Day by Day - Godspell
Thursday, December 7, 2017
Arab warnings mount as U.S. suggests move to declare Jerusalem the capital of Israel
By Loveday Morris, Washington Post, December 4, 2017
JERUSALEM–Arab nations and Palestinian officials have warned of dire consequences if the United States recognises Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, including potential unrest and an end to the peace process, amid last-minute lobbying to prevent President Trump from making the move.
In a late-night call Sunday, Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, warned Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that such a decision could “trigger anger across the Arab and Muslim world, fuel tension and jeopardize peace efforts,” according to Jordan’s state news agency.
Egypt’s foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, also discussed with Tillerson the “possible negative impacts” on peace, according to a ministry spokesman. He asked that Tillerson avoid taking decisions that could “stir tensions in the region.”
Turkey said a change in policy would be a “major catastrophe.” Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki, meanwhile, called for an emergency meeting of the 22 members of the Arab League, which is expected to take place Tuesday.
“Any U.S. announcement on the status of Jerusalem prior to a final settlement would have a detrimental impact on the peace process and would heighten tensions in the region,” the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Khalid bin Salman, said in a statement, the Reuters news agency reported. “The kingdom’s policy has been and remains in support of the Palestinian people, and this has been communicated to the U.S. administration.”
For more than two decades, successive U.S. presidents have signed a waiver every six months that allows them to delay a move of the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on national security grounds. During his campaign, Trump vowed to relocate the U.S. Embassy but reluctantly signed the waiver six months ago as his administration attempts to broker a peace process.
The White House was expected to let Monday’s deadline for the next signing pass unmentioned, a signal that a shift is likely to be in the works. Trump is likely to outline a new policy on Jerusalem and the embassy in a speech Wednesday, an administration official said.
Israel claims Jerusalem in its entirety as its eternal and undivided capital, but Palestinians want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a future Palestinian state.
Despite the critical statements by Jordan and Egypt, Palestinians may find it hard to coordinate genuinely robust opposition at a time when Arab states increasingly see their security interests aligned with Israel’s against their shared enemy, Iran.
In the Knesset on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed an “unprecedented” shift in the Arab states’ attitude to Israel.
Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, said Sunday that Trump is “close” to making a decision on Jerusalem but is “still looking at a lot of facts.” Israel captured the eastern part of the city from Jordan in 1967 in the Six-Day War, later annexing it in a move considered illegal by the United Nations.
Palestinian officials have warned that recognition of the city as Israel’s capital will end U.S.-brokered peace efforts, which they have already complained appear biased toward Israel. Calling it Israel’s “undivided” capital would mark an even more dramatic step, effectively recognizing Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas last month expressed surprise after the United States threatened to shutter the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Washington office unless the Palestinians engaged in meaningful peace talks.
Recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital “is offensive and contrary to the role of the U.S. administration as a mediator and sponsor of the peace process,” the Palestinian deputy premier, Ziad Abu Amr, told the U.S. consul general for Jerusalem, Donald Blome, in a meeting in Ramallah on Monday, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa. It “closes every door to the continuation of a serious peace process, and pushes the entire region into more tension and instability.”
“The status of Jerusalem and Temple Mount have been determined by international agreements,” Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said after a cabinet meeting on Monday, according to Reuters. “It is important to preserve Jerusalem’s status for the sake of protecting peace in the region.”
The State Department has warned embassies of potential unrest and anti-American protests this week related to an announcement, according to U.S. officials.
[Dennis Edwards: The possibility of the United States moving their embassy to Jerusalem could be an instrumental step in pushing the world toward the "Holy Covenant" mentioned in the Bible in the ancient prophecies of Daniel written about 600 BC. These prophecies foretell of a 7 year agreement in the last days which is later broken by the Antichrist's invasion of Israel and his proclaiming Jerusalem as his world capital. Some eschatology scholars have speculated that some sort of Holy agreement about Jerusalem that would permit Israel to build the Third Temple somewhere on or near to the Holy Mount could involve some sort of compromise about the Palestinian problem. It remains to be seen what exactly will happen if America goes ahead with this announcement's proposal and what will develop. Nevertheless, we need to be attentive to these events because they could very well be pushing us down the road toward world government and the rise of the Antichrist to power, and eventually on to Armageddon. Stay alert. Some 80% of Biblical prophecy has already met it's mate in fulfilment. The last 20% will also some day be fulfilled. Are you ready for the prophetic events that may soon overwhelm us? Read my book Where is America in Bible Prophecy? found by clicking on the link. Thanks]
Death has no pain that Heaven cannot heal!
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God didn’t promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, or sun without rain, but He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way.
Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.—Isaiah 41:10
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.—John 16:33
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.—Psalm 23:4
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.—John 14:27
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.—Matthew 11:28–29
There are many people who receive countless blessings from Him and who rest on His promises, who yet do not get to know God Himself in a personal way. There are many who for a time trusted Christ and found great comfort in the assurances of His love, but who at length, in some season of trial, entered into close relations of personal friendship with Him. In this revealing they found treasures of love, of sympathy, and of comfort, far surpassing the best they had ever experienced before. In seeking, therefore, for help in sorrow, we should never be content with the gifts of God alone, or with the comforts which come in His words of promise; we should pass through all these to God Himself and seek satisfaction in the infinite blessedness of His love.
It is thus that the Scriptures represent God. He is ever, with lavish hand, dispensing His mercies and benefits, but He would not have us content with these. “He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust.” But He desires to manifest Himself to His children as He does not to the world. The great Bible saints found their satisfaction and their help, not in God’s gifts, but in God Himself. Thus the reason for David’s sublime assurance, “I shall not want,” was not because he had great stores of God’s gifts laid up, but because “the Lord is my Shepherd.” His confidence was not in the wealth which God had given him, which would cover all his wants for the future, but in God Himself. In another psalm the writer’s intense longing is not for any mere tokens of divine goodness, any mere benefits or favors, but for God Himself. “My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God.” His thirst was unappeasable in any way but in fellowship with God. Nothing that God could have given him of the richest of His gifts, of the sweetest blessings of His hand, would have satisfied him. It was for God Himself, the living God, that he thirsted. The human soul was made for God, and God alone can meet its need.
The only heart-filling comfort, therefore, in time of sorrow is that which is in God Himself. It is thus, too, that our Father desires to bless us; He asks for our fullest trust, and He would reveal Himself to us in tenderest personal ways. After Horace Bushnell’s death there were found, dimly penciled on a sheet of paper, laid in his Bible, these words: “My mother’s loving instinct was from God, and God was in her love to me first—which love was deeper than hers and more protracted. Long years ago she vanished, but God stays by me still, embracing me in my grey hairs as tenderly and carefully as she did in my infancy, and giving to me as my joy and the principal glory of my life, that He lets me know Him, and helps me, with real confidence, to call Him my Father.”
When all our hopes are gone and all seems to fail, even when our dreams are shattered and our ships come home with broken sails, we still have Jesus! And He's all we need!
You, LORD, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light.—Psalm 18:28
You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.—Psalm 32:7
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.—Psalm 139:7–12
His Word is always a comfort and the voice of His Spirit is always an encouragement in the hour of greatest trial. -- Cast your burden on the Lord. Just roll it over on Jesus and roll over and go to sleep—and let Him stay up all night! Don't worry about it. Let the Lord do the worrying! His shoulders are broad enough to carry any load—all the burdens put together, including His own! D.B. Smith
Keep your eyes on Me at all times. The skies may be dark, the winds may blow, the waters may be deep and murky, and the waves may crash all around you. There may be no apparent way of escape. But I am your escape. I am the sunshine that chases away the dark clouds. My voice will still the tumultuous waves. My rays of sunlight will make the waters clear so that you can see the wondrous splendor that lies under the surface of the ocean of life.
So if all around you seems dark and gloomy, turn your eyes toward Me, your eternal sunshine. I will shine brightly upon your life and I will calm the seas, helping you to find peace and security.—Jesus
The only heart-filling comfort, therefore, in time of sorrow is that which is in God Himself. It is thus, too, that our Father desires to bless us; He asks for our fullest trust, and He would reveal Himself to us in tenderest personal ways. After Horace Bushnell’s death there were found, dimly penciled on a sheet of paper, laid in his Bible, these words: “My mother’s loving instinct was from God, and God was in her love to me first—which love was deeper than hers and more protracted. Long years ago she vanished, but God stays by me still, embracing me in my grey hairs as tenderly and carefully as she did in my infancy, and giving to me as my joy and the principal glory of my life, that He lets me know Him, and helps me, with real confidence, to call Him my Father.”
There is a blessing in true human sympathy. God sends our friends to us to bring us little measures of His own love—little cupfuls of His grace. But He Himself is the only true comforter. His love alone is great enough to fill our heart, and His hand alone has skill to bind up our wounds.—J. R. Miller
When all our hopes are gone and all seems to fail, even when our dreams are shattered and our ships come home with broken sails, we still have Jesus! And He's all we need!
You, LORD, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light.—Psalm 18:28You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance.—Psalm 32:7
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.—Psalm 139:7–12
He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.—Revelation 21:4
His Word is always a comfort and the voice of His Spirit is always an encouragement in the hour of greatest trial. -- Cast your burden on the Lord. Just roll it over on Jesus and roll over and go to sleep—and let Him stay up all night! Don't worry about it. Let the Lord do the worrying! His shoulders are broad enough to carry any load—all the burdens put together, including His own! D.B. Smith
Keep your eyes on Me at all times. The skies may be dark, the winds may blow, the waters may be deep and murky, and the waves may crash all around you. There may be no apparent way of escape. But I am your escape. I am the sunshine that chases away the dark clouds. My voice will still the tumultuous waves. My rays of sunlight will make the waters clear so that you can see the wondrous splendor that lies under the surface of the ocean of life.
So if all around you seems dark and gloomy, turn your eyes toward Me, your eternal sunshine. I will shine brightly upon your life and I will calm the seas, helping you to find peace and security.—Jesus
