Some thoughts on Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel's Upcoming Election by Aaron Hecht

Brothers and sisters, the Feast of Tabernacles is over, and we can't avoid difficult and unhappy subjects any longer.

It's time to talk about Israeli politics.

I have not been looking forward to writing this blog because the subject is kind of depressing, even by the standards of the decade we're in, which started with a pandemic and has also included the biggest land war in Europe since WWII and a massive, seemingly endless conflict here in the Middle East which might flare up again in a big way at any moment.

But there's a Knesset election coming up on October 27th and there's a lot riding on it, so here we go.

First, let's go over some basics.

For many years, Israel's supporters have repeated the mantra that it is "the only democracy in the Middle East" and that is still true. But it is also true, and no one should even try to deny it, that Israel's democratic institutions are in very bad shape. There are also many ways in which the ordinary people of this country have been made to feel like they are not being heard by their elected officials. If you've ever wondered why there's so many street demonstrations in Israel, that feeling of being unheard is a big part of the reason.

Every single one of the 120 MKs are "at large" and thus, not specifically beholden to anyone in particular. It's not like in America, Canada, or most European countries where members of Congress or Parliament come from designated districts or wards and the voters in those districts or wards can call a number and speak to someone who will brief their elected officials on what the phone call was about.

Another difference between Israel and most other Western democracies is that there is also no such thing as absentee ballots in Israel. Every voting age citizen is informed a few weeks in advance of the elections where their assigned polling place is. Often times it is the school where their children attend, which is usually within a short distance of their home address. If a citizen wants to vote, they have to come to that room, in that building, and put an actual paper ballot in an actual designated cardboard box.

If a person is out of the country on the day of an election, or even out of town (for instance, on vacation in Eilat when they live in Tiberius) they don't get to vote. It's that simple.

This old-fashioned method of voting has been ridiculed and criticized by some, but defended by others as being "unhackable" which is not an unimportant consideration in this day and age.

With all that in mind, and despite all the problems, voter turnout in Israel's national elections tends to be robust, and the election that will be held on October 27th will probably follow this pattern.

However, this coming election will be, just as the last several elections in Israel have been, a mandate on whether or not Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu should continue to be this country's Prime Minister. That is almost the only issue that's really on the ballot. There is a certain percentage of this country's voting age population who believe that no matter what issues, challenges, problems, opportunities, etc. this country faces, as long as Bibi is Prime Minister, he'll figure out how to deal with it all.

Literally, any time I try to have a conversation with any politically right of center person in this country, and I try to ask a question about any problem you can imagine, from relations with America and the EU to environmental issues, water, questions of war and peace, relations between different demographic groups in the country (Israel is VERY tribal), education, healthcare, housing, or anything else, the answer is always the same. It follows the pattern that these are indeed serious issues that require serious consideration but at the end of the day, "Bibi knows what to do about it" and that's all there is to it.

He's been in charge for so long, and things have continued to go reasonably well for most of that time, that many people simply can't imagine a problem he won't be able to solve or a challenge he won't be able to overcome. 

So all we have to do is keep voting for Likud, or one of the other Right-of-Center parties that are always willing to be part of a coalition government led by Netanyahu, and he'll take care of the rest. According to this line of thinking, we don't need to do any serious thinking or problem solving of our own, because he's got it covered.

The worst part is, that among this group, it is also generally believed that Bibi will live forever and he'll axiomatically also continue to be Israel's leader forever.

Even to the degree that I personally agree with the first part of this mentality, I obviously don't agree with that last part, and I've been telling everyone who will listen for several years now that the leadership of the Body of Messiah in Israel needs to make a plan for what we'll do on that inevitable morning when we wake up and Netanyahu is no longer with us.

He will be celebrating his 77th birthday in a few days, and he has had three surgeries in the past two years that have been publicly reported on and he has also been treated for prostate cancer. I have no proof of it but my guts tell me he's had other health issues that are being kept secret from the public, and it's hard to even blame him for that. He knows that he must appear physically strong or Israel's enemies will think the country is weak, and they'll pounce on us. He also knows that many of his own supporters have stuck with him for so long because they think he's invincible and that could change very quickly if his physical health began to noticeably deteriorate.

Still, there's no hiding his age, and that fact that he's been working 80-hours a week, week in and week out, with hardly any breaks, for many years now. Most people half his age would struggle to keep that kind of schedule up for very long. I know I couldn't do it.

But somehow he does, and he has not given us any reasons whatsoever to suspect that he's thinking about retirement.

Therefore, my personal conviction regarding Benjamin Netanyahu is that he'll be a fact of life until his physical frame gives out, and that might happen any day between tomorrow and ten years from now, or even longer. But someday it WILL happen, and I believe that when it does, a lot of things will change very quickly, for better and for worse, in Israel and all over the world.

Some of the most radical and rapid changes will come in the Knesset, which brings us back to the topic of this blog.

If Benjamin Netanyahu is still leading the Likud Party on the 27th of this month, it is very likely to win at least 25 seats in the upcoming Knesset, possibly as many as 30. It is very unclear at this point if the other Right of Center parties which are running will win enough seats to make an automatic parliamentary majority. It is also difficult to see a path towards a coalition of Left of Center parties without including the Arab parties.

That would be a hard sell to the Israeli public since these parties are unashamedly disloyal to the State of Israel as it currently exists. There is much more that could be said about this topic, but it's all outside the scope of this blog.

The bottom line is that according to the latest polls and projections, any potential coalition of Centrist and Left-of-Center parties would have a very difficult time forming a governing coalition, while Netanyahu might also have a very difficult time putting together a governing coalition with the current constellation of Right of Center parties. 

The wild card in all this is the Ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism. Shas is the party of the Sephardi Ultra-Orthodox Jews and UTJ is the party of the Ashkenazi Ultra-Orthodox Jews.

The Ultra-Orthodox parties have been, for a very long time, Netanyahu's favorite coalition partners because all he has to promise them in order to get them to join his coalition is large budgets for the schools, Yeshivas and other institutions that their communities rely on. After he gives them these things, they barely ever ask for anything else, just loyally vote for whatever he wants them to vote for and otherwise leaves the governing of the country to him.

However, in recent years, another issue has become more and more prominent and that's the IDF draft deferments that Ultra-Orthodox young men have been getting, almost as a matter of routine, for most of the past 78 years that Israel has been a modern nation state. Until about 20 years ago, give or take, this issue was an irritant for many people, but it wasn't urgent enough to cause serious problems for anyone. But starting around the mid-2000s, the unfairness of it really began to bother a lot of people and as the years went by, the practical implications of it began to also become more and more apparent. The IDF began to say that it did not have enough soldiers to carry out all the missions it was being asked to carry out, and the only large source of potentially available additional manpower is the Ultra-Orthodox community.

The steadfast refusal of the haredi rabbis to agree to a change in the status quo which would see large numbers of the young men in their community being drafted into the IDF has led to increasing anger in the non-haredi Jewish public, especially in the last three years that Israel has been in what almost everyone agrees is an existential war for survival. Tens of thousands of non-haredi Jewish men, and many women, have served for long months in the reserves, away from their families and jobs. Not a small number of them have been killed or wounded in action, and even those who were not killed or wounded suffered immense hardship, as did their families.

With this going on, it is very difficult to understand, or have much sympathy for, the continued refusal of the haredi rabbis to change their position on this matter.

Many people outside Israel, including Christian supporters of this country, have a difficult time understanding where they're coming from as well. In case you've ever wondered about it, I can recommend you read this blog. I don't endorse the author in any way, shape or form. But this particular blog explains a lot of things regarding this situation in a way that a non-haredi Israeli like myself can understand, so maybe you will find it of benefit as well.

The bottom line is that the haredi parties which Netanyahu has long relied upon to form his governing coalitions are not as safe a bet for him as they used to be and there is even a remote possibility that they will not agree to join his coalition after the coming elections unless he agrees to promise them that a bill to enshrine the IDF draft deferments of Haredi young men into law will be brought for a vote in the first few weeks of the new Knesset.

Never mind the obvious fact that the High Court of Justice has already made it very clear that such a law would immediately be voided if it is ever passed, and even if it's not voided, it will be deeply unpopular among Israeli voters, even many traditional Likud voters. That's one reason why the haredi parties are eager to assist in the neutering of the judiciary, what has in the past been referred to as "judicial reform."

Remember that term brothers and sisters, because you'll be hearing it again.

But even before that, Haredi draft evasion was an issue in previous elections, but it is likely to be a much bigger issue in the coming elections and the fact that Netanyahu will almost certainly not be able to form a governing coalition with the haredi parties will likely be a factor in how many people cast their vote.

Something that will almost certainly NOT be a factor anyone considers when they cast their ballot, is corruption.

I don't want to get too deeply into this topic because it's incredibly depressing, but the simple fact is that there are several people who are running for Knesset in the upcoming election who, at a minimum, should not be eligible to run for political office.

I don't even have to name names here. You can just ask your favorite search engine "have any Members of Israel's Knesset ever been in prison and if so, for what" and you'll see what I mean. If you want a bonus, you can ask the search engine if any of those who spent time in prison ever expressed any remorse or apologized for the crimes they committed and were convicted of.

Needless to say, Netanyahu is also on trial on several counts of fraud, corruption and breach of trust. This trial has dragged on for years. He's been testifying in his own trial for much of the last few years and he keeps having to excuse himself for urgent matters of state. It's become a running joke. I have no idea if it will have any effect on the upcoming election or not, but it might.

Conclusion

Brothers and sisters, I will end this blog as I started it, lamenting the deeply dysfunctional nature of Israel's democracy. I haven't even talked about local elections for mayor and city council in this blog, which is another deeply problematic ball of wax.

There is a great deal more I could tell you about the upcoming elections which would probably be of interest to regular readers of this blog, but I think I've given you enough to get some general ideas.

If you're reading this blog I assume you pray for Israel and to be absolutely candid with you, that's just about all any of us can do at this point. I will be fulfilling my civic duty by casting a ballot in this upcoming election but I haven't made up my mind yet who I'll be voting for. I've ruled out a few possibilities, and I might rule out more before getting up early on election day, as I always do, and taking the short walk to my youngest son's school so I can get it over with and get on with the business of enjoying a paid day off from work. There's always sales on election day and several of my favorite stores are also within walking distance of my home, so I plan on seeing if I can find some bargains. Maybe it'll cheer me up a little.

That's what I've got for you this week brothers and sisters. I hope it blessed someone.

Some Thoughts on Why the Nations Rage by Aaron Hecht

 

Brothers and sisters, I am writing this blog shortly before sundown on Friday afternoon. When the sun sets here in Jerusalem, it will bring in the Biblical Feast of Succot, also known as the Feast of Tabernacles. This Feast is one of the "moadim" or "appointed times" which God gives us in the Bible, specifically Leviticus 23:33-43.

If you haven't read the entire chapter 23 of Leviticus recently, I encourage you to do so. It'll change your life.

But in this blog, I want to talk about a different passage of Scripture that mentions the Feast of Tabernacles, and that's Zechariah 14:16-17

"And it shall come to pass that everyone who is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles. And it shall be that whichever of the families of the earth do not come up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, on them there will be no rain."

This passage is referring to the order Jesus will impose on the world during His Millennial Kingdom, after He returns to this Earth for His Second Advent. At that time, the nations of the world will be commanded to come up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. It will not just be a commandment for Jewish people; it will be a commandment for everyone.

As readers of this blog probably know, for many years now there has been a Christian Feast of Tabernacles celebration in Jerusalem, mostly attended by people who want to get a head start on obeying this commandment. The first one was at Christ Church in Jerusalem's Old City in 1979. I am reliably informed by people who attended this event that the number of people who were there was just over 1,000, and in the years since, it has grown significantly.

In the last 6 years or so, since the COVID pandemic and then the Swords of Iron War, those numbers went back down quite a bit because airline tickets became very expensive and some people were also worried about their safety. But representatives from dozens of countries around the world and almost all "nations" of the earth (the words "country" and "nation" don't mean exactly the same thing, in case no one ever explained that to you) will be here in Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles, in obedience with God's Word.

Contrast that with what happened at the United Nations in New York City on Thursday afternoon, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took the stage to address the UN General Assembly meeting. Representatives of 77 countries, and I would imagine every nation of the earth, got up and walked out of the chamber before he even started speaking. It was an act of diplomatic theater, and it's something that happens almost every year at the UNGA. But this was the largest number of diplomats to ever walk out on Bibi's speech, and they knew EXACTLY what message their walkout sends to the rest of "the nations" of this world, especially when you contrast it with the respectful silence with which almost all of them listened to the Turkish President while he was using his speech to condemn Israel, not to mention the standing ovation they gave following the address of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

All of this is indicative of how little respect there is among "the nations" of this world for Israel, and by extension to God that chose the Jewish People and established the nation of Israel.

It makes me think of Psalm 2;

Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, “Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.”

He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; The Lord shall hold them in derision. Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and distress them in His deep displeasure: Yet I have set My King On My holy hill of Zion.”

“I will declare the decree: The Lord has said to Me, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will give You the nations for Your inheritance, and the ends of the earth for Your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’ ”

Now therefore, be wise, O kings; Be instructed, you judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish in the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him."

Brothers and sisters, please hear me.

The nations of this world are making some very bad decisions these days. Many of them are "coming against Jerusalem" and against the Anointed One of God although most of them probably don't make the connection because they're too lazy to read the material or else they read it through the prism of Replacement Theology or some other lie from the Pitt of Hell.

A tiny remnant of Bible-Believing Christians is making a different choice, and although there might be some flaws in how some of them are doing it, at least they are obeying their King instead of shamelessly rebelling against him.

If you're reading this blog, you're probably among those who would not have walked out of Bibi's speech at the UNGA.

You are probably among those who are standing with Israel and the Jewish People in this very difficult season of history. You might even be among those who are getting a head start on obeying the command from Zechariah 14:16-17. If you are, I don't want to thank you, I want you to thank yourselves. By showing up for God's will, His plans and purposes, you are making a choice that is as brave as it is correct. I know it is not an easy choice, and I have personally lost friends who I knew since childhood over the last three years that Israel has been in the headlines more than it has at any time in history, and usually not being given fair, much less friendly, coverage.

As the time draws near for the Second Advent of Yeshua (Jesus) to this world (He is prophesied to arrive on the Mount of Olives, just a down the road a bit from where I'm sitting right now) the nations will rage more and more. They will continue to shake their fists at God, and His Anointed, and the Nation He has chosen, until He returns. All we can do is pray for those who God has put on our hearts to make the right choice, and be brave ourselves and above all, remember to look up, for our redemption is coming soon.

Some Thoughts on the Flood, the Tower of Babel, AI, and Genetic Engineering by Aaron Hecht

The word "technology" and the term "genetic engineering" do not appear in the Bible. But both phenomena are vividly described.

Let's start with the story of the Tower of Babel.

If you're like most people, you probably haven't read the story about the Tower of Babel since you were a child. It almost never gets mentioned in sermons made from the pulpit of any major Christian denomination and the Jewish Rabbis don't talk about it much either, mostly because they simply don't know what to say about it.

But I have been deeply fascinated by it ever since I was a small child and lately, I've been thinking about it a lot and I believe it has EVERYTHING to do with our modern circumstances.

But before I say more about that, go ahead and read this story for yourself.

Genesis 11:1-9

Now the whole earth had one language and one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and they dwelt there. Then they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone, and they had asphalt for mortar. And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth.

Now, when I first read that story as a child, something about it just didn't seem to make sense for me. I thought to myself "why would the God who created this entire physical universe be worried about a bunch of human beings making a tower out of bricks made of sand and asphalt, or even an entire city built out of such materials"?

Around that time, my mother had taken me and my sister on a trip to New York City, and I had seen the massive skyscrapers there. I found it difficult to imagine that these desert people 5,000 years ago had been able to build towers that would be even that tall out of bricks and asphalt, much less something that "reached to Heaven." Furthermore, God had allowed human beings to build the Empire State Building, so why had He been so concerned about the Tower of Babel?

It was not the only thing I was reading in my children's Bible back then that I found puzzling. The Book of Genesis has several stories that include elements that sounded very strange and illogical to me. But to be fair to my 7-year-old self, at that point in my educational journey, I had not yet learned the words "allegory" or "metaphor" and I actually had not yet even been introduced to these concepts.

Now, at THIS point in my journey, I can look back on that and what I THINK (this is informed speculation on my part so please don't burn me at the stake for this) that the "Tower of Babel" that would be the centerpiece of this city that God came down to the land of Shinar and saw people building was not a literal pile of sunbaked bricks held together by asphalt.

Now let's back up for just a moment and recall where the Book of Genesis comes from.

Moses wrote that Book after spending several days talking with God face to face up on Mount Sinai (Exodus 19:20) and I think it's at least plausible to believe that when God told Moses the story about what happened at the Tower of Babel (which scholars estimate happened about 800 years previously and had probably been lost to collective memory) and also many other stories about this ancient history that happened before He called Abraham, He used allegorical/metaphorical language that Moses (and the people He was writing the Book of Genesis for) would have been able to understand.

So, with that in mind, I don't believe that the Tower of Babel and the surrounding city were simply buildings made out of sunbaked bricks held together by asphalt.

Rather, I think that these human beings were developing something that would allow them to, in modern language "play God." In other words, their "tower whose top is in heaven" is a metaphor for some technology that God saw them developing that impressed Him. 

It impressed the God who had spoken the entire physical universe into existence. 

It impressed Him so much that He thought he needed to do something immediately to make sure that the progress they were making towards the development of this technology would be stopped cold.

He had already sent the Flood to put a stop to the terrible wickedness that had existed in the world in "the days of Noah" but He had also promised that He wouldn't do that again. So, He had to do something different. He decided to "confuse their language" so that they wouldn't be able to communicate with each other and continue to make progress towards a goal that God had decided it wouldn't be good for them to continue pursuing.

A modern-day Tower of Babel

In the last few years, the human race has once again started to build a tower whose top is in the heavens" and this modern-day Tower of Babel is called "artificial intelligence."

It is a project hailed by some as giving humanity the tools we need to solve every imaginable problem that we have by unlocking the secrets of the physical universe which have been eluding us for thousands of years. Indeed, AI models have already solved some mathematical equations that the most brilliant human minds had failed to solve. Problems of chemistry, physics, medicine, etc. have all been solved and the solutions to these problems are in the process of being applied to the fabrication of new medications and vaccines, machines, computers, communications networks, etc. that are likely to bring rapid and unimaginable change to every aspect of our lives, in good and bad ways.

As a journalist who covers, among other things, military affairs, I am astounded, frightened but most of all saddened at all the items coming across my desk over the last several months which are related to the application of AI to weapons development. The killer cyborgs James Cameraon showed us in the Terminator movies are not ready to take the field just yet, but machines that that will be terrifyingly effective and efficient at killing large numbers of human beings very quickly are already being built. Meanwhile, AI-enhanced targeting software to guide more old-fashioned but still very deadly weapons to their targets have already been used on the battlefields of Ukraine and also in this ongoing US-Israeli war with Iran.

This is just the beginning, and the weapons that we're seeing now are the AI equivalent of a Sopwith Camel. I don't even want to imagine what the AI equivalent of an F-15 will look like and be capable of.

But once again, God might not allow things to get to that point.

There's an old saying that "history never repeats itself but sometimes it rhymes" and I am fairly certain that this current situation rhymes with the circumstances described in Genesis 11:1-9.

I believe some of these changes that AI could bring will be so monumental that they will be enough to impress even God Himself. In the case of AI-enhanced weapons, they will do more than impress Him, they will also alarm Him, for our sake, not His, just as the original Tower of Babel did. There is certainly the potential for these changes to derail the plans and purposes God has for the Human Race, and just as He sovereignly intervened in human history several times in order to prevent His plans and purposes from being derailed, I believe He will do so this time as well.

What will He do?

I doubt he'll confuse our languages like He did back then. I'm sure He won't send another worldwide flood, as He promised He wouldn't do that again.

But I'm sure He will do something, and I'm also quite certain we human beings won't enjoy it. Just like the confusion of languages at the original Tower of Babel, it'll be necessary to save us from getting ourselves into a much worse situation, but it won't be much fun.

I can, for instance, easily imagine Him sending unprecedentedly powerful storms and hurricanes to physically destroy all the AI data centers. This might include massive bolts of lightning to short-circuit the electrical grid which sends these data centers the electricity they need to keep running. Of course, these storms will also destroy all the homes, businesses, airplanes, and much else that are all around the data centers and electrical power stations.

Or He might do something totally different. 

The point is, the God who created this physical universe and everything in it, including you and me, is capable of manipulating the physical properties of this universe He created in ways that the human beings He created keep trying to emulate. But every time we get close to being able to actually do it, every time we try with all our might to "build a tower that reaches Heaven" He effortlessly changes something that takes away our ability to keep building the tower.

That brings me to the other modern-day Tower of Babel that has gotten far less attention than AI has gotten, and that's what's called "genetic engineering" but which I think is more correctly referred to as "genetic tinkering."

God invented Genetic Engineering

Once again, the term "genetic engineering" isn't in the Bible, but it is referred to several times.

You've probably never thought about it, but when God created the first humans, Adam and Eve, along with all the animals, birds, fish, insects, and all the plants in Genesis chapter 1, that was an exercise in genetic engineering. In fact, it was the ULTIMATE act of genetic engineering, but it wasn't the last time God conducted an exercise in genetic engineering.

The early chapters of Genesis speak of human beings routinely living for hundreds of years. One man, Methuselah, lived to be almost 1,000 years old.

But then we come to Genesis 6:3, And the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.

Now I know there's some arguments about what this verse means, as some scholars believe that God was saying that God was declaring there would only be 120 more years before He sent the Flood to destroy humanity. This argument is strengthened by the fact that in later Biblical passages it speaks of people who were born after the Flood living longer than 120 years, including Abraham. But the sequence of Biblical passages is not always an indication of the chronological sequence of the historical events they describe. Certainly, by the time of Abraham's grandson, Jacob/Israel, the Bible isn't talking anymore about people living to be hundreds of years old as it does in previous chapters. For most of recorded human history, all over the world, only a handful of people live much longer than 100 years and most modern geneticists agree that the maximum age that a human being is capable of reaching is 120 years.

Now, in recent years, those same geneticists have cloned animals, given us new plants that have massively increased crop yields and are resistant to various pests that have long plagued farmers, etc.

Once again, these things are bringing tremendous benefits to the Human Race, but they are nevertheless an attempt to "build a tower which reaches heaven". Furthermore, it is also very similar to what is being described in the rest of Genesis chapter 6, with demons conducting some "genetic engineering" experiments of their own, as described in Genesis 6:4; There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.

I believe this is another story which God told to Moses so he would write it in the Book of Genesis using some allegorical language that Moses and the readers of Genesis would be able to understand. I'm not sure demonic beings actually had sexual intercourse with human females and impregnated them. Later passages of Scripture which talk about angels and demons seem to be saying that these spiritual beings do not have physical bodies or gender the way human beings do, so this is not even physiologically possible.

However, I've also always wondered if this is what some of the Greek mythology is based on, as it includes several stories about "gods" having sexual intercourse with mortal human females leading to the birth of "men of renown" such as Hercules.

If anyone has any thoughts on this, or anything else in this blog, please share them in the comments section.

In any case, these experiments in "genetic engineering" that were going on "in the days of Noah" were threatening to derail the plans and purposes of God for the human race He'd created and the Earth He'd built for us to live on. It was one of the things which prompted Him to send the Flood to destroy all flesh except Noah and his family. Noah, as Genesis 6:9 tells us, was "perfect in his generations" which I believe means he was of a family lineage that did not include any of these creatures who were products of demonic genetic engineering. That's why God chose him and his family to go into the Ark so they would be preserved, along with examples of all the animals which God had created, and which were also not the result of any of these demonic experiments.

Conclusion

Brothers and sisters, please hear me.

There's a LOT going on in the world today that I believe very closely resembles the circumstances described in Biblical stories which ended with God supernaturally intervening in human history in order to prevent us from doing things which would do irreparable damage to the perfect plans and purposes He has for us.

I believe that we might be very close to something similar happening.

I more then half suspect that this "Super El Nino" that is already intensifying in the Pacific is part of the intervention that God is about to make in our world. Even if it's not, it's going to bring some very intense meteorological events to many parts of the world. In fact, it already is.

Climate scientists are saying that 2026 is on track to be the hottest year ever recorded on this planet. We have already seen massively disruptive weather events and natural disasters all over the world as a result of these unusually high temperatures and the attendant droughts that have hit many regions. We are approaching the end of September and it still feels like high summer here in Jerusalem where I live. Similar conditions are persisting in many other parts of the world.

I think the high temperatures, the raging wildfires, the floods, the hurricanes, the storms and all the rest of these unusual events in the natural world are a reflection of the tremendous tensions in the spiritual world. 

So, buckle up! Be in urgent prayer for your families, your governments, your congregations and your communities, and anything else God has put under your stewardship.

Also, if I'm right, and God does sovereignly interfere in history in order to put a stop to either AI, or attempts at genetic tinkering, or anything else, it's going to freak people out. So, remember 1 Peter 3:15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear;

That's what I've got for you this week brothers and sisters. I hope it blesses someone.