This week on 'The Hal Lindsey Report'
Nehemiah was the descendant of Israelite captives in Babylon, though by his time, the Media-Persian Empire had long since overtaken the Babylonians. Nehemiah was King Artaxerxes' cupbearer. That meant he was highly placed in the kingdom and was in the king's inner circle of confidantes. So Nehemiah understood the importance of securing the kingdom and protecting its sovereignty.
Then one day, Nehemiah received a message that would turn him into one of the pivotal men in Bible history. In chapter one of the book that bears his name, Nehemiah wrote, "Hanani one of my brethren came with men from Judah; and I asked them concerning the Jews who had escaped, who had survived the captivity, and concerning Jerusalem. And they said to me, 'The survivors who are left from the captivity in the province are there in great distress and reproach. The wall of Jerusalem is also broken down, and its gates are burned with fire.'" (Nehemiah 1:2-3, NKJV)
Nehemiah had never seen Jerusalem, but he still considered it home. When he learned that the survivors were in great distress and that the wall of Jerusalem was broken down, the news hit him hard. "So it was, when I heard these words, that I sat down and wept, and mourned for many days; I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven." (Nehemiah 1:4 NKJV)
Why did he take it so hard? Why did he weep and mourn for many days? Because he knew what it meant for the walls to be down.
The strategic implications of fallen walls are severe. The big one is this: The enemy comes and goes at his will. Walls represent a nation's sovereignty. If the walls are down, the enemy has reign. Broken walls guarantee defeat.
America's walls are broken. Not just spiritual, moral, and political walls, but our actual, physical border walls.
Sovereignty over a border means that a nation controls whom it will allow to enter. Only America's enemies want terrorists to come and go as they please at our borders. Only those who hate America want gang members to come and go as they please at our borders - or for drugs and drug dealers to flow in with little or no resistance.
It is a basic function of national sovereignty for a country to decide for itself whom it will let cross its borders. Broken walls mean anarchy and chaos. Broken walls allow for the plunder and destruction of a nation. Broken walls lead to a loss of national sovereignty.
America is now facing a crisis of unimagined proportions along its borders - and flowing into the heartland - that is much graver than the mainstream media or the federal government will admit. It has been created by a combination of laws and presidential executive orders. And it threatens our nation in ways it has never been threatened before.
Halfway across the world, another nation of kindred spirit is suffering because of its broken walls. With its many ill-advised exchanges of land for "peace," Israel has been unable to maintain the absolute integrity of some of its borders. The results have been disastrous.
In Israel, the war against the Jews - a war that has raged for centuries - continues with renewed vigor. You've been hearing about "Operation Protective Edge" in the mainstream media. You've also been hearing about large numbers of Palestinian casualties.
What you've not been hearing is the "why." The media would have you believe it's a result of the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teen aged boys, and the subsequent murder of a Palestinian teen by allegedly enraged Jewish settlers.
But those are simply recent, deplorable and tragic events that indicate the deeper cause - the unreasoning hatred of Jews by radical Muslims and, more and more, by the Palestinian people.
The western media downplay the fact that in recent days more than 1,000 rockets and missiles have rained down on Israel from Gaza. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and various splinter groups have launched a new offensive against the state of Israel. Israel has show remarkable restraint, but only hours after Israel accepted an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire, Hamas resumed its rocket barrage in an act of sheer defiance.
Here's why there continue to be Palestinian civilian casualties even though Israel goes to extraordinary lengths to warn residents to flee before their neighborhoods are struck: Hamas is using Gazan citizens as human shields. According to the United Nations, that constitutes a war crime.
Here's how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the situation: "...we're using missile defence to protect our civilians and they're using their civilians to protect their missiles... the rocketeers are firing from homes. These are homes that are actually command posts of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad army, so that's where they have their secure communications, weapon caches, rockets hidden, map rooms, and so on. These are the command posts. Obviously we're not going to give them immunity, and so we have to attack them and we try to minimize, as we can, civilian casualties."
The Prime Minister failed to mention that Hamas also uses schools, hospitals, and mosques as weapons arsenals and launch emplacements.
Israel seems committed to pressing "Operation Protective Edge" in an effort to limit Hamas' ability to wage this kind of rocket war in the near future. And none too soon, because as time passes, the sophistication and potency of their missile stockpile increases. Unless it's stopped, before long Hamas will be able to target Jerusalem and Tel Aviv with devastating firepower.
Finally, the Foreign Editor for a German newspaper group, Welt, recently penned an op-ed for The New York Times. He articulated a surprising European perspective on President Obama's "Europeanization" of America.
Referring to the Syrian civil war, Clemens Wergin wrote: "I suddenly understood the problem with this American president and his foreign policy. He sounded just like a German politician: all moral outrage, but little else to help end one of the most devastating civil wars of our age. President Obama, I thought with a sigh, has become European. Indeed, the less this president wants to get involved in something abroad, the more he dials up his rhetoric."
Then Wergin discussed the European concept of "soft power" and the uselessness of soft power without something to back it up. He wrote: "While Europeans are loath to admit it, they know that European soft power often doesn't work either - and that it is a luxury that they could afford only because America's hard power always loomed in the background. And when they dropped the ball, America would pick it up. And therein lies the lesson to our American friends who seemingly want to become less involved and more European: There is no second America to back you up when you drop the ball."
"There is no second America."
So as America becomes more European, we have to ask what will happen when the next great crisis arises. To whom will the world turn? The chaos that will follow a crumbling U.S. economy will make a new world order certain, even necessary. It will open the door for certain men to grab the keys to the planet as if they just bought the place. The Bible calls those men the Antichrist and the False Prophet.
Don't miss this week's Report on TBN, Daystar, CPM Network, The Word Network, various local stations, www.hallindsey.com or www.hischannel.com. Check your local listings.
God Bless,
Hal Lindsey
Subject: This week on 'The Hal Lindsey Report' 
Fri Jul 18, 2014 2:39 pm
