The Holy Spirit and History

by Peter

The Heart of It All: The Holy Spirit

In the previous article, we read various accounts from the book of Acts describing how the Holy Spirit came upon believers. In some instances, the Spirit was given at the same time that the person first believed. In other cases, belief came first and the Spirit was given at a later time.

Throughout the book of Acts the Holy Spirit empowers the believers to witness,[1]anoints them to speak and preach boldly,[2] gives direction and instruction,[3] and bestows the gifts of tongues and prophecy.[4] In the Epistles, more is said about the Holy Spirit, not giving examples of people receiving or being baptized in the Spirit, but describing the functions and gifts of the Spirit. More on these gifts and functions will be covered in further articles.
History of Spiritual Gifts in the Church

Virtually all Christians believe that the Holy Spirit worked mightily during the era of the primitive church. Miracles and other manifestations of the Spirit are evident throughout Christian history. Among other things, miracles of healings caused many pagans to become Christians throughout the first few centuries AD. Various church fathers mentioned healings, speaking in tongues, and casting out demons in their writings up until the seventh century.

At some point, however, the church began to distance itself from manifestations of the Holy Spirit. It likely had to do with the issue of authority. If prophets could receive and deliver messages from God, it could have been seen as a challenge to the authority of the official church and of Scripture.

The belief over time within the Roman Catholic Church, and later within some of the Protestant churches, became that at the end of the apostolic era, around 100 AD, the works of the Spirit—specifically miracles, healings, and prophecy—discontinued and were no longer active. The majority of the church came to believe that since the preaching of the Gospel had taken hold in the world, the miraculous gifts of the Spirit were no longer needed, as they had served their purpose as a means of authenticating the apostles’ preaching of the Gospel. This position was evident in the late second century when a movement known as Montanism arose, which was heavily focused on speaking in tongues and prophecy. One author explains:

[The Montanists] represented a revival of the prophets who were prominent in the first few decades of the church … At his baptism Montanus [the leader of the movement] “spoke with tongues” and began prophesying … Two women, his disciples, were also believed to be prophets, mouthpieces of the Holy Spirit. The Montanist movement spread widely. It prized the records of the teachings of Christ and His apostles, but it believed, although not contradicting what had been said there, that the Holy Spirit continued to speak through prophets, and among these it included women … The Montanists, with their assertion that Spirit-inspired prophets continued to arise in the Christian community, were a challenge to the administrative regularity represented by the bishops … Certainly prophets, accorded a place in the early church next to the apostles, were no longer granted recognition by the Catholic Church. Inspiration through prophets was supposed to have ceased with the apostolic age.[5]

The Montanist movement carried on into the fifth century, although it was persecuted by the official church. In time, it faded from history. However, various church fathers continued to mention healings, speaking in tongues, casting out demons, and prophesying in their writings through the sixth century. As time went on, the church became more organized, rigid, and political. And the various manifestations of the Holy Spirit’s power became less evident. Throughout the centuries, movements that did not accept Roman Catholic doctrine were persecuted, and in some cases, destroyed. There is evidence that some of these movements exhibited the miraculous gifts of the Spirit. After the Reformation in the 1500s, some movements also exhibited the gifts of speaking in tongues, healings, casting out demons, etc. These movements were not generally located within the major accepted branches of Protestantism.

In the 1800s, there was a bit more emphasis put on the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of Christians, especially in the Holiness movement[6] and others.

Since the early 1900s, there has been a resurgence or a revival of charismatic/miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit. It was at this time that modern-day Pentecostalism began, and throughout the century it became the fastest-growing branch of Christianity. Today there are about 560 million Pentecostal/Charismatic/Neocharismatic Christians worldwide.

There are many branches of Christianity that believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit as listed within the New Testament. Some of these Christians believe that while many of the gifts are available, the miraculous gifts such as tongues, prophecy, and healing are not, and that those claiming they are available today are misguided.
Waves of Revival

There have been what some refer to as three “waves” or renewals of the move of the Spirit within the past century.

The first was the Pentecostal revival, which began in the United States in 1901 and which gave birth to the Pentecostal churches. Pentecostals believe that baptism in the Holy Spirit is usually a separate event that happens apart from conversion or salvation. They hold that the gift of speaking in tongues is the primary sign or evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and that all of the gifts of the Spirit should be used today. Pentecostal churches usually have their own denominational structure. One of the largest Pentecostal denominations is the Assemblies of God.[7]

The second wave was the Charismatic movement, which traces its beginning to the 1960s and '70s. Charismatic believers don’t generally have a separate denominational structure, rather they see themselves as Protestants or Catholics who are filled with the Holy Spirit and who remain in their traditional churches. Charismatic believers are found in the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Baptist, and other mainline churches. They seek to practice all the spiritual gifts, including prophecy, healing, miracles, tongues, interpretation and discernment of spirits, and believe these gifts function within Christianity today. Unlike the Pentecostals, they allow for differing viewpoints on whether baptism in the Holy Spirit happens at conversion or is subsequent to conversion, and also on whether tongues are the main sign of baptism in the Holy Spirit.[8]

The third wave is a movement known as Neocharismatic. It emerged on the heels of the Charismatic movement, in the 1960s, with its full impact being felt in the 1970s. This movement embraces many of the doctrines and practices found within Pentecostal and Charismatic churches; however, they are not specifically aligned with either movement. The Neocharismatic movement encourages the equipping of all believers to use the New Testament spiritual gifts today, and those embracing it believe that the preaching of the Gospel should be accompanied by “signs, wonders, and miracles,” which some call “power evangelism.” They generally teach that baptism in the Holy Spirit happens to all Christians at conversion, and that subsequent experiences are called being filled with or the filling of the Holy Spirit, rather than calling the event being baptized in the Holy Spirit. The Vineyard churches are an example of a Neocharismatic church.[9]
A Range of Beliefs as to When the Spirit Is Received

Within these movements, there is a range of beliefs regarding the receiving of the Holy Spirit, with Pentecostals claiming that the baptism of the Spirit is a secondary event subsequent to salvation; with some Charismatic believers believing the same, and others being open to or believing that the Holy Spirit is given at the time of salvation; and Neocharismatic believers considering that generally it occurs at conversion. Charismatic Christians who believe the Spirit is given at salvation believe that there are times when believers receive an extra boost or filling of the Spirit, and that this can happen more than once.

Denominations which are neither Pentecostal nor Charismatic generally believe that receiving the Holy Spirit happens at the time of salvation. Some of these denominations, such as the Baptists, are cessationist—meaning they believe that the charismatic or supernatural gifts of the Spirit are no longer functional in today’s church. Other non-Charismatic churches believe that the gifts of the Spirit still function within the church, and that God continues to give such gifts, though they don’t put emphasis on the miraculous gifts as the Pentecostals do, and neither do they see the receiving of the Holy Spirit as a subsequent experience to salvation.

The biblical evidence shows that the Holy Spirit is involved in the lives of Christians, and according to the book of Acts, the manifestation of the Holy Spirit came powerfully upon the believers—some when they first received salvation and others at some time after that. Because some believers received the Holy Spirit upon salvation, it seems that the belief that the Spirit is received in the believer at the moment of salvation is valid.

Jesus spoke of being born of the Spirit. Paul said that those who do not have the Spirit of God dwelling in them do not belong to God. Peter said to repent and be baptized—in other words, to believe in Jesus—and you will receive the Holy Spirit. These verses indicate that the Spirit comes into the believer’s life at the time of salvation.

Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”[10]

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him.[11]

Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”[12]

These verses indicate that individuals receive the gift of the Holy Spirit at the time of salvation, at least in some measure. However, many Christians experience a filling or empowering of the Holy Spirit at a subsequent time, which cannot be ignored.

Some theologians suggest that individuals who have a second experience when they pray to receive the Holy Spirit were actually unsaved, and when they prayed for the gift or baptism of the Holy Spirit, that is when they experienced salvation, which is why they feel so empowered by the Spirit. While in some cases this could be true, it seems highly unlikely that the hundreds of millions of people who have had a spiritual experience subsequent to salvation, when praying to be filled with the Holy Spirit, were in fact unsaved at the time.
A Balanced Interpretation

A better understanding seems to be that individuals receive the Holy Spirit in some measure at the time of salvation. The presence of the Spirit within salvation begins to bring about spiritual change and regeneration in the person. Receiving the Spirit at salvation can be looked at as a glass being full of water.

Christians who pray and ask for the infilling or gifts of the Holy Spirit later could be looked at as the full glass having more water poured into it, until it overflows. Rather than seeing it as the only time one receives the gift of the Holy Spirit, it would be seen as a further outpouring of the Spirit, causing an overflowing of God’s Spirit within the individual. This infilling can happen more than once.

Most likely those who don’t believe in asking for the infilling of the Holy Spirit will not manifest certain gifts and manifestations of the Spirit, such as prophecy, miracles, healings, tongues and interpretation of tongues, as their interpretation of Scripture would constrain them from manifesting these gifts in their lives. This doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t have any gifts of the Spirit, as they would most likely manifest the many other types of gifts that are not manifested in supernatural ways, such as wisdom, teaching, knowledge, faith, discernment, service, exhortation, generosity, leading, and acts of mercy.

By the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.[13]

Jesus specifically spoke about asking the Father to give the Holy Spirit when He said:

I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him![14]

While there is some disagreement between Christian denominations regarding whether all Christians receive the Holy Spirit at the time of their conversion, or if the Spirit is only given after salvation, what’s most important to remember is that Scripture tells us that the Father will give the Spirit to those who ask. Therefore, it seems that no matter when or under what circumstances one may believe the Holy Spirit is given, as Christians we can ask God to fill us with the Holy Spirit, so that we can be filled to overflowing with God’s love and power, enabling us to share the message of Jesus with others.

As can be seen by the different interpretations of how and when the Holy Spirit is received, scripture sometimes appears to support differing positions. Regardless of what interpretation one believes, they will be forced to deal with scriptures which others interpret differently. In many instances, these differences don’t affect the fundamental point being made. In this case, no matter which interpretation one believes in regard to when and how the Spirit is given, both sides believe that the Holy Spirit is given. It seems wisest to remain somewhat open about the details of when and how.

Sadly, the difference in beliefs regarding the Holy Spirit has caused some oppositional attitudes between different schools of thought. Some of those who believe that being baptized in the Holy Spirit is an event subsequent to salvation categorize those who haven’t specifically prayed for the Holy Spirit as carnal or weak Christians, while they see themselves as more spiritual or stronger Christians. Some of those who don’t believe in a subsequent receiving of the Holy Spirit claim that those who do are often more focused on the experiential side of faith with less focus on being grounded in God’s Word.

Christian apologist Matt Slick offers the following observation:

The danger of this phenomena [baptism of the Holy Spirit] is the potential division of the body of Christ into two categories: those who are “regular” Christians and those who have been baptized in the Holy Spirit. This, of course, would be an incorrect way of looking at Christians, and this is why. If you were to step outside into a soft mist, it would take a long time to get completely wet. On the other hand, if you were to step into a torrential rain, you’d be drenched quickly.

Those who have not experienced the Baptism of the Holy Spirit (meaning a sudden and powerful experience) are not second-class citizens by any means. They are the ones in the gentle mist who experience the Lord over a long period of time and get just as blessed as those who suddenly step into the torrent of the Spirit’s presence.[15]

Within the book of Acts, the manifestation of the filling or baptism in the Holy Spirit came upon some at the moment of conversion and others some time afterwards, but in both scenarios, the Spirit was within them. Throughout the New Testament there are references to the Holy Spirit’s involvement in the lives of Christians, as we are led by the Spirit,[16]receive gifts and manifestations of the Spirit,[17] are washed and sanctified by the Spirit,[18] have received God’s Spirit,[19] are taught by the Spirit,[20]are helped in our weakness by the Spirit,[21] preach the Gospel by the Spirit,[22] and have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us.[23]

It seems that the Christlike attitude would be to accept that though there may be differences in certain specific beliefs regarding when and how the Holy Spirit comes to believers, all believers are part of the body of Christ, all receive the Holy Spirit, and as Christians we should show respect and love toward our fellow believers. As the apostle Paul stated after writing about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, “I will show you a still more excellent way,”[24] followed by his beautiful exhortation regarding love being more important than manifesting the gifts of the Spirit. The greatest of these is love.[25]



[1] Acts 1:8.


[2] Acts 4:8,31; 6:10.


[3] Acts 8:29; 10:19–20; 13:2,4; 15:28; 16:6–7.


[4] Acts 2:4; 11:28; 19:6.


[5] Latourette, Kenneth Scott, A History of Christianity, Volume 1: Beginnings to 1500 (San Francisco: HarperOne, 1975), 128–29, 134.


[6] The holiness movement refers to a set of beliefs and practices emerging from 19th-centuryMethodism. The movement emphasized John Wesley’s “Christian perfection” teaching that one can live free of voluntary sin through a second work of grace. (Wikipedia).


[7] Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology, An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine (Grand Rapids: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 763.


[8] Ibid., 763.


[9] Ibid., 763–64.


[10] John 3:5–8.


[11] Romans 8:9.


[12] Acts 2:38.


[13] Romans 12:3–8.


[14] Luke 11:9–13.


[15] Matt Slick, What is Baptism in the Holy Spirit.


[16] If you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law (Galatians 5:18).


[17] Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:4).

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good (1 Corinthians 12:7).


[18] You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God (1 Corinthians 6:11).


[19] We have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God (1 Corinthians 2:12).


[20] We impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual (1 Corinthians 2:13).


[21] The Spirit helps us in our weakness (Romans 8:26).


[22] It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look (1 Peter 1:12).


[23] By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you (2 Timothy 1:14).


[24] 1 Corinthians 12:31.


[25] 1 Corinthians 13:13.

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He Will Use What You’ve Got

By Jacques

I wrote an article for Anchor titled “Pray It Through,” but I felt it would not be complete without adding that God will use what you’ve got and what you’ve learned. In the video, “The Reboot in Hindsight,” Peter talks about our uniqueness, the gifts and talents the Lord has given us, the training we have received over the years as independent missionaries, as well as how we’ve learned to follow Him. Here is a relevant quote from that post:

"He wanted to move us on … so that we could be in new situations, with new people, and reaching them in places where you will shine, where you are doing what the Lord has shown you to do, where He’s led you to, where He’s put you in contact with new people and where He’s actually given you a new life—like a new way to serve Him, a way very different than the way we [were] used to, but nevertheless it’s still serving Him, it’s still doing His will, it’s still working in conjunction with Him."

"And that’s what’s really important. He wants to work with you. He wants to use your unique gifts, your God-given talents, your inspiration, the real you—who you are, who He made you to be—and He wants to take that, and—if you are praying and seeking Him and if you are following Him—He wants to work with you to send you where He knows that you will be fulfilled, where you will be able to use all that He’s made you, that you’ll be able to use all your potential and become what He really wants you to be. And at the same time, while that’s very satisfying for you, He can use you in that situation to bring Him to others."

Since I’ve started at my new job, as a bilingual customer relations coordinator, the Lord has continued using the gifts and talents and training and many of the things I’ve learned over the years. It just comes to the fore. Attributes such as being on time, being committed and dedicated to the work, working well with others and having a good work ethic, really come alive.

Whether we are called to an exciting missionary work helping others or involved in a more secular job at this time and influencing people in a different way, the people-handling skills we have acquired over the years as missionaries, counselors, working with others in finding solutions, and our many shepherding responsibilities will pay off.

In my current position, I started with basic work and administrative duties, and now, after only a short time, I am doing important investigations, from resolving issues and concerns of customers to gathering information for situations escalating to possible court cases. I recently was chosen from my department to attend a half-day training event that took place within the company, and then asked to share the information with my team. I am trusted with responsibility, and my portfolio of administrative duties is growing.

When I started out in this new job, I felt very unprepared for the workplace, but I soon realized that we have so much to offer. We are rich in life experiences. We have received excellent training in being professional in our work and a good example to others. Now, after the initial learning curve, I make a valuable contribution in my department, and I keep learning new things every day.

You can be confident that He can do it for you where you are, in the place and position He has placed you in and chosen for you. Your gifts, talents, and training will be noticed and appreciated.

In his book, The Art of Influence, Chris Widener highlights four golden rules of influence:
Live a life of undivided integrity.
Always demonstrate a positive attitude.
Consider other people’s interests more important than your own.
Don’t settle for anything less than excellence.

I believe these important qualities, along with the many others that we’ve learned over the years, can help to make us a valued asset in the workplace or in any charity works that we are involved with.

Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean1 men.—Proverbs 22:29 KJV

1 Other Bible translations translate this as obscure, unimportant, officials of low rank, ordinary people.

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Influx of Syrian refugees stretches Jordan's water resources even more thinly

By Joby Warrick, in UM ESSERB and Jordan, Washington Post, June 15, 2013

UM ESSERB, Jordan—In the best of times, the solitary well that services this parched border town produced only enough water to let each household run its taps for a few hours a week. That was before civil war broke out in Syria, and before 180,000 thirsty refugees took up residence in a vast city of tents and trailers next door.

Today the town’s antique water pump whines and strains round the clock, but the flow of life-giving liquid for tiny Um Esserb has been reduced to a trickle. With refugees still arriving, the local water manager is bracing for the day when the well gives out altogether.

“The pressure is dropping, dropping,” said Ali Summagah, eying the pump’s rusty gauges during a recent visit. “We need a new well, now. We needed it last week.”

The same plea is being sounded in towns across northern Jordan, where a perennial problem of water scarcity is turning into a crisis. Already ranked as one of the most water-poor countries in the world, Jordan now is forced to share its meager supply with an estimated 500,000 Syrian refugees, a human tide that has increased Jordan’s population by 10 percent in less than two years.

Government authorities have been forced to dig more and deeper wells to supply Jordanians as well as tens of thousands of their new neighbors. Prices for delivered water are spiking, driving local resentment against the newcomers. Budget managers are scrambling to find the extra dinars to pay for more pumps, pipes and drilling gear.

More ominously, water levels in underground aquifers—the region’s most important source of liquid for drinking and farming since Roman times—are beginning to plummet.

“We’re on the edge of a cliff, and if it continues this way, we will fall,” said Hazim el-Naser, Jordan’s minister of water and irrigation. “We are in a water crisis, and it is spreading.”

By some estimates, Jordan was slipping over the precipice before conflict erupted in neighboring Syria more than two years ago.

Situated on an arid plateau bounded by deserts to the south and east, the small Arab kingdom is exceptionally poor in surface water. Its two largest rivers—the Jordan, with headwaters in Israel, and the Yarmouk, which originates in Syria—are nearly depleted before they enter Jordan. The country’s only seaport, Aqaba, at the tip of the Red Sea, is hundreds of miles from the country’s population centers, making desalinization impractical.

The kingdom recently embarked on a joint project with its neighbors to construct a Red Sea canal that could alleviate some of its water problems, but completion is years away. Until more resources become available, the Jordanian government had been seeking to stretch the limited supply through intensive water management, including wastewater recycling and highly efficient irrigation practices.

The outbreak of fighting in Syria changed everything. Within months, tens of thousands of Syrians were spilling across the border, swelling Jordan’s already sizable and semi-permanent refugee population of ethnic Palestinians, Iraqis, Yemenis and Libyans. U.N. relief organizations provide food and shelter for many of the newcomers, but it has fallen mainly to Jordan to supply water for the camps as well as for the legions of Syrians who have taken shelter in Jordanian border towns and in Amman, the capital.

Residents of border towns such as Um Esserb complain about the sheer number of refugees and say they don’t seem accustomed to conservation.

“Syrians are consuming 35 liters per day—six times more than the average Jordanian,” said one regional government official who requested anonymity because of his frequent dealings with refugee communities. “You see them washing cars or even hosing the streets. Meanwhile, some villages in Jordan are down to two water deliveries a week.”

Some of the resentment is being directed at the government, adding to concerns about stability in a country that was rocked by a week of rioting in the fall over higher energy prices.

Summagah, the water manager for the border district that includes Um Esserb, said angry customers sometimes show up at his house when promised water deliveries don’t materialize. At least once, during a hot spell last summer, angry patrons burned tires in front of the district water office where he works.

“When people don’t have water, they get upset,” Summagah said as he toured a line of sun-bleached villages near the Syrian border. “They think the government should do whatever it needs to do to get water for them.”

Summagah is trying to oblige, using whatever short-term remedies are available. He rents private wells from local farmers. He digs new wells when he can and tweaks existing ones to coax up as much water as possible. But the demand constantly outstrips his ability to pay for improvements, he said.

“We don’t have the money to drill,” he said. “Our budgets were written before we had the refugee problem.”

Things could be even worse, Jordanian officials concede. The country was lucky to experience an unusually wet winter and early spring, allowing shallow aquifers to recharge and helping fill the large water collection tanks that most Jordanians keep on their roofs.

Naser, the country’s water minister, said his office is borrowing water from provinces with severe water shortages to help meet the needs of towns and cities facing extreme crises.

How the country will ultimately provide for the needs of its residents and guests is unclear, even to him. Naser, an author and former international consultant on water management, contends that water scarcity helped drive many of the Arab Spring uprisings of the past two years by driving up prices for food staples. Jordan, like most countries in the region, is feeling those pressures as well, and the droughts of summer are just beginning.

“For us, water is agriculture. It sustains life. But is also a national security issue,” Naser said. “Water scarcity triggers unrest, because when people don’t have water they tend to rise up. They will join the next group that comes along and says, ‘Let’s go to the streets.’”

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Iran to Send 4,000 Troops to Aid Assad's Forces in Syria?

By Robert Fisk, The Independent, June 16, 2013

Washington’s decision to arm Syria’s Sunni Muslim rebels has plunged America into the great Sunni-Shia conflict of the Islamic Middle East, entering a struggle that now dwarfs the Arab revolutions which overthrew dictatorships across the region.

For the first time, all of America’s ‘friends’ in the region are Sunni Muslims and all of its enemies are Shiites. Breaking all President Barack Obama’s rules of disengagement, the US is now fully engaged on the side of armed groups which include the most extreme Sunni Islamist movements in the Middle East.

The Independent on Sunday has learned that a military decision has been taken in Iran—even before last week’s presidential election—to send a first contingent of 4,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guards to Syria to support President Bashar al-Assad’s forces against the largely Sunni rebellion that has cost almost 100,000 lives in just over two years. Iran is now fully committed to preserving Assad’s regime, according to pro-Iranian sources.

In years to come, historians will ask how America—after its defeat in Iraq and its humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan scheduled for 2014—could have so blithely aligned itself with one side in a titanic Islamic struggle stretching back to the seventh century death of the Prophet Mohamed. The profound effects of this great schism, between Sunnis who believe that the father of Mohamed’s wife was the new caliph of the Muslim world and Shias who regard his son in law Ali as his rightful successor—a seventh century battle swamped in blood around the present-day Iraqi cities of Najaf and Kerbala—continue across the region to this day. A 17th century Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbott, compared this Muslim conflict to that between “Papists and Protestants”.

America’s alliance now includes the wealthiest states of the Arab Gulf, the vast Sunni territories between Egypt and Morocco, as well as Turkey and the fragile British-created monarchy in Jordan. King Abdullah of Jordan—flooded, like so many neighbouring nations, by hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees—may also now find himself at the fulcrum of the Syrian battle. Up to 3,000 American ‘advisers’ are now believed to be in Jordan, and the creation of a southern Syria ‘no-fly zone’—opposed by Syrian-controlled anti-aircraft batteries—will turn a crisis into a ‘hot’ war. So much for America’s ‘friends’.

Its enemies include the Lebanese Hizballah, the Alawite Shiite regime in Damascus and, of course, Iran. And Iraq, a largely Shiite nation which America ‘liberated’ from Saddam Hussein’s Sunni minority in the hope of balancing the Shiite power of Iran, has—against all US predictions—itself now largely fallen under Tehran’s influence and power. Iraqi Shiites as well as Hizballah members, have both fought alongside Assad’s forces.

Washington’s excuse for its new Middle East adventure—that it must arm Assad’s enemies because the Damascus regime has used sarin gas against them—convinces no-one in the Middle East. Final proof of the use of gas by either side in Syria remains almost as nebulous as President George W. Bush’s claim that Saddam’s Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

For the real reason why America has thrown its military power behind Syria’s Sunni rebels is because those same rebels are now losing their war against Assad. The Damascus regime’s victory this month in the central Syrian town of Qusayr, at the cost of Hizballah lives as well as those of government forces, has thrown the Syrian revolution into turmoil, threatening to humiliate American and EU demands for Assad to abandon power. Arab dictators are supposed to be deposed—unless they are the friendly kings or emirs of the Gulf—not to be sustained. Yet Russia has given its total support to Assad, three times vetoing UN Security Council resolutions that might have allowed the West to intervene directly in the civil war.

In the Middle East, there is cynical disbelief at the American contention that it can distribute arms—almost certainly including anti-aircraft missiles—only to secular Sunni rebel forces in Syria represented by the so-called Free Syria Army. The more powerful al-Nusrah Front, allied to al-Qaeda, dominates the battlefield on the rebel side and has been blamed for atrocities including the execution of Syrian government prisoners of war and the murder of a 14-year old boy for blasphemy. They will be able to take new American weapons from their Free Syria Army comrades with little effort.

From now on, therefore, every suicide bombing in Damascus—every war crime committed by the rebels—will be regarded in the region as Washington’s responsibility. The very Sunni-Wahabi Islamists who killed thousands of Americans on 11th September, 2011—who are America’s greatest enemies as well as Russia’s—are going to be proxy allies of the Obama administration.

It is a sign of the changing historical template in the Middle East that within the framework of old Cold War rivalries between Washington and Moscow, Israel’s security has taken second place to the conflict in Syria. Indeed, Israel’s policies in the region have been knocked askew by the Arab revolutions, leaving its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, hopelessly adrift amid the historic changes.

Only once over the past two years has Israel fully condemned atrocities committed by the Assad regime, and while it has given medical help to wounded rebels on the Israeli-Syrian border, it fears an Islamist caliphate in Damascus far more than a continuation of Assad’s rule. One former Israel intelligence commander recently described Assad as “Israel’s man in Damascus”. Only days before President Mubarak was overthrown, both Netanyahu and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia called Washington to ask Obama to save the Egyptian dictator. In vain.

If the Arab world has itself been overwhelmed by the two years of revolutions, none will have suffered from the Syrian war in the long term more than the Palestinians. The land they wish to call their future state has been so populated with Jewish Israeli colonists that it can no longer be either secure or ‘viable’. ‘Peace’ envoy Tony Blair’s attempts to create such a state have been laughable. A future ‘Palestine’ would be a Sunni nation. But today, Washington scarcely mentions the Palestinians.

Another of the region’s supreme ironies is that Hamas, supposedly the ‘super-terrorists’ of Gaza, have abandoned Damascus and now support the Gulf Arabs’ desire to crush Assad. Syrian government forces claim that Hamas has even trained Syrian rebels in the manufacture and use of home-made rockets.

In Arab eyes, Israel’s 2006 war against the Shia Hizballah was an attempt to strike at the heart of Iran. The West’s support for Syrian rebels is a strategic attempt to crush Iran. But Iran is going to take the offensive. Even for the Middle East, these are high stakes. Against this fearful background, the Palestinian tragedy continues.

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How Israel Makes Immigration Dry Up Under Desert Sun

By Laurent Zecchini, Le Monde, June 17, 2013

SAHARONIM—Last summer, Israel passed an amendment to the 1954 Prevention of Infiltration Law, which allows refugees to be held for a minimum of three years without detention without a trial or charges being brought against them.

According to the law, refugees from “enemy states” can be held in indefinite detention, even if they have not been convicted of a crime. The law is applicable to minors and does not distinguish between asylum seekers, authorized immigrants and “infiltrators” who want to harm Israel’s security. The 1954 law was originally designed to prevent Arab “infiltrators” from crossing the border into Israel.

Israel admits that the law has a negative impact on the freedom of undocumented African immigrants, but it says it is for the good cause.

Israel says the amendment on the “prevention of infiltration” is consistent with “the values of the state of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state.” It is constitutional and, in a word: “reasonable.” The “reason,” is the fact that the country could not stand becoming a “center of attraction” for thousands of Africans—men, women and children—who arrive each month through the Sinai desert.

Asylum-seekers and undocumented immigrants arrested under the amendment to the Prevention of Infiltration Law are housed at the Saharonim detention facility, three kilometers from the Egyptian border, near Nitzana, in the scorching hot Negev desert.

The refugees are kept at Saharonim for an “unlimited period,” of a minimum of three years. The only way detainees can arrive at a trial is if they agree to go home to their native countries. After three years, their release can be “considered” by a judge. It is a law that humanitarian associations consider heinous, but it has its logic—this punitive treatment dissuades other candidates attracted by the Jewish state that they see as an economic Eldorado.

The Israeli law is a cold-hearted monster: it does not want to hear about “refugees,” and does not differentiate between Africans who come from countries where they risk persecution, like Eritrea or Sudan, and the other countries. Of course, the 2,400 detainees held at Saharonim can apply for asylum in Israel, but no such requests have been granted since the prison opened in July 2007.

In May, the state advised the Supreme Court to reject a petition submitted by different human rights organizations to repeal the amendment, which they say is unconstitutional according to both Israeli and international law. The state’s 97-page submission argued that incarceration was required in order to maintain state sovereignty and reduce the incentive for “infiltrators.”

And indeed, the Israeli government takes drastic steps to maintain its sovereignty. Saharonim is one among many others. There are only a few kilometers left until the brand new five meters high barbed wire fence that runs along the entire 240-kilometer Egyptian border is complete.

Israel’s plan is working: illegal immigration has almost completely ceased. The consequence is that thousands of African migrants are trapped in the Sinai desert, a lawless zone where Bedouin tribes put them in horrifying camps where reports are rampant of abuse and rape, sometimes for months on end, until they can pay up a ransom. About 250 people who have escaped the Sinai torture camps are now being held in Saharonim.

NGOs who denounce the treatment of asylum-seekers as criminals have not been entirely unsuccessful. On May 6, nine Eritreans and their 10 children—aged from 18 months old to seven years old—were freed after being held, for some, for about a year.

It was human rights NGO Hotline for Migrant Workers, who led this victorious fight against the Israeli justice system. The latter ended up by admitting that being minors could constitute “special humanitarian grounds” justifying their release from the Saharonim detention facility. In the center, there are about 15 children who are younger than 10 years of age and around 150 women. We do not know the number of the others—the 10 to 18 years old children still being detained.

You would think that now that the Egyptian border has been rendered unbreachable, there is no need for Saharonim to exist. This is not the case: Among the 55,000 undocumented Africans who live in Israel, hundreds have been arrested in the past few years, being considered as “infiltrators who endanger Israeli national security.” In April the Knesset adopted a law barring undocumented immigrants from sending funds abroad, which of course is sent home to their families.

In May, we learned that the Israeli police had collected about a thousand DNA samples from African immigrants who entered illegally Israel since the beginning of 2012. Just another measure to deter undocumented immigrants from crossing over into Israel. Saharonim is not going to be closing its doors any time soon.

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House Passes Bill Banning Late-Term Abortions After 20 Weeks

by Steven Ertelt | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 6/18/13 6:45 PM

The House of Representatives today approved a that bans abortions from after 20-weeks of pregnancy up to the day of birth.

The vote for the bill broke down on mostly partisan lines with Republicans supporting the ban on late-term abortions and Democrats opposing it. The House approved the bill on a 228-196 vote with 7 Democrats voting for the bill and 6 Republicans voting against it. (See end for how members voted).

The bill, if it receives a vote in the Democrat-controlled Senate, is not expected to pass and pro-abortion President Barack Obama has issued a veto threat. But pro-life groups hope to use the measure as an election tool in 2014 in an attempt to wrest the Senate from abortion advocates.

Leading pro-life organizations issued statements praising the House for the vote.

“I would hope that stopping atrocities against little babies is something we can agree to put an end to,” Rep. Kristi Noem of South Dakota said during the debate. “We’re talking about babies who, if they were born and simply given a chance, they could survive outside the womb.”

Congresswoman Wagner of Missouri added: “As science and technology continue to advance, we are changing hearts and mind. It is not only the pain of the child we must consider, but also the pain of the mother. Everyone talks about the right to choose, but no one discusses the implications of that choice. I am for life at all stages. I am for the life of the baby, and I am also for the life of the mother. I will continue to work for a day when abortion is not only illegal, but absolutely unthinkable.”

Rep. Chris Smith, the head of the pro-life caucus in the House, spoke eloquently from the House floor.

“The brutality of severing the spines of defenseless babies—euphemistically called “snipping” by Gosnell—has finally peeled away the benign façade of the billion dollar abortion industry” he said.

“Like Gosnell, abortionists all over America decapitate, dismember and chemically poison babies to death each and every day. That’s what they do. Americans are connecting the dots and asking whether what Gosnell did is really any different than what other abortionists do. A D&E abortion—a common method after 14 weeks—is a gruesome, pain-filled act that literally rips and tears to pieces the body parts of a child,” he added. “The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act is a modest but necessary attempt to at least protect babies who are 20 weeks old—and pain-capable—from having to suffer and die from abortion.”

One leading expert in the field of fetal pain, Dr. Kanwaljeet S. Anand at the University of Tennessee, stated in his expert report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Justice, “It is my opinion that the human fetus possesses the ability to experience pain from 20 weeks of gestation, if not earlier, and the pain perceived by a fetus is possibly more intense than that perceived by term newborns or older children.”

“Surgeons entering the womb to perform corrective procedures on unborn children have seen those babies flinch, jerk and recoil from sharp objects and incisions. Ultrasound technology shows unborn babies at 20 weeks post-fertilization and earlier react physically to outside stimuli such as sound, light and touch,” Smith continued. “Surgeons routinely administer anesthesia to unborn children in the womb before performing lifesaving surgeries, and this has been associated with a decrease in the baby’s stress hormone levels during the medical procedure.”

A recent national poll by The Polling Company found that, after being informed that there is scientific evidence that unborn children are capable of feeling pain at least by 20 weeks, 64% would support a law banning abortion after 20 weeks, unless the mother’s life was in danger. Only 30% said they would oppose such a law.

During the hearing, former abortion practitioner Anthony Levatino told members of the committee the gruesome details of his former abortion practice and how he became pro-life following the tragic automobile accident of his child.

Another bombshell dropped during the hearing came from Dr. Maureen Condic, who is Associate Professor of Neurobiology and Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Utah School of Medicine. She testified that the unborn child is capable of reacting to pain as early as 8-10 weeks. This is when most abortions in America take place.

The committee also saw graphic pictures of babies who were killed by Douglas Karpen, who is considered the second Kermit Gosnell.

The late-term abortion ban would allow abortion after 20 weeks post-fertilization if the mother’s life is endangered, or in cases of rape and incest reported prior to the abortion to appropriate authorities.

H.R. 1797 contains congressional findings of fact regarding the medical evidence that unborn children experience pain at least by 20 weeks “post-fertilization age,” or the start of the sixth month.

The bill relies on the science of fetal pain to establish a Constitutional reason for Congress to ban abortions late in pregnancy. The science behind the concept of fetal pain is fully established and Dr. Steven Zielinski, an internal medicine physician from Oregon, is one of the leading researchers into it. He first published reports in the 1980s to validate research showing evidence for it.

He has testified before Congress that an unborn child could feel pain at “eight-and-a-half weeks and possibly earlier” and that a baby before birth “under the right circumstances, is capable of crying.”

He and his colleagues Dr. Vincent J. Collins and Thomas J. Marzen were the top researchers to point to fetal pain decades ago. Collins, before his death, was Professor of Anesthesiology at Northwestern University and the University of Illinois and author of Principles of Anesthesiology, one of the leading medical texts on the control of pain.

“The functioning neurological structures necessary to suffer pain are developed early in a child’s development in the womb,” they wrote.

“Functioning neurological structures necessary for pain sensation are in place as early as 8 weeks, but certainly by 13 1/2 weeks of gestation. Sensory nerves, including nociceptors, reach the skin of the fetus before the 9th week of gestation. The first detectable brain activity occurs in the thalamus between the 8th and 10th weeks. The movement of electrical impulses through the neural fibers and spinal column takes place between 8 and 9 weeks gestation. By 13 1/2 weeks, the entire sensory nervous system functions as a whole in all parts of the body,” they continued.

With Zielinski and his colleagues the first to provide the scientific basis for the concept of fetal pain, Dr. Kanwaljeet Anand of the University of Arkansas Medical Center has provided further research to substantiate their work.

CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!








“The neural pathways are present for pain to be experienced quite early by unborn babies,” explains Steven Calvin, M.D., perinatologist, chair of the Program in Human Rights Medicine, University of Minnesota, where he teaches obstetrics.

Dr. Colleen A. Malloy, Assistant Professor, Division of Neonatology at Northwestern University in her testimony before the House Judiciary Committee in May 2012 said, “[w]hen we speak of infants at 22 weeks LMP [Note: this is 20 weeks post fertilization], for example, we no longer have to rely solely on inferences or ultrasound imagery, because such premature patients are kicking, moving, reacting, and developing right before our eyes in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.”

“In today’s medical arena, we resuscitate patients at this age and are able to witness their ex-utero growth and development. Medical advancement and technology have enabled us to improve our ability to care for these infants…In fact, standard of care for neonatal intensive care units requires attention to and treatment of neonatal pain,” Dr. Malloy testified. She continued, “[t]hus, the difference between fetal and neonatal pain is simply the locale in which the pain occurs. The receiver’s experience of the pain is the same. I could never imagine subjecting my tiny patients to horrific procedures such as those that involve limb detachment or cardiac injection.”

Final Vote Results for HR 1797 Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act


Yeas Nays PRES NV
Republican 222 6 5
Democratic 6 190 5
Independent
TOTALS 228 196 10

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China's Great Uprooting: Moving 250 Million Into Cities

By Ian Johnson, New York Times, June 15, 2013

BEIJING—China is pushing ahead with a sweeping plan to move 250 million rural residents into newly constructed towns and cities over the next dozen years—a transformative event that could set off a new wave of growth or saddle the country with problems for generations to come.

The government, often by fiat, is replacing small rural homes with high-rises, paving over vast swaths of farmland and drastically altering the lives of rural dwellers. So large is the scale that the number of brand-new Chinese city dwellers will approach the total urban population of the United States—in a country already bursting with megacities.

This will decisively change the character of China, where the Communist Party insisted for decades that most peasants, even those working in cities, remain tied to their tiny plots of land to ensure political and economic stability. Now, the party has shifted priorities, mainly to find a new source of growth for a slowing economy that depends increasingly on a consuming class of city dwellers.

The shift is occurring so quickly, and the potential costs are so high, that some fear rural China is once again the site of radical social engineering. Over the past decades, the Communist Party has flip-flopped on peasants’ rights to use land: giving small plots to farm during 1950s land reform, collectivizing a few years later, restoring rights at the start of the reform era and now trying to obliterate small landholders.

Across China, bulldozers are leveling villages that date to long-ago dynasties. Towers now sprout skyward from dusty plains and verdant hillsides. New urban schools and hospitals offer modern services, but often at the expense of the torn-down temples and open-air theaters of the countryside.

“It’s a new world for us in the city,” said Tian Wei, 43, a former wheat farmer in the northern province of Hebei, who now works as a night watchman at a factory. “All my life I’ve worked with my hands in the fields; do I have the educational level to keep us with the city people?”

China has long been home to both some of the world’s tiniest villages and its most congested, polluted examples of urban sprawl. The ultimate goal of the government’s modernization plan is to fully integrate 70 percent of the country’s population, or roughly 900 million people, into city living by 2025. Currently, only half that number are.

The building frenzy is on display in places like Liaocheng, which grew up as an entrepôt for local wheat farmers in the North China Plain. It is now ringed by scores of 20-story towers housing now-landless farmers who have been thrust into city life. Many are giddy at their new lives—they received the apartments free, plus tens of thousands of dollars for their land—but others are uncertain about what they will do when the money runs out.

Aggressive state spending is planned on new roads, hospitals, schools, community centers—which could cost upward of $600 billion a year, according to economists’ estimates. In addition, vast sums will be needed to pay for the education, health care and pensions of the ex-farmers.

While the economic fortunes of many have improved in the mass move to cities, unemployment and other social woes have also followed the enormous dislocation. Some young people feel lucky to have jobs that pay survival wages of about $150 a month; others while away their days in pool halls and video-game arcades.

Top-down efforts to quickly transform entire societies have often come to grief, and urbanization has already proven one of the most wrenching changes in China’s 35 years of economic transition. Land disputes account for thousands of protests each year, including dozens of cases in recent years in which people have set themselves aflame rather than relocate.

The country’s new prime minister, Li Keqiang, indicated at his inaugural news conference in March that urbanization was one of his top priorities. He also cautioned, however, that it would require a series of accompanying legal changes “to overcome various problems in the course of urbanization.”

Some of these problems could include chronic urban unemployment if jobs are not available, and more protests from skeptical farmers unwilling to move. Instead of creating wealth, urbanization could result in a permanent underclass in big Chinese cities and the destruction of a rural culture and religion.

On the ground, the new wave of urbanization is well under way. Almost every province has large-scale programs to move farmers into housing towers, with the farmers’ plots then given to corporations or municipalities to manage. Efforts have been made to improve the attractiveness of urban life, but the farmers caught up in the programs typically have no choice but to leave their land.

The broad trend began decades ago. In the early 1980s, about 80 percent of Chinese lived in the countryside versus 47 percent today, plus an additional 17 percent that works in cities but is classified as rural. The idea is to speed up this process and achieve an urbanized China much faster than would occur organically.

The primary motivation for the urbanization push is to change China’s economic structure, with growth based on domestic demand for products instead of relying so much on export. In theory, new urbanites mean vast new opportunities for construction companies, public transportation, utilities and appliance makers, and a break from the cycle of farmers consuming only what they produce. “If half of China’s population starts consuming, growth is inevitable,” said Li Xiangyang, vice director of the Institute of World Economics and Politics, part of a government research institute. “Right now they are living in rural areas where they do not consume.”

Skeptics say the government’s headlong rush to urbanize is driven by a vision of modernity that has failed elsewhere. In Brazil and Mexico, urbanization was also seen as a way to bolster economic growth. But among the results were the expansion of slums and of a stubborn unemployed underclass, according to experts.

“There’s this feeling that we have to modernize, we have to urbanize and this is our national-development strategy,” said Gao Yu, China country director for the Landesa Rural Development Institute, based in Seattle. Referring to the disastrous Maoist campaign to industrialize overnight, he added, “It’s almost like another Great Leap Forward.”

The costs of this top-down approach can be steep. In one survey by Landesa in 2011, 43 percent of Chinese villagers said government officials had taken or tried to take their land. That is up from 29 percent in a 2008 survey.

“In a lot of cases in China, urbanization is the process of local government driving farmers into buildings while grabbing their land,” said Li Dun, a professor of public policy at Tsinghua University in Beijing.

Farmers are often unwilling to leave the land because of the lack of job opportunities in the new towns. Working in a factory is sometimes an option, but most jobs are far from the newly built towns. And even if farmers do get jobs in factories, most lose them when they hit age 45 or 50, since employers generally want younger, nimbler workers.

Some farmers who have given up their land say that when they come back home for good around this age, they have no farm to tend and thus no income. Most are still excluded from national pension plans, putting pressure on relatives to provide.

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Hard Places

A compilation

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“Thou hast shewed thy people hard things.”1 I have always been glad that the psalmist said to God that some things were hard. There is no mistake about it; there are hard things in life. Some beautiful pink flowers were given to me this summer, and as I took them I said, “What are they?” And the answer came, “They are rock flowers; they grow and bloom only on rocks where you can see no sod.” Then I thought of God’s flowers growing in hard places; and I feel, somehow, that He may have a peculiar tenderness for His “rock flowers.”—Margaret Bottome

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[Pain] is one of your Father’s ways of speaking to you; it is the evidence of His limitless love, by which He would draw you farther from evil and closer to Him, …[and] help you lean more trustingly on the Lord.—Walter A. Maier

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One of my dearest and oldest friends, Jon, married a girl I grew up with. In the middle of the night two years later, Jon called me because he had just found emails that made it clear to him that his wife was cheating on him. Soon after, she left and never came back. Less than a year later, they were divorced.

Jon had every right, you could say, to let his life be defined by that day, by that year, by that woman, by that betrayal. But what he did instead was a marvelous thing to watch. He laid himself open and vulnerable to life and God and therapy and close friends, and began the breathtaking process of becoming more than what he had been in a thousand different ways. He is softer, in the best possible way, and when you talk to him, you know that he’s been down to the bottom and fought his way back up. He listens more closely and prays like he’s talking to a best friend. I knew him well for years before she left, and although I would never wish upon anyone the searing pain I saw written on his face during that season, what God did in his life through that event makes me believe in God’s goodness even more than I did before.

I know that it seemed like God was being cruel that year, that middle of the night when Jon called me. But he was not. What I know now is that his kindness burns through even the deepest betrayals and invites life from death every chance we let him. There are things that explode into our lives and we call them curses, and then one day, a year later or ten years later, we realize that they are actually something else. They are the very most precious kinds of blessings.—Shauna Niequest2

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“Trials equals good.” Understanding and believing this simple equation can make your life richer, more meaningful, and happier. It makes all the difference in the world whether you fear problems and challenges, expecting the worst to happen, or if you face obstacles bravely and full of faith, anticipating the good that the Lord will bring out of them and the strength of spirit you will gain. Naturally we wonder why “bad” things happen to us. God always has a purpose [in what He allows to happen in our lives], although it is not always revealed immediately.

The Lord sometimes uses sickness, problems, and troubles to cause us to draw closer to Him and rely more on Him. Otherwise we would have a tendency to just rock along.

Sometimes things happen just to keep us humble; sometimes they happen to draw us closer to others; sometimes they happen to make us pray; sometimes they happen to teach us to be more careful and prayerful; sometimes they happen to test our faith. God allows troubles for all kinds of reasons, but ultimately they can all fulfill the same goal: to draw us closer to Him so that we can avail ourselves more of His power, and thus be filled with more of His love and joy.

“Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all.”3 The Lord allows these things as tests to strengthen your faith and to get an even greater victory out of seeming defeat.

But always remember that whatever God allows, He allows it in love. “All things work together for good to those who love the Lord.”4 God is not going to let anything happen to you, His child who loves Him, except what can work together for your good. Even though you may have many afflictions or difficulties, as the verse says above, He will deliver you out of them all, no matter how many or what!—David Brandt Berg5

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I had a tiny box, a precious box
Of human love—my spikenard of great price;
I kept it close within my heart of hearts
And scarce would lift the lid lest it should
Waste its perfume on the air. One day a strange
Deep sorrow came with crushing weight, and fell
Upon my costly treasure, sweet and rare
And broke the box to atoms. All my heart
Rose in dismay and sorrow at this waste,
But as I mourned, behold, a miracle
Of grace Divine. My human love was changed
To Heaven’s own and poured in healing streams
On other broken hearts, while soft and clear
A voice above me whispered, “Child of Mine,
With comfort wherewith thou art comforted,
From this time forth, go comfort others,
And thou shalt know blest fellowship with Me,
Whose broken heart of love hath healed the world.”
—R. A. Torrey

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No physician ever weighed out medicine to his patient with half so much care and exactness as God weighs out to us every trial. Not one grain too much does He ever permit to be placed on the scale.—Henry Ward Beecher

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Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word.—Psalm 119:676

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It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes.—Psalm 119:717

Published on Anchor June 2013. Read by Jerry Paladino.
Music by Michael Dooley.


1 Psalm 60:3 KJV.

2 Cold Tangerines (Zondervan, 2007).

3 Psalm 34:19 NKJV.

4 Romans 8:28.

5 Obstacles Are for Overcoming (Aurora Production AG, 2010).

6 NIV.

7 ESV.

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U.S. claims of chemical weapons against Syrian rebels meet caution at U.N.

By Colum Lynch, Washington Post, June 14, 2013

UNITED NATIONS—Obama administration claims that Syria has used chemical weapons against rebels encountered skepticism Friday at the United Nations, where the U.N. secretary general and the Russian ambassador said the evidence falls short of definitive proof.

Speaking to reporters at U.N. headquarters, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appeared to break ranks with Washington, warning against a rush to arm the Syrian rebels over assertions that government forces used chemical weapons.

“There is no military solution to this conflict, even if both the government and the opposition, and their supporters, think there can be,” he said. “The military path points directly towards the disintegration of the country.”

Ban said he appreciated the willingness of the United States, Britain, France and other governments to provide evidence to a U.N. team investigating the possible use of chemical weapons in Syria. But he cautioned that “any information on the alleged use of chemical weapons cannot be ensured without convincing evidence of the chain of custody.”

The secretary general said collecting the necessary proof would require the Syrian government to permit the U.N. chemical weapons team access to suspected sites inside the country. So far, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has refused the unlimited access sought by the U.N. team.

The Russian response was chillier. Speaking hours after the White House announcement Thursday, President Vladimir Putin said he had doubts that chemical weapons had been used.

On Friday, Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, continued the theme. “The contacts we have with American experts did not convince our experts that, in fact, the information which was presented was convincing enough to come to a definitive conclusion that government forces used chemical weapons,” he said.

The responses from Ban and the Russians demonstrated the challenge the United States, Britain and France face in persuading the world that Syria has used chemical weapons. Analysts here suggest that the effort is more difficult because of the false claims about weapons of mass destruction used by the United States and Britain to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

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Astronomy and the Bible

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