It is not the silence itself that is earth-shattering. It is the discretion to be silent about this, but not of other’s suffering."

"I will never understand why the image of a terrified mother clutching her babies flanked by frenzied gunmen in plain clothes did not inspire global movements to demand their immediate release. Perhaps if they had we might not be here now." (Rosa Doherty, Jewish Chronicle, 21 February, 2025).

"“The terrorists did not shoot the two young boys — they killed them with their bare hands. Afterward, they committed horrific acts to cover up these atrocities.” (IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, 21-02-2025).

https://www.thejc.com/opinion/if-the-bodies-of-babies-cant-make-the-world-care-about-jewish-lives-nothing-can-lk15clju

(Image source: Hamas/X [Twitter])

It Wasn't a Deal – It Was a Crime - article by Alan M. Dershowitz

“The decision by the Israeli government to make significant concessions to the Hamas kidnappers should never be called a "deal." It was an extortion. Would you call it a deal if somebody kidnapped your child and you "agreed" to pay ransom to get her back? Of course not. The kidnapping was a crime. And the extortionate demand was an additional crime.”

(Alan M. Dershowitz) READ FULL ARTICLE HERE

A timely reminder that Israel is central to God's future purposes of Grace, no matter what their enemies say or do.

Barabbas

"Give us Barabbas!" We'd rather have him,

Than a sinless Messiah, lost souls to redeem;

"Give us Barabbas!", that murderous man,

And away with the Sovereign, Omnipotent One.

“Give you Barabbas?” the governor said,

“Give you Barabbas? – shed innocent blood?

You surely don't want this terrorist knave,

When the arm of the Lord is stretched out to save?"

Yes "Give us Barabbas!", we'd rather have bad,

His blood and his death be a curse on our head,

“We will not have this man”, said proud Isra-el,

“Away with your Jesus – we’ll all go to Hell!"

When besieged in Jerus’lem, with their backs to the wall,

Heavens King will respond to their desperate call;

Not "Give us Barabbas!” but “Save Lord, we pray!"

And He'll swoop to their rescue in glorious array.

Then the mercy of God will be seen in great glory,

When Jesus returns to finish earth’s story;

And the hearts of His People will break when they see,

The hands of the Saviour they nailed to a tree.

(Jo Johnson)

Painful words. Painful that is, to those who honestly own up to the truth that the same darkness that was in the hearts of those who rejected and crucified the Messiah, is to be found in their own hearts. ‘All we like sheep have gone astray ... By oppression and judgment he was taken away ... for the transgression of my people was he stricken.' (Isaiah 53:6-8)

I wrote ‘Barabbas’ some years ago and posted the verses on Facebook Notes, which I don't think is an option anymore. It popped up unexpectedly on my timeline the other day when a family friend reposted it. Reading it over again, fairly made me stand back and look at the recent sickening events of 7th October in Israel from a Biblical perspective. First, let me say unequivocally, I believe Israel’s leaders have a moral imperative to do all they can to rescue their citizens from those who glory in such horrifying wickedness. Israel is fighting implacable enemies and has no choice but to defend themselves against those whose avowed intention is to annihilate the state of Israel and murder every Jew they find. All this in a world that shockingly, can find no sympathy for Israel’s just cause and instead of calling out the genocidal intent of the terrorist rulers of Gaza, they level that ludicrous charge against Israel. In doing so they ‘call black white, and good evil’. I am sick to my stomach as I think of the casualties of war - the terrible price which cannot be avoided if Israel is to prevent further unprovoked atrocities against defenceless citizens. Babies heads cut off. Girls raped and murdered. Boys abducted. Festival-goers machine-gunned. Hostages kept underground for months on end, in filthy, degrading, abusive conditions. These are dark days and they're about to get darker. Much darker.

Consider again, the awful choice made nearly 2000 years ago, when the leaders of the Jewish nation asked Pontius Pilate - ( representing Gentile power) - to give them Barabbas instead of Jesus.

When my friend re-posted the poem, I wrote the following comment:

Indeed, ‘the LORD has a controversy with the nations’ (Jer. 25:31) for their treatment of the Righteous One.

He also ‘has a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel.’ (Micah 6:2).

I believe we are fast approaching the end times, foretold by the prophet Hosea, long before both Jew and Gentile rejected and crucified the Saviour:

‘I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me earnestly. Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he has torn, and he will heal us; he has smitten, and he will bind us up. After two days will he revive us: on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live before him.’ (Hosea 5:15 - 6:2)

I see the sobering events unfolding in Israel as a prelude to the next chapter in God's purposes. ‘Righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne.’ (Ps. 97:2) But it will get worse before it gets better, as my brother James has written about so cogently in his book ‘Messiah Promised'‘

The return of Israel's Messiah, and our Saviour, can't come soon enough for this sad war-torn world!

At the end of my comment (see below), I shared a link to ‘MESSIAH PROMISED’, written and published by my brother, James Johnson.

What momentous times we are living through. The recent, unprovoked and savage butchery of innocent, defenceless men, women and children by Hamas, not to mention their further heinous crimes, which includes not only the capture of civilian hostages but also the celebration of these wicked acts by many of the population of Gaza and the wider Muslim world - these evil actions have catapulted the world with unstoppable velocity towards the time of the end foretold in the inerrant Word of God.

Israel and the Jewish diaspora, are fighting for their very existence as never before. Their young men and women are rallying to the defence of the nation, ready to lay down their lives while the youth of ‘the Western world’ go on with their frivolous 'woke' obsessions, oblivious to the fact that a seismic change has just taken place, and will soon affect every one of them, like it or not.

Aside from the imminence of Christ's return to the air for His church, the only thing that gives me hope in the increasingly perilous times in which we live, is the certainty of Bible prophecy. My brother rightly draws attention in his book to the fact that, because so many of the prophetic writings about the Jewish and Christian Messiah have already been fulfilled, we can be supremely confident that God is watching over His word to ensure the completion of His purposes of judgement and of grace, for the future of the world.

Incidentally, some students of Bible prophecy think the scripture I quoted above from the end of Hosea chapter 5 and the beginning of chapter 6, (“After two days will he revive us: on the third day he will raise us up”) refers to the 2000 years between the crucifixion and the start of the millennial reign of Christ.

An old friend, a man in his nineties, who Simeon-like, is ‘looking for the consolation of Israel’ recently shared this thought with me:

Counting back biblical genealogies, it is possible to determine four ‘days’ (i.e., 4000 years) of earth's history prior to the cross. Hosea's two days takes us to six 'days' (6000 years).

If the 2000 years since Christ's death expires around 2033, and marks the start of the third ‘day’ of Hosea ch. 6 (the millennial reign of the Messiah on earth and the seven thousandth year of earth’s history, earth’s ‘sabbath’ rest), then we are less than ten years away from that glorious day.

It follows therefore, that Daniel's 70th ‘week’ of seven years must take place before that date. (My brother discusses this at more length in his book). For the born-again believer on the Lord Jesus Christ, the thrilling conclusion to the above reasoning is, that the ‘rapture’ - the return of Christ to the air for the church which is His body (1 Thessalonians 4:14-17), cannot take place later than 2026. Yes, I know there has been much unwise speculation about this in the past, by various misguided groups! This leads me to present the above thesis suggestively rather than dogmatically; but, if these calculations and my understanding of scripture are correct, then the return of Christ to the air must be imminent.

I quote the following extract from my brother James’ book ‘Messiah Promised’ chapter nine, entitled Messiah King, (written several months before the events of October 7th):

"Considering the violence and chaos prevailing in the Middle East today there is no question that only major change will bring lasting peace. There will be no real peace in the Middle East until the Prince of Peace returns. Isaiah foretells the peace that Jesus Christ will bring to the Holy Land and to the world:

“Of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.” (Isaiah 9:7).

“From this time forth,” refers to the return of Christ to earth—to establish the rule of God over all creation. An early clue to the coming reign of Christ is given in Genesis when Jacob spoke about the sceptre belonging to the tribe of Judah. A sceptre is associated with kingly rule and before Jacob died, he prophesied:

“The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples” (Genesis 49:10).

Putting together the expressions ‘the sceptre’ and ‘until Shiloh come’, conveys the meaning ‘until he comes whose right it is to rule’—and refers to the promised Messiah. This throws light on why David was anointed as king of Israel—for the sceptre was taken from Saul (of the tribe of Benjamin) and given to David (of the tribe of Judah). Old Testament prophecies consistently affirm that the royal line remains with the house of David. Thus Isaiah foresees the promised Messiah upon the throne of David benignly ruling the nations. Isaiah’s prophecy directs our attention to the future reign of Christ which awaits fulfilment. The fact that many detailed Messianic prophecies have already been fulfilled provides the Christian with assurance that all the remaining Messianic prophecies will also be fulfilled in due time. Not least of these is Micah’s prophecy—that Israel’s ruler will come from Bethlehem and from the tribe of Judah:

“one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days.” ((Micah 5:2 ).

The first part of Micah’s prophecy was fulfilled when Jesus was born in Bethlehem and the second part awaits fulfilment when the Lord will return as king to the Mount of Olives and rule the world from Jerusalem. Then the Lord’s Prayer, “your kingdom come”, will be wonderfully answered—because the peoples of earth will not learn war any more but instead “shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks” (Isaiah 2:3-4)." (James Johnson, ‘Messiah Promised’ Holmes Books, 2023.)

How thankful I am, that nothing takes God by surprise. As He said to the prophet Jeremiah, ‘I watch over my word to perform it.’ (Jer. 1:12) Those who trust in God and in the Saviour He provided, can look beyond the unavoidable carnage and suffering of war, to the day when Jesus of Nazareth, the One whom both Jew and Gentile rejected in favour of Barabbas the terrorist, will return to establish His worldwide kingdom of peace and righteous judgement.

‘they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid, for the mouth of the LORD of hosts has spoken’. (Micah 4:4).

How anyone can condemn Israel for defending themselves is beyond me. And how anyone can defend or condone the monstrous and deliberate atrocities inflicted on defenceless men, women and children by the savage and evil cowards of Hamas, is appalling and truly indefensible.

Be assured, the God of Israel is taking note. Those who commit such wickednesses against their fellow men will not go unpunished. Even if they escape the formidable response of the Israeli Defence Forces to the unprovoked massacre and unspeakable horrors of 7th October, they will not escape the judgement of God.

Jesus said: "Be not afraid of them which kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom you shall fear: Fear him, which after he has killed has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, Fear him." (Luke 12:4-5)

"Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account." (Hebrews 4:13)

Every one of us, terrorist or not, will one day stand before our Creator to give account of ourselves to Him. "He is coming to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with righteousness, And the peoples with His truth." (Psalm 96:13)

God "has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” (Acts 17:31)

He’s right - people in Britain are afraid to stand up to terrorist sympathisers. What he says is true - if a society doesn't have the collective will to deal with trouble on the periphery, it will only embolden the troublemakers to bring their destruction and misery to the centre. What he said reminded me of something one of the tutors said on the PGCE Art teacher training course which I took at Liverpool Polytechnic more than forty years ago. He was answering a question from one of my fellow students, about the problem of vandalism in certain inner city schools - in particular about how to respond when pupils with no sense of respect for their environment repeatedly rip down, deface or destroy artwork displays on the corridor walls. He said ‘You just keep putting the artwork back on the walls, until it becomes an accepted part of the school environment.’ Well, that was a rather more passive approach to dealing with troublemakers than I would have liked, but it was a starting point. At least he was enunciating the fundamental principle that you don’t lie down to people whose behaviour is unacceptable. You address the problem. You don’t allow a minority of lawless individuals to spoil everything for the majority.

I fear, as several concerned observers in recent years have often said, that generally speaking, British society has lost it’s moral compass. Until recently, the laws of the United Kingdom were firmly based on the ten commandments. The majority of citizens accepted and valued those laws and, crucially, expected them to be enforced by the authorities. Increasingly however, we have seen the politicisation of the police towards ‘woke’ agendas, the introduction of laws which blur the boundaries between male and female and indoctrinate and subvert the minds of children with ideas which run contrary to God’s good laws. At the highest levels of authority in this land, there has been a steady drift away from the absolute moral standards of the Bible towards the ever shifting sands of ‘cultural relativity’ - the mad notion that morality is not fixed but malleable according to the prevailing views of society at any given moment.

Those who stand for traditional, Biblical morality are increasingly seen as irrelevant, anachronistic and a hindrance to so-called progress. How relevant are the words of the Psalmist: “If the foundations [of a godly society] are destroyed, What can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3 The Amplified Bible). The only thing law-abiding citizens can do in the face of such chilling hatred and lawlessness, is—on the one hand, to stand up for what’s right, no matter how many may shout us down—and on the other, to cry to God for divine intervention in the midst of this increasing spiritual darkness.