we can put our trust only in the living God; nothing else is going to save us.) Now, back to that old Datsun station wagon; I want you to know the Lord used that vehicle to teach me many other lessons. When I was about to buy a new car, I really kind of favored the Toyota because I felt it was the better car, but I always left things up to the Lord. I asked, “Lord, which one do you want me to buy, the Toyota or the Datsun?” And I was surprised when the Lord said, “I want you to get the Datsun station wagon.” Now, a person would think that when the Lord tells you to do something, everything would be just fine since, obviously, the Lord is looking out for your good. Well, He was looking out for my good, but not in the way you would think sometimes. I told you the tire story, but other things went wrong with that car. Sometimes God wants you to have victory in trials. It wasn't all that long after I bought the car that the carburetor started acting erratically. And since I was a pretty good machinist and a pretty good mechanic, I knew the carburetor was plugged. I also knew that I didn't feel like tearing down the carburetor because the most precious thing in my life is my time. I used every spare moment I had to read the Bible, to study the Word. I was literally drawn, hungering and thirsting for the Word. Anyway, I just commanded that thing to be healed and kept on driving the Datsun. It went on like that, acting kind of erratically for a couple of weeks, but I just kept on holding fast to my confession. (Heb.10:23) Let us hold fast the confession of our hope that it waver not; for he is faithful that promised. The Lord will try you; just because you don't get the answer right away doesn't mean He hasn't heard you. After I held on like this for a couple of weeks, suddenly it started getting better and better until the problem was gone. In a few more weeks, I was faced with a different problem. The transmission started slipping and I thought it was just crazy for a relatively new car to be doing things like this, but I did all the normal things that a mechanic would do, like checking the fluid, for example, to make sure it was at the right level. And again, I knew that I didn't want to mess with that transmission by working on it myself, and I didn't want to take it to a shop. My time was valuable to me. In the wilderness, it will be a different story. You may not be able to find somebody to work on it, or you may not have the money to work on it, or the parts may not be available, etc. Even though in those days I had plenty of money, I just wouldn't spend it. I considered that what I made belonged to the Kingdom, and I wanted to use it to meet the Kingdom's needs, not spend it on vehicles and things like that. So instead, I just commanded that transmission to “Be healed in the name of Jesus,” but it still went on slipping for a while. Of course, your mind is telling you, “Hey, if you keep letting it slip like that, you're going to have to replace the clutch,” and all the other things that normally go bad when it starts slipping. I just ignored it and kept on going, and as I held fast my confession, my transmission gradually got better and better, until I never had any more problems with it. So, the Lord had me by that car so He could try me and show me He could fix anything. Some of the times when the Lord was teaching me these lessons, I got in the flesh to do things myself, and nothing worked out right. For instance, I told you how, when the insurance money came in, I bought a new Chevrolet station wagon. Well, I'd watched a lot of advertisements for a product called “Slick 50” that showed how you could put it in an engine, run it in there a while, and afterward actually dump out the oil and the engine would still run. I was impressed with that. I thought, “Wow! That will keep my engine. It will make it last a long, long time.” But, folks, I already had a God Who would keep my engine and make it last a long, long time. He's a jealous God. He really wanted me to put my trust in Him. Do you know what I did? I put that Slick 50 in there, even though they said not to use it unless you have 40,000 or 50,000 miles on the car. Well, I stuck it in there a little early and they warn you that you can break some rings doing that. At the time, I still lived in Florida, and I had to go on a teaching tour in Texas. So all of my family and I got in the car and we took off, and before I got very far down the road, the car started pouring smoke out of the tailpipe. I looked in the rear-view mirror, and it was just solid smoke back there. I said, “What in the world has happened to my new car?” I checked the PCV and things like that but couldn't find anything wrong. The only thing I determined was that I must have broken rings, as they said I might do if I put Slick 50 in an engine that didn't have extra clearance in it. I would go a few miles down the road and pour a quart of oil in it, go a few miles and pour another quart in it, so I decided I was going to pray over the engine. I said, “Lord, forgive me for getting in the flesh, and I'm going to trust You to keep this engine.” So I prayed over the engine and I commanded it to be healed in the name of Jesus. I don't know where I got into the terminology of calling it “healed.” I've prayed over vehicles, refrigerators, washing machines, and things like that, and I would always just call it “healing.” Anyway, I prayed over that engine and commanded it to “be healed in the name of Jesus,” because it's not the terminology that you use. Your theology might be a little bit wrong, but the Lord knows what you're meaning. Well, I got back into the car and we went on our way. We got a lot farther down the road, and I think I had to put one more quart in that car on the whole trip to Texas and back. God repaired those broken rings and we had no more problem with that. I didn't have much trouble with that car for many, many years, but I had the water pump stop working on it once when my wife and I were out driving. She cranked the car, and water started just pouring out on the ground. I asked her to get out of the car and come lay hands on the hood with me, which we did. We laid hands on the hood and commanded that water pump to “stop leaking in the name of Jesus.” And that water pump seal immediately sealed back up and we drove off. I've had many miracles like that, but most people never think about doing that. The first thing that comes to their mind is, “Well, I have a warranty on this car; or “I have enough money to hire a mechanic to fix it.” I wanted to stay in the wilderness because I wanted to learn those lessons that, one day, everybody is going to have to learn, so I took every opportunity to stay in the wilderness The Israelites wanted to run back to Egypt whenever they came into a place where God would try them, but God put it in my heart to want to stay out there. I wanted to learn; I wanted to see God do these miracles. Besides that, God told me, “I'm bringing you through a wilderness, so you can tell My people that I still supply there.” I treasured these experiences. Some people would call them terrible tribulation, but I treasured them and I enjoyed seeing God do these things. Let me tell you about my washing machine. One time, after we had moved to Florida, the washing machine started leaking. Mary came and told me, “The seal in the washer has gone out; the pump is leaking onto the ground.” I thought, “I'm going to go pray for it.” So I went and prayed for it and commanded it to be healed, then I sopped up the water and told her to go ahead and use it. Well, she did the rest of the laundry, and the machine didn't leak any more water. Then, just a few weeks later, she said, “That machine is leaking again,” so I went back in there and did the same thing. It went for a few more weeks, and for a third time she said to me, “David, that washer is leaking again.” I said, “No, it's not. It's not leaking; that thing is healed. It's okay, it's fine, just wash and don't worry about it.” You see, I didn't want to go back on what I had spoken. I wanted to keep my trust in the Lord and, sure enough, it sealed up. I told my wife, “If you see it leak, don't confess it, just thank God that it's not leaking and it's fixed.” And, you know, I kept that washing machine until somebody gave me another one that was a lot newer. I remember another time, back when we were in Louisiana, when my two young sons were playing in the living room and I was sitting there studying. My wife came in and she said, “That washing machine won't run. It won't even come on.” I said, “Well, Corban and Nathan, you two go back there and lay hands on that washing machine and just command it to run in the name of Jesus and it will run.” So they did that; they went back there and they laid hands on that thing and they commanded it to run and it took off. I taught all my children to lay hands on this and that, and they got to see the power of God in their simple, childlike faith. Children will always have awesome faith if you teach them about God and you show them the truths in the Bible. We had this lawnmower, and we pulled it out after the winter so we could cut the grass in the early spring. I pulled and pulled and pulled on this lawnmower, but it wouldn't start. My boys were really young at the time, and they were just standing around, looking at me. Well, I pulled the spark plug wire off, put it alongside the block, and pulled it. There was no spark. Now, by this time, I was sweating, tired and I wanted to get it over with. I called my boys to me and said to them, “Let's pray for this thing. Let's command it to run in the name of Jesus. I don't care if it has a spark or not; I just want it to run.” So my boys came over and we all laid hands on the lawnmower, and I commanded it to run in the name of Jesus. Then I cranked it up and mowed the lawn. I don't know if it ever had a spark or not. That didn't make any difference; it just had to run. (Mat.21:21) And Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do what is done to the fig tree, but even if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea, it shall be done. (22) And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive. The Lord told us, if you speak to a mountain and don't doubt, that what we say will come to pass, and I tell you, teach your children. They have more faith than you. When you tell a child something, the child just believes you, and that's the way we ought to be with God. (Mat.18:2) And he called to him a little child, and set him in the midst of them, (3) and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye turn, and become as little children, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. We need to become like a child and, with childlike faith, just believe in our God, just believe that He will do it.
A MIRACULOUS healing led to a Syrian warrior carrying mule loads of dirt from Israel back with him to Damascus. Why did Naaman the Syrian do that? In the ancient world, it was understood that every nation had a patron deity. For Syria, that was the storm-god Hadad, better known to us as Baal. For Israel, it was Yahweh—although Jezebel and her children tried hard to replace the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob with Baal, Astarte, and the rest of the Canaanite pantheon. When the prophet Elisha instructed Naaman to wash in the Jordan to be healed of his leprosy, Naaman was angry, expecting something more elaborate—a ritual of some kind. But after following the prophet's instructions and being restored to full health, Naaman realized the true God was Yahweh, not Baal, and Israel was His home. So, Naaman loaded two mules with dirt and carried it back to Syria—not because it held magical properties, but because it was a reminder of the one God with the power to heal. The concept of “holy ground” was established after the Tower of Babel, as described in Deuteronomy 32: When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. But the LORD's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage. (Deut. 32:8–9, ESV) In other words, God allotted the people of Earth to angelic representatives who were tempted into receiving worship themselves, but He chose Israel as the conduit through which He would bring forth the Messiah to save the world from those fallen entities. We also discuss the way God delivered the northern kingdom of Israel from a prolonged siege of Samaria by the Syrians—despite the continued apostasy of Samaria.
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit zeteo.comIn this week's episode of Mehdi Unfiltered, Mehdi is joined by Syrian official Qutaiba Idlbi, who discusses Al-Sharaa's upcoming appearance at the United Nations, responds to Israel's relentless assault on Syria, and defends the new Syrian government's track record. SUBSCRIBE TO ZETEO TO SUPPORT INDEPENDENT AND UNFILTERED JOURNALISM: https://zeteo.com/subscribeWATCH ‘MEHDI UNFILTERED' ON SUBSTACK: https://zeteo.com/s/mehdi-unfilteredFIND ZETEO:Twitter: https://twitter.com/zeteo_newsInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/zeteonewsTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@zeteonewsFIND MEHDI:Substack: https://substack.com/@mehdirhasanTwitter: https://twitter.com/@mehdirhasanInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/@mehdirhasanTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mehdirhasan
Kate Adie introduces stories from Gaza, France, the Thailand-Cambodia border, Iraq and Slovenia.Around a million Palestinians have been told to leave Gaza City ahead of a new Israeli offensive - though many are wary of leaving, saying there is nowhere to go. Lucy Williamson was granted rare access to Gaza by the Israeli army, and was taken to see its planned new aid distribution site.Days after French PM, François Bayrou, was ousted from office after losing a confidence vote, street protests took place across France as people voiced anger over proposals to remove two national holidays and impose a pensions freeze. Andrew Harding watched events unfold in Paris.Thailand also has a new prime minister – its third in just over a year - following a political crisis that ignited a short, sudden conflict with Cambodia. Our Southeast Asia Correspondent Jonathan Head has been looking into this catastrophic breakdown of relations.Ten years ago, 71 migrants from Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan died in the back of a refrigerator truck abandoned on a motorway lay-by near the Austrian border with Hungary. Nick Thorpe travelled to northern Iraq to meet relatives of some of those who died - and interviewed the smugglers convicted for their role in their deaths.Slovenia has produced some of the best male cyclists in the world today - including Tadej Pogacar. Every year, the four-time Tour de France champ hosts a cycling festival in his home town of Komenda - and Guy De Launey went along for the ride.Series Producer: Serena Tarling Production Coordinator: Rosie Strawbridge Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith
On today's program, Episode 184, this is Part 1 of a dialogue I had with Andre Roosma of the Netherlands, discussing the written language of Abraham, Moses, and David, often referred to as Paleo-Hebrew. We will be speaking about the pictographic roots and basic notions that underlie the earliest biblical script. Paleo-Hebrew developed from a script that was used in the West Semitic area, ranging from current Syria to Egypt to the Sinai desert, during the second millennium BCE. It is commonly referred to as Proto-Canaanite or Proto-Sinaitic. This script later developed into what we know as the block letters of the Hebrew used during the Babylonian Exile and beyond to our present day. Our program will begin with Andre's understanding of how he pronounces the Name (YHWH or YHVH or YAHWEH) and why. In the second half of the program, we dig into the actual meanings of the Hebrew letter pictographs. Join me now for my discussion with Andre Roosma as we delve into the rich nuances of biblical texts based on their pictographic concepts.
5. Which three kings joined forces to fight against Moab?A) Israel, Judah, and EdomB) Israel, Syria, and EgyptC) Judah, Philistia, and MoabD) Israel, Judah, and Aram
9. Who advised Naaman to see Elisha about healing his leprosy?A) A Syrian soldierB) His wife's servant girl from IsraelC) GehaziD) King of Syria
Please, feel free to send a text message here and give us feedback. Also, you may send a text msg or leave voicemail (425) 550-6670. Please DO NOT ask questions here because I have no way to respond to your questions. If you have questions, please send an email: questions@cominghome.co.ilOn today's program, Episode 184, this is Part 1 of a dialogue I had with Andre Roosma of the Netherlands, discussing the written language of Abraham, Moses, and David, often referred to as Paleo-Hebrew. We will be speaking about the pictographic roots and basic notions that underlie the earliest biblical script. Paleo-Hebrew developed from a script that was used in the West Semitic area, ranging from current Syria to Egypt to the Sinai desert, during the second millennium BCE. It is commonly referred to as Proto-Canaanite or Proto-Sinaitic. This script later developed into what we know as the block letters of the Hebrew used during the Babylonian Exile and beyond to our present day. Our program will begin with Andre's understanding of how he pronounces the Name יהוה and why. In the second half of the program, we dig into the actual meanings of the Hebrew letter pictographs. Join me now for my discussion with Andre Roosma as we delve into the rich nuances of biblical texts based on their pictographic concepts. Support the show
In Part 3 of Episode 256 of the Mike Drop Podcast, hosted by Mike Ritland, Navy SEAL veteran Kevin Kent continues his unfiltered recounting of high-stakes operations and his unexpected transition into Hollywood. This segment dives into the gritty details of Iraq deployments, from textbook raids gone awry—like hitting the wrong house marked by a faulty blue chem light—to intense firefights in Abu Bali, where Kevin unloads 400 rounds from a 46 gun in a chaotic ambush. He shares vivid stories of hauling bodies wrapped in carpets, mistakenly crossing into Syria, and a surreal encounter with Iranian soldiers on a river op in Basra. The episode also explores Kevin's post-military career, sparked by his twins' acting gigs, leading to technical advising on major films like Transformers and The Last Ship under mentor Harry Humphries. From navigating Hollywood's feast-or-famine nature to launching the Liberty Risk podcast with fellow veterans, Kevin's journey highlights the camaraderie, chaos, and adaptability of a SEAL turned storyteller. Perfect for fans of raw military tales and behind-the-scenes Hollywood insights. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Inflation posted a 2.9% annual rate in August, up from 2.3% in April. Job creation has slowed sharply. These key indicators put pressure on Republicans as the party in power – even as they push blame toward the Federal Reserve and Democrats. Also: today's stories, including how gruesome footage of the killings of Charlie Kirk and a Ukrainian refugee has renewed debate about safeguards for online content; whether Israel and Syria can find common ground on border issues; and how the U.S. Department of War will differ from the Defense Department. Join the Monitor's Cameron Pugh for today's news.
“No matter how difficult your life is, to know that you are resilient enough. Your spirit, your soul, you will make it.” – Christine Sadry Today's featured award-winning author is a mom and a former United Nations peacekeeper, Christine Sadry. Christine and I had a chat about her book, “13 Years Lost: An Unbelievable Story of Fleeing Communist Poland to Traveling the World Serving the United Nations”, how she began working at the UN, her advice to others writing about painful memories, and more!Key Things You'll Learn:What inspired Christine to write her bookWhat her childhood was like in Soviet Poland to enduring an abusive adoptive home in AmericaWhy it's good to embrace life fully and the power of the human spiritAn unexpected benefit that she received from writing her bookChristine's Site: https://christinesadry.com/Christine's Book: https://a.co/d/fkXaeQnThe opening track is titled, “North Wind and the Sun” by Trevin P. To listen to and download the full track, click the following link. https://compilationsforhumanity.bandcamp.com/track/north-wind-and-the-sunPlease support today's podcast to keep this content coming! CashApp: $DomBrightmonDonate on PayPal: @DBrightmonBuy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/dombrightmonGet Going North T-Shirts, Stickers, and More: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/dom-brightmonThe Going North Advancement Compass: https://a.co/d/bA9awotYou May Also Like…Ep. 825 – One Woman's Story of Survival & Courageous Leadership in Syria with Dr. Amani Ballour (@AmaniBallour): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/ep-825-one-womans-story-of-survival-courageous-leadership-in-syria-with-dr-amani-ballour-am/#Bonus Ep. – “Perfectly Flawed” with Janae Sergio (@janae_sergio): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/bonus-ep-perfectly-flawed-with-janae-sergio-janae_sergio/229 – “Unbroken” with Tajci Cameron (@TajciCameron): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/229-unbroken-with-tajci-cameron-tajcicameron/Ep. 750 – Surviving Human Trafficking & Finding Purpose with Amanda Blackwood (@DetailedPieces): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/ep-750-surviving-human-trafficking-finding-purpose-with-amanda-blackwood-detailedpieces/Ep. 807 – Inside The Mind of The Author Activist with Dawn Bates (@msdawnbates33): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/ep-807-inside-the-mind-of-the-author-activist-with-dawn-bates-msdawnbates33/#FourFoldFormula Ep. – “Coming to the USA” with Nene Kodjoe (@SIA_Africa): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/fourfoldformula-ep-coming-to-the-usa-with-nene-kodjoe-sia_africa/Ep. 500 – “Life Reset” With Dr. Foojan Zeine, Psy.D., MFT (@DrZeine): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/ep-500-life-reset-with-dr-foojan-zeine-psyd-mft-drzeine/Ep. 690 – “Prosper mE” with Victoria Rader, Ph.D. (@VicaRader): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/ep-690-prosper-me-with-victoria-rader-phd-vicarader/#Bonus Ep. – “From Shy Girl to Award-Winning Model” with Lorna Greyling (@LornaGreyling): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/bonus-ep-from-shy-girl-to-award-winning-model-with-lorna-greyling-lornagreyling/Ep. 499 – “Take Center Stage” with Janelle Anderson: https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/ep-499-take-center-stage-with-janelle-anderson/270 – "Forever Employable" with Jeff Gothelf (@jboogie): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/270-forever-employable-with-jeff-gothelf-jboogie/Ep. 372 – “The Grit Factor” with Shannon Huffman Polson (@ABorderLife): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/ep-372-the-grit-factor-with-shannon-huffman-polson-aborderlife/
In the past month, Israel has bombed Palestine, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon, but its attack on Hamas officials in Qatar this week was most unexpected. And it hit a nerve. Arab leaders immediately expressed solidarity with their Gulf neighbour and condemned what they said was a breach of Qatar's sovereignty. In the coming days they will meet at an emergency regional summit to discuss the attack. But analysts say a military response is not an option. Qatar has been a major mediator in Gaza ceasefire talks, but it is also a strategic US ally and home to the biggest American military base in the region. US President Donald Trump said he was not “thrilled” about the strike but has yet to take any action against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But what fallout could this have for Qatar and the Gulf states, and how will it test their relationship with western allies? In this episode of Beyond the Headlines, host Nada AlTaher speaks to Hasan AlHasan, senior fellow for Middle East policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and Hussein Ibish, resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington and a columnist for The National.
David Lesch is a poster child for something. I'm just not sure what. On the one hand, given his personal reinvention from Los Angeles Dodgers first-round draft pick to official biographer of Bashar al Assad, some might consider him proof that the American Dream still exists. But others, including even himself , would argue that his incredible pivot from baseball protege to Harvard-educated Middle Eastern expert, reflects the privilege of his social class and perhaps even gender. In any event, the Lesch story is pretty amazing - which is why the San Antonio-based biographer Catherine Nixon Cooke has just published Dodgers to Damascus, the story of his journey from star pitcher to star diplomat. So it was intriguing to not only host Cooke but also David Lesch to discuss his highly unusual journey from the youthful potential of baseball to the grim reality of Bashar al Assad's Syria. 1. Privilege complicates the reinvention narrative Lesch's transformation from baseball to diplomacy required significant advantages - supportive family, financial stability, and access to elite education. His story demonstrates both genuine resilience and the reality that dramatic career pivots often depend on existing social capital.2. Failure as preparation has limits While Lesch credits baseball's culture of failure with preparing him for diplomacy, this framework works better in retrospect. The "fetishization of failure" narrative is easier to embrace after achieving success than during actual setbacks.3. American Middle East policy remains deeply flawed Despite Lesch's generous B-grade assessment based on narrow objectives (oil access, Israeli security, Soviet containment), the broader record suggests more fundamental failures in understanding regional complexities and long-term consequences.4. Assad's evolution illustrates power's corrupting force Lesch's insider perspective on Bashar al-Assad's transformation from potential reformer to authoritarian ruler provides a case study in how institutional constraints and personal ambition can override initial intentions.5. Listening skills transfer across domains The interview emphasizes how Lesch's approach to conflict resolution - particularly deep listening and cultural understanding - represents transferable expertise that America needs more of, regardless of political administration.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe
Journalist Seth Harp talks about his hit book, which has just been picked up by HBO, investigating the drug cartels and string of murders plaguing the Fort Bragg U.S. Army military installation located in North Carolina. He also discusses his own time in the military as well as what he saw in Ukraine. Then we're joined by student organizer Hadeeqa Arzoo Malik, who was recently suspended by CUNY City College and adjunct professor Dr. Corinna Mullin who was recently fired by John Jay and Brooklyn College for pro-Palestine activism. To see the full discussion, please join us on Patreon at - https://www.patreon.com/posts/patreon-full-dr-138556252 Seth Harp is an investigative reporter and foreign correspondent who writes about the intersection of armed conflict and organized crime. A contributing editor at Rolling Stone, he has reported from countries including Iraq, Syria, Mexico, Ukraine, and elsewhere for Harper's, the New Yorker, The Intercept, and Columbia Journalism Review. He has also written for the New York Times and the Texas Observer. He is currently working on a book for Viking Press about drug-trafficking in the U.S. Army Special Forces and a series of unsolved murders at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Before becoming a journalist, Harp practiced law for five years, and was an Assistant Attorney General for the state of Texas. During college and law school, he served in the U.S. Army Reserve and did one tour of duty in Iraq. He lives in Austin, Texas, where he was born and raised. Hadeeqa Arzoo Malik is a 21 year-old organizer, student, poet, and Student Leader of the Tamkeen Movement, which aims to uplift the Muslim community through education and social organization. She is a double major in Political Science, International Relations, and minors in Human Rights. She was recently suspended from CUNY City College for pro -Palestine activism. Dr. Corinna Mullin is an anti-imperialist academic who was recently fired from her job as adjunct faculty at The City University of New York for Palestine solidarity. Corinna is a member of the Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective. She is a delegate in the PSC-CUNY's delegate assembly and serves on the Steering Committee of the PSC-CUNY's International Committee. Corinna organizes with CUNY for Palestine and Labor for Palestine. She is an Associate Editor for Middle East Critique and Science & Society. ***Please support The Katie Halper Show *** For bonus content, exclusive interviews, to support independent media & to help make this program possible, please join us on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/thekatiehalpershow Get your Katie Halper Show Merch here! https://katiehalper.myspreadshop.com/all Follow Katie on Twitter: https://x.com/kthalps Follow Katie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kthalps Follow Katie on TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@kthalps
This week, Israel bombed Hamas leadership in Qatar in a brazen attack within the Arab state. This is a two year genocide in Gaza, moves to annex the West Bank, a 12 day war with Iran, a two month war in Lebanon, and attacks on Tunis, Yemen and Syria. In this encore episode from 2020, we offered personal recollections, talked about the larger historical context in which it occurred, considered the consequences of the attacks–prolonged Mid-East wars and heightened repression at home, discussed the way the attacks and wars were manipulated for “patriotic” reasons, and talked about how it effects the U.S., in the era of (2020) Trump.-------------------------------------------------------------------Outro- "Green and Red Blues" by Moody
01:00:42 – Opening & 9/11 UpdatesThe show opens by marking September 11, 2025, with reflections on 9/11 anniversaries and pivots immediately to breaking news: the assassination of Charlie Kirk and NATO's escalations in Europe. 01:02:09 – Charlie Kirk's Murder & Free SpeechDiscussion on the killing of Charlie Kirk, focusing on his young family, his role in encouraging open debate on campuses, and how his assassination reflects the dangers of a violent culture that equates speech with violence. 01:17:00 – Media's Reaction to Kirk ShootingAnalysis of MSNBC's coverage, accused of exploiting Kirk's assassination for partisan narratives, contrasted with CNN and Fox News' restrained reporting. Media bias and political exploitation of violence are central themes. 01:27:00 – Rising Political ViolenceA segment on the “Fourth Turning” cycle: five assassination attempts within a year, including Kirk, Trump, and others. The speakers warn this trend reflects America's descent into normalized political violence and deepening civil conflict. 01:50:07 – NATO Drone Crisis & War PushFocus shifts to Poland and NATO, with claims that Prime Minister Donald Tusk is using stray Russian drones as a pretext to escalate toward World War III. Parallels are drawn to Syria and false-flag provocations. 02:08:45 – New World Order & Health CrisisEuropean Commission's Ursula von der Leyen is quoted warning of a looming global health crisis, framed as another opportunity to centralize power. The hosts tie this rhetoric to broader themes of globalism, technocracy, and “New World Order” ambitions. 02:14:17 – Shooter Linked to Radical LeftReports suggest the Charlie Kirk assassin was a college-aged radical, with universities described as “Marxist seminaries” fueling violent ideology. 02:18:41 – Civil War TrapWarnings that both parties are pushing Americans toward a civil war, which would bring mass death and government crackdowns, just as after the first Civil War. 02:24:24 – Tucker Carlson's 9/11 Cover-UpCarlson's upcoming 9/11 documentary is blasted as controlled opposition. He's accused of hiding Building 7 evidence and running CIA-style propaganda. 02:29:23 – Israeli Foreknowledge of 9/11FBI reports of “Israeli art students” surveilling U.S. sites and filming the attacks are examined, with claims U.S. intelligence may have used Israel as cover. 02:35:14 – Gold vs. Fake EconomyTony Arterburn joins to show how gold is the “real stablecoin” amid fake job reports, manipulated markets, and central bank hoarding. 02:56:48 – CBDC Trojan Horse: The GENIUS ActThe new Genius Act is framed as a backdoor to eliminate cash, wipe out small banks, and impose full surveillance through stablecoins. 03:17:29 – Trump's Tariff DelusionTariffs are framed as taxes that make nations poorer, not richer. Trump is blasted for adopting economic policies resembling “third world” countries while claiming they'll bring investment. 03:23:01 – America's Declining Trade FreedomDiscussion of how the U.S. fell from 8th to 53rd place in global trade freedom rankings. Tariffs and capital controls are shown as barriers that punish Americans while eroding prosperity. 03:27:33 – Tariffs Destroying Small BusinessReal-world examples highlight how tariffs cripple industries like guitar-making and surfboards by driving up costs of foreign materials. Trump and Peter Navarro are ridiculed for boneheaded, short-sighted trade policy. 03:32:01 – Trump Hypocrisy on Free SpeechTrump is accused of hollow rhetoric after praising Charlie Kirk's “free speech,” while simultaneously cracking down on students protesting Gaza. His response to the shooting is dismissed as political theater. 03:34:27 – Mossad & 9/11 OperationsConversation shifts to Israeli involvement in 9/11, citing “Israeli art students,” Mossad-linked moving companies, and Marvin Bush's security contracts at the Trade Towers. The U.S.-Israel connection is framed as deep and corrupt. 03:52:36 – Epstein, Banks & the GOP Cover-UpThe Epstein scandal is revisited, with J.P. Morgan, Ken Starr, and Bill Gates implicated in protecting pedophiles. Trump, Mike Johnson, and the GOP are accused of aiding cover-ups to protect elites. Follow the show on Kick and watch live every weekday 9:00am EST – 12:00pm EST https://kick.com/davidknightshow Money should have intrinsic value AND transactional privacy: Go to https://davidknight.gold/ for great deals on physical gold/silverFor 10% off Gerald Celente's prescient Trends Journal, go to https://trendsjournal.com/ and enter the code KNIGHTFind out more about the show and where you can watch it at TheDavidKnightShow.com If you would like to support the show and our family please consider subscribing monthly here: SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/the-david-knight-showOr you can send a donation throughMail: David Knight POB 994 Kodak, TN 37764Zelle: @DavidKnightShow@protonmail.comCash App at: $davidknightshowBTC to: bc1qkuec29hkuye4xse9unh7nptvu3y9qmv24vanh7Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-david-knight-show--2653468/support.
A huge manhunt is underway after the assassination of US conservative activist Charlie Kirk. President Trump says it's a “dark moment” for America. We'll have reaction to the killing.Also on the programme: what's happened to Syria's missing children taken from political prisoners under the Assad regime; and South Korea's president warns other companies may be reluctant to invest in the US after the Hyundai row.(Photo: Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA founder, puts on a MAGA hat during the AmericaFest 2024 conference. Credit: Reuters)
The National Security Hour with Brandon Weichert – The human and financial toll has been staggering. According to Brown University's Costs of War Project at the Watson Institute, the post-9/11 wars have cost the U.S. approximately $8 trillion, encompassing direct military spending, veteran care, and related expenses across Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and beyond...
01:00:42 – Opening & 9/11 UpdatesThe show opens by marking September 11, 2025, with reflections on 9/11 anniversaries and pivots immediately to breaking news: the assassination of Charlie Kirk and NATO's escalations in Europe. 01:02:09 – Charlie Kirk's Murder & Free SpeechDiscussion on the killing of Charlie Kirk, focusing on his young family, his role in encouraging open debate on campuses, and how his assassination reflects the dangers of a violent culture that equates speech with violence. 01:17:00 – Media's Reaction to Kirk ShootingAnalysis of MSNBC's coverage, accused of exploiting Kirk's assassination for partisan narratives, contrasted with CNN and Fox News' restrained reporting. Media bias and political exploitation of violence are central themes. 01:27:00 – Rising Political ViolenceA segment on the “Fourth Turning” cycle: five assassination attempts within a year, including Kirk, Trump, and others. The speakers warn this trend reflects America's descent into normalized political violence and deepening civil conflict. 01:50:07 – NATO Drone Crisis & War PushFocus shifts to Poland and NATO, with claims that Prime Minister Donald Tusk is using stray Russian drones as a pretext to escalate toward World War III. Parallels are drawn to Syria and false-flag provocations. 02:08:45 – New World Order & Health CrisisEuropean Commission's Ursula von der Leyen is quoted warning of a looming global health crisis, framed as another opportunity to centralize power. The hosts tie this rhetoric to broader themes of globalism, technocracy, and “New World Order” ambitions. 02:14:17 – Shooter Linked to Radical LeftReports suggest the Charlie Kirk assassin was a college-aged radical, with universities described as “Marxist seminaries” fueling violent ideology. 02:18:41 – Civil War TrapWarnings that both parties are pushing Americans toward a civil war, which would bring mass death and government crackdowns, just as after the first Civil War. 02:24:24 – Tucker Carlson's 9/11 Cover-UpCarlson's upcoming 9/11 documentary is blasted as controlled opposition. He's accused of hiding Building 7 evidence and running CIA-style propaganda. 02:29:23 – Israeli Foreknowledge of 9/11FBI reports of “Israeli art students” surveilling U.S. sites and filming the attacks are examined, with claims U.S. intelligence may have used Israel as cover. 02:35:14 – Gold vs. Fake EconomyTony Arterburn joins to show how gold is the “real stablecoin” amid fake job reports, manipulated markets, and central bank hoarding. 02:56:48 – CBDC Trojan Horse: The GENIUS ActThe new Genius Act is framed as a backdoor to eliminate cash, wipe out small banks, and impose full surveillance through stablecoins. 03:17:29 – Trump's Tariff DelusionTariffs are framed as taxes that make nations poorer, not richer. Trump is blasted for adopting economic policies resembling “third world” countries while claiming they'll bring investment. 03:23:01 – America's Declining Trade FreedomDiscussion of how the U.S. fell from 8th to 53rd place in global trade freedom rankings. Tariffs and capital controls are shown as barriers that punish Americans while eroding prosperity. 03:27:33 – Tariffs Destroying Small BusinessReal-world examples highlight how tariffs cripple industries like guitar-making and surfboards by driving up costs of foreign materials. Trump and Peter Navarro are ridiculed for boneheaded, short-sighted trade policy. 03:32:01 – Trump Hypocrisy on Free SpeechTrump is accused of hollow rhetoric after praising Charlie Kirk's “free speech,” while simultaneously cracking down on students protesting Gaza. His response to the shooting is dismissed as political theater. 03:34:27 – Mossad & 9/11 OperationsConversation shifts to Israeli involvement in 9/11, citing “Israeli art students,” Mossad-linked moving companies, and Marvin Bush's security contracts at the Trade Towers. The U.S.-Israel connection is framed as deep and corrupt. 03:52:36 – Epstein, Banks & the GOP Cover-UpThe Epstein scandal is revisited, with J.P. Morgan, Ken Starr, and Bill Gates implicated in protecting pedophiles. Trump, Mike Johnson, and the GOP are accused of aiding cover-ups to protect elites. Follow the show on Kick and watch live every weekday 9:00am EST – 12:00pm EST https://kick.com/davidknightshow Money should have intrinsic value AND transactional privacy: Go to https://davidknight.gold/ for great deals on physical gold/silverFor 10% off Gerald Celente's prescient Trends Journal, go to https://trendsjournal.com/ and enter the code KNIGHTFind out more about the show and where you can watch it at TheDavidKnightShow.com If you would like to support the show and our family please consider subscribing monthly here: SubscribeStar https://www.subscribestar.com/the-david-knight-showOr you can send a donation throughMail: David Knight POB 994 Kodak, TN 37764Zelle: @DavidKnightShow@protonmail.comCash App at: $davidknightshowBTC to: bc1qkuec29hkuye4xse9unh7nptvu3y9qmv24vanh7Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-david-knight-show--5282736/support.
Editors Jimmy Lovaas and Ahmed Namatalla discuss Israel's airstrike targeting Hamas leaders in Qatar, plus more on elections in Syria and Malawi, Trump's visit to the U.K and a labor strike in France.Subscribe to the show: Apple Podcasts, Spotify and many more. These stories and others are also available in our free weekly Forecast newsletter.This episode includes work from Factal editors Ahmed Namatalla, David Wyllie, Agnese Boffano, Jeff Landset and Owen Bonertz. Produced and edited by Jimmy Lovaas. Music courtesy of Andrew Gospe. Have feedback, suggestions or events we've missed? Drop us a note: hello@factal.comWhat's Factal? Created by the founders of Breaking News, Factal alerts companies to global incidents that pose an immediate risk to their people or business operations. We provide trusted verification, precise incident mapping and a collaboration platform for corporate security, travel safety and emergency management teams. If you're a company interested in a trial, please email sales@factal.com. To learn more, visit Factal.com, browse the Factal blog or email us at hello@factal.com.Read the full episode description and transcript on Factal's blog.Copyright © 2025 Factal. All rights reserved.
The National Security Hour with Brandon Weichert – The human and financial toll has been staggering. According to Brown University's Costs of War Project at the Watson Institute, the post-9/11 wars have cost the U.S. approximately $8 trillion, encompassing direct military spending, veteran care, and related expenses across Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and beyond...
From Hamas hideouts in Qatar to drone strikes deep in Yemen and Russian threats against NATO, the geopolitical tensions are boiling over.In this explosive episode of MidEast & Beyond, Amir Tsarfati and Pastor Barry Stagner unpack the dramatic release of Elizabeth Tsurkov, the deadly terror attack in Jerusalem, and Israel's massive precision response in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria.They also break down Qatar's role in sheltering Hamas leaders, the ICC's hypocrisy, and the global media's warped narrative. Plus: the growing push for Israeli sovereignty over Judea and Samaria, Russian drone attacks on Poland, and how today's chaos aligns with Bible prophecy.Connect with us on social:Telegram: @beholdisraelchannelInstagramFacebookXYouTube
CONTINUED Summary: Jonathan Schanzer analyzes an Israeli strike on Hamas leadership in Doha, exposing Qatar's sponsorship of terror groups. He also discusses Syria's fragmentation and Al-Shara's contested authority. 1954
Summary: Jonathan Schanzer analyzes an Israeli strike on Hamas leadership in Doha, exposing Qatar's sponsorship of terror groups. He also discusses Syria's fragmentation and Al-Shara's contested authority. 1958
Summary: Ahmed Sharawi reports on Druze militias forming in Suwayda to defend against attacks, indicating a detachment from Damascus. He also discusses Al-Shara's consolidation of power in Syria and his upcoming UN speech. 1920S ALEPPO
CONTINUED Summary: Ahmed Sharawi reports on Druze militias forming in Suwayda to defend against attacks, indicating a detachment from Damascus. He also discusses Al-Shara's consolidation of power in Syria and his upcoming UN speech. 1870 DAMASCUS
SHOW SCHEDULE 9-9-25 CBS EYE ON THE WORLD WITH JOHN BATCHELOR GOOD EVENING: THE SHOW BEGINS IN THE HOUSING MARKET, WAITING FOR MR. POWELL... 1871 GRAND CENTRAL FIRST HOUR 9-915 Guest Name: Elizabeth Peek Summary: Elizabeth Peek discusses the Federal Reserve's anticipated interest rate cuts due to a weakening jobs market, massive downward revisions in job reports, and AI's impact on hiring. She also covers ICE raids. 915-930 Guest Name: Elizabeth Peek Summary: Elizabeth Peek discusses the Federal Reserve's anticipated interest rate cuts due to a weakening jobs market, massive downward revisions in job reports, and AI's impact on hiring. She also covers ICE raids. 930-945 Guest Name: Judy Dempsey Summary: Judy Dempsey examines France's political and economic instability, including the resignation of its prime minister, impacting the EU. She highlights populist parties gaining traction through criticism of EU regulation and migration policies. 945-1000 Guest Name: Judy Dempsey Summary: Judy Dempsey examines France's political and economic instability, including the resignation of its prime minister, impacting the EU. She highlights populist parties gaining traction through criticism of EU regulation and migration policies. SECOND HOUR 10-1015 Guest Name: Mary Kissel Summary: Mary Kissel details US efforts to re-establish deterrence against Nicolás Maduro's regime in Venezuela, including declaring him an outlaw and targeting drug operations. She also addresses global migration challenges. 1015-1030 Guest Name: Mary Kissel Summary: Mary Kissel details US efforts to re-establish deterrence against Nicolás Maduro's regime in Venezuela, including declaring him an outlaw and targeting drug operations. She also addresses global migration challenges. 1030-1045 Guest Name: Jonathan Schanzer Summary: Jonathan Schanzer analyzes an Israeli strike on Hamas leadership in Doha, exposing Qatar's sponsorship of terror groups. He also discusses Syria's fragmentation and Al-Shara's contested authority. 1045-1100 Guest Name: Jonathan Schanzer Summary: Jonathan Schanzer analyzes an Israeli strike on Hamas leadership in Doha, exposing Qatar's sponsorship of terror groups. He also discusses Syria's fragmentation and Al-Shara's contested authority. THIRD HOUR 1100-1115 Guest Name: Gregory Copley Summary: Gregory Copley discusses a global "contagion of leadership failures," with focus on Nepal's riots over social media and corruption, the resignation of Prime Minister Sharma Oli, and political crises in France and the UK. 1115-1130 Guest Name: Gregory Copley Summary: Gregory Copley discusses a global "contagion of leadership failures," with focus on Nepal's riots over social media and corruption, the resignation of Prime Minister Sharma Oli, and political crises in France and the UK. 1130-1145 Guest Name: Gregory Copley Summary: Gregory Copley discusses a global "contagion of leadership failures," with focus on Nepal's riots over social media and corruption, the resignation of Prime Minister Sharma Oli, and political crises in France and the UK. 1145-1200 Guest Name: Gregory Copley Summary: Gregory Copley discusses a global "contagion of leadership failures," with focus on Nepal's riots over social media and corruption, the resignation of Prime Minister Sharma Oli, and political crises in France and the UK. FOURTH HOUR 12-1215 Guest Name: Ahmed Sharawi Summary: Ahmed Sharawi reports on Druze militias forming in Suwayda to defend against attacks, indicating a detachment from Damascus. He also discusses Al-Shara's consolidation of power in Syria and his upcoming UN speech. 1215-1230 Guest Name: Ahmed Sharawi Summary: Ahmed Sharawi reports on Druze militias forming in Suwayda to defend against attacks, indicating a detachment from Damascus. He also discusses Al-Shara's consolidation of power in Syria and his upcoming UN speech. 1230-1245 Guest Name: Joseph Sternberg Summary: Joseph Sternberg discusses UK free speech controversies, including arrests of Graham Linehan and Lucy Connolly, police resource misallocation, and a leadership crisis potentially leading to the rise of Nigel Farage'spopulism. 1245-100 AM Guest Name: Joseph Sternberg Summary: Joseph Sternberg discusses UK free speech controversies, including arrests of Graham Linehan and Lucy Connolly, police resource misallocation, and a leadership crisis potentially leading to the rise of Nigel Farage'spopulism.
Congress is barreling toward another funding showdown — and the odds of a shutdown are rising. Anna and Jake break down Senate Majority Leader John Thune's strategy, a bipartisan push to repeal Syria sanctions and the latest signs that Maine Gov. Janet Mills may take on Sen. Susan Collins. Punchbowl News is on YouTube! Subscribe to our channel today to see all the new ways we're investing in video. Want more in-depth daily coverage from Congress? Subscribe to our free Punchbowl News AM newsletter at punchbowl.news. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Andrew speaks with Jeffrey Feltman, former United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs and a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution. Jeffrey takes us inside the precarious state of post-civil war Syria, the deep-seated sectarian and geopolitical tensions that fueled the conflict, and the complex roles of the US and regional powers who want a stake. He also shares his insights on the ongoing threat from insurgent groups and the challenges of establishing a stable, unified government.
In this episode of AML Conversations, John Byrne speaks with Ashleigh Subramanian-Montgomery, Acting Director of the Charity & Security Network, about the complex intersection of counterterrorism policy, financial regulation, and humanitarian work. They explore the implications of recent sanctions changes in Syria, the unintended consequences of FATF Recommendation 8, and the challenges posed by de-risking and debanking practices. Ashleigh shares insights on the gendered and societal impacts of sanctions, the limitations of FATF's new reporting mechanism, and the devastating effects of foreign aid cuts. The conversation closes with a hopeful look at cross-sector collaboration and donor engagement in support of civil society.
WHAT LIES AHEAD FOR LEBANON?HEADLINE 1: Qatar isn't the only target for the Israel in the last 48 hours — Syria was hit, too. HEADLINE 2: Israel ordered the full evacuation of Gaza City.HEADLINE 3: Tensions are soaring between Israel and Spain.--FDD Executive Director Jon Schanzer provides timely situational updates and analysis, followed by a conversation with Ambassador Edward Gabriel, president and CEO of the American Task Force on Lebanon.Learn more at: https://www.fdd.org/fddmorningbrief--Featured FDD Articles:"Building the Future U.S. Cyber Force" - RADM (Ret.) Mark Montgomery and Dr. Erica Lonergan, FDD Monograph"China's money launderers are bankrolling America's fentanyl epidemic" - Max Meizlish and Elaine Dezenski, The Hill"Why Israel Shouldn't Celebrate Lebanon's Promise to Disarm Hezbollah Just Yet" - David Daoud, Haaretz"Hamas' Chief Negotiator Is a Terrorist, Not a Peacemaker" - Jonathan Schanzer and Ahmad Sharawi, The Dispatch
Welcome to The Times of Israel's Daily Briefing, your 20-minute audio update on what's happening in Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish world. Military correspondent Emanuel Fabian joins host Jessica Steinberg for today's episode. Following yesterday morning's Hamas attack on an IDF camp near Gaza City that killed four soldiers, Fabian describes the attack at the entrance to the encampment, in which an explosive device was hurled into a tank that caught fire, killing all members of the team. The IDF has been carrying out strikes on high-rise towers in Gaza City, on buildings of 10 to 14 floors, which Israel says are being used by Hamas for surveillance in preparation of the army's planned offensive in Gaza City, says Fabian. The army has begun telling Gazans to evacuate Gaza City ahead of the upcoming IDF ground offensive, discusses Fabian, which he doesn't believe will begin until more Palestinians have left the area. Following Monday's deadly terror attack at the Ramot junction in Jerusalem, the IDF began operating in the two villages where the two terrorists came from, on the outskirts of Ramallah. In addition to possible plans to demolish the terrorists' families' homes, there are civil sanctions against the relatives of the attackers, and residents of their hometowns, a kind of collective punishment, discusses Fabian. Fabian also talks about IDF airstrikes on Monday against military compounds belonging to Hezbollah's Radwan force, and IDF strikes in Syria. Fabian notes that Israel has not yet commented on the reason for the Syrian strikes. The Houthis launched drones at Israel on Monday, and all three were shot down, reports Fabian, including one near the Ramon Airport and one near the southern city of Dimona. Fabian says that the Houthis have launched more than 150 drones since the beginning of the war and 98% of them have been shot down. Check out The Times of Israel's ongoing liveblog for more updates. For further reading: Four soldiers killed in Hamas attack on army camp near Gaza City, IDF says Air Force levels Gaza buildings after Katz vows ‘hurricane in skies of Gaza City’ Six killed, 6 seriously injured in Jerusalem as terrorists open fire on bus, pedestrians Katz orders crackdown on work permits for those living in same town as Jerusalem attackers At least five said killed as Israel hits Hezbollah sites in northeast Lebanon IDF intercepts 3 Houthi drones launched at south, day after attack on Ramon Airport Subscribe to The Times of Israel Daily Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. This episode was produced by Podwaves. IMAGE: IDF surveyors take measurements at the homes of the two Palestinian terrorists who carried out a deadly shooting attack in Jerusalem on September 8, 2025 to prepare their potential demolition (IDF Spokesperson)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
//The Wire//1500Z September 9, 2025////PRIORITY////BLUF: ISRAELI FORCES BOMB QATAR TO KILL HAMAS LEADERSHIP WHICH ARRIVED FOR PEACE TALKS. NEPALI GOVERNMENT OVERTHROWN AS PM RESIGNS AND PARLIAMENT BURNS. BLACKOUTS REPORTED IN BERLIN DUE TO TERRORIST ATTACKS ON ELECTRICAL GRID.// -----BEGIN TEARLINE------International Events-Germany: This morning power outages were reported throughout Berlin, as multiple insurgent groups conduct coordinated attacks on electrical infrastructure around the city. Local authorities state that two separate transmission towers were set on fire by malign actors, and several cable cutting attacks may have also been undertaken (though that is uncertain at this time).Analyst Comment: Right now no definitive confirmation on who conducted these attacks, but historically these types of attacks are conducted by ecoterrorists, which have conducted arson attacks (and cable-cuttings) on electrical infrastructure around Europe for some time now. Middle East: This morning Israeli forces conducted strikes in Doha, widening the war to now include engaging in hostilities in Qatar. Israeli officials have confirmed that they carried out a strike on Khalil al-Hayya, the Hamas leader in charge of the delegation sent to conduct peace talks in Doha. The American Embassy has issued a shelter-in-place order for American citizens throughout the country.Analyst Comment: This is a big deal. It's one thing to bomb Gaza, Lebanon, or Syria, but it's a major escalation to bomb a nation with serious power throughout the region. Bombing the country that is currently mediating the war they are fighting also effectively eliminates any chance of peace.Nepal: Overnight the Nepalese government was overthrown in chaos after widespread demonstrations broke out regarding corruption issues in government. In the span of just a few hours, these demonstrations expanded to include demonstrators breaching the Parliamentary compound, which resulted in security forces opening fire on the crowds, killing 19x people. A few minutes after these shootings, more demonstrators stormed the Parliament building and set it on fire. Most of the residences of high ranking government officials were also breached and burned. Several high-level Ministers were severely beaten, including the Finance Minister, who was observed being dragged through the streets. One of Nepal's former PM's was also beaten severely, but for now is still alive. Current Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli has resigned and was able to escape Kathmandu via helicopter. Most of the government has resigned, and many cabinet ministers remain unaccounted for. Flights out of Kathmandu Airport have been halted due to the unrest, so flights out of the country will be unavailable for some time.-----END TEARLINE-----Analyst Comments: The events in Nepal bear the hallmarks of non-organic regime change, though for what purpose (and by whom) remains unclear at the moment. These demonstrations did not spring up out of nowhere, they were organized by Hami Nepal, an NGO that is so new that their own website is not yet finished. This organization appears to mostly be active in earthquake disaster relief, so organizing a political protest is not within their missionset as described on their website.Analyst: S2A1Research: https://publish.obsidian.md/s2underground//END REPORT//
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Drawing from 2 Kings 13, Major General Doug Carver explores King Jehoash's desperate plea to Elisha for a plan against Syria, setting the stage for a reflection on God's guidance in challenging circumstances. The sermon emphasizes that God provides victory, yet challenges believers to pursue "total victory" through complete obedience and an "all-in" commitment to His plan, rather than settling for partial measures.
Once the spearhead of Allied victory in World War II and the backbone of nuclear deterrence in the early Cold War, strategic bombers are often dismissed today as relics of a bygone era. Yet three powers, the United States, Russia, and China, continue to field formidable bomber fleets. Washington employs them for precision strikes in contested airspace across the globe, Moscow for launching missile salvos into theatres like Syria and Ukraine, and Beijing as a key secondary strike asset. Now, with all three preparing to unveil next-generation platforms that promise capabilities well beyond their current fleets, the question is clear: how will these aircraft shape the battlefields of 2025, and which nation will bring its new bomber to the skies first? Our panel of experts examines the evolving role of strategic bombers and what these upcoming platforms could mean for the balance of power in the air. On the panel this week: - Col. David Gordon (United States Air Force) - Valeriy Akimenko (Conflict Studies Research Centre) - Bill Sweetman (Airpower Consultant) Intro - 00:00 PART I - 03:01 PART II - 27:40 PART III - 46:40 Outro - 1:02:27 Follow the show on https://x.com/TheRedLinePod Follow Michael on https://x.com/MikeHilliardAus Support the show at: https://www.patreon.com/theredlinepodcast Submit Questions and Join the Red Line Discord Server at: https://www.theredlinepodcast.com/discord For more info, please visit: https://www.theredlinepodcast.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Dark Art of Life Mastery with Hussein Hallak In this profound episode of The Hidden Why, host Leigh Martinuzzi is joined by Hussein Hallak, a writer, entrepreneur, and relentless seeker of life's deepest truths. Born in Damascus, Syria, Hussein's journey has taken him from an electrical engineering student to founding over 20 ventures across … Continue reading Episode 1134: Hussein Hallak – The Dark Art of Life Mastery
Stolen Girl Official Companion Podcast Part 2 of 2 - Child Abduction in South Africa In part 1 of the Stolen Girl Companion podcast we delved into the real-life case of Maureen Dabbagh and her daughter, Nadia, who was abducted and taken to Syria by her father in the 90s. In this 2nd and final part of the podcast we talk about the reality of child abduction in South Africa and what we can do to prevent it. I'm joined by Bianca van Aswegan of Missing Children South Africa for grassroots insights on this terrifying scourge. The brand-new release movie based on this real-life story, Stolen Girl, is out in cinemas now. This companion podcast is brought to you by Filmfinity. Access resources discussed in this podcast at www.missingchildren.org.za Instagram · Pinterest · Facebook · YouTube · Twitter · LinkedIn