The Eternal Sin

Mark 3v29 "but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin"  (E.S.V.)

A somewhat perplexing statement, to know that there is an 'eternal sin', one which 'never has forgiveness'.  

The context is paramount to understanding this statement by Christ in Mark 3.  The Scribes have just accused Jesus of casting out demons (healing) in the name of Beelzebul, prince of the demons.  It is Jesus' reply to this accusation that ends with this statement.  

Jesus healed many by the power of the holy spirit.  The holy spirit was given to him by God.  The Scribes in their accusations attribute God's holy spirit and its healing power to Beelzebul.  In effect, they condemn themselves, choosing not to recognise the healing power of God. 

Forgiveness can only be given to those who recognise the need to be forgiven, and recognise that it is only through God's healing power that this can happen.

AIPAC 2013 Policy Conference

American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is a lobby whose stated mission is to "strengthen the ties between the United States and its ally Israel to the mutual benefit of both nations".  This week they held their annual policy conference, where speakers included U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

AIPAC website: Interesting to look over, includes pages on ' Why Israel Matters', 'Israel and the U.S.', 'Issues'. Read more>>

Watch the speeches from the conference: Speeches at the conference included Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, Israeli Minister of Defence Ehud Barak, and U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. View speeches here>>

News Articles

AIPAC Policy Conference Opens: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) began its annual policy conference this morning with an appearance by Israel’s ambassador, Michael Oren, and a panel with former Middle East adviser Dennis Ross and former deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams. Both were interviewed by former CNN anchor Frank Sesno. Read more>>

AIPAC Conference 2013: U.S., Israeli Policies Towards Iran Differ: The annual American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference seems to be one of the few events that see bipartisan support in Washington. This alone is a sign of the major role it plays in America’s foreign policy. But for all its power, it is not the sole driver of U.S.-Israel relations. Speaking in the stead of President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden’s address to AIPAC highlights the difference between American and Israeli hawks. Read more>>

PM to AIPAC: Israel can't wait much longer on Iran: Netanyahu vows he will never "let my people live in the shadow of annihilation," says Israel has waited years for sanctions to work. Read more>>

At AIPAC, Pledges of 'No Daylight', But Worries About The Gaps: VP Biden and others vow unyielding support for Israel, but would U.S. take military action against Iran? Read more>>

Israel-Turkey Relations

Israel And Turkey Make Nice: 26 Feb 2013 - Israel has agreed to deliver (after a three year delay) $25 million of electronics needed to complete four Turkish AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control) aircraft. The delay was caused by increasing hostility between the Islamic politicians in Turkey and Israel. This led to a sharp decline in Israeli military equipment sales to Turkey. Read more>> 

Israel 'seeks to repair ties with Turkey': 27 Feb 2013 - Israel is reported to have sent messages to the Turkish government in recent days saying it's interested in restoring "a more positive dynamic" in badly strained relations with its onetime strategic ally. Read more>>

Turkish PM Labels Zionism ‘Crime Against Humanity’ at UN Event: 28 Feb 2013 - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has once again verbally attacked Israel in a public forum, this time at a United Nations conference in Vienna. Read more>>

Israel, Turkey row over Zionism deepens rift between ex-allies: 28 Feb 2013 - Israel's prime minister accused his Turkish counterpart on Thursday of making "dark and false" statements by calling Zionism a crime against humanity - comments likely to hit efforts to repair ties between the two former allies. Read more>>

Netanyahu Condemns Erdogan's Statements on Zionism: 1 March 2013 - Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sharply condemned on Thursday evening Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's statement about Zionism and its comparison to fascism.  Read more>>

U.S. Finds Erdogan Comments on Zionism ‘Offensive,’ Official Says: 1 March 2013 - Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday the United States found a comment by Turkey's prime minister, likening Zionism to crimes against humanity, "objectionable", overshadowing their talks on the crisis in neighboring Syria. Read more>>

The Two-State Solution

The two-state solution has been an ongoing idea since the 1930's - even before the State of Israel was formed in 1948.  Though the solution has had different parameters over time, the concept has remained the same - establishing coexisting states of Israel and of Palestine.  For various reasons over the years proposals have been rejected by one or multiple parties, and this solution for Middle East peace remains to be seen.  

The Bible lays out a plan for peace, not only in the Middle East, but throughout the whole world. Despite the view of many that the two-state solution is the only realistic way to bring peace to the Middle East, it is not.  It is only the coming of Jesus Christ and the establishment on God's kingdom on earth that will provide an enduring solution to this ongoing struggle between the Jews and Arabs.  

Read more about this in the online resource 

Who's Land? The Bible Answer to the Palestinian Question.  


The two-state solution in the news

EU Labels Jerusalem Construction "Provocative": The European Union is targeting Jewish construction in Jerusalem, calling it “systematic, deliberate and provocative.” Read more>>

UN peace process envoy to Haaretz: Two-state solution 'on life support: 

The UN's special coordinator for the Middle East peace process describes 2013 as a critical year for the two-state solution, saying Israel and the Palestinians have reached 'make or break time.' Read more>>

The history of the two-state solution 

Wikipedia entry about the two-state solution  

Opinions on the two-state solution

• Five Reasons Why the two-state solution won't die 

• Why a two-state solution will never work

• William Hague: Two-state Mid-East peace chance slipping away

• In Israel, Time Is Running Out for a Two-State Solution

Israel tests missile defense

Israel successfully tests Arrow 3 missile defense:

The Ministry of Defense carried out its first successful test of the Arrow 3 missile defense interceptor on Monday morning, firing it into space from a coastal military launching pad in central Israel. Read more >>

The Existence of God

"Veneration, conscientiousness, faith, and hope are the highest and noblest features of the human mentality.... They lead to devotion, prayer, worship, and moral heroism. They all point to God. They have no adequate object apart from Him.... the higher faculties of the human brain prove the existence of God, as plainly as the human eye proves the existence of light."

R. Roberts, Is there a God? p.8 originally published in "Good Company"

A United Knesset

Israel's Knesset is united for the first time since 1967 In May 1967, in brazen violation of previous truce agreements, Egypt ordered U.N. peacekeepers out of the Sinai, marched 120,000 troops to the Israeli border, blockaded the Straits of Tiran (Israel’s southern outlet to the world’s oceans), abruptly signed a military pact with Jordan and, together with Syria, pledged war for the final destruction of Israel. Forty-five years later, in the middle of the night of May 7-8, 2012, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shocked his country by bringing the main opposition party, Kadima, into a national unity government. Shocking because just hours earlier, the Knesset was expediting a bill to call early elections in September. Read more>>

U.S. Warns Israel on Strike: U.S. defense leaders are increasingly concerned that Israel is preparing to take military action against Iran, over U.S. objections, and have stepped up contingency planning to safeguard U.S. facilities in the region in case of a conflict. Read more>>

Impending war?

Israel Considers Pre-Emptive Attack On Iran: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to rally support in his cabinet for an attack on Iran, according to government sources. Read more>>

Israel test-fires missile as Iran debate rages: Israel test-fired a missile from a military base on Wednesday, two days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of the "direct and heavy threat" posed by Iran's nuclear program. Read more>>

Iran Rattles Saber at Israel, US: Iran would cause serious damage to the United States and Israel should Jewish state strike the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, Iran's top military official said on Wednesday. Read more>>

A 1611 King James Version was digitized by the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections to celebrate its 400th anniversary. 

Available to view at http://umanitoba.ca/libraries/units/archives/digital/bible/index.html.

Personal Discovery of the WORD of God: An interesting talk by Bro. Stephen Palmer on studying God's Word - the link will open a page from which the talk can be downloaded.

Jerusalem: The Struggle

An interesting multi-media resource looking at the issues surrounding Jerusalem:

Challenges in Defining an Israeli-Palestinian Border

Global Financial Crisis

An entire system of global trade is at risk: Sir Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, this week called the current financial crisis “the most serious… since the 1930s, if ever”, in justification for a further £75 billion of “quantitative easing”. Since Sir Mervyn cited the chaos of the inter-war years, it seems appropriate to quote Winston Churchill: “Want of foresight, unwillingness to act when action would be simple and effective, lack of clear thinking, confusions of counsel, until the emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong – these are the features that constitute the endless repetition of history.” Read more>>

Echoes of 2008: Here we go again: The Europeans are pushing the global banking system to the edge. European bankers have been saying things are fine for weeks now, even as their exposure to indebted euro-zone countries strangles their access to funding. Read more>>

Solving the euro-zone crisis: The plan to have a plan: Policymakers are a long way from forming a coherent strategy. Banks’ woes have stolen the headlines this week. But the real reason to worry about Europe is that policymakers are still flailing in their efforts to come up with a big plan, fast, to get to grips with the region’s debt crisis. Read more>>

Syria's Threats

Report: Assad threatens to attack Tel Aviv in case of NATO strike: In meeting with Turkish FM, Syrian president discusses possibility of NATO strike, says 'I won't need more than six hours to transfer hundreds of rockets to Golan to fire at Tel Aviv'. Read more>>

Putin's Eurasian Union

Russia's Putin says wants to build "Eurasian Union": Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said he wants to bring ex-Soviet states into a "Eurasian Union" in an article which outlined his first foreign policy initiative as he prepares to return to the Kremlin as the country's next president. Read more>>

Dead Sea Scrolls Online

The dead sea scrolls can be viewed online at the following link: http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/

Importance of the Old Testament

Luke 24v44-45

"And he (Jesus) said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.  Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,..." 

2 Timothy 3v16-17
"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." 

Israeli Alliances in Middle East Wavering

Israel watches its old alliances crumble:  The overthrow of President Mubarak in Egypt, the estrangement of Turkey and a UN vote on Palestinian statehood combine to make an intractable set of problems. Read more>>

Beyond Cairo, Israel Sensing a Wider Siege:  With its Cairo embassy ransacked, its ambassador to Turkey expelled and the Palestinians seeking statehood recognition at the United Nations, Israel found itself on Saturday increasingly isolated and grappling with a radically transformed Middle East where it believes its options are limited and poor. Read More>>

U.S. seeks to calm Middle East tensions: In the wake of last Friday's ransacking by protesters of the Israeli Embassy in Cairo, U.S. officials have engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activity intended to calm tensions in the Middle East. Read more>>

US nervous as ties fray between Israel, neighbors:  The Obama administration is watching warily as relations among its allies Israel, Egypt and Turkey deteriorate, threatening Mideast stability and U.S. goals for the region. The simultaneous trouble between the Jewish state and two Muslim nations that have been a security and diplomatic bulwark for Israel comes as the Palestinians prepare to seek statehood recognition at the United Nations this month. The U.N. action, which the U.S. has fought without success, is likely to further complicate peace efforts, leave Israel even more isolated and force the Obama administration into the uncomfortable position of appearing to side with Israel over other allies and partners. Read more>>

Israel - Egypt - Hamas

Israel-Egyptian peace shaken by Israel's mishandling of Palestinian terror: Egypt is to withdraw its ambassador to Israel to protest what it calls "breach of the peace treaty" over the deaths of five Egyptian security personnel. In its statement Saturday morning, Aug. 20, Cairo referred to an incident alleged to have occurred Thursday as Palestinian terrorists coming from Sinai attacked Israel's Eilat highway. Read more>>

Hamas Ends ‘Ceasefire’ with Israel: As the situation in southern Israel escalates, Hamas' military wing announces the artificial ceasefire with Israel is over. Read more>>

Israel & Lebanon Relations; Russia & Iran

Minor incidents between Israel and Lebanon could spark war, UN envoy warns: Incidents such as the exchange of gunfire that took place across the Israeli-Lebanese border earlier this week must be avoided, the United Nations envoy for Lebanon has stressed, warning that they can easily flare up into something more dangerous. Read more>>

Russia reaches out to Iran: A recurring feature of the Russian-Iranian relationship is that it mostly languishes on the horizon but can be trusted to move to the center stage whenever there is a criticality in the Middle East situation. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi made a point recently in an interview with the Russian media when he described Iran as the "most significant neighbor" of Russia, which stands in the way of the Western strategy to encircle Russia. Read more>>