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Surrounded By Deception — Our World Is Not Into Facts Anymore – By Amir Tsarfati - https://harbingersdaily.com/amir-tsarfati-surrounded-by-deception-our-world-is-not-into-facts-anymore/
Shalom from Israel! This week around the Christian world, Christmas will be observed. Not surprisingly, it is not a well-observed celebration in my country. There is only a small fraction of us in Israel who recognize that the Messiah has already come, being born in Bethlehem over 2000 years ago. Don’t get me wrong, there is a growing movement of those anticipating the coming of the Messiah. Soldiers can be seen gathered together singing, “I believe in the coming of the Messiah, even if he tarries.” They believe in a messiah. They just don’t believe he’s already come. On the other side of the coin are those who claim to believe that the messiah has come, but they spread lies about who he is. “Jesus was a Palestinian,” they shout, totally ignoring the genealogies of the Gospels and Jesus’ clear lineage as a Jew. “Bethlehem wasn’t in the land of the Jews when Jesus was born,” they assert. This is simply foolish. Bethlehem was a small but important town to the Jews. It was from this shepherding village that the lambs used for sacrifices in the temple would be gathered. But these lies fit our times. Our world is not into facts anymore. Instead, we are surrounded by deception. Below, you’ll read about the head of a hospital in Gaza who was actually a leader in Hamas. He used his position to ensure the terrorist organization could use his facility as a front for their terrorist activities that took place above and below the ground. This conning of the UN and the humanitarian watchdog agencies took place in hospitals, clinics, and schools throughout Gaza. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians the following warning: 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12 KJV – “Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” This is the time we are living in. The delusion is incredibly strong. We are feeling the soon rise of the antichrist. His spirit is already here. People’s gullibility to the lies of the enemy will only increase as time goes on. Our blessed hope is our soon rapture. Even as life goes on in Israel, we are always aware that war is not far from us. Personally, I am constantly reminded, whether it is by the continuous sorties taking off from Ramat David airbase near my house, hearing the sirens for incoming rockets, or seeing the Iron Dome in action in the night sky taking out the missiles sent from Syria and Lebanon. The southern front continues to rage. In Gaza, Khan Yunis and Shahjaya are under nearly constant bombing. Just yesterday alone, the Israeli Air Force attacked 230 Hamas targets in the area. As a result, yes, President Biden, Gaza City, Khan Yunis, and others look pretty bad. But this is not the result of indiscriminate bombing. I know you sent Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to chastise us, saying we need to make our attacks more surgical. What you are failing to understand is that the underground network of terrorist tunnels is so pervasive throughout those locations that eradicating the cities below the cities will leave a lot of devastation, even when done with precision weapons. So far, 1500 shafts and tunnels have been found, the largest of which stretched 4 km, reached a depth of 50 meters, and was large enough for the passage of vehicles. There are those who complain that Israel must balance the destruction with humanitarian aid. I’m struggling to think of any war in the past in which that was a requirement. Is President Putin sending humanitarian aid to the Ukrainians who are being displaced by his war? Even should we decide to do so, there is a huge obstacle. Humanitarian aid that is currently being sent to Palestinian civilians is being stolen by Hamas. Don’t expect the United Nations to help at all. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has been in the pocket of Hamas for a long time. In the aftermath of the October 7 massacre, at least one member of the UNRWA participated in the holding of hostages. The agency’s schools have been used as Hamas headquarters. Just yesterday, Knesset speaker Amir Ohana told the visiting president of the French Senate, “France funds UNRWA schools with millions of euros every year. It should stop, or strictly monitor the educational content. Hamas terrorists operate from these schools and educate incitement against Israel.” In the West Bank, there are daily raids rooting out Hamas and Palestine Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorists. Up in the north, I, along with most of my fellow Israelis, am still expecting the war in Lebanon and Syria to launch at the appropriate time. In fact, today there is major activity by the IDF towards southern Lebanon. Other countries recognize this escalation as well. The US, Great Britain, France, and Germany are asking their citizens to leave Lebanon and Syria, along with Iraq and Yemen. We will never be safe as long as Iran’s proxies are just across our border with their weapons all pointed in our direction. Terrorist sites continue to be bombed in southern Lebanon, as civilians migrate to the north. In Syria, the IDF struck hard around Damascus and al-Dimas this past week. Hamas in the south had surprise on their side. Hezbollah in the north has funding, training, and 250,000 missiles in their arsenal. Another front has opened that is affecting more than just Israel. The Houthi rebels in Yemen, another of Iran’s proxies, have apparently become frustrated at their ballistic missiles being shot down before they reach Israel. So, now they are taking their aggression out on maritime traffic in the Red Sea. They have attacked numerous ships in that waterway and have threatened to destroy any ship even loosely tied with Israel. A coalition to guard the Red Sea against the Houthis has been formed with the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, France, and the United Kingdom taking part. Other nations have expressed their intention to also join. The Houthis’ threats are making an impact. Already, the six largest oil shipping companies in the world have stopped all of their activity in the Red Sea. In a related story, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has announced that the Israeli cargo shipping company, ZIM, is no longer welcome at his country’s ports or even in its waters. As we continue to learn more from our returned hostages about their captivity, the more determined we become to see the rest home safely. Last week, Dr. Ahmed al-Kahlout, director of the Kamal Aswan Hospital in Gaza, was arrested by the IDF. Why would Israel take a hospital administrator into custody? It turns out that he is also a commander in Hamas. During his interrogation, he revealed that Hamas used his hospital as a military post, and he registered terrorists as medical staff to shield them from scrutiny. He also admitted to using his hospital to hide a captured Israeli soldier. China’s President Xi Jinping quite matter-of-factly told President Biden that Beijing will reunify with Taiwan when the timing is right. Their intention is to do it peacefully, which seems quite unlikely. It’s hard to imagine President Xi being that blunt with the previous US administration. Speaking of the previous US administration, if the Colorado Supreme Court has anything to say about it there will never be a second term for former president Donald Trump. In a narrow 4-3 ruling amongst the seven Democrat-nominated state justices, the court determined that a former president who engaged in insurrection could not be voted back into the position. So, despite him never being convicted, or even tried, for taking part in the alleged “January 6 insurrection” the state court declared him guilty and disqualified him from the ballot. There is little chance of this holding up when brought before the nation’s Supreme Court. Many pundits are saying President Trump could not have asked for a better gift for Christmas. The Real Reason So Many American University Students Hate Israel - by Robert Spencer - https://www.frontpagemag.com/the-real-reason-so-many-american-university-students-hate-israel/ It’s simple, really. Why do so many college and university students hate Israel? Because they know nothing about it, and have bought into the propaganda they’ve been fed. In the midst of the recent and nationwide demonstrators featuring students (and many others) denouncing Israel for its alleged crimes, Algemeiner reported that “students who care strongly about the ‘Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories’ do not have knowledge of basic facts surrounding the subject, and do not share similar concerns about other geopolitical conflicts.” This wholly unstartling bit of information was gleaned from a survey of 230 undergraduates at University of California, Berkeley. Ron Hassner, who has the unenviable position of being Berkeley’s Helen Diller Family Chair in Israel Studies, conducted the survey, which began by presenting students with 18 issues and asking them to rate how interested they were in them. These issues, according to Hassner, included “US-Iran relations, the civil war in Yemen, drone warfare, etc., on a five point scale, ranging from ‘I’m not that interested’ (1 point out of 5) to ‘I care deeply’ (5 points out of 5).” The survey went on from there to ask the respondents a “series of open-ended questions ‘on history, geography, and current affairs.’”F Forty-three percent of the students were most interested in Israel’s alleged “control of Palestinian territories,” while expressing much less interest in “other Middle East occupations, such as the Kurdish struggle for independence, the occupation of Western Sahara, or the occupation of Northern Cyprus.” That’s understandable. These indoctrinated bots aren’t inundated daily with self-righteous leftist rubbish about the massive, outrageous, world-historical injustice of the occupation of Western Sahara or Northern Cyprus. In all likelihood, they haven’t even heard of either one. Why is that likely? Because they know virtually nothing regarding the conflict about which they claim to care very deeply: “Eighty-four percent of those in the most passionate cohort could not name the decade when Israel captured the West Bank, while 75 percent could not locate the Palestinian territories in question on a map.” Moreover, a full twenty-five percent of these programmed and propagandized student “placed the Palestinian Territories west of Lebanon, in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea.” Nor did just a few of them drive the Palestinians into the sea that they chant about wanting to fill with Israelis: “The class average for this blunder was 14%.” The survey data also showed that “students who expressed the most interest in the Palestinian issue were less informed than more moderate peers, who ‘are more likely to admit gaps in their knowledge and, as a result, are less likely to hold erroneous beliefs.’” Thus “like the rest of the class, only 25% of passionate students placed the Palestinian Territories, correctly, south of Lebanon. But students with more moderate levels of enthusiasm provided the correct answer 28% of the time.” The anger of the students toward Israel correlated with their ignorance of it: “the most passionate students were also the least likely to leave questions unanswered and ‘the most likely to offer a wild guess,’ marking them as the most overconfident respondents.” This pattern continually recurred “in all answers related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Hassner stated: “Only 16% of students who ‘care deeply’ about the Palestinian issue provided the correct decade for the Six Day War and only 17% were able to guess that the population of Israel was somewhere between 8 and 12 million people. The others offered guesses ranging from as low as 100,000 persons to as high as 150 million persons.” Hassner himself professed not to know why ignorance and passion about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict correlated so strikingly: “While acknowledging that his survey could not answer why students were driven to profess strong opinions on issues they were not particularly knowledgeable about, Hassner posited that ‘it does indicate, strongly, that education and moderation go hand in hand.’” He added: “The questions that students answered most accurately involved Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco, all countries for which they expressed moderate but not extreme interest. If misinformation is both a cause and a consequence of political passion, then good teaching is the antidote.” Yes. The students who are most passionate about hating Israel know the least about the conflict because they are suffering from a social contagion, not acting upon a reasoned conclusion. Those who actually study the issue, if they do so thoroughly and honestly, will come out supporting Israel. Our nation’s colleges and universities are doing their level best to prevent that outcome. The Left’s Long March Through the Institutions has been a resounding success. Most of our nation’s colleges and universities, including — indeed, especially — those who enjoy an outsize influence on American politics and culture, have long ago ceased to be centers of higher learning and have become centers of far-Left indoctrination. Marxist sloganeering and agitprop masquerades as genuine intellectual inquiry, and so it’s no wonder that once American youth graduate from their once-renowned institutions, they happily take jobs in government or social media that involve stripping free speech and self-defense rights from Americans. They have been trained to be cogs in the machine. Their hatred of Israel is just one aspect of that indoctrination. PLEASE REMEMBER PROPHECY UPDATE IN YOUR CHRISTMAS AND END OF THE YEAR GIVING - THANKS!!! We have created a special fund on our donations page just for the End of the Year Support, so that we can keep track and keep you updated. If you mail in a check or money order, please write End of the Year, thanks! End of the Year Giving Goal $16,250, as of 12/22/23 = $14,291 New Monthly Supporters wanted 30, as of 12/22/23 = 1 (You can donate to our General Fund or enter our End of the Year donation drawing for a brand new iMac computer!) I ask that you would prayerfully consider partnering with us to get the Word out and keep the world informed. Please give a generous end of the year gift. DONATE HERE Or write us at: Prophecy Update P.O. Box 40516 Bakersfield, CA 93384-0516 (Please mark for End of the Year Support) 2023 End of the Year Support Donation Drawing Like most ministries, a large amount of our support comes from people giving during the last couple of months of the year. This year has been challenging for all of, but I believe that Prophecy Update and other like minded ministries are needed now more than ever! Please consider entering our drawing, not only might you win this brand new iMac, but more importantly, you will be helping to support Prophecy Update - thank you so very much!!! A Chance to Win a Brand New 24-inch iMac with Retina 5K display -- most importantly, you will be helping to Support Prophecy Update! With the following configuration: · 3.8GHz 8-core 10th-generation Intel Core i7 processor, Turbo Boost up to 5.0GHz · 8GB 2666MHz DDR4 memory · Radeon Pro 5500 XT with 8GB of GDDR6 memory · 1TB SSD storage · Gigabit Ethernet · Magic Mouse 2 · Magic Keyboard - US English This system is valued at $2,499, and you might win, for a little as $25!!! It's already that time of the of the year when we have to start budgeting and planning for the coming new year! We pray that the proceeds from this Donation Drawing will greatly offset our End of the Year needs so that we can end the year in the black! Donation Drawing Fund We have set up a special fund for this donation-drawing on our donations page. For each donation of just $25, your name will be entered into our drawing for the iMac one-time. For each additional $25 increment, you will receive additional entries into the drawing. If you donate $100 dollars for example, your name will be entered four times into the drawing, you can enter as many times as you like! The offer starts today and the drawing will be held and announced on 12/31/23. This would make an excellent Christmas gift for a student, for your family, or for those who work from home. For a little as $25, you might win this awesome iMac, but most importantly, you will be helping to support this ministry! 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Have You Ever Wondered Why There Is an Endless River of Sewage Coming Out of Washington D.C.? - by Michael Snyder - https://endoftheamericandream.com/have-you-ever-wondered-why-there-is-an-endless-river-of-sewage-coming-out-of-washington-d-c/ If you don’t understand how broken the system has become, you will never understand what is necessary to fix it. Every election cycle the American people just keep sending the same faces back to Congress, and then they are shocked that those politicians just keep doing things that are against the interests of the American people. The reason why we see key votes go a certain way time after time is because most members of Congress have been compromised in one way or another. If members of Congress that have been compromised get out of line, their dirty little secrets will be publicly exposed. During a recent interview with Benny Johnson, U.S. Representative Tim Burchett explained how this works… Well, let’s be honest in powerful people in this country, they write the big checks and they you know, they’re the ones out on the tarmac when the president comes and visits and whichever party they’re in, they always either out on the tarmac or in the private room. They’re the ones that write the big checks. They don’t care who’s in. They hate this country. They hate what we’re about. But they love their portfolios and they love their money more than they do anything else. And they protect it and they protect the people that that do that. And by doing so, you know, the old honey pot — the Russians do that — and I’m sure members of Congress have been caught up. Why in the world would good conservatives vote for crazy stuff like what we’ve been seeing out of Congress? Here’s how it works. You’re visiting, you’re out of the country or out of town or you’re in a motel or at a bar in DC and, whatever you’re into – women, men, whatever — comes up and they’re very attractive and they’re laughing at your jokes. And you’re buying them a drink. Next thing you know, you’re in the motel room with them naked. This stuff really happens. I have been told some pretty wild stories that I can’t reveal here. When a seat in Congress opens up, the elite will make sure that big money is poured into the campaign of someone that they feel that they can compromise or that they have already compromised. And when a key vote is getting ready to occur, those that have been compromised will often be reminded to vote the way that the elite want them to vote. Here is more from Representative Burchett… And next thing you know, you know you’re about to make a key vote. And what happens? Some well-dressed person comes out and whispers in your ear, “Hey, man, there’s tapes out on you.” Or, “Were you in a motel room or whatever with whoever?” And then you’re like, “Oh,” and [they] said, “you really ought not be voting for this thing.” You know? And what do they do? It’s human nature. And, you know, no man or no woman actually is an island. And they know what to get at. You know, if it’s women, drugs, booze, it’ll find you. And they say, and in most elected offices, and that’s what people of power and influence do. And it’s just, you know, I’ve been in this game my whole life. I spent 16 years in the state legislature in Tennessee and eight years as county mayor. And now I’m in my fifth year Congress. But it’s just — the stakes are higher. But the game is still the same. Do you remember when Madison Cawthorn started talking about stuff like this? Within days, his dirty little secrets started being publicly revealed and now he is out of Congress. If I was Tim Burchett, I wouldn’t expect to last too much longer in Washington D.C. either. In the old days, most members of Congress were into members of the opposite sex, but now many of them are into members of the same sex. This is one of the reasons why so many of them have good looking gay staffers. In this sort of an environment, literally anything goes, and we got quite a reminder of this fact earlier this month… Several high-profile hearings have taken place in the Senate hearing room where an alleged congressional staffer reportedly filmed a sex tape. The U.S. Capitol Police told Fox News they were aware of an amateur pornographic video published by the Daily Caller on Friday, which shows someone identified as a congressional staffer, engaging in sex with another man in Hart Senate Office Building room 216. The Daily Caller report states the video was leaked after being “shared in a private group for gay men in politics.” Now it is being reported that there is a “second set” of Capitol sex videos involving other men. In this second case, the sexual activity took place “inside a House office building”… One thing that is clear, however: There is, in fact, a second set of Capitol sex videos, which circulated on Snapchat last year. They featured in the Snapchat story of a user going by “Adam J” with the handle “Anjackson2019,” according to the recordings viewed by Semafor, which were provided by a source. One of the videos, watched by Semafor, featured a man masturbating inside a House office building, which was identifiable by standard Capitol House furniture and carpeting. The desk at which the videographer performed also held a branded congressional mouse pad. A screenshot of a second video obtained by Semafor shows two men engaged in a sex act in an office setting. The participants’ faces are not visible in any of the material viewed by Semafor. This is our country now. Many high ranking military officers have been compromised too. In fact, a military contractor that was involved in “organizing and filming orgies involving senior U.S. Navy admirals” is now being sent back to the United States from Venezuela… As part of a prisoner exchange in which Joe Biden granted clemency to a prominent moneyman for President Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela released 10 detained Americans as well as the man at the center of historic Navy bribery scandal: Fat Leonard, a military contractor known for organizing and filming orgies involving senior U.S. Navy admirals, is on his way back to San Diego to face sentencing for corruption over a year after he fled to Venezuela. It’s one of the U.S.’s worst ever national security breaches. What would the founders of this country think if they could see us today? Before I end this article, there is one more related news item that I wanted to share with you… CoComelon, which started as a YouTube channel, is currently under fire for its Netflix spin-off CoComelon Lane promoting cross-dressing and gayness to children. As Breitbart News reported, a recent episode features a little boy dressed as a girl dancing for his two dads. The series, which ranks among Netflix’s most popular shows for kids, is aimed at preschool children. WATCH: https://twitter.com/i/status/1737450520170631360 Our culture is deteriorating at lightning speed, and our kids are under attack like never before. As I keep reminding my readers, if we stay on this road there is no way that America will survive. So let us hope for a national awakening soon, because time is running out. 1 in 5 Americans Identifies as ‘Spiritual but Not Religious,’ Pew Research Finds – By Ken Ham - https://harbingersdaily.com/1-in-5-americans-identifies-as-spiritual-but-not-religious-pew-research-finds/ The Pew Research Center recently released the results of their “Spirituality Among Americans” survey. And the results highlight a trend we’ve been seeing for years—the rise of the “spiritual but not religious.” These are individuals (mostly younger people) who don’t identify with any particular religion or faith, but who believe themselves to be “spiritual,” usually pulling from a variety of religions to create a personalized belief system. So, how many of these “spiritual but not religious” individuals are there? Well, the survey broke respondents into four groups:
What do all these categories really mean? Well, consider that a majority of those who identify as both spiritual and religious “believe in the God of the Bible” (84%) but only 20% of the “spiritual but not religious” Americans do. Instead of claiming faith in the one true God, nearly three-quarters of them think there is “some other higher power or spiritual force in the universe.” So how do we reach these “spiritual but not religious” individuals with the gospel? First, we must realize that many people are interested in spiritual things—and that makes sense! God has put eternity in their hearts, and they know there’s a God, even if they reject the biblical God. They’re searching for answers but looking in all the wrong places. So don’t be afraid to start spiritual conversations with people—they are looking, and the answers they need are in God’s Word! Romans 1 tells us God made it evident to all that he is the Creator. It’s also a reminder that we can’t just start with Jesus for many people. They have no belief in or even concept of the biblical God. Instead we need to start the way God does—in Genesis! We need to help people see God as the Creator, the one true God who made everything. We need to help people understand the fall and how sin entered creation and that we’re all sinners (using God’s law as a mirror, as our friends over at Living Waters do, can be helpful for getting people to realize that they too are sinners). Then, once they understand the one true God and our sin problem, we can introduce them to Jesus and what he did for us. After all, the good news only makes sense if you understand the bad news first! Young people have been fed the lie of secularism and atheism, but many are now realizing how empty it is and are turning to other things for meaning, purpose, and hope. The problem is they are turning to other broken cisterns that cannot provide the living water they desperately need! The only person who can supply living water is Jesus Christ through His death on the cross for our sins and resurrection from the grave. So get out there and tell people about His free offer of salvation! Daily Jot: The Farm Chronicles: A Christmas Eve Memory - Bill Wilson – www.dailyjot.com There are a lot of terrible things going on right now in the world. But we are at the time of the year when we as Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. We can choose to be impacted by the world around us in its dimly lit arena, or we can choose to let our light so shine. I choose the latter. I want to tell you a little about the Christmas’ that I had growing up on our family farm in Ohio. I was blessed to be born into a horse and cattle farm that has been in our family over 200 years. And Christmas, especially Christmas Eve, was a wonderful time for our family. December 24 was my Dad’s birthday. And my Dad was well loved by his neighbors and friends, so we had a lot going on Christmas Eve. I remember one special Christmas Eve. I must have been about four years old. The night was falling and the wind and snow were whipping across the barnyard, as we often were victims of the “lake effect” from Lake Erie in the southern most tip of the snow belt. The barn was cold when we turned on the lights and started climbing into the loft and throwing bales of hay down, putting the hay in the mangers, grain in the feed boxes and water in the buckets. Then the horses and cows were gathered in the barnyard, one by one we let them through the door and they automatically went to their stalls or stanchions. The barn warmed up and the animals contently eating was a comforting sound. We had dinner and went to church. I remember my brother Chuck carried me out of church that night. He was 14 years older than me and we were so very close. He was asking me whether I thought Santa had made it to the farm yet. And I was worried that it was so early on Christmas Eve that he had not–for we celebrated our family Christmas on Christmas Eve with my Dad’s birthday. Then he looked up at the moon and said, “See there…its Santa’s sleigh and his reindeer. Don’t you see them?” He was so convincing that I looked and looked, but couldn’t find them. But Chuck insisted that he had seen Santa Clause. We got home and sure enough there were wonderful presents under the tree. We had a great family time that year, opening presents and enjoying one another. And afterwards, neighbors and friends started dropping by to wish my Dad happy birthday. Their kids and me were playing with my new farm set, and there was a lot of laughter and fun. Chuck was killed by a drunk driver a few years later. Dad passed in 1989. But the spirit of those two wonderful men lives on here and especially in heaven, and I am reminded of them every Christmas Eve–in the best of times or worst of times, they were the best of men. We have a Savior, Jesus Christ, who is with us in all times. And no matter the condition of the world, we can draw comfort in His promise in Matthew 28:20, “I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” God Bless you and yours during this season. Daily Devotion: A Day of Great Joy - by Greg Laurie – www.harvest.org Instead, he gave up his divine privileges; he took the humble position of a slave and was born as a human being. —Philippians 2:7 https://harvest.org/resources/devotion/a-day-of-great-joy/ - Listen It’s ironic that sometimes in all the busyness of Christmas, we can be ready for the season to be over. The theme of Christmas is joy. That’s certainly what we find in the pages of the Bible. Part of the problem is that we try to find joy and happiness in Christmas when we really need to find joy and happiness in Christ. There is a big difference. Many of us have read the Christmas story so many times that we might even have memorized it. It’s very familiar. And because of that, we can easily skip over it and not think about what it means. Luke, who penned the Gospel that bears his name, was very meticulous in his reporting. He was a stickler for detail. He wanted to give us facts so we could pinpoint this event in human time. Thus, he mentioned the fact that Caesar Augustus gave the decree for a census and that Quirinius was in power as well (see Luke 2:1–2). We know a little bit about these men from history. Caesar Augustus was the great nephew of Julius Caesar. He was a born fighter who had clawed his way into power by defeating Antony and Cleopatra. Then through considerable genius and force, he gave the Roman Empire a solidity that lasted for centuries. It was also this Caesar who was the first to take on the title of Augustus, which means “of the gods” or “the holy and revered one.” Interestingly, an inscription was found dating to the time of Caesar Augustus that described him as the savior of the world. That is how Caesar saw himself. Therefore, it’s especially interesting when we come to Luke 2:10–12, which says, “I bring you good news that will bring great joy to all people. The Savior—yes, the Messiah, the Lord—has been born today in Bethlehem, the city of David! And you will recognize him by this sign: You will find a baby wrapped snugly in strips of cloth, lying in a manger” (NLT). Essentially the angel, with this announcement to the shepherds, was saying, “Don’t look to the palace of Rome for the Savior of the world. Look to the manger in Bethlehem. Don’t look at that self-proclaimed god in Rome. Look at that baby wrapped in swaddling cloths. There is the Savior of the world!” When we look at the life of Jesus and the Incarnation, we see that it isn’t a rags-to-riches story; it’s a riches-to-rags story. Jesus gave up everything for us. The first sensation on the tender skin of the baby Jesus would have been the rough, torn cloth in which He was wrapped. The Son of God, with tiny human ears, would have heard the munching of hay by an ox or a donkey. What a rude awakening. Yet this was the sacrifice that He made for us. It was the ultimate gift to humanity. And what we must not lose sight of is that Christmas is all about joy—because a Savior has been born. PROPHECY UPDATE NEWS HEADLINES Yesterday's Prophecies - Today's Headlines HEADLINES IN PARTNERSHIP WITH TRACKING BIBLE PROPHECY 12/22/23 http://trackingbibleprophecy.org/birthpangs.php
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